Bruce Willis has about seven movies being released in 2021. Survive the Game is just one of them. With so many films entering the marketplace with the same actor and in action and/or thriller genres, it’s critical to make yours stand out.

When director James Cullen Bressack was brought on to direct Survive the Game, that thought was crossing his mind. This film is about a cop who is injured in a drug bust that goes awry and his partner pursues the two criminals responsible. The chase leads to a remote farm where they become outnumbered by gang members tasked with taking them out. 

Bressack’s journey started when executive producer Timothy C. Sullivan reached out because he thought he might be a good fit.

"I pitched him my idea how I would make the movie and he was super into it," Bressack said. He grew up watching Joel Silver action movies like Demolition Man, Lethal Weapon, and other similar films that he knew didn’t take themselves too seriously.

"I wanted it to feel like a '90s throwback, like this could have been a Joel Silver movie. That’s what we were going for and they liked that idea."

Bressack sought to make the type of action movie that is fun; a popcorn flick that has a lot of laughs and great action.

"We haven’t really seen movies like that made since the '90s," he said.

To prepare for shooting, Bressack did watch many of the Bruce Willis flicks of the past few years to learn the expectations of the audience and know what the viewer was used to seeing. Unlike many of the others, Bressack saw his movie being different in that Willis had a much more prominent role.

"I think in this we have Bruce being more classic Bruce, where he’s wisecracking and talking shit to the bad guys," Bressack says, adding, "He’s in this a lot more than the previous ones. It’s not like a glorified cameo. Bruce is a legitimate character throughout the entire movie and that’s something people will recognize."

To ensure his throwback vision became a reality, Bressack took the approach on Survive the Game of working with the actors to find the moments and the beats that offered levity, some of which included improv.

"I found those moments that I wanted to build upon with the actor in the moment to feel organic," Bressack said. One scene, where Willis is sitting in a chair with two of the bad guys guarding him, all he does is make fun of them. "None of what he’s saying would affect what they are saying so I talked with Bruce, and I said to kind of say whatever you want here. He was throwing one-liners at them and we just picked the best ones."

The writing process

Although Bressack didn’t write this film, he has dozens of writing credits under his belt and has a process for creating stories.

"My process is basically I come up with the beginning and the end and then figure out how to fill up the middle," he said.

"I come up with a concept where I think, 'oh, this is a cool idea' and then I try to figure out the actual movie. I’ll beat sheet it out then I’ll take that and turn it into a treatment." 

He often begins with a one-page treatment that stretches out to at least eight pages before he starts writing the script.

As a director, he will sometimes watch movies without dialogue to pick up the camera work and style and then watch them and focus on the dialogue or read the scripts.

For the times he gets writer’s block, Bressack finds his way past it is to write a "vomit page" and then clean it up.

"I throw it on the page and edit what I just did because I know I can rewrite myself better than I can write the first draft."

For writers eyeing the action genre, Bressack paraphrases writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson when he says, "The best special effect in the world is a good actor."

He emphasizes the importance of people connecting to characters over the thrill of special effects. When it comes to writing action, he insists that writers should have it frequently, but not overwrite it. The beats of the action scene are what’s important because beyond that, " ... the stunt team is going to come up with a cooler car chase than anyone will come up with on the page ... give a little detail if there is important stuff that happens but I believe the stunt team will come up with a bigger or better thing."

As Bressack stepped foot onto Survive the Game, he comes in with a lot of experience. He admits that he learns something new every time he makes a movie, even joking that, "I learn how to fail a little less each time."

On this film, he brought on the lessons of moving much quicker, which helped with the speed of this movie.

"I learned how to over-cover certain scenes, so I had coverage for fights in the edit," Bressack said. "When I made this, I learned a lot more lessons that I carried over to my next movie, which was Fortress," (his next action/thriller film, also starring Bruce Willis and Chad Michael Murray).

Bressack adds, "Everything should be a learning experience and filmmaking is a muscle so if you’re working out your muscle and you’re learning things from it, you can be a little stronger the next time."

Survive the Game is available in select theaters, on Apple TV, and for rent on Oct. 8. It becomes available on Blu-ray and DVD on Oct. 12.