‘The Adam Project’ director names his major inspirations for the movie

The Adam Project is officially streaming on Netflix and has received positive responses from critics, who praised its acting, direction, and action scenes. Directed by Shawn Levy, and starring Ryan Reynolds, the sci-fi film is the second film from the pair, after joining forces on last year’s Free Guy. 

Levy, who has been directing successful films for decades now, revealed his major inspirations for his film while speaking with ComicBook.com. 

As I’m sure you know, Ryan and I do not take for granted that we’ve been allowed to make back to back big budget, original tent poles in a film culture that rarely, rarely makes them anymore, based on no IP or franchise. I guess like any director, my film influences, it runs through my veins like cinematic DNA. Certainly Amblin, early Spielberg, Zemeckis, but those influences are varied and you’re absolutely right.

There is a heavily emotional side to the film, as shown in the trailer, and Levy admitted things got really intense on set between the on-screen father-son duo, played by Reynolds and Mark Ruffalo. The director also spoke on one of his favorite movies, and how he sought to bring out a cathartic moment for the ending of the film. 

Good Will Hunting is a top 10 movie for me. The ‘it’s not your fault’ scene is instant legend. It’s a scene and a movie I’ve watched 30 times and we really wanted our movie to culminate with this catharsis where one character is trying to share something emotional with the other, and the other is not capable of taking it in. And as we know in real life, if someone’s not going to take in connection, take in feeling, sometimes you got to hammer them with it. And so, I just said, on that day I said, ‘Mark [Ruffalo], get through to Ryan. Get through to him.’ And Ryan resisted, and the more Ryan resisted Mark went at him and the result is the beautiful emotional scene that ends our movie.

The Adam Project also stars Zoe Saldaña, Jennifer Garner and newcomer Walker Scobell, as a younger version of Reynolds’ character, Adam Reed. The film is currently streaming on Netflix.