Available in theaters, On Demand, and digital on August 4th, The Collective follows a righteous group of assassins who are forced to put their most crucial mission in the hands of a rookie. It's up to Sam Alexander (Lucas Till) to infiltrate a highly complex and elusive human trafficking ring by bypassing the group of billionaires in charge of the operation. Although not everyone is happy to have him on board, Sam is determined to prove the breadth of his abilities and put an end to the auction once and for all.

The film is written by Jason James and Matt Rogers, with Tom DeNucci serving as the director. DeNucci has various director, writer, and actor credits, and worked on projects such as Alarmed, Johnny & Clyde, and Sins of the Preacher's Wife. Lucas Till leads the ensemble as Sam, with Ruby Rose, Mercedes Varnado, Paul Ben-Victor, Tyrese Gibson, and Don Johnson completing The Collective's main cast.

RELATED: Tyrese Gibson Plots A Deadly Mission In The Collective Clip [EXCLUSIVE]

Tom DeNucci chats exclusively with Screen Rant about collaborating with Lucas Till, as well as his goal to create a unique, yet realistic action film. Note: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and the film covered here would not exist without the labor of the writers and actors in both unions.

Tom DeNucci Talks The Collective

Screen Rant: What drew you to The Collective and made you want to get involved?

Tom DeNucci: I got a call from my good friend, Richard Switzer, who's the producer of this movie. Richard and I have worked together many times, and he kind of knows the type of material that I would gravitate towards. So he's like, "Hey, you've got to read this script. It's a really great action movie." I just love the pacing of the script, and I love how the movie doesn't bog itself down.

A lot of action movies try to reinvent the wheel, and you see all these subplots that nobody really cares about to the point where you think the movie is over, and then there's a whole other subplot. We cut all that stuff and pushed it away. There's no love interest, he's not trying to redeem his father or anything. All the cliché storylines that you see, we wanted to get rid of those. This movie is great for people who just want to see a nice, simple story told with some really unique action.

I especially enjoyed the opening credits sequence. Could you give some insight into the creative process behind that?

Tom DeNucci: I've always loved opening title sequences. Ever since I was a little kid, there's [been] something about them. And I think we all do this intrinsically—it gets you ready to watch a movie. You're excited. It sets the tone. So we wanted to carry that tone out by telling some backstory about what The Collective is before you even watch one scene with one actor talking. Right off the bat, we're seeing all these odd photographs of people, we're seeing redacted documents, and we're seeing edgy material.

It's already painting the picture of, like, "Is this like the Men in Black? What's happening? These guys are into some stuff here." I love the opening title sequence as well. I was really excited to see it once it got put together. As a filmmaker, that's one of those things where you put your two cents in, but really, you're at the mercy of the artists that are putting it together in the post-production process and, man, what a team we had. I love what they did with it.

Sam's a fun character. He's a bit arrogant for a rookie, and he thinks that he can take all of this on. What did you and Lucas really want to bring out of him?

Tom DeNucci: We learn in the beginning of the film that he used to work in the DA's office, and he's an attorney. What are attorneys usually known for? They're usually known for having a silver tongue. They're able to talk themselves through situations and out of problems, and that's something that Lucas and I really talked about early on. You'll notice Luke uses his mouthpiece to get him in and out of a lot of situations in this movie.

He uses his personality and charm and ability to present a case, if you will, to get the Don Johnson character to kind of be like, "There's something different about this guy." I think that it was really about his intelligence. We wanted Sam to be smart. A lot of these action movies, and I'm not taking anything away from any other films, I'm not trying to point any fingers, but usually, the main character that plays the guy who's going to go in and kick a lot of a*s—they usually don't have that level of depth to their personality. They don't usually get showcased as having that level of sophistication. So I think it's cool that Lucas is a hero with a brain.

Is this the first time that you and Lucas have collaborated on a project?

Tom DeNucci: Yes, this is the first time I've ever worked with Lucas, and fortunately, we just really hit it off. We have a lot of the same sense of humor. We both love video games. Lucas and I got a chance to play a little Call of Duty together. We'd be in the hotel room, and we'd go meet up. When you can have that kind of camaraderie with one of your actors on set, it's just great because it builds a level of trust. It has nothing to do with the work, but just by playing a video game and hanging out together for an hour or two, you bond a little bit and that helps when you get to set.

Hugo and Sam’s relationship is a complicated one because Hugo doesn’t want him there, but he needs him there. How did you want that dynamic to come across to audiences?

Tom DeNucci: I love unlikely pairings. Unlikely pairings to me are very fun and exciting. Whether you're talking about an odd group that comes together because they're forced to or just—that was what it was all about for me. There's a scene fairly early in the movie where the Don Johnson character asks Lucas, "Well, how would you go about this mission?" and everything Lucas says, we show Hugo, the Tyrese character, doing the exact opposite.

So right off the bat, we tried to set up the fact that these two cats are not remotely alike. However, when they get paired together, they suddenly make a pretty damn good team. I think that's exciting, and we really wanted that to come across where Tyrese is almost like the older brother here. He's been through this stuff before. And I think it's humbling for Lucas, too, because like you said, he's very cocky, and he's very confident. He gets humbled a little bit in this movie, and he learns from the Tyrese character. I love that dynamic.

I love how that added to the comedy, and, of course, there's a lot of action, but there's also a really serious issue at the heart of this—the topic of human trafficking. How did you balance all of those elements?

Tom DeNucci: When you're dealing with so many issues, like human trafficking—these people are doing some really, really sick things in this movie. Sometimes we make light of it—the Paul Ben-Victor characters is obviously a maniac—but what they're doing is very dark. I think it's important to balance the audience a little bit with some humor, so that it's not all one-note, and it can't be all down here in this dark place. So I think the comedy provides a little bit of a breath of fresh air once in a while.

If you look at it, and you go through the history of action movies all the way back to the days of Lethal Weapon, those movies have the action, they have the violence, but they'll crack you up too. I think that's part of it. I'm a big fan of buffets. Obviously, after the pandemic era, it's a little sketchy, but I like the idea that there can be a bit of a buffet in my films. The action people will get their action, for the people who like to laugh, there's a little bit of comedy, and everybody can go home satisfied, hopefully.

You mentioned in your director’s statement that you wanted this to be an authentic action film. There were fist fights, there were shootouts—how did you work with the stunt coordinator and actors to make this realistic, but unique?

Tom DeNucci: I had a great stunt coordinator. Anthony Hoang worked on this movie with me. We've worked together a few times. I just made it clear to him that I don't want this to look like a Marvel movie. I don't want people to be doing sixteen-hit combinations. I've, unfortunately, in a different life, went out a lot and saw a lot of fights take place in bars and in nightclubs. The reality is, they usually happen really fast, they're not pretty, and a note to the moviegoers, usually one good punch is all it takes to knock a person out.

You watch these movies where they get hit fifteen times in the face, and they're still coming back. That does not happen in real life. Usually one, maybe two clean shots and the guy's out to sleep. These are highly trained assassins. That was something with Tyrese too. Tyrese was like, "Look, man. I'm not going to be doing spinning back fists and crazy kicks. I'm going to punch a dude in the face, and he's going to drop," and I was like, "I love that." So we really just wanted the fights to be simple, but nasty and "whoa!" violent.

Do you have any other projects following this release?

Tom DeNucci: I do have a couple of action movies in the works right now. I can't really say too much about that. We're still in the development process. And of course, let's see what happens with the SAG situation. Hopefully, things will lift. I was very close to shooting an action movie right before the strike happened, so fans of that genre, you can expect to see another one coming from me, hopefully, sometime soon.

About The Collective

A group of righteous assassins called The Collective take aim at a highly sophisticated human trafficking ring backed by a network of untouchable billionaires. With their backs against the wall, The Collective has no choice but to put their most important mission in the hands of rookie assassin Sam Alexander.

The Collective will be available in select theaters, On Demand, and Digital on August 4.

Source: Screen Rant Plus