You've never seen a fairytale like Joey King's The Princess. The action-thriller centers on King's eponymous character as she is kidnapped by an evil lord intent on taking over her kingdom by marrying her, only for The Princess to turn the tables and begin fighting her way down he tower prison to save her family and people.
Alongside King, the cast for The Princess includes Preacher star Dominic Cooper, Black Widow's Olga Kurylenko, as well as Veronica Ngo, Martin Taskov, and Ivo Arakov.
Ahead of the film's release, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with writers Ben Lustig and Jake Thornton to discuss The Princess, their major genre influences, ideas for a potential sequel, the resurgence of female-fronted action films and more.
Screen Rant: I gotta say The Princess is a lot of fun, I love that it has this sort of anti-Rapunzel, reverse-Raid feel to it. How did the concept for this premise and this film really come about?
Jake Thornton: Well, it's funny that you say Rapunzel meets The Raid, because that was the initial thing. Me and Ben were waiting to go into a meeting two or three years ago and Ben literally said, "What about doing Rapunzel by way of The Raid, that being a princess at the top of the tower and fights her way down, rather than a group of policemen fighting their way up the tower?" As soon as I heard it, I was like, "Yeah, that's a movie right there." What I loved about it was it was taking a trope, that being the princess held in a tower, but just doing something that you haven't seen with it before. I think that was what immediately made us, made me, really excited and we just got on started writing it pretty much straight away.
Ben Lustig: Yeah, for me, I have a five-year-old daughter and back then I was watching about as many princess movies as you can imagine and going to Disneyland. I think at some point, Jake and I have always looked at tropes and that's kind of been our thing is to see, 'How can we take something that people know and do it in a completely new way?" I was like, "Okay, here's all these princess movies. But what if one was a badass?" And, like Jake said, we just we ran with that.
So we mentioned before we started that you guys like to go back into your personal film collections for a lot of inspiration and ideas, we just talked about The Raid, but were there any other major films for either of you that served as inspirations when writing this one?
Ben Lustig: Great question. I mean, there's definitely some Die Hard in there, Die Hard is one of my favorite movies of all time. We tend to create a movie list before we even start writing and I honestly can't remember what was on that list, although I know The Raid was because I absolutely remember re-watching that. I'm sure we watched some princess movies as well. A lot of times what we'll do, especially when we're working with tropes, is we'll watch movies and kind of write down what are the classic moments and try and figure that out.
Jake, did you have any?
Jake Thornton: It's funny, I can't immediately recall them either. But like Ben says, we create a watch list and the kind of first two weeks are really good excuses in the writing process. I'm kind of going, "I'm busy, honey, I've got a bunch of movies I've got to watch the work." But literally, we will watch probably two or three movies a day and then we'll kind of get back the next day and talk about what we're taking away from them. That serves as inspiration points, we call it filling the well. It's getting all the things that we love about those movies. Great artists borrow and even better artists steal! [Laughs]
That's a lovely little euphemism. So, with that said, since this was very much about breaking down a lot of those princess tropes, what were some of the biggest creative challenges for you both honing in on those tropes, subverting them, and then merging them with this action-heavy story?
Ben Lustig: I think what's interesting about this movie is we wanted to make sure that it was contained, that was always kind of our objective with it from the beginning. So we knew it wasn't going to be a fairy tale in the adventure sense of it, which a lot of times fairy tales are, and we were like, "How can we fit those ideas, but within a very singular space and singular time?" I think that we really looked at everything and said, "What are the things that we think of as a princess and how can we use those things and do them in a fun actually way?" Interestingly, I think this one flowed pretty well. We immediately grasped on to a lot of the classic tropes and maybe that's just because I've been watching a million princess movies. [Laughs] My daughter loves all of that stuff.
Jake Thornton: I think we, early on in the process, really had questions about tone. We were unsure whether or not we should be going for a kind of hard PG-13 or really embracing what we haven't seen before with this type of movie, which is a full R-rated version of this movie. In the original script, we really went for it, it was full-on R-rated violence that I'm so glad to see is still present in the movie, because it just takes, as we're saying, that thing you know, but completely spins it on its head. People have never seen anything like this before, that was, I think, part of the fun and the joy of it. There were moments where we're going, "Oh, can we do that? Is that too much?" But ultimately, I think we just really went for it and it's present in the movie that you see now.
So would you say that there were any bits that you did ultimately still tone down?
Ben Lustig: I mean, there are definitely moments that were in our original script that did not make it in, and I'm sure that there's a combination of reasons. One of which is that this is a Disney movie, at the end of the day, so even though it's an R-rated Disney movie — as Jake was saying, we really went for it with the earlier drafts and there were things like sex and nudity that did not make it into the final cut. I think appropriately so, considering the platforms that we'll be on.
Jake Thornton: I think as well, we were thinking a lot about the franchiseability of it and I think we've created a larger world as a backdrop to the story. A lot of that is not present in the movie that we see now, but I actually think it makes the movie better, because I think it makes it easier to understand, there's no confusing elements to it at all. But that being said, we absolutely do foresee there being a Princess 2.
Well, that's, that's awesome to hear, because I know I certainly want to see more of this world. Can you give me any kind of ideas of what you might be thinking for expanding this potential franchise?
Ben Lustig: No. [Laughs]
Jake Thornton: [Laughs] I think one of the things that we would continue to like to do is continue to explore the idea of female empowerment, of fairytale princess tropes, fairytale tropes and expanding that out even broader. There's a lot to play with, even when you think of that. Is it a story about a princess rescuing a prince? Have we seen that before? But, we don't know yet, but I think what's so great about these kinds of worlds is there's so much fertile ground to play in and we'd really love to do that.
Since you do mention the female empowerment nature of the story, were there any reservations during the writing process from either of you about being two male writers who are writing this very female-fronted story?
Ben Lustig: You know, it's interesting. During the initial writing process, I don't think we worried in terms of "Can we do it?" I truly believe that as storytellers, we can get ourselves into the hearts and minds of people that we don't know that we're creating and tell a really great story. I think, as the process went on, we started to think there's definitely going to need to have a solid female champion of this movie. Fortunately, Joey King came on early in the process before we sold it to 20th, she's also an executive producer, so I think by having her as an integral part of the process and of the development process, that certainly helped.
Speaking of Joey King, how involved were you in searching for your titular princess?
Jake Thornton: Yeah, we were absolutely involved with it from the get go. Finding that actress was the thing that we needed to do and I think what's so great about Joey is she has a history of her wonderful filmography, whereby she's never done something like this before. So, in many respects, she is the princess when you think of her, you might think of The Kissing Booth movies, you don't think kick-a-- action star. As soon as her name came up and we watched her movies, we were like, "Yes, because this is exactly what we want." Taking a young woman who you think is only this, and then she proved to everyone on the set that she could do actually do this. So, in many respects, she became almost the kind of personification of the theme of the movie, which was so wonderful.
That's amazing. That's what you hope for.
Ben Lustig: Right? And it's always a risk, especially with someone who's never done action before. But we knew she had the chops to do the performance. It was always a question, "Is she gonna, is she gonna do it? Is she gonna pull it off?" I think she even says in interviews that she was afraid at first, thinking the same thing, but I think she, by far and away, exceeded our expectations and hopefully the audiences' as well.
It feels like there's so many different styles of fighting going on, from the swords to the hand-to-hand combat of 87North productions, like the John Wick franchise. When you were writing the script, did you have that mix of fighting sequences in there or did a lot of that come from the direction?
Jake Thornton: I want to say that we wrote a lot of the fight sequences pretty much as they are. Obviously, when you're collaborating with a fantastic director that we got with Kiet and the wonderful stunt team that we had, of course they're gonna work all the ins-and-outs of certain things. But there's this fight sequence where she has this rope, she has this bit of lace from her corset, and that's been in the draft since day one. Moments of the stairwell fight, where she pulls the pearls off her necklace, that's been in there since since day one. So there have been lots of these moments that really were written in the first draft of the script that have continued to make it through. And of course, working with directors and stunt teams only make it better.
Ben Lustig: I think that the choreography that you see on screen is 100 percent a team effort between what we wrote in the script, what Kiet came to it with his amazing action background and an incredible stunt team and Joey, even. I think that the intention especially was always to have that mix, like you're talking about, of hand-to-hand combat as well as swordplay and weaponry as well. Partly because we wanted to see her physically go up against these big, stronger men and watch her use what she has naturally. The reality is that we didn't want to see a superhero, we wanted to see someone who could use her size, the fact that she knows she's not stronger, but she might be faster, more agile, and I think what we wrote in that then was just expanded upon by Kiet and the rest of the team.
Jake Thornton: It's fun to put a character in situations whereby they might not have a weapon, they only have what's available at hand. You see that in the kitchen fight sequence. My favorite move didn't make it into the final script, but this is the move that I loved, originally we wanted to find them fighting with a medieval turkey leg. Like can we have the Ren Faire turkey leg? Originally, she grabbed this turkey leg, stuck it in a guy's mouth and then kick the bone through the back of his face. [Laughs] Unfortunately it didn't make it in, but maybe it'll be in the sequel.
I loved when Shoot 'Em Up did a similar thing with a carrot. How does it feel gearing up for the upcoming release on Hulu after all this time?
Ben Lustig: So exciting, so exciting. We've been working together for almost 14 years, this is the first script of ours that's actually gone through the production process and is now being released, so it's a huge milestone for us.
Jake Thornton: Yeah, it's super jazzy, it's been great to see all the online buzz about it. Everyone's saying, "Oh my goodness. We've never seen anything like this before." It's so nice to be able to share a really fun movie with the world, but I think that more importantly than being fun has a really great message underneath it.
And it comes at a great time to where we're getting a lot of female-fronted action films, be it Atomic Blonde or Kate on Netflix or Gunpowder Milkshake. How does it feel going into that genre with all these various takes on it coming out?
Ben Lustig: I love it. I genuinely think that the female-driven action movie is awesome and long overdue for being the thing that it's really become. I think that ours does it in a way that you're not seeing in any of these other ones, so that's great. There's no other movie coming out where a princess in a fairytale castle is doing what Gunpowder Milkshake does or what Atomic Blonde does, so I think it's great that we get to be part of that movement and also be something really unique as well.
Jake Thornton: Two of our favorite movies are Aliens and Terminator 2 and they are both excellent examples from the '80s and early '90s of incredibly empowered women taking charge of their situation in fantastic stories. So I'm actually pleased that we're going back to that, I think there was a period of time in the '90s when that wasn't seen so much and even in the early 2000s. I think it's great that that movie is making a real resurgence once again.
The Princess Synopsis
When a beautiful, strong-willed princess refuses to wed the cruel sociopath to whom she is betrothed, she is kidnapped and locked in a remote tower of her father’s castle. With her scorned, vindictive suitor intent on taking her father’s throne, the princess must protect her family and save the kingdom.
Check out our other interviews with The Princess star Joey King and director Le-Van Kiet.
The Princess is available to stream on Hulu.