Making a movie set in space is an extremely difficult proposition for most filmmakers. Which is only part of why comedy sketch group The Whitest Kids U’ Know started writing the animated comedy Mars in 2012, but it didn’t arrive in theaters until this spring. In between then and now, the project went through countless drafts and a major format change, all before the creative team suffered a devastating blow: The death of founding WKUK member Trevor Moore, who passed away after an accident on August 6th, 2021.
“Trying to navigate [production] while listening to the voice of your dead best friend is brutal,” Zach Cregger tells Consequence. “It changed everything. It went from being this fun capricious lark to this beautiful and sad process. It was very tough.”
Cregger’s own career has undergone a dramatic shift in the last five years, as the WKUK co-founder has become one of the industry’s hottest horror directors. But as anyone who’s seen Barbarian and Weapons will tell you, his comedic instincts remain very well-honed. And he’s a key part of Mars, co-writing the script and voice acting alongside Moore and WKUK members Sam Brown, Timmy Williams, and Darren Trumeter.
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In Mars, a group of awkward misfits, selected by a lottery organized by a suspicious billionaire by the name of Elron Branson (played by Moore), head off for a wild mission to Mars. Directed by Sevan Najarian, it’s a movie packed with jokes and random asides (including a very silly running bit about acronyms), which Cregger says evolved out of the WKUK savoring the act of writing together.
“We had so many things that we would always start writing, with some vague idea that it would be fun to turn it into a movie, but really the process was the joy,” he says. The Mars idea was one they didn’t take too seriously, though, because “we knew the scope was so absurd. That’s why it took so long. We would write it and then we’d realize, ‘This is going to cost a hundred million dollars. Let’s stop for a while.’ And then it was just so fun that we’d come back and we’d dive into it again and make ourselves laugh… And then realize it’s really expensive and then put it down.”
Mars became a project the group would revisit occasionally to, in Cregger’s words, “add a little bit, take something out, and laugh at it.” It was during the pandemic, though, that they began discussing the idea of actually shooting the movie by “just really embracing the low-budget thing,” using their garages and blue screens to “let it be woefully imperfect, and just see, warts and all, what we can get away with.”
Mars (Synergetic Films)
Then, an arguably better idea emerged when Moore suggested making Mars as an animated movie, bringing in Najarian so they wouldn’t have to compromise anything. That way, Cregger says, “it could look like what we all had in our imaginations. That was really exciting.” To raise funds, the team turned to Twitch live-streaming, raising approximately $300,000.
At the time of Moore’s death, Cregger says the crowdfunding was about 60% complete and they’d been “earnestly” in production: “We’d gone through and done character design and some concept art and stuff like that. And we had recorded all of the dialogue. So we were in the process of assembling the radio play, which is basically everything you hear dialogue-wise, and we were picking the takes and editing it together and getting it in shape. So the movie had no visual component yet, but we’d kind of assembled the structure and the jokes.”
Losing Moore, Cregger says, was “a devastating blow for all of the obvious reasons. Not only because we were grieving our dear friend and brother, but also, Trevor was very much the pilot of The Whitest Kids U’ Know. He was the driving force and the creative visionary. There was still more work to be done on the radio play, and there was a ton of animation left to do and, you know, still almost an entire movie to make. So it was a really tough thing to try and step in and be like, ‘Okay, what do you think Trevor would’ve wanted here?’ Trying to honor him.”
This meant that the production process, requiring “weird calls on unforeseen hookups,” became a tough one both practically and emotionally. At the same time, Cregger was also in post-production on Barbarian (having shot the movie concurrently with a lot of the Mars production), “so I was definitely on my own journey making that movie.”
When it comes to Cregger’s recent career shift, he says he feels “much more surefooted and in control with horror. With comedy, I definitely feel a lot more like, ‘Is this working? I don’t know, let’s try it.’ That was one of the great things about working with Trevor — he had a lot more confidence in the comedy, and he’s just a funnier guy than me by far. I got to ride on his coattails and soak up a lot of the glory for his brilliant ideas.”
So as Cregger worked to finish Barbarian while also contributing to Mars, he found that with the horror project, he knew “exactly what to do,” while Mars was tougher. However, “I had the luxury of not being the director of Mars. So I was able to just try to be as supportive as possible of [Najarian].”
Cregger isn’t sure that the long gestation of Mars was a good thing. “Part of me wonders if it would’ve been better if we had just had the idea to crowdfund it as an animated movie seven years sooner. I think over the course of that time, we improved it structurally… But also, sometimes the more you pick something apart and the more you keep tinkering with it, it can also dull. I don’t know if that happened to Mars or not. I have no perspective.”
However, Mars does showcase the sense of play that Cregger first embraced with WKUK. “I think that is so crucial for not just showbiz, but for all art,” he says. “If you’re making it for the love of making it, you’re probably making something special. That was one of the fun things about Whitest Kids, is that we just really enjoyed getting in a room and trying to crack each other up, and writing with that naughty attitude of, like, ‘Could you imagine if we could ever make this movie? Oh my God, no one would let us make this movie.’ That’s a healthy place to be.”
Mars is now screening in theaters across the country. It’s also available on Blu-ray via the official website and Amazon.