Writer/Director William Eubank Talks Venturing to the Land of Bad

Thanks to the accomplishments he's earned through his work on projects like Underwater and Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, many movie fans are familiar with William Eubank through his work in the horror genre. The filmmaker's abilities aren't only limited to the realm of the dark and disturbing, however, as he proves in his latest film, Land of Bad. While the film, focusing on a mission gone wrong and the soldiers tasked with a death-defying survival scenario, might not overtly display the darkness of his other outings, it still tasks Eubank with keeping audiences on the edge of their seats as our protagonists aim to escape their ordeal. Land of Bad hits theaters on February 16th.

Land of Bad is described, "When a Delta Force team is ambushed in enemy territory, a rookie officer (Liam Hemsworth) refuses to abandon them. Their only hope lies with an Air Force drone pilot (Russell Crowe) as the eyes in the sky during a brutal 48-hour battle for survival."

ComicBook.com caught up with Eubank to talk the development of the project, his work in genre film, and more.

ComicBook.com: Liam's character, he's forced with this difficult decision very early on in the picture of what type of cereal he wants to bring with him on his mission. So you, William, if you were forced to go out on a death-defying, intense mission and you could only bring one cereal with you, what are you going to go with?

William Eubank: I would probably go with Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or it's possible Golden Grahams, but I like Golden Grahams in milk, so if I had to eat them dry ... Well, I don't know. I like Cinnamon Toast Crunch in milk, too. Yeah, that's a tough one, because you're eating the cereal dry probably, so yeah, that's a tough one. In that case, maybe you just want the Frosted Flakes because it's just pure sugar, or dry, you're just eating sugar. I don't know. Which one would you choose?

Oh, it's going to be a seasonal variety, so something like Count Chocula is going to be what I'm going to be drawn towards, but it depends on what time of the year it is, whether or not I actually have access to Count Chocula. You're right, milk changes the whole thing. Speaking about Liam, though, this film has such a great cast, so what was the casting process like for this? I also wondered, once you got the cast involved, if the characters themselves underwent any substantial changes once you started collaborating with these performers?

Yeah, absolutely. This movie, we wrote it a long time ago. I wrote it while I was doing the movie The Signal. On the weekends, I was at a coffee shop in New Mexico writing this movie because I was so afraid The Signal was too crazy and weird, so I was like, "I've got to make something more grounded." And all these years later, there'd been so many renditions of the script and we had almost started it a few times, and all these years later I had had another movie that I was possibly going to do with Russell, and we got to know each other through almost making this other movie and it didn't end up going. All these years later I was like, "Man, Russell would be so great as Eddie Grim Reaper. I'll just reach out to him."

I hit him up and he was like, "Oh, well, I'm pretty busy, but hey, it's great to hear from you. Send me the script, tell me a little bit about what it's about, and I'll get back to you in a few weeks and let you know." Then he hit me back the next day and was like, "Hey, I really love this. It asks some very interesting questions. You pull it together, let's do it." We got very fortunate. Russell came on, and then from there, everything fell into place. We had sent it to Liam's people and he responded to it.

I guess once you start to get your core guys in place, it all flows from there. And with Russell's character specifically, he just is so detailed and he really wants to, obviously, know all the aspects, so it's fun working with him to develop certain idiosyncrasies and how he is inside the room, how he is outside the room. Russell has a huge say in that and is so collaborative and full of ideas, so it was a blast working with him in that regard. 

Since this film stars Liam and Luke Hemsworth, can you confirm or deny that there is, I believe they call it the "Hemsworth Family Buy One, Get One" deal, that once you cast one Hemsworth, you get another Hemsworth at a discount?

No, no. What's really wild was we actually had Luke on, because I had met Luke, he had been in a movie that my little brother had written, and so we'd already met him and he was into it. Then we separately went through Liam's people, because they all just do their own thing. They obviously are very connected and I'm sure they do talk, but they really do respect each other's career choices and paths and whatnot. So you really can't get to one and get to the other or anything like that. 

We really went through different channels and it just worked out that they both agreed to do it, so whether or not they talked on their own or anything like that, I have no idea. But yeah, it was just awesome having them both. Obviously, they have that camaraderie together, but it was funny watching them try to create that gap. It was almost harder to not know each other in the film, so it was fun to witness. 

I'm sure it was difficult for them to have to play any sort of tension at all or antagonistic elements of that first meeting when they know each other so well.

Yeah, absolutely.

You've mentioned how Russell came to you and said how the film asks a lot of interesting questions, so with how long you've been working on this movie and how long you've been writing the script, what was that research process like of finding that balance of tech warfare with drones and then infantry and all that military stuff? What was that process like for you?

Frankly, when we first wrote the film, we thought, "Okay, we'll tell the story of how hard it is psychologically to be in war and then go to Starbucks right afterwards." Then that movie Good Kill came out with Ethan Hawke, and we shelved the concept for a little while because we were like, "Ah, I guess that's been done." And then what ended up happening was, as we were dabbling in some things and somehow the news got out that we were going to make it a JTAC film, and we got contacted by a JTAC at Fort Erwin who was like, "Hey, I'd love for you guys to come out. I'm an instructor out here now. Why don't you come stay for a while and see how it goes?" And so we actually went out there for weeks and worked with them. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say this, but I was calling in to F-35s. We were blowing sh-t up. It was insane, dude. It was so crazy.

And then we met real drone pilots and we started to realize, "Man, the psychological idea of these guys going through all this turmoil is not really even remotely in the vein," because these guys are so committed and trained, if you will, and so committed to each other that you're like, "We'd love," in Hollywood, to be like, "it's so dramatic and there's so much personal turmoil, when you're like, 'Whoa, these guys are hardcore operators from the top to the bottom.'" And I realized, in that regard, at that point, we had chased the wrong story, and really, at that point, realized, "Man, when you get to that level, you are so trained and so psych evaluated and so dialed in, and you really want to be doing your work, so you're really just committed to the people you're working with and the job you have to do," so we wanted to get into those themes.

And, of course, the movie does ask the question of, "Oh, the main character thinks one way or thinks that there's maybe a better version of violence," and it really seeks to put that out there of, is there a better version of violence or is it all pretty crazy at the end of the day? And that's really what the film is asking at the end of the day, but at the same time trying to make it entertaining and pretty wild. 

I believe we just passed the four-year anniversary of Underwater being released, that was a thing that came out right before the pandemic, and then I think people definitely found it on streaming. It is such a gorgeous movie, and that movie is so rife with the potential of these cosmic, horrifying concepts. 

Oh, thank you.

Has there been any talk over the years of getting to mine that well again?

We always talk about it. I hope someday. I really hope someday. We built so many things in that movie that you just don't see that are so cool, from all the dredges that lift all of the stuff that they're mining to the surface and these huge, almost like drone supertankers that are down there. There's so much cool sh-t, man. I hope someday we get to, because the world is really big and really fun. It's tough. Anytime you go underwater, it's expensive, so who knows? We'll see what happens someday.

Just the fact that it shortly premiered on streaming after release, I feel like people definitely found it in the pandemic, even if they missed it in theaters.

We were so lucky we got into theaters, man. We were the last ones to go January. Woof.

That's totally why I was able to remember, "Oh yeah, four-year anniversary," because a month later the world shut down.

I know. Yeah, I remember Bloodshot released right during it, so it was in theaters for a few days, and then Bloodshot had all this free advertising forever because all the theaters were shut down, so the poster was up at The Grove for five months. It was insane. 

I do have to bring up a franchise that people really love that you got to work on, that you got to work on the Paranormal Activity series with Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin. Have there been talks about continuing that? Do you feel like that was a one-off for you? 

No talks with me on that, but I loved making that. And Chris Landon, who has really created that universe from after the first one, he was so awesome to work with, and he was my producer/writer on that, so it's really their baby. That was really fun for me to come into that world and I love just doing different things. That was so much fun working with the little cameras and just trying to tell a different story, whether or not that's what the Paranormal people wanted. 

I think for some Paranormal fans, it was too shiny in that regard, and that version went to a different demon and whatnot. So I have no say in that world, but I loved every second of getting to do it. I loved building those sets and those crazy churches, and so I don't know. You never know what could happen, but I'm really proud of the work we did in that space. And as a filmmaker, I'm always trying to do different things, so hopefully I'll continue to do that. 

Land of Bad hits theaters on February 16th.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.