Peter Facinelli Explains Stepping in as Co-Director for On Fire

In the new movie On Fire, star Peter Facinelli found himself in the unusual position of being asked to direct the movie — halfway through the process. The movie, which was co-written by Z Nation‘s Nick Lyon and was to be directed by Lyon, was made on the kind of budget that demanded a tight production window and as few disruptions and distractions as possible. Then, Lyon contracted COVID-19, and was unable to be on set for a while. Facinelli, the movie’s lead and a member of the Directors Guild of America, was tagged in, and finished principal photography of the film, then worked with Lyon on post-production.

Facinelli, best known for roles in the Twilight saga and Supergirl, had previously directed the movies Breaking and Exiting and The Vanished. On Fire likely gave him his biggest post-production challenge to date, since the premise of the movie centers on a raging wildfire, and so there was a lot of CGI flames that had to go into the process.

“Luckily, Nick and I were working very collaboratively to begin with,” Facinelli told ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian. “So it really naturally just kind of happened, in a way. When Nick and I started working together, it was really collaborative and wonderful, and we worked together to take the scenes and elevate them, and see what else we could do, and have payoffs and setups in teh film, and have better dialogue, and work with the other actors to create better dialogue. And when he got sick, it was like, ‘What do we do?’ The captain of the ship was down but we couldn’t go back to port. And with his blessing, because I think that he knew that we were both in sync of what we were trying to make, he said he wanted me to carry the torch. I had directed before, and I was the lead of the movie, so I was working closely with the DP and the other actors anyway, and so I ended up finishing it up, and then the collaborative atmosphere spilled into the edit, so for nine months we worked together and oversaw the CGI and the score, and whittled it all down to what we have now, and we’re both very proud of it.

Facinelli and other cast members were given a SAG-AFTRA waiver, allowing them to discuss and promote On Fire in spite of the ongoing actors’ strike, since the movie is not an AMPTP production, and was not struck work.  

“I never intended to take a director’s credit, but becuase of all the work we did together, I think Nick was like, ‘Hey, it doesn’t really feel like my movie or your movie anymore, so how about we take a co-director credit here?’” Facinelli added. “And it was a very beautiful thing for him to offer, and I accepted.”

On Fire is getting a limited theatrical release on Friday.