Escape Room: Tournament of Champions opens July 16.
The Taking of Deborah LoganandInsidious: The Last Keydirector Adam Robitel began terrifying people at a young age.
“Escape Room 2picks up where the first movie leaves off,” says the director.
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions.
It’s expanding both the world and the mythology."
In his own words below, Robitel talks more about his life in horror.
The Taking of Deborah Logan(2014)
It was bittersweet.
Adam Robitel on the set of Escape Room: Tournament of Champions.Sony Pictures
I had one test screening that went terribly.
I got a big tome of how my movie doesn’t perform with any demographic.
It got dumped unceremoniously to Netflix over Halloween weekend with no marketing and no fanfare.
But, that weekend, on Netflix, a million people saw and shared it.
The performances by Jill Larson and Anne Ramsey are for the books.
Insidious: The Last Key(2018)
It was a great learning lesson.
I made the mistake of giving her character, Elise, a Prius.
On the first day, I was like, “Elise should be into environmental stuff and recycling.”
Lin Shaye is like, “I would never drive a Prius, that’s ridiculous.”
I turned and looked at an old truck and said, “What about a truck?
“And she was like, “Yeah, that’s what I would drive.”
I’m like, “Is that even a picture car?”
I don’t think it was calledEscape Room.
I read the draft, [but] I was very poker-faced, I didn’t commit.
I had never done an escape room.
I went out that weekend and I did six of them and I realized how cinematic they are.
The good ones really are directed.
It was very clear to me that it was a great jumping-off point for a cinematic experience.
So I saw the potential and we worked on the script for like six more months.
I love those movies, but that wasn’t the given here.
We have an acid rain room.
A giant beach set that is going to take a stab at swallow people whole.
What’s fun about this movie is the rooms themselves are telling a different story.
We have a treasure trove of ideas [for a thirdEscape Roommovie].
It’s really going to be up to the fans.
Yeah, we’d be really excited to do that.
