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Directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein take EW inside the making of their upcoming unlikely buddy comedy.
What happens when a U.S. Navy pilot gets shot down in enemy territory and is rescued by an ex-KGB agent who’s obsessed with American culture?
That kicks off the action in Mayday, set in 1987 Soviet Union, where Troy “Assassin” Kelly (Ryan Reynolds) forms an unlikely alliance with the man who saved his life, Nikolai Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh), when he’s shot down over enemy territory. Because Nikolai loves movies, including Top Gun, he takes Troy in, treats his wounds, and performs surgery on him. And now, Troy will need Nikolai’s help to escape the Soviets, who are hot on his trail.
Written and directed by Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and Game Night duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the movie (streaming Sept. 4 on Apple TV) becomes a buddy-comedy action-adventure as the two navigate Cold War tensions, even turning to Nikolai’s estranged daughter (played by Maria Bakalova) for help.
Below, Daley and Goldstein dig into their American pop culture influences, their reaction to landing Branagh, tracking down authentic 1980s military equipment, and more for EW’s 2026 Comic-Con preview.
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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What is the seed of the idea for this entire thing?
JOHN FRANCIS DALEY: The inspiration came from watching and loving, first and foremost, the movie Misery and wondering if there was a comedic take on the idea of a sycophant of a certain thing, having that thing fall in his lap — and then kinda taking it in a brand new direction.
JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN: Add to that a Midnight Run classic two-hander action-adventure comedy thing. And then mix into that whole combination, the Cold War, because it felt like a great opportunity to put our characters in hot water, but also have a certain relevance for things that are going on in our world right now. The global antipathy that a lot of people are feeling.
On top of that, there’s this tribute, if you want to call it that, to Top Gun and the love for that movie, given this movie’s setting in the late ‘80s. Was that always part of the fabric of the story, or did that come later?
DALEY: As we were piecing together the framework of the film, we were very cognizant of the fact that patriotism was more cut and dry during the end of the Cold War and what it represented on both sides. So we loved the idea of exploring something that feels relevant today, but also isn’t in any way preaching any point of view or agenda beyond the fact that people are people regardless of where they were born.
There’s a great glimpse in the trailer of Ryan in the cockpit — it all feels so reminiscent of how Top Gun was filmed. Did you guys go full Top Gun on this and put him in a real plane?
GOLDSTEIN: [Laughs] To a certain extent. We don’t wanna give away too much of the behind-the-scenes, but yes, we did. We had a vast number of technical consultants, both from the Air Force and the Navy. We came close to collaborating with the Navy, but they had an issue with the way the movie ended, and we weren’t gonna change it. So ultimately, we did not get to shoot on their aircraft carriers. But we shot real planes — in this case, it was French jets above the Mediterranean, which we then digitally turned into our American planes.
DALEY: It was similar to the approach that they did with Top Gun, where they re-skinned these, I think, P-39s. It was a month of aerial photography in the South of France. So all the flying stuff that you see was actually shot. And then we also had the honor to be able to talk to some of the original pilots of the SR-71 Blackbird, who regaled us not only with the technical aspects of flying one of those things, but also their close calls that they encountered when they were in active duty. It was unreal.
GOLDSTEIN: And we had them on set. These are guys in their 80s now. And Ryan could say to them, “Where would my left hand be at this point?” They’d be like, “You’d be doing this and this and that.” So, for flying aficionados, they’ll be able to appreciate that a lot of this is as close as we could make it to the real thing.
DALEY: We have a deep reverence for trying to be as true to reality as we can in these things because I think by creating the storytelling obstacles of trying to be true to form, it in fact unlocks greater stakes because you realize that you’re not able to get away with anything. There are rules and physics that you have to take into consideration, which makes it feel all the more fun and adds to the danger.
GOLDSTEIN: And obviously, Troy Kelly, the character that Ryan plays, is in many ways an homage to Maverick.
How, if at all, did things evolve once Ryan and Kenneth were on board?
DALEY: It’s a testament to the studio that they allowed us to fully take the reins of really realizing the idea that we had. There were not a lot of constraints in terms of what we were able to get away with. [Laughs] I mean, we drove an actual ICBM vehicle through the streets of Hungary, and it was the week of an election, too. So there was concern about the ramifications that would have for the vote.
GOLDSTEIN: And we found a guy in Hungary who collected Soviet weaponry and armament. So we had about a dozen real tanks. I was afraid when we were filming that the Russians would see this on satellite and think we were going to war with Hungary.
DALEY: Some of those bigger scenes were 2,000 extras and crew. It was a massive, massive undertaking and one that we would not have been able to get away with without full cooperation from not only our studio but our crew that I think were truly some of the best people we’ve ever worked with.
Was getting Kenneth Branagh a holy s--- moment for you guys?
DALEY: Absolutely.
GOLDSTEIN: For sure. The first step was, we have to find out from his agent what we call him. Do we use the sir? [Laughs] And he quickly dispelled any pomposity by saying, “Call me Ken.” And that carried through the whole experience with him. We never stopped being a little bit amazed that we were getting to work with him, but also just constantly enjoyed the process because he’s so down-to-earth. He is so ready to have fun and game for it. The opposite of pretentious.
And he’s a director, so he understands your task and what you’re trying to do as well.
DALEY: Which could, by the way, go either way. And to our delight, he was deeply kind and respectful of the intentions that we had behind the film and the script, and was a collaborator in truly the best sense of the word. I understand now why Christopher Nolan uses him in everything, because I wanna use him in everything now, too. He is the best of the best.
GOLDSTEIN: It wasn’t an easy part in that he had to do a number of scenes fully in Russian. He had to have a Russian accent for the scenes in English. So he had not one but two vocal coaches: one who would check his accent and one who would check the Russian, make sure it was right.
Ahead of your Comic-Con panel, what else do you want to tease?
DALEY: I think people are gonna be very surprised by this film because it is not what you would necessarily expect of a Ryan Reynolds film, first of all. He’s playing a character, I think, that is a little bit more of the straight man in this to Kenneth, who delivers a lot of the more humorous moments, but without a wink in any way, shape, or form. And I also think that just from a sheer scale perspective, it was incredibly important to us that every moment, every action moment, and emotional moment felt like it was a little bit different from anything people have seen before. So I think the uniqueness was incredibly important for us to embrace, and I hope people see and appreciate that.
GOLDSTEIN: And for the Comic-Con crowd, in the middle of the movie, Ken Branagh does turn into an owl bear. So I think that’s gonna be really surprising for them. [Laughs]
DALEY: And they have to stick around for the post-credit scene where Nick Fury approaches them. [Laughs]
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
