From director Josh Greenbaum, the brains behind 2021's Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, comes Strays, a star-studded, R-rated comedy starring Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx. Inspired by classics like Homeward Bound and Milo and Otis, Strays asks, "What if man's best friend was actually... just like man?" This pack is rounded out by a laugh-out-loud crew including Isla Fisher, Will Forte, and Randall Park.

Reggie (Ferrell) is a sweet, optimistic terrier with a love for life, for playing ball, and above all, for his owner, Doug (Forte). Unfortunately, Doug is a dirtbag, abusing him, cursing at him, and making numerous attempts to abandon Reggie. When Doug finally succeeds in leaving Reggie stranded in the city, he meets up with other strays on his quest to return to his beloved owner. That's when Reggie meets the hardened Boston terrier, Bug (Foxx), who opens Reggie's eyes to Doug's mistreatment. Together, the two set off on an adventure... an adventure for sweet, sweet revenge.

Ahead of the film's official trailer release, director Josh Greenbaum sat down with Collider's Steve Weintraub to talk about the R-rated comedy. During their 1-on-1, Greenbaum talks about why a raunchy, talking-dog comedy was the obvious next step for him, and which heartwarming films inspired his vision for Strays. He assures us the movie is packed full of laughs beyond what the trailer shows, shares what it's like having unusual conversations with the VFX department, and what the chemistry was like having this ensemble cast together on set. Greenbaum discusses his team-up with producers Chris Miller and Phil Lord, as well as what he's looking forward to next. For all of this and more, check out our full interview in the transcript below.

COLLIDER: So I'm curious, after your last film, how did you decide on Strays as the follow-up?

JOSH GREENBAUM: Sure. It is a good question. By the way, this is a random thing, but my brother's friendly, and I am now as well, with Guillermo Del Toro. He actually did the DJA interview with me for [Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar]. And he asked my brother, "Well, hey, what's your brother doing next, after Barb and Star?" Which he really liked, and my brother explained, "He is doing an R-rated talking dog movie, where a guy gets revenge by wanting to bite his owner’s dick off," And Guillermo just goes, "Yeah, that makes sense," which I really loved.

But I don't know, I was fortunate enough to get a lot of scripts sent my way because I think that the reception of Barb and Star was really positive, and I was trying to figure out what I want to do next. I really remember one weekend getting a bunch of scripts, and I remember reading the log lines. I remember reading this log line of an R-rated talking dog movie where this neglected dog wants to get revenge on his abusive owner by biting his dick off.

That script went right to the top of the pile for me just because it was like, “Oh, A, I think as a filmmaker I'm always trying to feel like I'm doing something different or new, or the first in.” And to me that was very exciting of like, “Oh yeah, the idea of doing a talking dog movie, which I grew up on and loved, Homeward Bound and Milo and Otis and Beethoven, all those, they're great.” But taking that genre and then flipping it on its head, doing it in an adult manner, from an R-rated… and hearing maybe what dogs sound like is not what those movies make them sound like. Maybe they sound more like us in R-rated comedies. So that was really it. That was incredibly exciting. And then ultimately I read the script and I think what fully hooked me in was the fact that I kind of assumed it was going to be a sort of spoof, not another dog movie kind of thing. And very quickly realized it wasn't.

[There are] a couple moments that send up that genre, that I love and you'll see in the film, but the movie really holds up on its own. It's really very funny but emotionally grounded, it's a film about relationships, unhealthy, toxic relationships, how we deal with them, how we found our own self-worth, how our friends play into that. So it was sort of this incredibly outrageous, loud idea, done really well with great jokes.

But then I also knew there was kind of an emotional sweet center to it that for my personal work, I always look for. I know Phil Lord and Chris Miller, our producers, very much feel the same way of, “We can get outrageous and irreverent, but we want something real in the center of it that you can hold onto and emotionally invest in.” I think that's what this film had.

So a lot of people, myself included, feel that trailers give away a lot of the really funny parts. So I'm saying this to you, can you reassure people that the trailer does not give away all the funny parts?

GREENBAUM: Yes, I am happy to reassure. I was very vocal, and Universal was awesome, and we had such a plethora, which is a good thing. In fact, there are many of the biggest, funniest, certainly the bulk of my favorite jokes are not in the trailer, even though I love all the jokes in the trailer. So there's a lot more. I totally am that same way. I hate when you watch a trailer and you say like, "Ah, I feel like, A, I saw the whole movie. Or B, I bet those are all the best jokes. And that's it." And then you read. So no, they are not all the best jokes by any stretch. So lots more to come.

I'm assuming, have you shown this yet to the MPAA?

GREENBAUM: [Laughs] Yes.

What were their thoughts on the movie, and did you have to make any changes?

GREENBAUM: Great question. Their thoughts were that it was a definitive R. There was not really much discussion. None of us were surprised by that. To be honest, if my memory serves, I don't believe we had to. I think it was in the wheelhouse, and maybe there [were] one or two tiny things, but I don't think so. I think we fit into that category and it worked. So no, I've dealt more with that on Barb and Star, where we were a PG-13 and then we got a couple of jokes that were crossing the line that we had to tweak.

So you have a June 9th release date, I believe.

GREENBAUM: Yeah.

Which is basically a studio saying we are very confident in a movie when you are hitting that release date. What have the test screenings been like? Have you been scoring really high? What's been the audience's reaction?

GREENBAUM: Yeah, I'm not sure if I can go all the way to the full detail, but very high. The audience reaction has been incredible. I mean, I, of course, screened a friends and family early on and got incredible feedback, but then I was like, “Maybe it's just because it's friends and family,” which is what you do as a filmmaker. And I try to bring people in that don't know me.

So yeah, our very first preview was a joy for me and the studio and everyone watching because it tested very, very well, particularly for a first screening, but also just in our climactic kind of moment, we had full applause and full hooting and hollering. I was like, "Oh, this is working." So really exciting and positive, and I can only assume, that will continue. But it was really fun and it's been a while since we did those previews.

So I'm very much looking forward to June 9. I love to be in an audience, and I mean I really wanted this. I love comedies in a theatrical space. This movie is meant to be experienced both on the big screen, but with a crowd where you kind of all… communal experience, you know? That's what I love about comedies and film in general. So a lot of what I thought about when I went into hiring my crew and my cast and my DP, and how we shot it was like, I want this to feel cinematic and big. And hopefully, the trailer gives you a little sense of that because I would love for us to start making more theatrical comedies again. Yeah, because I miss them.

We're on the same page and I can't wait to watch this with a crowd, with everyone laughing. I'm already looking forward to it. What do you think would surprise people to learn about the making of the film?

GREENBAUM: Well, I don't know, a couple of things. I mean, I assume anybody who knows a little bit about filmmaking knows it's really hard to work with animals. So it may not be surprising when I tell you that it was, but not crazy. I mean, we worked really hard and the trainers were incredible, and what the dogs were able to achieve blew my mind.

Maybe one aspect that [is] surprising to the average person is, I worked really hard once we got our incredible cast together – Will Ferrell and Jamie Fox and Isla Fisher and Randall Park – I got them together for most of their voice sessions. That was really important to me. I don't know if there was a session with Will or Jamie where at least the other person wasn't there, because they're the two main characters, and that was really huge.

I mean, unfortunately, for whatever reason, scheduling, et cetera, they tend to just, on these films, come in, they do their lines opposite like a director who may not be a great actor, like myself, and that's it. And then you cobble all the stuff together and it's like, “No, I want this to feel alive and to get the incredible improv out of these incredibly talented, funny people.” It all just clicks when they're looking at one another and they're in a room together and they're riffing, and they can overlap. It's fine to overlap, and then all the dialogue crackles and it feels real or organic, and authentic, and all the stuff I wanted. So I don't know, that maybe is one. I'm trying to think of any others. But that would be maybe something that, for whatever reason, is not done very often. I really made a point to make sure we did that.

Believe me, I understand the voice recording process and I often wonder. Ultimately it's because schedules with a-list actors… I'm surprised you were able to pull it off, to be honest.

GREENBAUM: Yeah, and we were on the tail-end of COVID so we worked hard through that as well. It really is a testament, in my opinion, to Jamie and Will and Isla and Randall's commitment to the film. They really believed in it and they were excited, and they were excited to work with [each] other. Jamie and Will have never worked together, and they have incredible chemistry as dogs, and hopefully, they'll do something as humans down the line, but they really do. They're just a fantastic energy opposite each other. I could see. I mean, it was such a joy for me to be in the room with the two of them, hitting the comedy ball back and forth and you know, could see they loved it and they loved the sessions, which was, I think you can feel it in the film. So.

I am a big Will Ferrell fan and I'm a really big Will Ferrell fan when he does R-rated stuff. He's very, very funny. I'm curious, was it hard convincing him to do this? Or was it almost an immediate, when he heard about it, he was like, "I can do this."

GREENBAUM: I mean, it's interesting. It wasn't too hard, which is good. But first of all, he and I became quite friendly. He produced Barb and Star and so we've known each other. So that was great. And of course, when I reached out and said, "I thought you'd be amazing at this." I think he was very excited. I remember what he told me. He said he was actually in the car, I think shortly after he and I spoke, with his sons. He has three sons. He was asking his youngest, who probably was 13 at the time, 12 or 13. "Hey Axel, would you want to see me in an R-rated talking dog movie, where the mission for me, along with my other stray dog friends is [to] bite my owner's dick off?" And Axel was like, "1000%, yes, do the movie immediately." And so Will, I think half-jokingly, credits his son with green lighting him getting involved.

But no, I think he loves that. And he like me, I think loves to do... He's an incredible producer and writer and everything else in his own right. So I think he saw the potential of a project, being like, "Oh, no one's done this. This is fun." So I was so thrilled that we got him.

Where are you in the editing process? Are you close to being done?

GREENBAUM: We're done. Yeah, we are finished, which feels nice. It was a long post because of all the VFX. We had enough time to keep, like I mentioned, rewriting, and depending on what the dogs did in the footage versus what… You know, we might see a shot and say, "Oh, there's a joke we can use from that weird moment that happened," or whatever improv happened with the actors. But no, we're all finished.

So what does that mean for you now that the movie is done? Are you reading other scripts?

GREENBAUM: Nope. I’m just gonna wait like this for six months, until… [laughs]

The trailer's really funny. I would imagine as people see it tomorrow, all of a sudden it's going to be-

GREENBAUM: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, look, I'm, of course, reading scripts. I've got some of my own things developed and I'm heading off on another project. I make documentaries as well. I've got a really interesting one building that we're going to go kind of off and shoot in a few weeks. So yeah, I'm figuring it out and putting the next stuff in the pipeline. It is weird to be done early and now wait, whatever it is, five months or, I don't know what the math is.

But yeah, I'm so thrilled for that day to come. But I'm excited for tomorrow with our trailer coming out and [letting] people see. Because I think actually, interestingly, some of the early press was animated, and I think that's a very different movie in a lot of people's minds. So I think when you get to see, “Oh, it's with real dogs,” and it just feels different in my mind. So, yeah.

I've been doing this a long time. There are going to be a lot of positive reactions on Twitter tomorrow.

GREENBAUM: Oh, I hope so.

I would place good money on this. So I want to ask you another thing. There's a scene in the trailer where the dogs are humping statues, if you will. Obviously, some of that is animated, obviously. I'm curious, what is it like working with the VFX House when you're saying to them, "I think they need to be humping slower or faster."

GREENBAUM: [Laughs] It's very good. By the way, I think we had that exact conversation. No, it's funny. You wind up, this is true in any comedy, you wind up talking really, really serious because what we're doing is a big project. We want to make sure it's perfect, and I want to make sure it's exactly right, about really silly stuff. So [there are] a lot of moments where I would be, after we would talk about how fast the dog's humping needs to be, where I'd have to say, "Yes, guys, this is what we do for a living. All of us, and we've chosen this path." But no, they were great. We had an incredible VFX team, and I'm so proud of the work that the whole team did because it's not easy, some of what I was asking them to achieve, and I was really demanding. Because I didn't want it to pull you out.

I want you to just be immersed in this world and never have a question of, “Oh, that didn't quite look right.” I hate when that happens for me as an audience member. So we worked really hard on that. But yeah, there [were] so many moments like that, that we were... Of course, when we get later on in the film and the plot, as you know, [there are] lots of complications there as well. And lots of ones I can't give away. To your point, [there are] a lot of jokes, big jokes, that are not even hinted at in the trailers that required VFX. So you'll see them when you get to watch the full film. But a lot of moments of like, "Are we really having this conversation?" It's like, "Yes, we really are."

I believe, and I've looked at the IMDB – the always accurate IMDB – and I think there are some kids in the movie, the kid voices are, I'm assuming yes?

GREENBAUM: I don't know if [there are] any kid voices. There are kids in the film on screen.

So let me ask you this. Because it's an R-rated movie, was there ever a day where you were asking someone to say lines that you almost had to apologize for after you asked them to say it?

GREENBAUM: Oh, 100%, but that was even with the adults, constantly. I mean, I would have actors come in that would come in – you know, Rob Riggle has a great kind of role. [There are] a couple of fun cameos I don't want to give away yet. But we'd wrote the most absurd lines for these dogs, because some of them we really wanted to push the envelope of what does this dog say and sound like, totally inappropriate. And they just had to come in and go for it. And I was often apologizing in a fun way, but no, absolutely.

Luckily, I didn't run into that, I don't believe, with any of the kids, because that's trickier, always trickier. I mean, my friends who made Good Boys, I'm sure were always constantly dealing with something like that, where they're like, "Oh, we really need this actor who's actually 12 or 13 to say these lines." I don't know if I had that too much with kids on this one, but certainly, there [were] a lot of lines that I had to have other actors say that I had absolutely apologized for.

I am a big fan of Phil Lord and Chris Miller. They're both very, very funny people. Can you talk about their involvement in this, and how maybe they tweaked the script or helped you with some of the dialogue?

GREENBAUM: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, they're awesome. I felt so lucky and fortunate to have them as producers on the film. I'm, like you, a huge fan of all their work. And we share a very similar sensibility of trying to subvert, irreverent, but always an emotional heart and character and all. I think we all look for the same DNA in a successful script, but they would pop in at all the right times when we're developing the script and have feedback at a macro level. But they might write some jokes. It was great. We'd have some joke pitches from Phil and Chris, and they say, "Yeah, take him or leave them." And we [would] try them out. So the script level, and then of course, less so shooting because they were there, but it's like there's only so much you can have the dogs do.

Then, of course, on our edit, and just lots of always really smart creative feedback. We had a really great relationship and are definitely looking to work together again. It just felt like they were the perfect partners for this film. I hope you'll feel my stamp, but I, of course, think you'll feel their stamp, too. The Venn diagram of their filmmaking and mine, which is a little earlier, but there's crossover. And I hope people who love Lord Miller and their films will be like, "Oh yeah." And then people who have gotten to know a little bit of my work will say, "Oh yeah, that feels like the next step for that guy."

Strays hits theaters June 9. Check out the official trailer below.