Sheila spoke to the cast of Parker at roundtable interviews today. We will have the full interviews for you soon, but we want to pass along what Michael Chiklis had to say about Pawn and a possible Shield movie. Chiklis is a producer on the low-budget crime thriller Pawn, and stars alongside Forest Whitaker, Ray Liotta, Common, Nikki Reed, Stephen Lang, and Max Beesley. This is the first feature Chiklis has produced, and it sounds like a challenge, "It’s a little movie. All things considered, it’s a cool little film. A lot of bang for the buck considering it was a 15-day shoot."
Chiklis estimated he has been asked about a movie to follow up on his landmark FX series The Shield "ten thousand times." But he remains enthusiastic about the possibility: "I’d love to do it. Ask Fox, please... [Creator Shawn Ryan] has a phenomenal idea to move forward with it." The Shield series finale is among the best ever, so it's encouraging that the Ryan and Chiklis want to continue the story for creative reasons. Hit the jump for the full quotes.
Question: Can you talk about what you have coming up next? Michael, I know you have Pawn with Ray Liotta?
Michael Chiklis: Yeah. It’s a little movie I produced as a result of [Parker]. I’ve been thinking a lot about the second half of my career. I’m facing 50 and it makes you sort of contemplative about the place that I am in my life and I’m thinking about the second half. One thing that’s very important to me is the building of my production company. I was talking to Brad Luff who is one of the executive producers on this film during the making of Parker and we got to know each other and we really bonded during the process. He has a lot of the same desires and ambitions in that way. He said, “Why don’t we make a movie together?” and I was like, “Okay.” I was looking for someone on the executive side to partner with me in my production company, and he said, “No, I have a script and it’s financed. It’s little. It’s a tiny little movie, but if you respond to it, maybe we can just put it together on the quick.”
This was late September right at the end of the shooting of this [Parker]. I read the script. It needed work but by December 2nd we were shooting it and we made this cool little movie. I pulled together a pretty impressive cast with Forest Whitaker, Ray Liotta, Common, Nikki Reed, Stephen Lang, myself, Max Beesley. I mean, it’s a scale movie. It’s a little movie. All things considered, it’s a cool little film. A lot of bang for the buck considering it was a 15-day shoot. You have to compare apples to apples. You know what I mean? Parker was a $30 million dollar, two-month shoot. This was a $2.1 million dollar, 15-day shoot. Just to give you some perspective, we shot the pilot for Vegas in 16 days. That’s a 45-minute pilot. You know? (shouting) “Run!, Run!” All things considered, it was an impressive cast, some really nice performances.
Do you think a Shield movie would ever happen at this point or did the series end so nicely that you wouldn’t want to touch it again?
Chiklis: Hell no, I’d love to do it. Ask Fox, please. This is the single most asked question of me. It’s only since 2008 and I’m going to say over ten thousand times asked. So, forgive me if I want to strangle you right now. I’m teasing obviously but it’s just that Shawn (Ryan) has a phenomenal idea to move forward with it, but part of it is our availability. We’re both very busy. Part of it is Fox and changes over there. We’ll see. It’s possible. But I don’t know.
