‘Novocaine’ Amped Up the Romance and Limited Jack Quaid’s Head Wounds So It Was Funny, Not Grim: ‘We Didn’t Want His Face to Be Mashed Potatoes’

variety.com:

William Earl Dan Berk and Robert Olsen grew up obsessed with the golden era of ’80s action movies, worshipping box office hits like “Midnight Run,” “Lethal Weapon” and “Die Hard.” When they came across the script for a high-concept film named “Novocaine” — in which a mild-mannered man named Nate can’t feel pain and has to save his love interest from violent bank robbers — they loved the idea.

But they were eager to add the humor and pathos that elevated their favorites. “There was something about those films where they’re very funny, yet they don’t lose their stakes,” Olsen says. “They’re not such a comedy that they don’t care about the characters.

They have protagonists you get to know.” Luckily, Berk and Olsen, who had previously written and directed films such as the 2019 horror comedy “Villains” and the 2022 sci-fi trip “Significant Other,” were able to take a pass at the script and add a levity that would welcome audiences in.

The result is their version of “Novocaine,” which opens in theaters Friday via Paramount Pictures. “It was a necessity to have that blend because there’s so much gore and grisly violence in it that if you didn’t also allow the audience to laugh, it might become gratuitous,” Olsen says. “It might become torture, it might become too much.