Mark Wahlberg on his action-comedy ‘The Family Plan’ and his dreams for Hollywood 2.0

By LINDSEY BAHR
AP Film Writer

Mark Wahlberg knows as well as any parent that it’s hard to find a movie everyone in the household wants to watch – especially with teenagers around. It’s part of the reason he latched on to “The Family Plan,” a charming action-comedy about a former assassin turned suburban dad whose past catches up with him. It’s streaming on Apple TV+ on Friday.

“You always have movies that parents can go to with the kids and they’ll tolerate them because the kids really want to see it or vice versa,” Wahlberg told the AP. “But this really felt like it was a movie that actually was for the whole family.”

Early in “The Family Plan,” his character is attacked in a grocery store and he must fend off the assailant with his 10-month-old in a baby-carrier on his chest. With his minivan cover blown, he then must convince his wife and teenagers to embark on a cross-country road trip to outrun the danger that he’s also desperately trying to keep secret from them.

The grocery store fight with the baby needed to be a big, tone-setting moment. Director Simon Cellan Jones, a veteran television director whose credits include “Boardwalk Empire,” thought it was a “fantastic concept. It was a real spin on an action movie scene.”

But he also wanted to use real babies rather than dolls. That, everyone quickly found, would prove immensely difficult.

“The baby’s supposed to be enjoying seeing daddy in action. The baby and the audience are they only ones privy to that. But getting (the twins) to chuckle or laugh while somebody’s kicking or flinging us around, that was next to impossible,” Wahlberg said. “I thought we were in trouble.”

Then in the editing room, they were relieved to discover that the babies had in fact performed. As Wahlberg said, the twins knew when to turn it on.

“I’m very proud of that scene,” Cellan Jones said.

Wahlberg called on Michelle Monaghan to see if she’d want to star opposite him as his wife, a character eager for more spontaneity in their life. The two had enjoyed working together on the Boston Marathon bombings drama “Patriot’s Day” — and he even calls her “captain fun” on set — but Monaghan was mostly excited to get a comedy.

“It was truly one of the funniest scripts I’ve read in a long time,” Monaghan said. “Creatively, I was super excited because it has a lot of facets of what I like to do as an artist with action and comedy. There are inventive, high-octane action sequences. But, at the heart of it, is this really, really sweet family that you’re rooting for.”

They filmed much of the movie in Wahlberg’s new hometown of Las Vegas, where he dreams of creating a Hollywood 2.0 with tax credits, a studio and more affordable housing and better quality of life for crews. He and his family relocated from Los Angeles last year, and he’s already made two movies there.

“People know how serious we are, but you can’t put the carriage before the horse,” Wahlberg said. “There are tons of talented people here, but also to attract new people you have to make sure that there is a guarantee you work for X amount of time. And (the state) wants to make sure that if they’re giving up the tax credit that people are going to come.”

“We’re getting close,” he added. “I think they’re very excited to create a new industry outside of gaming.”

Wahlberg has another movie with Cellan Jones on the way too, “Arthur the King,” based on the true story of an adventure racer who befriends a stray dog who accompanies his team on a 435-mile journey through the Dominican Republic.

“It’s a very different movie,” Cellan Jones laughed. “It’s about finding heroes in unlikely places… And if you like dogs, you’re going to love this movie.”

Like “The Family Plan,” Wahlberg also produced “Arthur the King,” which will be released theatrically from Lionsgate in March. When it comes to questions of theatrical versus streaming, he said he’s just rolling with the punches and trying to stay ahead of the curve.

“In a perfect world, we all wanted to hold on to theatrical as much as possible. But people decided long ago how and where they wanted to consume their content,” Wahlberg said. “And working with a company like Apple is very exciting to me.”

Besides, he found the living room television was actually the perfect place to watch “The Family Plan.”

“I went to watch the first cut of the movie in my home and, it’s PG-13, there was only one F-bomb, so it was safe to turn on in the living room as opposed to hiding somewhere. And then slowly but surely everyone was sitting around the TV watching and enjoying the film, without any devices or distraction,” Wahlberg said. “It was nice to see that.”