Taglines: Marriage. Give it your best shot.
Trying to recover from a sudden break-up, Jen Kornfeldt (Katherine Heigl) believes she’ll never fall in love again. But when she reluctantly joins her parents on a trip to the French Riviera, Jen happens to meet the man of her dreams, the dashing, handsome Spencer Aimes (Ashton Kutcher). Three years later, her seemingly impossible wish has come true: she and Spencer are newlyweds living the ideal suburban life – that is, until the morning after Spencer’s 30th birthday when bullets start flying. Literally.
It turns out Spencer never bothered to tell Jen he’s also an international super-spy, and now Jen’s perfect world has been turned upside down. Faced with the fact that her husband is a hit man, Jen is determined to discover what other secrets Spencer might be keeping – all the while trying to dodge bullets, keep up neighborly appearances, manage the in-laws…and work out some major trust issues. And you thought suburban life was easy.
Killers is an American romantic comedy action film starring Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kuchner, Catherine O’Hara, Tom Selleck, Alex Borstein, Katheryn Winnick, Lisa Ann Walter, Casey Wilson, Martin Mull, Michael Daniel Cassady and Letoya Luckett. The film was released in the United States and Canada on June 4, 2010. The film centers on a young woman (Katherine Heigl) who meets a man (Kutcher) who turns out to be an assassin.
About the Production
When Jen Kornfeldt and Spencer Ames’ whirlwind vacation romance keeps going strong after their return from the French Rivera, they decide to get married, looking forward to what any average American couple would: a happy, relatively predictable life in the suburbs balancing careers, in-laws and plans to start a family. But when highly trained, undercover assassins start spraying their home with bullets, and Spencer demonstrates he’s no slouch himself when it comes to taking out an opponent, Jen realizes that her husband of three years hasn’t been completely honest about his past. That’s what launches Lionsgate’s KILLERS on its wild, unpredictable ride – and Spencer and Jen towards one undeniable truth: mortal combat is not the time for major couple’s therapy.
“Jen and Spencer have a great relationship and they are really good together and are really loving, fun and charming with each other,” says Katherine Heigl, who co-stars as Jen Kornfeldt. “Then comes the big shocker where she discovers this guy who she thought was just a contractor actually killed more than a dozen people. That’s upsetting.”
“It’s about two people who are in love and one of them has a secret,” explains co-star Ashton Kutcher. “It’s about their ability to coexist and I think everyone can relate to that. Because I don’t know of a relationship between two people where there isn’t some version of a secret, like, ‘This is my world and that’s your world.’”
While KILLERS has no shortage of action and suspense, director Robert Luketic believes the appeal of the film – and the lion’s share of the comedy – lies in the thorny issue facing the couple. “It’s this great comedic situation where Jen is saying, ‘You’ve got a lot of explaining to do’ while they’re running for their lives. And while they’re on this adventure, the audience is wondering, ‘Is this relationship going to last? Can it withstand the lie?’
KILLERS was first conceived as an action thriller in the vein of James Bond, but with an added dose of humor. “I wanted the action and the intrigue, where there are stakes and people can actually die, but I also wanted people to laugh,” says co-screenwriter Bob DeRosa. “When you put people who have real issues into that kind of action, they’re just naturally going to blow off steam, because otherwise the situation’s going to be just way too tragic and scary.”
But while he was supervising the script’s development, producer Scott Aversano realized that the relationship between Spencer and Jen was the freshest element in the story. “I thought, what if you used an action movie as the test for a marriage?” he says. Several rewrites later, KILLERS achieved its appealing mix of relationship comedy and action movie that caught the attention of its two stars.
For Kutcher, the opportunity to play Spencer was a welcome opportunity after the box-office success of films like WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, A LOT LIKE LOVE and the cult hit, DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR? “I haven’t played a character like this before. I’d been looking for opportunities to move into other genres, specifically action, adventure, things like that,” says Kutcher. “This was a marriage of the two, so it made sense for me to make an action film that had a comedic tone.”
Aversano agrees that the role comes at a perfect time for Kutcher. “Many of the movies that people remember him for he’s playing the wacky dude who seems perennially eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old and he is vastly different than that,” he says. “He is more than ready to transition into a role where he has real gravitas, where he is both a physical presence and is struggling with adult issues.” “He’s a genius with comedy,” reports Heigl, “but in this movie he’s also got this beautiful balance with being more serious. He’s trying to protect his relationship and his wife, and you can really feel how important those things are to him.”
Apart from his performance, Kutcher impressed everyone involved with his prowess and commitment as a producer of KILLERS, which is one of several projects he has produced with his partner, Jason Goldberg at Katalyst. Says Luketic, “Ashton is a very astute businessman, as well as a wonderful actor, and it was a real pleasure to see those two personalities work together. He really wanted the movie to be a success and you could see it in how hard he worked to make everything look the way it did. Our movie looks stunning, and that’s due to having great producers.”
Aversano agrees. “He produced the movie with me, and really, I laugh sometimes when I think about the roles that people know him for and what he is capable of. He’s an incredibly capable business man and a very thoughtful producer.”
With Kutcher on board, Katherine Heigl readily committed to the role of Jen Kornfeldt, the woman who turns Spencer’s world on end. Says Heigl of her character, “I love her because she’s a little bit geeky, a little bit nerdy. She’s a computer science kind of techno-gal and she’s a little bit tragic because she’s been in a lot of really bad relationships.”
Best known for her work on ABC’s acclaimed drama, “Grey’s Anatomy,” Heigl has risen to big-screen fame with a series of hit romantic comedies: KNOCKED UP, 27 DRESSES, and THE UGLY TRUTH. “I was really excited about working with Ashton,” she says. “I’d heard so many amazing and great things about him as a person. But I also knew that this was a departure for him and it was a departure for me because I’ve been doing a lot of romantic comedies. I love them and I don’t want to tear myself away from them just yet. So this was a great way for me to get the romantic comedy but with a slightly different spin.”
“You feel a warmth when you watch Katherine on the screen,” says Luketic. “There are very few people who have what she has. Part of Katherine’s charm is her accessibility and vulnerability, and no matter how ridiculous a scene may be, the sense of grounding she brings to it.”
Continue Reading and View the Theatrical Trailer
Killers (2010)
Directed by: Robert Luketic
Starring: Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kuchner, Catherine O’Hara, Tom Selleck, Alex Borstein, Katheryn Winnick, Lisa Ann Walter, Casey Wilson, Martin Mull, Michael Daniel Cassady, Letoya Luckett
Screenplay by: Bob DeRosa, Ted Griffin
Production Design by: Missy Stewart
Cinematography by: Russell Carpenter
Film Editing by: Richard Francis-Bruce, Mary Jo Markey
Costume Design by: Johanna Argan
Set Decoration by: Michel Rollant
Art Direction by: Vladimir Kostovic
Music by: Rolfe Kent
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for Violent action, sexual material, language.
Distributed by: Lionsgate Films
Release Date: June 4, 2010
