Chris Landon’s Happy Death Day shook up the Groundhog Day concept when it turned the idea of infinite days into a slasher film starring Jessica Rothe. The Blumhouse horror comedy has become an underdog fan-favorite, with the planned trilogy closer, Happy Death Day To Us, hopefully still in the cards in the future. Landon then took a break from Tree’s time loops to work with spiritual sister film and blast-of-a-body-swap comedy with Kathryn Newton and Vince Vaughn, Freaky. Ironically enough, Kathryn Newton’s latest film, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, is all about time loops too.
Kathryn Newton and Jessica Rothe have so many cool connections already! For Amazon Prime’s sci-fi romantic comedy The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, Newton and Kyle Allen’s characters get to team up in a temporal anomaly to find all the beauty in the little moments in the day they are stuck in. That's way different than Jessica Rothe’s Tree being murdered day in and day out by a killer in a baby face mask, but it's enough of an overlap for the stars to end up connecting about it. Here’s how the three time-loopers are connected in real life, per my interview with the stars:
Kyle Allen: Hashtag Jessica Rothe, Jessica Rothe for life. We did a movie in New Orleans together just before I shot this and I was able to pick her brain about time loops and how to execute them. [She said] just to be really specific about keeping track of where you are in the time loop.Kathryn Newton: Didn’t she say, don’t pick a crazy outfit?Kyle Allen: Yeah, if you have to do something a thousand times be really careful that that thing is something you like doing.
Kyle Allen worked with the Happy Death Day actress on a romance called All My Life just before heading onto set for The Map of Tiny Perfect Things. He got to talk to her about her experience working with the time loop concept, and she had some killer advice. According to Allen, she clued him in on being really intentional about his choices because he’d be doing them again and again... and again.
And, of course, CinemaBlend had to ask about Kathryn Newton’s stance on reprising her role as Millie from Freaky to team up with Jessica Rothe’s Happy Death Day character, especially since rumor has it the two movies take place in the same universe. In her words:
Obviously! I love Jessica Rothe.
Obviously this needs to happen now! I spoke to Jessica Rothe back in December while she was promoting All My Life about her thoughts on merging the two Blumhouse franchises, and she was just as pumped by the idea:
That would be so insane and so much fun. I’m down. Here’s the thing, like anything that Chris [Landon] comes up with or CinemaBlend pitches it just sounds like a fun, wonderful romp. I think one of the things I love so much about the Happy Death Day movies and what was infused into Freaky, even though it was in such a new and inventive way is those worlds are so fun and filled with humor and heart. Both of those movies have so much heart even though they are funny, dark and so twisted and that’s the reason I think they could overlap. And there is that little bit of unexplained magic, sci-fi twistiness, so I can totally see how maybe Tree and Millie figure some shit out together.
Now Kathryn Newton and Jessica Rothe have two more things in common aside from Happy Death Day and Freaky creator Chris Landon as a collaborator: time loops and Kyle Allen. Heck, bring the upcoming West Side Story actor along for the ride somehow too! This little trifecta of movies is a lovely corner of the sci-fi world and we can’t wait to see what could happen next. Until then, check out the delightful coming-of-age story, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things streaming on Amazon Prime now.
