Lone wolves George Clooney and Brad Pitt have reunited in Wolfs and ascended to No. 1 on Apple TV+, at the time of this writing. The two Ocean’s co-stars are back together and showing off their undeniable on-screen chemistry in director Jon Watts’ action comedy. And as a result, Wolfs is currently outperforming standout series Slow Horses and the fan-favorite Ted Lasso to top the streamer’s “most popular” chart to close out the month of September. Check out the full Top 10, courtesy of Apple TV+, below:
While Wolfs is on fire and burning up Apple TV+’s most-popular list, the movie’s director admits that he didn’t really think things through when penning the script. “I wrote the movie,” Watts explains in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. “I could have written it anywhere. I could have written it at any time of year. I chose New York at night.”
Watts, who is arguably best known for helming Tom Holland and Zendaya’s web-slinging misadventures in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home, discussed his decision to craft Wolfs for the icy cold of the Big Apple. Watts continued by saying in the same sit-down:
“I live here, I love New York, and I’ve been shooting Spider-Man movies that are supposed to be in New York in Atlanta for the last seven years. I was ready to finally go to actual Chinatown, and to hit all my favorite spots in New York. I love it here, and I wanted to put that on screen, especially in the winter. New York in the snow is something that you very rarely get to see. When it really snows, it’s a very unique thing.”
Jon Watts Decides to Set Wolfs on One Night
Months before Jon Watts’ latest movie appeared at the 81st Venice Film Festival, George Clooney was already praising his on-screen reunion with Brad Pitt in Wolfs. After all, it had been years since their 2008 characters were instructed to Burn Before Reading, and even longer since they started their criminally cool run together in Ocean’s Eleven (2001). But while those flicks unfolded over the course of time, Watts was emphatic about setting Wolfs against the backdrop of a single night. Watts explained his decision in the same interview with EW:
“I love one-night movies. That’s a great little subgenre. After Hours was a huge inspiration for this movie, and I like just how linear it makes the storytelling. You’re not really jumping ahead in time. We rarely change perspectives. We’re with the guys the whole time. You have to get really strict about continuity and things like that. You have to pick clothes that will work under all circumstances because they’re wearing the same clothes all night. There’s a lot of right-brain puzzles that come up when you set something all in one night, which is fun for me.”
And while Watts crafted Wolfs specifically for Clooney and Pitt, it’s a stroke of creative genius how the filmmaker juxtaposes the fixers they play in the action comedy against the close friends they portray in their run during the Ocean’s series (2001-2007). Watts also told EW during the same sit-down:
“Well, they’re friends in the Oceans movies, this was immediately the opposite of that. They hate each other, so that immediately makes it feel different but also gave them something really fun to play. Because they’re such good friends in real life, it creates this sort of need in the audience where you just want them to be friends. You’re like, can’t you see they’re perfect for each other? [Laughs] It makes people frustrated in a good way.”
Be sure to check out MovieWeb’s review of Wolfs, which justly or unjustly declares that “George Clooney & Brad Pitt reunite for a tired crime thriller throwback.” In-house writer Mark Keizer was particularly harsh on the film and subsequently gave The Odd Couple-esque buddy flick a score of 2.5 out of 5.