ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Good Burger 2 director Phil Traill and writers Kevin Kopelow and Heath Seifert about the long-awaited sequel to the 1997 Nickelodeon movie. The trio spoke about balancing nostalgia with a new story and the film’s wild cameos. Good Burger 2 is now available to stream on Paramount+.
“Dexter Reed is down on his luck after another one of his inventions fails,” the sequel‘s synopsis reads. “Ed welcomes Dex back to Good Burger with open arms and gives him his old job back. With a new crew working at Good Burger, Dex devises a plan to get back on his feet but unfortunately puts the fate of Good Burger at risk once again.”
Tyler Treese: Kenan and Kel have that incredible chemistry. How great was it knowing that your two leads have that built-in chemistry that just can’t be faked? That has to make everything so much easier.
Phil Traill: That, and they’re really nice people, so it was just great. I mean, it was perfect. It was great because we were starting from a great script. They’re professional actors who learn their lines. So you start with a base like that, and then they’re nice when you give them notes, and then they want to add their little spin on everything, and then you don’t say cut, and they keep going in character. It’s all good.
This sequel has been discussed for years. How was crafting the right story for this follow-up? I don’t think anybody really knew the legacy the original Good Burger would have. You have so much to work on and a fanbase that holds it in such high reverence.
Kevin Kopelow: For us, when we finished the first movie, we really didn’t feel like it was over yet. We always felt like there was more of a story to tell and we wanted to see all these characters again. Then we just started to try to get with the times. So you start bringing up the technology as that changes through the years, add it into the story, keep the mega-corporations taking over the little guy, and there you go. It’s a little formula. It’s almost like the sauce! [Laughs].
You update it in a smart way. We get the AI taking over the human element — that’s a really fun observation. The characters are at a very different place in their lives now. Ed is still very much Ed, but Dexter is very much trying to be successful but having a hard time finding his way as an inventor. How was finding the right places where those characters were 26 years later?
Heath Seifert: We really wanted to find something that made sense that was true and consistent to what we set up in the first film. So, as you said, Ed’s only going to evolve so much, but we did want to expand his world. So I think some of the fun of this movie is seeing his home life and meeting his family. So there’s a whole extra dimension there for Kenan’s character. We figured he’s a schemer to a degree, but a well-intentioned person. Somebody who’s had years and years of failed business endeavors or minutely successful business endeavors. We wanted to set up a situation that takes him to this place where he is now, where he has to reconnect with his old friend.
The cameos are hilarious in this one. The original film had some really great ones. You’re able to top it here. The Imagine parody song was so funny. I know a lot of people were fans of the original or friends with the actors, but how was it trying to fit all these great names into the script and have them play little roles where they could pop up and not be a huge focus, but add something to the movie?
Phil Traill: I think that’s exactly the right thing. You said they’re not a huge focus, but they add to the movie because they might just say one line for Disgruntled Customer #3 or something, and then we get Gronk [Robert James Gronkowski] that just comes and wants to do it. But he knew that he was playing in the Good Burger universe, so he wasn’t going to make it The Gronk Show suddenly. He was just there.
That’s the spirit that most people came with, right? Everyone came just to play along and be part of this amazing experience and not to try to take over it for themselves. Yeah. We got cameos from the original film that Laurie Beth and Josh Server and blah, blah, blah. Then we had a whole bunch of new people in. Hopefully you’re watching and, at every stage, you’re like, “Oh my God! Oh, look at that!”
Heath Seifert: There are bits that were written, like the Imagine parody, which we said, “Well, let’s write this celebrity song.” And that’s written in a way where anybody that you might be able to get at any point can end up getting into this movie. Then there’s other stuff like the Mark Cuban scene, which is written specifically for Mark Cuban, right?
Phil Traill: Actually, it wasn’t celebrities, it was investors. Do you remember? Right. And then Mark Cuban reached out. Randomly, his agent phoned me and was like, “Mark desperately wants to be in the movie. His kids love it. How can he be in it?” And there’s a celebrity investor written — he could play that part. It was amazing.
Kevin Kopelow: And then we just added stuff.
Phil Traill: Yeah, it was amazing.
One of the, the things I really loved in this film was meeting Ed’s family. First off, Ed2 is the perfect name for his son, but the whole family was great. How was coming up with the names for the kids?
Kevin Kopelow: You know what? I wish he had more kids, because we had way more names and it was just so great. I mean, one of his kids glows in the dark. Come on.
Phil Traill: Kel’s own kids play two of his kids.
Kevin Kopelow: Yeah, so two of those kids are Kel’s real kids.
Phil Traill: Yeah, the littlest two. Then Lil Rel Howery’s son is one of the other kids. The glow-in-the-dark one
That’s incredible. That’s such a cool touch.
Kevin Kopelow: My favorite name … I think one of them is called like Mustard, and Ketchup, and one’s called No Mayo. He can named his kid No, that’s my favorite.
There’s so many great throwbacks to the original. How was balancing the nostalgia that people have while also telling a new meaningful story?
Heath Seifert: It was really important to us that we satisfied fans of the original. As a fan of other films and seeing sequels that let me down, I wanted to make sure we were pleasing the original audience, but in a way that didn’t alienate a whole new potential generation of fans. So again, we had to have a really good story to hang the comedic bits on.
Then the Easter eggs and the cameos and the little bits that we added in that were maybe references to the original — to us, that was a depth. It’s rewarding if you get the original references, but it’s also, if you don’t, it’s just a funny bit. So it, it’s not distracting in any way.
Lil Rel and Jillian Bell are just so fun as the villains. Can you speak to picking them and their comedic timing? They’re a great foil for leading duo.
Phil Traill: Because they rhymed. [Laughs]. Having Kel, Rel, and Bell! They’re just both really funny, aren’t they? You respect both of them for their comedy. I think if you say their names to people or show their faces to people, they just smile and go, “Oh yeah, they’re fun. They seem like nice people who are very funny as well.”
So they got their villainous nature very well. They kept on saying how much fun it was that they were having to play these baddies. Then you can see them dancing in the outtakes at the end and they were clearly having a good time. [Laughs]. That’s the caliber of actor that we were working with, it was pretty high.
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