Released on April 20, 2022, “The Secret of the Lost City” is the very first feature film by the Nee brothers. For the occasion, they surrounded themselves with a four-star cast including Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe and Brad Pitt in a very small role. Find out how the latter ended up on the set of this adventure comedy.
The Secret of the Lost City : first film of the Nee brothers
Writers and directors of the series band of robbersreleased on Netflix in March 2019, Aaron Nee and Adam Nee get into the deep end with The Secret of the Lost Citytheir first feature film.
Released on April 20, 2022, The Secret of the Lost City recount the adventures of Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock), a brilliant writer famous for her romance and adventure novels in exotic settings. The latter is kidnapped by an eccentric billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) who wants to find the location of the Lost City, a place that comes up regularly in Loretta’s novels.
Alan (Channing Tatum), a somewhat simple-minded model with perfect plastic, who serves as the face of Dash, the hero of Loretta’s novels, decides to go to her rescue. To do this, he will ask for help from his spirituality coach embodied by Brad Pitt.
Despite an XXL cast, The Secret of the Lost City did not meet with enormous success. The film received mostly negative reviews and reported only $190 million in box office receipts. At the same time, it must be said that the feature film is a fairly classic action comedy. The film does, however, offer a few high-flying comedic moments like the hilarious Brad Pitt cameo.
How did Brad Pitt join the cast?
against all odds, Brad Pitt owes his presence in the casting of The Secret of the Lost City thanks to her hairdresser. It was Sandra Bullock who made this astonishing revelation during the Austin Film Festival in March 2022 (relayed by The Hollywood Reporter). Indeed, the two stars have the same hairdresser, named Janine Thompson :
Brad Pitt and I have the same hairdresser. She told him to do my movie and told me to do his movie. I swear it’s the truth. In addition, we had met a ton of people for this role. He was, say, the eighth choice
In fact, the Nee brothers wanted Brad Pitt as Jack Trainer from the very beginning. But they didn’t dare ask him. Adam Lee notably stated that:
We didn’t go to him, because it seemed ridiculous to us.
Finally, thanks to Janine Thompson, Brad Pitt found himself in the casting of The Secret of the Lost City. A godsend for the two young directors. In exchange, as she clarified in her statement, Sandra Bullock appeared (mostly vocally) in the movie Bullet Train, in a surprise role. She effectively embodies the boss of the character of Brad Pitt in the work of David Leitch.
