‘Drop’ Director Christopher Landon On Crafting An Entire Restaurant For His Latest Genre Film
Christopher Landon has been having a pretty rad couple of years, from writing and directing Netflix’s We Have A Ghost to writing the latest slasher hit, Heart Eyes. Now, he’s directed the hit high-concept thriller, Drop, all about a woman being harrassed via an Air Drop-like service as an anonymous stalker wants her to kill her date. Sure, the concept sounds ridiculous, but between Landon’s direction and a smart script from writers Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach, Drop is one of the most exciting and entertaining films of 2025.
With the film out now for digital rental, we spoke with Landon about crafting an entire restaurant for the film, paying homage to Chicago, and casting their incredible Matt.
Dread Central: Congratulations on Drop. How does it feel to have it almost out in the world and have people see it?
Christopher Landon: It’s a combination of just nerve-wracking, but excited.
DC: I love an action movie with a specific story and ridiculous concept, but amazing execution. So I wanted to hear about where you came in during the process and what about the idea excited you as a director?
CL: The producers brought a first draft to me. They just felt like I was well-suited for the material. I read the script, and I was immediately taken by the concept. It felt like a classic Hitchcock movie with a modern spin. There was a certain kind of 90s, slightly pulpy vibe to it all that I also loved. I love a woman in peril, especially a strong one. So for me it was just about how we build a movie that is just ridiculously entertaining, and it’s still a single location, high-concept thriller.
DC: I’m glad you brought up the restaurant! I wanted to hear what the work was like to construct Palette. Did you guys build it from the ground up? How did that work?
CL: We designed and built the restaurant from the ground up. It was a huge undertaking.
DC: That’s nuts.
CL: It was very nuts. We built a very, very, very large restaurant on a sound stage. We built it a good 20, 25 feet off the ground because we needed to have a certain amount of height to pull off everything that happens in the back end of the movie. Also, the set was so big and it took up so much space on the sound stage that they also had to build this enormous tunnel underneath it so that gear could go from one side of the restaurant to the other. It was a feat of engineering. It was really, really incredible.
Our production designer, Susie Cullen, and I worked really hard on figuring out what we wanted this space to look like. I had pictured the sort of curving tunnel to give it a dramatic entrance. She came up with the idea of gold bars everywhere to make it feel like a gilded cage. I mean, when you’re there and inside of it and all the extras are there, it was like a fully operational restaurant. We had a real chef who created a real menu. You had all the actual printed menus on all the tables, and the actors were eating our food from our menu. So it was an actual restaurant. It was crazy.
DC: Oh my God. Palette pop-up.
CL: I wish they had done that. It would’ve been so cool.
DC: I also love how Chicago Drop is. Are you from Chicago? What is
CL: No, I’m not from Chicago. I’ve been to Chicago twice. Once in the winter. That was a mistake. No, I love Chicago. It’s a really cool town. The writers picked Chicago, they have a history with the city. The challenge here was that we shot the movie in Dublin, and Dublin does not look like Chicago. There are no high rises in Dublin, Ireland. The tallest building there, I think, is like 15 stories.
There were a lot of logistical challenges that we had to figure out, but I didn’t want to change the setting of the movie. The problem with, I mean, I don’t want to say the problem with Hollywood, but I miss being able to shoot movies in the actual places that they’re set in. Nobody does it anymore. I remember back in the day, if you wrote a movie in San Francisco, you shot that movie in San Francisco. So it’s definitely a bit of a challenge, but we pulled it off, and we did a big plate shoot in Chicago. So, everything you see in the exterior shots is actually Chicago.
DC: I have to say, Jeffrey Self as their server, Matt? He steals the show for me. I wanted to hear about how you found him. What a great character.
CL: He’s amazing. It’s so funny, when we were auditioning for the role, I saw a lot of people who made the character feel so annoying somehow. Jeffrey was the first person who came in and made all these really smart and specific choices that made him lovable in such a funny, awkward way. And he also just captured that character, the essence of the character, because he’s a guy we’ve all met. We’ve all had that waiter before. He did a self-tape, I watched it, and I just immediately called our casting director, Terry Taylor, and I was like, “Well, that’s done. That’s it. He’s perfect.”
DC: Did he improv anything?
CL: Oh hell yeah. That’s the best thing about him. The last time we see him in Drop, and I don’t want to spoil anything, but he said something outrageous, and he did a runner. He did so many different one-liners that when I was in the edit, it was so hard to pick the best one. They were all funny, and he would just do little flourishes and things. I remember I had a sweatshirt in my lap one day while we were filming, and I had to stuff the sleeve of the sweatshirt into my mouth so I wouldn’t laugh because he’s that funny.
DC: Did you have a favorite menu item that they made for Palette?
CL: I was a big fan of the steak, of course. It was delicious. It was truly delicious. And I remember, Brandon [Sklenar] ate a lot of it. It was funny because he would even take some home when we’d wrap. He’d go to the chef and be like, “Yo, can I take some of those steaks home?”
DC: No waste on set!
CL: No waste on set! So yeah, he could put it away. But yeah, it was quite delicious. And some of the desserts were pretty tasty.
DC: Oh, I can’t even imagine.
CL: They do this really cool thing when they do a show and tell on every movie. So, props and art department will set up a few card tables, and you walk around and you’re like, “This looks good, this looks good.”
For Drop, they did a show and tell where they put up a black curtain and made a beautiful space, and created a fake restaurant. And they even brought in a pianist who played the piano while we walked around looking at all the potential props and things in the movie. It was so mind-blowing. I have a video of it. It’s crazy. It shows you the level of talent and commitment that we had on this movie.
DC: That’s got to be so fulfilling as a director to see how many people are really pouring themselves into your movie.
CL: Oh, it’s so amazing.
Drop is out now in theaters and available on digital.
Categorized:Interviews
