Five years is a long time in the world of professional wrestling. In Hollywood, it can go by in an expensive flash. Just ask John Hennigan (aka John Morrison/Johnny Mundo), whose five-year journey to get his film Boone: The Bounty Hunter made has finally reached the celebration point.
“The original idea came in 2012, and the concept was that I wanted a reason to do parkour in a movie that wasn’t running away,” said Hennigan of the film, which also stars Spencer Grammer, Osric Chau and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. “And then I was like, let’s get a bounty hunter who does parkour to chase people. Then, maybe it’s a TV bounty hunter, so he’s got a reason to do all the flashy stuff. And everything spun off of that.
“We had four writers on this project, but I came up with the concept in 2012 and have been working on it since then. From starting to write it, to revising it, to shooting a trailer, to trying to find money to not finding money (laughs), to then finding a way to get the movie made, which is me paying for it personally.”
Whatever it took to get it done, Hennigan was willing to do it. The result is a throwback to films that not only delivered the oohs and aahs when it came to the action sequences and fight scenes, but that had a sense of humor as well.
“I wanted to do something that would encapsulate my sweet spot, so to speak, which is action, comedy and looking for a reluctant hero / lovable loser type, but set in a world where the stakes become real,” he said. “The tone of Boone walks the line that I’ve been able to find most enjoyable when I’m watching movies and I think it’s what I’m best at.”
It’s also not a lark for the former WWE star and current Lucha Underground wrestler Hennigan. Even though he’s happy that his current schedule allows him to expand his film career, he’s busier than ever on the indie wrestling scene as well.
“This is my dual life going forward, and having the opportunity to do both is so important to me,” he said. “I’ve done maybe 15 movies and eight or ten TV shows. I love the acting stuff, but there’s no feeling like professional wrestling. The instant reaction you get from an audience in front of a live crowd is different than on film and television. And the adrenaline you get from walking out into an arena full of people is a feeling that I don’t want to give up, ever, if I don’t have to. I’d like to continue wrestling for as long as I can, There’s nothing else like it. I loved it when I was a kid, and I still love it now.”
And now with the Lucha Underground shooting schedule allowing him to get an “offseason,” he can split his time, something that would be impossible if he was still a member of the WWE roster.
“That was something that appealed to me a great deal about Lucha Underground,” he said. “One, it’s in L.A., which I love. Two, there’s an offseason, which I needed to shoot and complete Boone. I couldn’t have done this movie on the road schedule of a WWE superstar. Plus, I learned a lot about storytelling and acting from being a part of Lucha Underground. The way we shoot the backstage vignettes is just like how you would shoot a TV show or a movie. You shoot coverage, closes, wide shots and it’s why it looks cinematic.”
Yet as the 37-year-old points out, everything — whether in the ring or on the big screen — all comes down to story, and he admits that he owes plenty to his former boss for that.
“I was into filmmaking before I started wrestling, so the idea of this movie was to tell a story, and you can’t just have action for no reason,” Hennigan said. “Vince McMahon explains wrestling matches and promos as stories. They’re all stories, and his version of what a good match is is a hot start, you take the audience for a ride and then you have a big finish and leave the audience talking. And the finish doesn’t always have to be an amazing, uplifting finish, because stories don’t all have happy endings.
“Taking that to heart and using what I learned from my career in professional wrestling is that you need to have some part of this movie that people watching can identify with. Which is why there has to be a story. This character Boone the Bounty Hunter has to be someone that’s relatable to the audience or they’re not gonna care about it. And taking that into consideration was super important. Otherwise you have a movie with no heart, and there are too many of those around these days.”
Hennigan’s film has heart. But just by hearing the tone of his voice change, it’s clear that his heart is still between the ropes, and always will be.
“Independent wrestling is on fire right now, and it’s a really good time to be a pro wrestler,” he said. “The amount of respect and understanding that wrestling fans have for wrestling as an art is at an all-time high and I feel lucky to be in the business right now. And I plan on wrestling until the wheels fall off.”
Boone: The Bounty Hunter hits VOD formats on May 9th, followed by an exclusive Walmart DVD release on June 6th.
