Demonetize cast and crew Q&A

Demonetize started in an edit bay. Before he directed it, Alex Watson worked as a video editor for some of the biggest families on YouTube, including the Paul brothers and the Dobre Brothers, whose mansions sit next to each other and whose videos carry titles like "AHH! MY BROTHER'S POSSESSED!" in all caps. From behind the camera he watched them argue over takes ("Yo bro, you gotta be more hyped") and started to wonder what would happen if they were ever in a real Conjuring situation. He brought the idea to his comedy partner Janine Hogan, and they wrote it together.

Asked whether the influencer characters were based on real people, the stage said yes, without naming everyone. Cherdleys played a 2019-era Jake Paul type and shaved his mustache for it, which the cast had plenty to say about. The out-of-work TV ghost hunter at the center of the film was first pitched as a Guy Fieri type before it became someone desperate to rebuild his career.

Lexi Collins talked about Tara, the influencer who never stops filming. Alex explained that Tara was written to go all the way, and that Jane's possession was meant to mirror her sliding back into influencer mode. Giving Tara a child, and an income she cannot afford to lose, was how they made the audience root for someone at her worst. Lexi on where Tara ends up: more grounded than she was before.

Matty Cardarople's advice on comedy was to play the truth of the moment and let the laughs come. He and Sean Carrigan go back to the stand-up circuit, and a mutual friend in the audience had been telling them for ten years to make a movie together. The first cut ran about three and a half hours because the improv was that good, so there is a blooper reel. Alex also talked about putting music in early, a habit from his editing days. And one cast member brought real ghost hunting gear to set, which went off every time Juliano Hodges walked into the room.