Misfits pretend to be a family in 'We're the Millers'

MANILA, Philippines - What do you get when a drug dealer, a stripper, a runaway and a virgin go on a marijuana run to Mexico?  In addition to an RV stuffed to the gills with pot, an angry drug lord, a vicious tarantula, a pornographic game of Pictionary and an impromptu sing-along, you get the Millers…if anyone asks.

From New Line Cinema comes the action comedy “We’re the Millers,” starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis.

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber says, “It's a really clever take on the tried-and-true family road trip comedy—a wild ride that kind of keeps you guessing a bit which is what immediately appealed to me about the story.”

The filmmaker liked the rationale that unites this group of outsiders.  “A white male in his mid-30s traveling alone across the border in a Hyundai is going to get searched, nine times out of 10,” he reasons.  “But a giant RV, with your basic all-American family inside on the July 4th holiday weekend—nobody’s going to be the wiser, right?”

It sounds like a great plan that turns out to be a not-so-great plan at all…and not just because of all the laws they’re breaking and the crazed drug kingpins hot on their heels.

“David Clark is a small-time drug dealer who peddles his wares out of a backpack, and is being sent on a mission to retrieve this huge amount of pot,” says producer Chris Bender.  “His solution as to how to accomplish that forces him to live out his worst nightmare: to be stuck in a confined space with a bunch of people he doesn’t really like, even if he’s the one who convinced them to come along in the first place as his fake wife and kids.”

Twisting the arms of his neighbors, cynical stripper Rose (Aniston) and wannabe customer Kenny (Will Poulter), as well as streetwise teen Casey (Emma Roberts), David (Sudeikis) devises a foolproof plan. One fake wife, two pretend kids and a huge, shiny RV later, the “Millers” are headed south of the border for a Fourth of July weekend that is sure to end with a bang.

The idea for “We’re The Millers” was actually born at the border.  Writer Steve Faber remembers, “I used to take ponderous drives down to Mexico, just to clear my head, and at the border, I'd see the same guy getting busted: hair down to his ass, driving a VW bus, drug-sniffing dogs tearing at him.  I thought, ‘Why not clean up?  Age yourself, cut your hair, even rent a motorhome and smuggle the weed over the border, if that's your intent?’  Not that I approve.”

Writer Bob Fisher made similar observations, noting, “Meanwhile, motorhomes filled with vacationing families sailed through without a search.  That brought about the idea for a movie about a small-time pot dealer who rents a motorhome and hires a fake family to help him get a pile of weed across the border.”

Screenwriting team Sean Anders and John Morris was keen to flesh out the concept even further.  “We were drawn to the idea of four broken, lonely people who inadvertently become a family.  Watching them fight it, kicking and screaming, while deep down longing for it seemed like the perfect bedrock for comedy."

“What the writers did in creating the foursome that make up the Millers, and the terrific characters that surround them on this fun and frenetic adventure, I thought was pretty delicious,” Thurber smiles.

New Line Cinema’s “We’re The Millers” opens across the Philippines this September and is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.