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Two things to know about Hank and Mike -- about two Easter Bunnies who hit rock bottom when they get fired.
One, creators Thomas Michael and Paolo Mancini are big fans of Bad Santa, the consummate transgressive movie about another holiday icon; and two, they really, really did come up with their idea first.
"We love Bad Santa. We watch it every year, it's a tradition," says Mancini.
"But the one thing that made us go 'Uh-oh,' was we saw Billy Bob Thornton's character's name was 'Hank.' We were like, that's kinda close. But at the end of the day, it was a different story. That was about a lonely alcoholic who just happened to dress like Santa and commit robberies. And ours was ..."
Lonely alcoholics who just happened to be Easter Bunnies, we offer mischievously.
"Yeah!" Mancini says with a laugh. "That's the difference!"
In fact, Michael and Mancini, friends since their childhoods in Aylmer, Que. at age 12, came up with their scuzzy bunny characters more than a decade ago for sketches in their series Y B Normal? -- a show they'd shepherded in their teens via Ottawa community cable (where it filmed alongside the Tom Green show) on to The Comedy Network.
"Then we married Drew Barrymore, got testicular cancer, you know the rest," Michael says.
Something about the two characters in bunny costumes, and their disgruntled mantra "F-----' kids and their f------' chocolate!" made them a keeper for the comedy duo. They made a short film about them, and a "trailer" for a feature that became the Hank and Mike that opens locally this weekend. "We produced it well and that became kind of our calling card to get the film made. Everybody who saw the trailer went, 'We get it' because it had the bunny suits, it had the look, it had the attitude, and they were like, 'Okay, now we see it.'
"Telefilm, shockingly, absolutely loved it. And people like Joe Mantegna (who plays the bunnies' boss Pan) signed on early partly because of it (Hank and Mike producer Nicholas Taborrok produced Mantegna's directorial debut Lakeboat)."
Another Hollywood name, Chris Klein of American Pie fame, signed on to play corporate axeman Conrad Hubriss, whose downsizing leads to the boys' dismissal. "It's surprising for people," Michael says, "because they're used to seeing him in that American Pie role over and over again. He's a bright astute guy, very sharp."
In a reverse from the usual Canadian movie release pattern, Hank and Mike has played in L.A., and for an extended run in the Czech Republic before coming home in time for Easter (it's being released on video April 7).
"It played for over three months in 10 screens in Prague with Czech subtitles," Michael says. "They like their dark movies over there. I got to see the film with a Czech audience, they were laughing huge. I think they got the arthouse aspects of the film, even though they don't know what Easter Bunnies are."
"We're not really sure why they responded so strongly," Mancini adds, "but so be it."
On the strength of Hank and Mike's relative success, Michael and Mancini have written (and Michael is producing) Running Mates, "about two best friends who run for mayor in the same small town," which they hope to start filming by fall. Meanwhile, Michael has filmed a TV series pilot for National Lampoon based on his character from Greg & Gentillon, an earlier feature the duo wrote and starred in about two standup comics who hit rock bottom.
As for the bunny suits, Michael says, "We're going to retire them for a while. We joke about doing a sequel in 10 years where they're both cops."