Here's how Jo Koy scored the 'Easter Sunday' deal with Steven Spielberg's company

Who would have thought that Jo Koy would have a film produced by a company owned by Steven Spielberg? Definitely not Jo Koy himself!

In a press conference for the Philippine premiere of “Easter Sunday,” Jo Koy said that he walked into the Spielberg-owned Amblin Entertainment office for a meeting without any big expectations.

He thought of something that would go like this: “I pitch me and they pitch them and then you walk away. And then nothing happens because that's what happens in Hollywood, right?”

However, what really happened was beyond his expectations.

“What happened is I walked into Amblin and it was like, ‘Oh, Steven loves you. Steven thinks you're so funny. Steven this and Steven that,'" Jo Koy said. "And you know, you hear that, you're like, ‘Are you talking about Steven from accounting? That can’t be Steven Spielberg, like there's no way.'"

“And they were like, ‘no, it's Mr. Spielberg. And you know, he wants to do a movie.’ And [then] we pitched this movie," he added.

Jo Koy said that part of the deal was not just to have the film get a theatrical release not just in the US, but in the Philippines, too.

“This movie is a Dreamworks movie [another production company owned by Spielberg.] Here's another thing. I don't think everyone knows this, but he only made two movies [this year]. He made ‘Jurassic World’ and ‘Easter Sunday,’” Jo Koy said.

The Fil-Am stand-up comic said that having a Hollywood movie like this is such a huge deal for Filipinos and representation, especially when the release happened at the same time as other big films.

“Just really understand what [Steven] did for us. Like, you know what I mean? He took this story and he was like, he's gonna make it happen. And he really made it happen and he put me in there with everybody,” he said.

“I don't know if you guys saw who I was released with, but it was with ‘Thor’ and ‘Minions’ and ‘Maverick’ and ‘Jurassic World,’ [and then] ‘Easter Sunday.’ Like it was crazy—that's how much love he had for this project. Let that sink in, you guys. This is the first time an all-Asian cast with a Filipino lead is produced by a major studio," he added.

"Easter Sunday" follows Jo Koy as Joe Valencia, a struggling actor, comedian, and single father who attends a reunion with his dysfunctional Filipino-American family on Easter Sunday.

Distributed by Universal Pictures, the film opens in Philippine cinemas on August 31. —JCB, GMA News