As detailed in last week’s Newtown Bee, Edmond Town Hall Theater is readying for a red carpet US film premiere of writer-director Matt Berman’s latest project hot off the screening room at Cannes Film Festival.

Attendees to the June 8 event will not only be among the first to see The Wedding Pact 2 — The Baby Pact, starring Haylie Duff, they will also get to meet Berman along with cast members Duff, Quinton Aaron (The Blind Side), Heather McComb (Ray Donovan), Chase Masterson (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Kelly Perine (Knight Squad), Scott Michael Campbell (Shameless), and Executive Producer Michael Gouloff.

For the modest donation of just $12, attendees can be part of the lights, camera, and action while tickets remain. Reserve them now at edmondtownhall.org. All proceeds from the screening will go to maintaining and improving Edmond Town Hall.

A few days before he departed for France, Berman Zoomed into The Newtown Bee to talk more about the film, which The Bee was able to screen just before the Cannes premiere.

The Newtown Bee: Would anyone going to the Newtown premiere of The Baby Pact be at a disadvantage if they didn’t also see The Wedding Pact?

Matt Berman: The first one is more of a comedy told from my lead actor’s point of view, not from [the Haylie Duff’s character] Haylie’s point of view. It’s his journey to find her.

The Bee: So did all the actors who surround Haylie near the end of the second film have larger roles in The Wedding Pact?

Berman: All except for the sister. All the rest were characters from the first movie, but unfortunately we couldn’t get Angie Everhart, but we sort of wanted to bring the rest in for their little cameos. Besides those little cameos, we brought back the best friend Kelly Perine, and the ex-boyfriend Scott Michael Campbell. However, the guy who plays the delivery room doctor, and the secretary for the lawyer played by Connor Trinneer both had different parts in the first movie. He played a veterinarian, and she played a love interest of the Perine character. So in this movie, I cast them as the brother and sister of the characters in the first film.

The Bee: Tell me a little about using Fort Wayne, Indiana as the location for The Baby Pact.

Berman: I loved shooting in Fort Wayne. That courthouse was an unbelievable location. After we had to jump through a lot of hoops, the city really rolled out the red carpet for us. That courthouse actually has a group who takes care of it, to be sure it remains well preserved. They were kind of skeptical but the courtroom that we used was run by a judge by the name of Wendy Davis. So, one of the investors who came to see a previous film of mine called Manipulated, approached me wondering what was coming up next. And when I told him about The Wedding Pact sequel, he said what about shooting it in Fort Wayne.

The Bee: So it was about accommodating one of the backers?

Berman: Well, I was absolutely fine with using Fort Wayne, but we worked to keep things as economical as possible. He really wanted to be the guy who brought film making to Fort Wayne. So we shot about 60% of it in Los Angeles, but then we shot about six days in Fort Wayne and we brought the whole cast out. So it got the backer everything he wanted, but we didn’t have to shoot for 20 days on location there, so it saved him quite a bit of money. For example, the interior shots for the flower shop were shot in Orange County [Calif.], but the exteriors were shot in Fort Wayne.

The Bee: Another cool aspect of The Baby Pact is the music and how you use it to really help manipulate the mood.

Berman: The movie kind of starts out on a depressing note at the cemetery, so what we did with the music was use it to flip the script. For me, it was “We’re done with that and now we’re on to a different mood — the tone is going to be different.” And since I grew up a big ‘80’s rocker, I was a fan of the Bullet Boys, so I reached out to the lead singer, told him what I was doing, and we used that song for that extreme sad to happy transition.

I’m also a huge Firehouse fan, so during one of the montage scenes, we use a song from Firehouse. And the “Switchblade Butterfly” ballad is also from the Bullet Boys. And obviously I couldn’t afford to approach Sony for a mainstream Firehouse song, so we used one from their only independent record back in 2000. So I literally reached out to their fan site, and got connected, and they played ball.

The Bee: I guess you get asked a lot about the judge and the puppet?

Berman: That was Kevin Farley, Chris Farley’s brother.

The Bee: So it wasn’t a puppeteer?

Berman: No. As a matter of fact, when we talked about it he said he wasn’t going to try to do anything except talk to it, which was great. I didn’t really want to make the puppet a focus of the movie. It’s only in there for about seven minutes.

We talked about whether we were going to try and build in a reason why he had it and after talking with Connor [Trinneer] about it, we decided it would remain one of the great mysteries of life. Nobody quite knows why. And let me just say I got a lot of pushback on it, but I won everybody over when they saw it wasn’t an integral part of the movie.

The Bee: So once The Baby Pact gets into release and the promotional junket wraps up, what’s next for you?

Berman: I have a few irons in the fire. I’m in the middle of writing a Christmas movie — another one I want to do with Haylie, kind of based on the Richard Dreyfus film Always, and we went to Hallmark to talk about doing a remake of Only The Lonely, and I’ve written a synopsis for The Wedding Pact 3 — The Final Pact. But I’d want a studio to come in and pick that up because we’ll need a decent-sized budget. If we get a Wedding Pact 3 it will mean that The Baby Pact did really well.

For those attending the red carpet event and screening June 8, doors open at 5 pm. A small popcorn is included with the $12 per person donation, as a way for the crew at Edmond Town Hall to say thanks for the support.

For more information about the film, visit www.WP2TheBabyPact.com and/or follow @theweddingpact2 on Instagram.