Producers Steve Franks and Chris Henze preview the third movie in the franchise, 'Psych 3: This Is Gus,' which drops Nov. 18.
Shawn and Gus are back with their old antics in the franchise's latest movie, Psych 3: This Is Gus.
Dropping Nov. 18 on Peacock, the third film installment follows Gus (Dulé Hill) as he prepares for his shotgun wedding to Selene (Jazmyn Simon) before the birth of baby Guster. But before he can even think about saying "I do," he has some unfinished business to attend to after learning, at the end of the last movie, that Selene is still married. Of course, this means Gus and BFF Shawn (James Roday Rodriguez) take matters into their own hands as they embark on a whirlwind trip to track down Selene's estranged husband and get to the bottom of the truth.
In ET's exclusive first look at the upcoming movie, the title a cheeky play on NBC's This Is Us (because why not), Shawn and Gus hit the road to find Selena's former beau, but first, Gus has to make a very important wedding-related call to none other than Tears for Fears singer Curt Smith.
Hilariously, Smith's ringtone for Gus is, well, rather appropriate: "Warning! Guster calling! Warning! Guster calling!"
"I haven't decided yet Guster," Smith says when he picks up the call, knowing full well why Gus is reaching out. But Gus isn't buying it, telling the British singer he has definitely made a decision in regard to his wedding, aka "the most special day of [his] young life."
"You're firmly ensconced in midlife and if you don't mind me saying, you're acting a bit like a 'groomzilla,'" Smith calls out, telling Gus that his 11 phone calls the night before and an unsuccessful attempt at accessing his doorbell camera isn't going to change his mind about playing the wedding. Plus, Smith reveals he's on the shortlist to become a member of Andrew Ridgeley's newly formed Wham!, meaning a potential scheduling conflict.
"What? Ridgeley's putting Wham! back together? Is he allowed to do that, like legally?" Shawn asks, suddenly interested in the conversation.
"Of course he is. He co-wrote 'Club Tropicana' for Christ's sakes," Smith argues, as if that'd justify everything. But Shawn and Gus aren't so keen on the idea that a new Wham! is even possible. As Gus put it, "Seems like a legal minefield."
But Smith shares that it's not Wham! but Wam. Seriously. "He's taking the 'h' and the exclamation point out of Wham! It's a totally different band name. Tastefully understated, no punctuation of all!"
Gus, however, continues to drill home the fact that his wedding -- still up in the air -- is "a guaranteed gig," unlike Wam. And he quickly moves on to the most important question regarding the matter: "Have you learned 'Thong Song' yet?" While Smith is still wavering on committing to playing at the ceremony, Gus proposes one last bone in an attempt to sweeten the deal. Watch the clip above to see what happens next.
Psych creator Steve Franks previewed the upcoming movie and explained the evolution of Shawn and Gus' central friendship, even as they gradually step into adulthood.
"The great thing about this relationship between these two guys is that Gus has fearlessly moved forward into the next stage of his life, as he's supposed to. And Shawn is reluctantly dragged behind because without Gus, who knows if he finds any of this stuff. And Shawn, in the last two movies, got married. Done. He's an adult, fine, check. What he realizes is, and it's sort of the theme that runs through all these characters, is once you reach adulthood and get to where you're supposedly supposed to be, then what? How do you evolve into the next stage of your life?" Franks told ET. "For Shawn, it's a little harder because, 'Well, I don't know if I can follow Gus to the next step. Where does that leave me? Am I out of the picture?'"
"It leads to some really typical Psych hijinks. But it also leads to some emotional reckoning and some serious silliness that we've taken license to go as far as we ever have. It's great and it's fun. I don't think we'd be able to do this within the series, but within a movie, all of these character arcs really become fun to write," he continued, describing them as "funny, deep [and] emotional." "I think there's more emotion in this movie than anything we've ever done. And there's also more crazy silliness than we've ever done. We're able to counterbalance these two ends by having real-life trajectories going on."
Executive producer Chris Henze echoed Franks' sentiments, sharing that the duo's relationship works because they are two halves of a whole.
"Shawn knows in his heart that he should be a little bit more like Gus. He should have a game plan and he should have investments and he should have a savings account and he should probably be married at this point and be in a stable relationship, all those things. But the funny thing is that Gus knows he should probably be a little more whimsical and he really enjoys it when he gets sucked into these things. So he knows he should probably be a little bit more like Shawn," Henze explained. "So evolving them is always fun because there's the push and the pull. One of them usually always wants to be there and the other one fights it, but realizes that it's all going to be OK."
"It's that evolution that when Steve started talking about what he wanted this movie to be and where he wanted these characters to go, that was it. The caper, like in the series, doesn't always matter. We want to have something that makes sense. We want to have something that's fun. We want to be in a world where it's wish fulfillment and you could be running through a brewery and it's interesting, but it's really about where these characters are going and where the other is following and how it affects their relationship. And that's what we wanted to make sure stayed intact."
Psych 3: This Is Gus drops Thursday, Nov. 18 on Peacock. For more, watch below.
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