Best and Last Really Will Be the End

Director Jeff Tremaine says “Jackass: Best and Last” is the first time he truly knows the franchise is finished—pushed by Johnny Knoxville’s long-term injuries, including a traumatic brain injury after “Jackass Forever.” Tremaine also reflects on the series’ s

When Jeff Tremaine walked into the “Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast” as a guest, he didn’t talk like someone gearing up for another round. He talked like someone finally putting the last page of a book on the table.

Tremaine knows people will point out that “Jackass: Best and Last” is not the first time Johnny Knoxville and crew have publicly said this would be the final “Jackass” movie. He even agrees with the history of the phrase. “Every movie we’ve made has been the last one in our mind,” Tremaine said. But then he added the part that lands differently: “this is the first time I really know it’s done.”.

He links that certainty to Knoxville’s body not cooperating the way it once did. In “Jackass Forever,” Knoxville was drilled by a bull and sent out on a stretcher. The cameras captured him coming out of the hospital with a broken wrist and in good spirits. but later it was revealed the long-term damage was more severe.

Tremaine said Knoxville “got a traumatic brain injury on that. and it became apparent we can’t hit him in the head anymore.” The team can still involve plenty of chaos—Tremaine says. “We can kick him in the dick and punch his body”—but he drew a clear line around the risk: “it’s risky to get him another concussion.”.

That medical reality shapes what “Jackass: Best and Last” is, too. The film “digs into the franchise’s archives” and includes behind-the-scenes footage from what happened ahead of the bull hit that semi-retired Knoxville. Tremaine points to details viewers may not have seen before. including the fact that Knoxville had done a previous take using a smaller bull—one that didn’t produce the dramatic fall or the laugh that would be needed for the final cut.

“It sucks because he broke two ribs on that first hit; that bull hit him hard,” Tremaine said. He described how they kept hitting the same problem filmmakers always face with violence disguised as comedy: the injury can be too gnarly to ignore. but the result still has to look like it belongs on screen. “The worst-case scenario to me is always something is gnarlier than it looks, and that was it,” he said. “It was a gnarly hit that didn’t look dramatic enough to make the movie.”.

There’s a quiet tension underneath the production choices—one Tremaine captures through the moment he and Knoxville watch playback on an iPad. In the film, Tremaine and Knoxville are seen looking at footage of the first bull hit, with Knoxville asking whether they need to do another take.

Tremaine recalled what that question meant in real time. “You’re looking at two guys who both know we don’t have it,” he said. “He needed me to tell him, ‘We have to do it again,’ and I’m reluctant to say that because I’m not the one standing out there putting my life on the line.”

He then circled back to the strange logic “Jackass” has always run on: failure. Tremaine said. “The funny thing about ‘Jackass’ is if you set up a motorcycle jump and he makes the jump. well. they have to do it again. It has to fail. It’s designed to fail. The failure is what we’re after.” But he also couldn’t escape the question that sits under every stunt when the person doing it can’t take the same hits anymore: “But how can we make that spectacular without killing him.”.

Tremaine, who said he’s turning 60 this year, offered one more reason his “last” doesn’t sound like marketing. “I just don’t want to keep doing it forever,” he said. He also finds it almost unbelievable that they’ve lasted at all. “It’s crazy that we’re here talking about ‘Jackass. ’” Tremaine said. comparing it to the TV show’s early days—when. in his mind. it looked like it would “burn bright and fast.” He called survival through 26 years “ridiculous.”.

There has been speculation that the franchise could continue without the original core crew. fueled by the fact that “Jackass Forever” added new and younger supporting cast members in 2022. Tremaine shut that idea down. “We could get new people to come in, and there are gnarly people out there, for sure,” he said. But he added that it would still require the same kind of partner dynamic to make it work. and he doesn’t have a replacement for himself or for the chemistry. “But I would need to find a new gnarly me, too,” he said. “‘Jackass’ is the guys. It feels like a bigger idea, but really it’s magic because of the guys in it. It would be hard for me to just find that new magic.”.

That’s the emotional undertow of what viewers will see in “Best and Last. ” including the final moment Tremaine chose to close out the last film. The last shot is a behind-the-scenes image of Tremaine and Knoxville in a motel room after a day of filming “Jackass: The Movie. ” with both reflecting on how “chaotic” that day’s shoot became. In the clip. Knoxville smiles and says he loved it. while Tremaine looks clearly shaken—something he said is rarely seen. even though he’s often known for pushing the envelope as the “merry prankster.”.

Tremaine tied that motel moment to another real fear he’s carried from the past. “That was the night he had just flipped the golf cart [in 2002 ‘Jackass: The Movie’]. and I thought he died. ” he said. Tremaine described the scene from his angle. saying. “From my angle. that golf cart swallowed him up and broke his neck.” He said he even thought Knoxville “might even have been decapitated. ” explaining that the golf cart blocked his view of what happened. “It was bad, and then he popped up. I was shook the whole night.”.

When he explained why that clip became the final shot. Tremaine made it sound less like an editorial decision and more like a discovery. “It’s so funny because I had no recollection of a camera being on,” he said. He described how one of the producers found it while fishing through footage. and Tremaine said he immediately felt the significance: “I really thought. ‘Man. that sums up so much of Johnny and I’s relationship.’”.

Tremaine’s “done” isn’t just about ending a franchise. It’s about acknowledging what the body can’t repeat, what the crew can’t fake, and what the chaos cost along the way.

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