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Were there injuries on the set?
None of our stars got injured. Our first day, a stuntman went through a glass window, and fell and sliced open his wrist here (indicates right wrist). Then, he was running upstairs, and the camera was shooting down, and you see blood spurting up into it. It’ll be on the DVD. It actually hits the camera lens. I was like, “Oh, shit!” This was our first day, and I thought, “We’re so fucked”. That was so minor compared to… the stuff we still had to do.
It seems like there are a lot of pyrotechnics on this film.
That was another thing. We didn’t have a lot of pyrotechnics in the other movies, so I just thought, “Let’s blow some shit up.”
Those are really big explosions.
Well, yeah. If you’re going to do it, you might as well do it. And there’s more big stuff that you didn’t see. I also thought if you’re going to have the Feds come in and fuck up Blade and Whistler’s place, they’ve got to fuck it up in a big, apocalyptic way. Those guys were really good. They had done X-MEN and I, ROBOT. They’re Canadian, and they did a great job. Every time you’d say, “I want it this big”, they’d make it a little bigger. That’s what pyrotechnic guys are like. “I want a ten foot wide fireball”. We’d do it, and it would be a twenty foot wide fireball. But, like, that night, when we blew up that place, it was Halloween night. After it happened… first of all, nobody could hear. It was *so* loud. Clay, who’s Wesley’s stunt double, from one of the concussive blasts, was knocked back about thirty feet into the air. He was wearing padding and stuff, but I thought we were fucked. Ten feet into the air, and lands on his back, and was stunned for a minute. That was one of those things where the pyrotechnic guys went, “Oh, yeah, we decided to make it bigger.”
There’s a gap as I switch tapes.
We hadn’t even gotten to who was going to direct it. I was still writing the script, and that’s when Lynn Harris said, “Why don’t you do it?” And I said, “Okay, why not?”
Did it take much convincing on her part?
No, it was her idea.
Did you want to do it?
I had wanted to do a bigger movie. I had done this little independent movie (ZIG-ZAG), and I had wanted to do a bigger movie, if for no other reason than there were a lot of other movies that I wanted to make. That’s why, frankly, Guillermo did BLADE II, was so he could do HELLBOY. I’m serious. He knew he had to answer for being in movie jail for MIMIC. He knew he had to do a bigger movie, and once you do a bigger movie, you’ve been sort of vetted. So, it was kind of the shortest distance between two points. But, also, it was a franchise that I helped create, so it made sense.
Would you have been more nervous had you not done ZIGZAG?
I don’t know. I mean, ZIGZAG was 2.6 (million) and this was 65 (million), so it was a much bigger movie.
Why are you such a big comic book fan? Why are you such a fan of these kinds of stories?
You know, when I was young, my mom was a single mom, and she was working on her PhD at University of Michigan, so she was working and going to night school. She didn’t have enough money for child care often, so she would park my brother and I in the local comic book store at night called “The Eye of Agamoto”, and she would buy us McDonald’s, and we would sit there for two or three hours while she was in school – this was two or three nights a week – and read comic books. That’s how we got into it. From the time I was six or seven.
But most kids grow out of it. You made a career out of it.
My mom never threw away my comic book collection.
You’re lucky.
Which I recently sold to the drummer of System of a Down.
Why’d you do that?
‘Cause, at this point, I’d rather have them in book form.
You’re not a collector.
Yeah, I’m not really a collector. I had a lot. I had 8,000, or something like that. But he really wanted them, so…
But there’s an enduring appeal, obviously, for those kinds of mythic stories for you as a storyteller.
I think that comic books have… become a new genre. I think comic book films, in the way that a Western is a genre, or a Musical is a genre. I think that they are our versions of Greek Myths. They’re these sort of simplified morality plays. And they’re not all adolescent male power fantasies, as evidenced by GHOST WORLD and things like this. I mean, I don’t *just* want to do comic book stuff, but now it’s hard because I get offered every single one. But BATMAN… it doesn’t get any bigger than that.
Do you think that there will be a point where comic book movies will go away?
I don’t think so. I think they will ebb and flow like any other genre. I think that maybe 2006, 2007… right around the time when the second or third BATMAN film comes out, or the first SUPERMAN film. I think we’ve got a good five more years of a lot of comic book movies coming out being massive hits. And I think it’ll ebb for a while, and then it will come back. I think it’ll be a genre that will stay.
How do you deal with the real hard core comic book fans that don’t like the alterations that filmmakers have to make to tell these stories? The deviations from storylines… you know, we see a lot of that stuff in the talk backs.
Yeah, I know, and some of those you’re like, “Fuck off.” Some of it’s just so ridiculous. But with a character like BLADE, it’s not that big a deal, because Blade doesn’t have such a hard core canon. I don’t think most comic book people were horrified that we made certain changes. It depends on if you’re doing one of the first-tier characters, or Blade, who I would even call a third-tier character. Batman… you have to be much more careful about. Chris and I went to DC, and spent two days with Paul Levitz and the editorial staff of BATMAN, told them what we were proposing, and said, “Is there anything that we’re doing that you think is (wrong)?” I mean, we did stuff in BATMAN that has never been told before, but we didn’t contradict anything.
How bulky is the costume going to be? Is it going to be more tights than leather?
I can’t say. Fans will like it. No nipples. No codpieces.
Can you talk a little about the final design of the Drake monster?
Originally, I was going to go super crazy. Stephen Norrington, in the wake of LEAGUE, was just like, “I’m done with Hollywood!” I’m friends with both Stephen and Guillermo, and they gave me lots of advice as I was gearing up for this film. They both read the script, and I was telling Stephen about some of my ideas for Drake, and he said, “If you want, I’ll do some conceptual art for you.” So, he worked for a month on the film as a conceptual artist. You’ll see his credit in the movie, which was really funny. My original conceit for Drake was so extreme it might’ve been too cartoonish. Originally, what happened, he had sort of the same skeletal structure as a human, but it was as if every bone folded in on itself three times, so every single bone in his body accordioned out, and it became three times as big, but wider and… wings, and stuff like that. We did some initial tests, and Stephen did a lot of work on that, but it looked so weird and bizarre that once we started unfolding the bones, it was just too weird. So, Guillermo said, “Why don’t you use these guys, Spectral Motion.” Some of those people had worked on BLADE II. So, we went with a more traditional design for a creature; it was more humanoid. But Spectral Motion are amazing. If they can keep their company together, and sort of ride the ebbs in between big shows, they’re really great. What I like about Spectral Motion is that they combine prosthetic suits with radio controlled elements. So, the guy who plays the beast is in a prosthetic suit, but there are things moving on him that were remotely radio controlled. He’s got these shoulder spikes that rotate and flip up and flare when he gets angry, and then he’s got these what I call “chest vents”. He’s got another way he can breathe when he gets angry, and these things kind of open and pulsate and bubble with disgusting… and it’s kind of interesting, because all of that’s going on, and it’s clearly a real actor in the suit.
Who’s in the suit?
Brian Steele, who’s, like, *the* guy. Brian’s awesome.
Do you worry about VAN HELSING coming out so close to your film?
No. I don’t know… they’ve got Dracula, but they’ve got the Frankenstein monster, and they’ve got weird creatures. I think there’s room enough for both of them. And ours is “R” rated, and much more…
Hipper?
Well, I won’t say that. Certainly more extreme. I’m not too worried about it.
There’s been talk of drama on the BLADE sets, and that Snipes was difficult. And, in general, if there was drama…
You know, whether it was as writer, producer, or director, I’ve done four movies with Wesley. He was in ZIGZAG as well, doing a small part. Wesley’s an amazing actor. And you know what? There’s drama on every fucking movie. When you’re working that hard, and you’re working so many hours, and when you’re up there for so long, everybody breaks down. It was just your average drama. At any given point during the film, Jessie broke down, or Ryan broke down, or I did. It’s just so hard, but it happens. And, then, when it’s over, everyone goes, “It’s over.”
With Wesley’s martial arts background, did he choreograph the action himself?
He would have ideas, but I came in… with a bunch of storyboards, half of which I threw out the window. My DP is very funny; he’s like, “Oh, fuck the storyboards! Free yourself from the storyboards.” I don’t know why my DP, who shot BLADE II… he hates storyboards. He likes to feel the scene, and then go for it. But I had also created a style book, which was pulled from art and photographs and things like that, which were pulled from magazines. And I also did a palate book, and created those when I was interviewing… when I first met with Wesley, and when I was interviewing the production designers, I said, “Look, this is the basic – not that I’m telling you what to do – but this is the palate that I want. This is the kind of style that I want to spring from, architecturally and whatnot.” I had also edited together sort of my own DVD of the kind of fighting that I wanted. I wanted to do a lot more old school Jackie Chan stuff, like fifteen, eighteen years ago. And I really liked the fighting – I’m not crazy about the movie – but I really liked the fighting in THE TRANSPORTER. And I really like the last fight in BLADE II – the sort of grittier, eye gouging, ugly, messy…
More street.
Yeah, more street. Less presentational, less formal. So, I showed that to Wesley, and said, “I want to go in this direction.” And he was down with that. So, the fighting in this movie… it’s a little more visceral for my money.
Content-wise, considering the success of the last two movies, did New Line give you a little more latitude as to what you could get away with in this film?
Yeah, it’s a little more gruesome. (Laughs.) They were amazing. I told them my idea for the script, I turned in the script, and they greenlit it with no notes. Now, we had done two movies before, and it was the same team. So, it was Lynn, Peter, Wesley and myself. And it was the DP from the second film, as well. I think they kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. DeLuca wasn’t there anymore. I think if DeLuca had been there, he might’ve been more involved, because DeLuca had been involved on BLADE I and BLADE II, and Toby (Emmerich) was making the transition into New Line at the time. They were great. The liked the footage; we didn’t really go over budget, and we were basically on schedule, so they let us do what they wanted.
What is the “Trinity” of the title BLADE: TRINITY referring to?
We went back and forth about whether or not to call it BLADE III or not, and, at first, I was more in line with BLADE III. Then, they came up with the idea of TRINITY, and I was worried about, maybe, the allusions to THE MATRIX. I think had THE MATRIX sequels been really great… (laughs) I’d be more worried. But I think everyone is so bummed, you know, with what happened. But “Trinity” is because it’s the third film, but also because it’s the sort of axis point between Blade and Ryan and Abigail. There ends up being three of them, and, I don’t know, it just seemed kind of cool. I kind of liked the logo treatment that they did for it.
What about Patton? Did you let him improve any dialogue?
One thing that I did, before we started, I’m also friends with Dana Gould, who’s a writer for THE SIMPSONS, and another guy named Eddie Gorodetsky, who wrote for DHARMA AND GREG. They’re all giant comic book fans and horror fans. So, we had a table reading with those guys, and about six of the writers from THE SIMPSONS, which I should’ve taped because that reading in itself was so fucking funny. It would’ve been great on the DVD. They were acting out the script. Patton would play Blade, but do it with an Irish accent. It was so fucked up and funny. To be honest, most of what we talked about at that table read didn’t make it into the movie because it was so ridiculous, but there were maybe five funny lines from that that we decided to put in the movie.
Yeah, I improvised with Patton a little. I did a lot with Parker and Ryan and John Michael Higgins. I got a tiny bit of resistance with casting Parker Posey from New Line, but then, from her first scene, when we sent down the dailies, they loved her.
Now, why on Earth would she want to do a movie like this?
Well, I think I’m going to include part of her audition tape on the DVD, because she came in and kind of strutted in… it was very Parker. I said, and you can hear me on the tape saying, “Why the fuck would you want to do this movie?” She said, “I don’t know. Because I want to be a Ghetto Vampire Chick. I want to be a Trailer Park Vampire Chick.” It’s about five minutes of me saying, “You don’t want to do this movie,” and she’s like, “No, I really do. I really do. I want to do something different.” I said, “Yeah, but you’re just going to make fun of it. You’re not going to take it seriously.” And she said, “No, no, no, I really want to do it.” She called me twice from New York, and said, “I really want to do it. I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll take it seriously.”
She was committed in that scene.
That’s why I showed you that scene, because there’s definitely scenes in the movie where she’s really funny. But that scene, she gets really fucked up. She’s serious in the scene. She’s got this great sex scene with Drake that’s *not* funny. I loved her. She was great.
What’s your favorite BATMAN storyline?
From the comics?
Yeah.
As a kid, I remember liking the Steve Engleheart/Marshall Rogers stories. I like YEAR ONE a lot. I think the best stuff recently is the Jeff Loeb stuff. THE LONG HALLOWEEN. What was the other one after that?
DARK VICTORY?
DARK VICTORY. I think those were really good. And that approach influenced us. Our movie is not YEAR ONE, this or that, or any of those, but that approach did influence us. Chris and I really like Jeff’s stuff. He had a very mature approach to it. It wasn’t revisionist, but it was kind of sober and mature.
You think this Frank Miller influence on Batman is something you’re trying to get away from?
Ours is definitely not Miller. I’m not taking anything away from it, but it’s definitely not Miller. All I can tell you is that DC was extremely happy.
You think they would be after BATMAN AND ROBIN.
Yeah. Paul Levitz basically said that.
The SUPERMAN stuff hasn’t affected you guys at all?
I think it affected us positively. That was such a disaster that they’re approach was, “Let’s get a filmmaker’s filmmaker, and, then, let’s get a writer who has sort of more credibility in his stuff.” The movie that they’re making, and I think they started shooting in Iceland today, is basically my first draft. They said, “Okay, SUPERMAN got all fucked up; let’s let you guys do what you do,” and they did. When we met with them, we said, “Is there anything that you don’t want to see, or that you can’t see?” And they said, “Okay, it’s got to be PG-13.” That wasn’t really difficult. And they said, “It’s got to be romantic,” which we didn’t have a problem with.
And is it called BATMAN: INTIMIDATION GAME?
I can’t say.
What did you think of Bale? Had you met him before?
We were torn between Bale and Jake Gyllenhaal, because we wanted to go in a different direction. But I think Bale at the end… I loved Jake, but Bale just seemed the right way. Knowing the story that we’re telling… it’s hard for everyone else because they don’t know the story that we’re telling, but it ultimately was the right way to go. And Michael Caine… I was just freaking out when we got Michael Caine. And all of the other casting has been… you know, I had a very schizophrenic experience on the project, because I was a professional doing a job crafting, sort of reinventing Batman with Chris, being very aware of how fucked up the previous movies were. And being very conscious of the fact that we didn’t want to let the fans down. But at the same time, I was like a fan going, “Holy shit, I can’t believe they’re going to let us do this.”
Are you going to direct the third BATMAN?
Who knows? We’ve set it up… the way it ends, there’s clearly going to be another one.
Were you a fan at all of Burton’s stuff?
There were parts of the first and second films that I liked, but it was not, taking nothing away from Burton, there’s never been Batman on film or t.v. that would be the Batman that I wanted. Except for the movie that we’re doing. That’s the Batman I want.
What about the Paul Dini stuff?
I think the animated stuff has come closest to capturing it. I love their stuff. I think that’s come the closest.
What about BATMAN: DEAD END?
It was okay. I liked the look. I loved the shot, which is straight from the comic, where his cape is… I mean, our cape does stuff like that. It’s a cape.
New Line wants to get IRON MAN off the ground. Have they talked to you about that?
Oh, yeah. I don’t think, honestly, there’s a single big comic book thing that I haven’t been approached to do in one way or another.
JONAH HEX?
I might consult on IRON MAN, which means read the scripts.
Yeah… if I can’t be Prince circa 1984, I’d like to be David Goyer right fucking now.
Faithfully submitted,
