Louis Leterrier is living the fanboy dream. After calling the shots on TRANSPORTER 2 and DANNY THE DOG (lamely re-titled UNLEASHED for the U.S. market) for French action stylist Luc Besson, he's firmly established himself in Hollywood as one of several geek-friendly directors who can handle mega-budgeted superhero movies like THE INCREDIBLE HULK. He's currently on the shortlist to direct THE AVENGERS. You'd like to be on the shortlist to direct THE AVENGERS. But that's a long way off. Right now, he's focused on finishing his remake of the beloved CLASH OF THE TITANS. When the film was screened for junket press a little over a week ago, it was supposed to be presented in all its converted 3-D glory. Unfortunately, they were further behind on the conversion process than anticipated, so, rather than force a noticeably unfinished product on the audience, they opted for the 2-D version - which Leterrier was only a day away from completing. Leterrier might be down to the wire on CLASH OF THE TITANS (both versions of the film must be ready for worldwide release this Friday, April 2nd), but he sounded totally relaxed when I spoke with him over the phone last week. The 3-D issue was foremost on my mind when we started talking, so we spent roughly the first half of the interview discussing the rationale for converting the film - and the difficulties inherent in pulling that off on a tight schedule - before getting into why he took on the project, and how he thought he could do justice to/deviate from the Ray Harryhausen-produced original. (For more on the challenges of adapting the Gen X childhood favorite, you should read my interview with screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi.) Here's Louis...

Mr. Beaks: It's amazing to me that you're participating in this press day when the film isn't even finished. They could only show us six minutes of 3-D footage last night.

Louis Leterrier: I actually will finish the film tomorrow. The 3-D footage you saw last night is a good example of how the film will look. But they said it's seventy-five percent done? No. It's, like, fifty percent. Not even. More like forty percent. (Laughs) I was looking at [the footage] and going, "Oh, I hate that." There was some stuff where I was just like, "Ugh!" But they had to show it as proof of good intention, like, "Yes, this is going to be in 3-D! Trust us!" It was a good call for them to show it in 2-D and not 3-D. It would've been a massacre for me. Trust me, Jeremy, I was a skeptic [about 3-D conversion]. I was saying, "Guys, you're going to fuck it up." But they did something that's really amazing. It's magical. I love AVATAR, and think it was an amazing movie, but it's not only about the camera; it's about where you decide to put your interocular convergence. It depends on where you put the eye of the spectator, so that not everything comes out of the screen and it feels like you're pointing the sword at the nose of the audience member. For me, I don't like that. It's very intrusive. It's like, "Let me watch my movie! I don't want pointy things pointing in my direction!" These guys at Prime Focus are very good, and the stuff they're doing is magical.

Beaks: Having seen how the film is coming together in 3-D, if you had it to do over again, would you shoot the film stereoscopic?

Leterrier: I don't know. I was talking to Jon Landau about it, and... I don't know too much about their stereoscopic system. I mean, I've heard horror stories where the camera is linked by an enormous cable and everything. I have a tendency to shoot in real locations; that's what I love. We went to the far ends of the world just to get these images. If we had to bring all of that stuff... you cannot recreate what we got with these [locations] on a studio stage. What I know is that if I do a big spectacle or anything that deserves the 3-D treatment, I will go for it. I love it. It's a new language. I've finally been given the opportunity to do what I've always tried. I'm a 3-D-frustrated director. All of my action, I was always trying to put the camera in the car chase, always moving, always flying over, always trying to induce vertigo and put the audience in the action. That's the opportunity I've now been given, and I'm embracing it. I've never met Cameron, but I'd love to sit down and have him tell me the pluses and minuses. I know they have some issues sometimes with some of the stereoscopic shots. But he's the one who invented the science; I'm just trying to use it.

Beaks: If you know you're shooting in or transferring to 3-D, does that force you to take even greater care with your compositions?

Leterrier: I guess so. It's not like I've been lazy with my compositions. You know what it changes most notably for me? My editing style. You know, it takes the eye twenty-two frames - there's twenty-four frames per second obviously - for the eye and the brain to adapt itself to the interocular, to the depth. So if you go from a close-up to a wide shot to a close-up to a wide shot... that's when you get the headache, and your pilot eye goes "Okay, I'm quitting because I can't understand this stuff." So I would tell my editors, "Guys, take it easy." I've always liked long takes, and I've always done long takes. I like looking at all the action, and not have it be chop-chop-chop and not know where all the characters are. That's the stuff that I think will change the most. And all of these 1980s, MTV-fueled editors will have to start drinking less coffee.

Beaks: (Laughs) So the era ushered in by the Scott brothers is coming to a close.

Leterrier: Exactly. I feel bad for Tony Scott. I think 3-D will be a painful experience for him. (Laughs)

Beaks: Eh, he'll just say, "Fuck it. I'm not doing it."

Leterrier: Exactly.

Beaks: Enough with the 3-D madness. How about the madness of plunging into this film knowing you have a release date to meet, having to get the story right, and having to trust that you're heading in the right direction as you're speeding into production? After THE INCREDIBLE HULK and CLASH OF THE TITANS, do you find this chaos preferable?

Leterrier: No. I don't like it. No one likes it. I actually really didn't like it. But that's the name of the game. And I found that the studio was very helpful. It was a great release date. We always knew it was a great date. They call it "The 300 Date". It's the date where they put their challenging movies, that feel and look different, like 300 and WATCHMEN and us. So I liked the date, and wanted to honor that. But it was tough. I suffered. I had a child on this movie, and she saw my face for the first time last weekend; I think she was like, "Um, who are you?" (Laughs) Actually, I saw her, but just not that much. But I did sacrifice a lot for it.

Beaks: Having a child, rushing the 3-D conversion, and then just finishing the film on time. That's insane.

Leterrier: Yeah.

Beaks: Before you took the project on, did you take all of these potential headaches into account?

Leterrier: Absolutely. But you must be my age, too. I remember talking to Harry about it. I mean, if you were offered this movie, Jeremy... as campy as it is, when we were nine or ten, CLASH OF THE TITANS was one of the best movies ever. I said "No" at first because it was a classic. But then it sort of grew in my head, and I said, "I really want to make a movie like this, and Hollywood may never offer me a movie like this." So I called them back and said, "I'm accepting the challenge" - which meant to not rely on the original one. I love the original, but I didn't want to pay too much homage to it. I wanted to shed a little light on it, but hopefully take it in a different direction so hopefully it could stand on its own. I watched the original movie twice, and then said, "Alright, how do we start it differently so that it becomes a bit more genuine." The thing I never quite connected to in the original was [Perseus's] motivation. He was very passive about everything. I needed him to be fueled with a fire, to come from a very emotional place. Trust me, if you're offered this job, you're not refusing it.

Beaks: So then, in re-watching the original film, did you find yourself looking at those memorable set pieces with the enthusiasm of a little kid and saying, "If I would've shot the Medusa sequence, I would've done it like this!"

Leterrier: It was exactly the opposite. I wasn't saying, "They got it wrong." It was more like, "This exists. Now let me put it on the shelf." I watched it twice, and then I never watched it again. Maybe I'll watch it when our movie comes out, and to see how close or how far we are from it; I mean, I know it pretty well, but not to the extent I know my movie.

(Mild spoiler in this paragraph.)

What I tried to do was re-tell this story, and everything started from that motivation point [for Perseus], that catalyst with the death of his family. In this, everything was quite different. And the fact that he's not told throughout his entire childhood that he's the son of Zeus... that's what made it different. And then I was creating some flagpoles: yes, they have to go to Medusa; yes, they have to see the three witches; yes, they have to kill the Kraken; yes, they have to meet Pegasus along the way. These were the flagpoles I was hitting, but that was it. The rest of it was my - or Hay and Manfredi's retelling - of the myth of Perseus. CLASH OF THE TITANS is a cool title, but we could've called it PERSEUS.

Beaks: That's the great thing for you. Yes, it's CLASH OF THE TITANS, but, at its core, it's Greek mythology.

Leterrier: These are the kinds of movies that Hollywood greenlights, but it was also the chance to re-open the door to Greek mythology. It was like, "Now is the time to do Greek mythology! And with 3-D? It could be extraordinary!" LORD OF THE RINGS was great, but this is like history. It's like fantasy meets history. As a European, mythology is something that's very near and dear to my heart.

Beaks: I understand that there's a shortlist for THE AVENGERS. Have you talked to Marvel about this project?

Leterrier: I am on the shortlist, but I'm at the bottom of the shortlist, I'm sure. (Laughs) I don't know who the other guys are, but I have a great relationship with [Marvel], and I've been very vocal to them and everyone else that I am the one to direct it. I loved my time at Marvel. I loved those guys. They're fantastic. Kevin is such a passionate boss; he gets his hands dirty. It's a universe I want to keep exploring. I was frustrated with [THE INCREDIBLE HULK]. It was like, "That's it? Only one superhero? Can I do more???" We'll see. Time will tell.

Guess we forgot to talk about Bubo. Oops! Louis Leterrier's CLASH OF THE TITANS hits theaters April 2nd. Faithfully submitted, Mr. Beaks