Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
Some of the most divisive producers working (and usually making a killing at the box office) are the three-man team behind Platinum Dunes--Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, and filmmaker Michael Bay. Form and Fuller have a fairly hands-on reputation, with one (usually both) of them on set of their productions on a daily basis. They also seem fixated on remaking landmark horror films from the past 35-plus years, including THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, FRIDAY THE 13TH, and THE HITCHER. In 2009, the team released two original works that quite frankly didn't do very well--David Goyer's THE UNBORN, which at least got a national release, and the little-seen HORSEMEN, starring Dennis Quaid and directed by music video legend Jonas Åkerlund.
Platinum Dunes latest re-imagining is of Wes Craven's A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, directed by another noted video director, Samuel Bayer, and starring Jackie Earle Haley, an inspired choice as Freddy Krueger. The Dunes folks seem obsessed with filling in the blanks on the horror they tackle. Ever wonder why the house in AMITYVILLE was haunted? Or how Leatherface got his tie? Well, whether you do or not, you're going to find out. ELM STREET brings us a more detailed look of Freddy's birth, which, granted, is part on the canon, so at least they didn't have to make things up. Although I suspect, the Dunes crew will add a few twists to the Krueger legend that will make some cringe and other say, "That's an interesting take on this material." At the very least, I think the performances will be top notch and the visuals will carry the day in many ways.
In my summer 2009 set visit (Part 1 of my report can be found Here), a group of online journalists had a chance to sit down with Form and Fuller and dive into their process for choosing properties and going about updating classic horror tales. There even comes a point where I think I inadvertently started a fight with them about the idea of backstory and about Freddy's new burn-victim look. My final report will be an interview with Freddy himself, Jackie Earle Haley, but until then, please enjoy Andrew Form and Brad Fuller…
Question: So why Freddy this time?
Brad Fuller: We always loved the character. We wanted it for a long time. We pursued it for a really long time. Our company, for the most part, has been making these remakes, and we find ourselves always attracted to a very charismatic antagonist--charismatic either in their weaponry or their personality. I feel like Freddy is the jewel in the horror crown, really. Personally, growing up, I loved those movies, and Michael loved those movies, and Drew loved those movies.
Question: It seems like this one’s more real.
Andrew Form: More real, you mean in tone?
Q: Yeah.
AF: You mean versus FRIDAY THE 13TH?
Q: Even the make-up and the [without the] one-liners.
BF: We went for that on CHAINSAW also to try and keep that as real as possible. Even when [director] Marcus [Nispel, who also directed FRIDAY THE 13TH] came on to our first movie, the CHAINSAW movie, he always said, “I want to make it like a snuff film, make it feel real, kind of like the original.” I think you’re right in what you’re saying in what we are trying to do with NIGHTMARE. Sam came on and a lot of things we had heard early were, “How can you make NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET without Robert England?” That was the first thing. We hear everything out there on the Internet. Obviously, we had to change the make-up. We had to change everything. We wanted Freddy to look like a real burn victim, and it started there.
AF: Also I think that if we’re going to try and restart this franchise, or at least bring our take to the franchise, it had to be different from what the other one was. It felt like the first NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET was kind of a scary, straight-ahead horror movie, and then as they went on, they became more funny. In an effort to differentiate ours from what it had become, we wanted ours to feel much more real. Is that right?
BF: Fantastic. [laughs]
Capone: One of the trademarks of your films--and I don’t think it’s any secret that you guys get some flack for it sometimes--is the backstory idea--where do these people come from as children or how did we get to the point where we maybe met them in the original films? Why do you guys think that’s necessary, and what do you like about that aspect of these stories?
BF: I think when we’re making a movie, one of the first questions we ask ourselves is who’s our audience? For the most part we felt, whether we’re right or wrong, that our audience is really two groups of people. They’re the people who are going to go see the movie because they are fans of the original, and then there are groups of people who’ve heard of the title, but have never seen the films and who are not familiar with the legacy necessarily. When you have to balance those two groups and attempt to satiate both, which I don’t know that we’re ever successful in doing it, you can’t turn your back on either of those two groups. So we try to figure out a way to get the backstory in there so that everyone’s up to speed by about 10-15 minutes into the movie. Everyone has the same amount of backstory knowledge going forward. Does that make sense?
Capone: I understand the plan, yeah.
BF: So what’s your problem with it?
Capone: I’m just asking what do you like about it, and why do you think that’s a necessary element?
AF: I think what he wants to know is why do we think it's necessarily to tell a backstory for everyone of these monsters
BF: I’ll tell you a story. On FRIDAY THE 13TH, when we tested the movie, there was no backstory really in it necessarily. The first time we tested the movie, it didn’t have that in it. We all felt that the movie would benefit story wise from having that there.
AF: The audience told us they wanted it. They needed it after seeing the film.
Q: Is that a product of this generation, though? You look at the original NIGHTMARE, and I mean, it starts. It’s Freddy, and you kind of find out about him along with Nancy. I think there’s something to be said about that type of horror movie. Why do we need to know everything?
BF: I don’t know that you need to know everything, but we feel in telling the story that in order to understand how scary he is, you have to understand some of the background. It’s a creative choice. We didn’t necessarily go into the back story on the first CHAINSAW.
AF: We didn’t think we needed it there.
BF: No we didn’t, and we didn’t front load the NIGHTMARE either with backstory. On this movie, you go on a journey with Nancy also. We don’t open the movie with "Here’s everything you need to know about Freddy." It’s throughout the film you learn about him.
Q: How did you come to enlist Sam Bayer as a first-time feature director?
BF: Every one of our features we’ve gone with the first. That’s the mandate of our company: to give commercial and video directors the opportunity to direct their first film. When that’s the talent pool that you’re looking at for your films, Sam Bayer’s name always comes to the top of the list cause he is one of the best that there is and has been for a long time. Us going to Sam Bayer for this movie is nothing new. We’ve gone to him on a lot of other movies, and he’s passed on all of them. This was the first time that Michael actually convinced him to say yes. Drew and I went to his office and begged him, and he said no, and then Michael said, “Would you get involved?” Really, this was the first time in a long time…I don’t remember that with Andrew Douglas [director of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR] and with Marcus on the first movie [THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE], I don't remember how much Michael got involved…
AF: Well, those guys wanted those movies badly.
BF: I guess that’s true, but Michael really wanted Sam to do this movie, and I think that when Sam realized that, that made a big difference to him.
Q: Why did Michael really want him?
BF: Sam is a really talented director, and visually, he’s as good as it gets. This movie, because so much of it is about dreaming and creating a visual landscape where people are going to get scared, he feels like he is the perfect guy to do it.
Q: I’m sure you guys have heard the stories that Wes Craven says he hasn’t been approached about the project, and he was slightly offended by that. Do you have any reaction to that? Had you thought about actually contacting him for his blessing?
BF: As some of you know, we were not involved in the movie when New Line started writing its script, so they had already hired a writer. By the time we came onto the movie, the Wes Craven component of the dealings was already being decided, and we weren’t privy to any of that. Are we unhappy that he is not blessing the movie? Yeah. I’m a huge Wes Craven fan. I’m sitting here today because of the films that he made.
AF: Literally.
BF: Yes, but more than that, we got into this business because we love those movies, so is that an upsetting thing? Well, yeah, but I think there had to be some dealings that happened before we got involved in order to extricate the material so that they could bring on other producers. New Line didn’t include us in any of that, so we don’t really have a say in that. In this movie more than any movie we’ve ever made, we are truly producers-for-hire that they brought on. Like I said, they started developing the script. They had a draft of the script before we came on. We’ve never had that situation before. We’re guns-for-hire on this one. That doesn’t that mean we don’t feel as passionately about it as we do. We pursued it for two years to get it. To New Line, this is one of their most valuable assets. You all know it's "The House that Freddy Built," so they’re very protective about everything on this movie.
Q: How much has the script changed from when you guys came on board? Is it still pretty close to that?
BF: No.
Q: So it’s changed quite a bit?
BF: Yes. When you say “you guys,” I want to be very clear that we have partners in New Line, so we’re all in it together. But yes, the script that was distributed online is a far cry from what it is now. It’s very different.
Q: I’m wondering how prevalent the dreamscapes and the nightmares will be. Will it be very Felliniesque or like David Goyer’s UNFORN. Will you have a lot of that otherworldly aspect to it, because I know that you do like to ground things in reality so much, but with Freddy Krueger, it’s about the dreams?
AF: I think that’s what drew us to the project in the first place. To us, it’s one of the best concepts for a horror film we’ve heard. You fall asleep, you die. All you have to do is stay awake. All the stuff you can do with your characters while they’re trying to stay awake and while they’re dosing off, and how you can blend the lines of reality and dream, and the audience never knowing until it’s too late if you’re in a nightmare or not.
That’s what we talked with Sam about early is doing those transitions and how important those transitions are which are done very well in the original NIGHTMARE when you’re not sure if someone fell asleep. Did they fall asleep? No, they’re still awake. Tricking the audience--it’s a dream, no it’s not a dream, and then taking them all the way through until you’re truly in the nightmare, and it’s way too late, and he’s right there. Then bringing Sam in to elevate those nightmares with his visual style to a level that we never thought they could get to and they have. So yes, the nightmares are completely elevated in the movie.
Q: How early was Jackie on the radar, and can you talk about the process of finding your Freddy?
BF: Jackie was, in our offices, that was the guy, from the get-go. That was it for us. Let’s dispense with the Robert England part of it first, and then I’ll get to the Jackie part. With Robert England, that was the decision that we made that we were going to try and start a new version of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET story. We felt in doing that, it was important to have someone else play Freddy Krueger because if we didn’t, it would just feel like a sequel, and we didn’t want that to happen. Then you’re confronted with these huge shoes that you need to fill to play Freddy Krueger, and you know from the get-go half of your audience, maybe more, is gonna outright dismiss the choice cause they feel that Robert England should be the guy. We hear that loud and clear every day.
What we tried to do to ameliorate some of that was to get the best actor that we could find, someone who can be creepy and who is an amazing actor because unlike our other movies, our bad guy needs to act. You can’t just chase someone. You have to act. When you look at the landscape, and at the time, we were hearing such amazing things about WATCHMEN, and we loved LITTLE CHILDREN, and it all kind of fell into place at least conceptually very quickly. Drew, Sam, and I went out for drinks with Jackie early on in the process, and he was gun-ho and we really wanted him, and it just becomes a process when you’re casting that roll. You have all of New Line, all of Warner Brothers, and everyone, and it just took a little while to get everyone on the exact same page, not just with him as the actor, but also he’s…I haven’t seen his deal necessarily or I’m claiming that I haven't [laughs], but there has to be an element to a second and third film. But it takes a long time to negotiate that deal, but the short answer is he was the only guy who really worked for us. The fact that we have a guy who was nominated for an Academy Award playing Freddy Krueger is very exciting to us. It feels like it elevates our movie.
In addition, the actors that we got to play all the other rolls, that list changed once we got Jackie, so there are even some actors potentially on set today who passed on the movie, and then when they saw that Jackie was involved, they changed their mind. It felt like getting him also elevated all the other rolls also.
Capone: What is your slate for the next year?
BF: Our company is a tiny company. It’s Michael, Drew and myself, and we have an assistant. There’s no development person, and as some of you know, Drew and I are on set every day or at least we try to be on set. Drew has been on set for every movie, every frame shot, and I think I’ve been there for about 90 percent of it. There’s not an ongoing development process at Platinum Dunes where we’re getting new material and developing it while we’re shooting a movie. It kind of starts when we start a movie and then when this movie’s over, we lift our heads up and we say, “What are we going to do now?”
Now having said that, we’re very excited about the prospect of making another FRIDAY THE 13TH. We had a great time making that movie. It was a blast. We loved those kids and being outside. So many of our movies are contained--you're dismembering bodies in a basement--and finally we’re outside running around, and that was a blast, and we’d love to go back and do another one of those. We’re getting a script in within the next couple of weeks, and hopefully if that script meets everyone’s expectations that would be our next movie. Beyond that, there are projects that we’re getting in that are kind of being developed and you know all of them. There’s nothing that you don’t know about, but frankly, beyond FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART 2, I don’t have any plans. Do you?
AF: I don’t.
BF: Okay.
[Since this interview, Platinum Dunes has announced its intention to reteam with Samuel Bayer on the original thriller FIASCO HEIGHTS, due in 2011. Plus a remake THE MONSTER SQUAD have appeared on their "In Development" docket as well.]
Q: There have been some comments saying that THE BIRDS isn’t happening. Do you think that’s still a viable project for you guys?
BF: THE BIRDS is a really hard one for us, because, well, because it's Alfred Hitchcock to begin with. We have been developing it for years, and we have not been able to crack that story. We certainly have not given up on that one. We are right now looking for another writer, and we’ll see. It doesn’t feel like it’s on the horizon for us.
Q: Have you been offered any remakes that you guys didn’t want to touch?
AF: There have been things that we have been offered that we didn’t want to touch.
Q: And they are…
BF: We have our list. I don’t want to say what they were because other people took them, and I don’t want to make them feel bad. For us, we like the sexy titles, the really sexy titles. There are obscure titles that are great movies to remake, but that’s not something that we like to do necessarily. On some level, THE HITCHER was not a mainstream horror title, and it feels like after NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, I’m not sure what’s out there, what’s left for us. If we are able to make another FRIDAY THE 13TH, after that, Michael, Drew, and I will sit in a room and lock ourselves in that room and figure out what we’re going to be doing after that and whether or not our company continues remaking horror movies, or if we start focusing much more on original material, or if we go into a totally different genre all together.
Q: Who are some of the directors you’d like to work with since you do make your decisions based on their commercials and music videos mostly? Who’s talented out there right now that would be great for your movies?
BF: It’s hard for us because we’re not in L.A. looking at reels all day long, and I feel a little bit out of touch with it. The other issue is that commercials and videos is a really bad business right now. They’re not making rock videos like they were, and the budgets on commercials are much smaller, so it feels like we’re going to have to start looking in different places for our directors because that whole world has kind of come to a close it feels like. Our company is definitely at a crossroads in that a lot of things we did in the past are either not available to us or don’t function in the world right now.
One of our hopes is to work with directors who have made a couple of films and have that experience as well. I don’t think Drew and I want to keep on making movies with first-time directors. It’s a very exciting thing to do, but on some level when you work with a really experienced director, you can learn a lot from them, and I think that would be a good thing for our company to do.
Q: That would be exciting.
BF: I’d like to work with Michael Bay. I like Michael Bay.
[Laughter]
Q: Can you talk about the difference between shooting this way and actually rooting for the characters as opposed to rooting for them to die?
BF: Yes. I think that…do you want to say anything about that?
AF: No.
[Laughter]
BF: I know you have that answer. First of all, I want you to know that we didn’t make the movie. The only character we wanted to die in Friday the 13th was the character of Trent. Right? That was the only one we really wanted to die. There were some that were kind of annoying, but Trent you wanted to die in the end. You put him on that tow truck at the end.
AF: We all wanted the slut to die.
BF: Oh yeah and the slut I guess, but we weren’t making the movie thinking, “You hate these kids, and you’re going to want them to die.” We didn’t look at it that way. We looked at it that people want to see Jason kill. What’s the best way that we can have him killing these kids, and interspersed within the kills and around the kills, how can we give a nod to the audience that we get that the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies were about sex, drugs and rock and roll, and we’re going to make a movie that’s about sex, drugs and rock and roll?
In this film, it’s not about sex, drugs and rock and roll, and we cast this film totally different. These actors, we’re hoping, look more like what real kids look like today. We also get the criticism that our casts look like Ambercrombie and Fitch ads. I don’t think that’s what this cast looks like. I think that these are interesting-looking people. I think that they are really talented actors, and there’s a deeper level of acting necessary in this movie than say a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie. Hopefully, that comes across. That’s how we cast the movie. I think for this movie to work, you do have to root for these kids to live. You’re not rooting for them to die.
Q: This one’s a success. We’ve heard that people are signed on for sequels. How soon can that happen?
BF: I don’t know. It’s just up to script for us. We’re limited by the amount of hours it takes for us to make an actual film. If we could do FRIDAY THE 13TH next and that comes out in…
AF: You never want to have too much time between movies. I think we put too much time between the CHAINSAW movies, and I think we learned from that, and FRIDAY THE 13TH, if that works out, the next Friday the 13 being in the summer, August 13, and that all works out, for us that would be an amazing time between February 13 and then August 13, a year and a half [Obviously, that isn't happening]. I don’t think you want to go much more than that between movies, theatrically.
BF: I can tell you that on the set of the first CHAINSAW, we were talking about what the next CHAINSAW would be. That was a part of our daily exchange. We knew what we wanted to tell. There’s none of that talk on this film, and there really wasn’t that talk on FRIDAY THE 13TH. It feels like, let’s just make this one good and see what else there is for us out there. Having said that, I think Drew and I would be very happy for the next couple of years making a FRIDAY THE 13TH and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET every year. That would be fun. We’d be very happy if that happened.
Q: Would there be a line there where you wouldn't want to go, like the SAW movies? If they keep succeeding, would you see yourselves ending them at some point as opposed to SAW VII or VIII?
BF: The limitation is that these movies require a lot of nights. It’s very hard to stay up at night. We’re getting older and I don’t know physically [if we can do it]. At some point, we’re going to have to do a movie where you’re shooting during the day and you have a normal life. It just depends on the story. It all comes down to what the story is. Although we get shit all day long online, we really do care a lot about these movies. Certainly we’re running a business. If we wanted to make money, we could be doing other movies with bigger budgets where we get paid a hell of a lot more than staying to work at this point. We love doing it, and if the story required us to end it, then we would end it. If you can’t come up with any more good ideas…I don’t think we’re going to ever take Jason where he goes into space. That’s not something that we ever really want to do, so it would just depend on what kind of stories writers are willing to come up with.
Q: Would you rematch up Freddy and Jason?
BF: Yeah, we’d love to do that, but I don’t feel like that’s even something that’s close to being imminent. You can’t do that for years. You have to establish Jason as his own character. We have to establish our own Freddy. That’s 5-6 years away, if ever.
Q: There were some fan gripes about the kills in FRIDAY.
BF: Some? Only some? [everybody laughs]
Q: I hate to bring it up. You guys have addressed it in interviews. Have you guys thought about those when you were doing these kill scenes?
BF: Every time you get your ass handed to you online, it hurts. It does. We read it. We pay attention to it, but on some level it’s very easy to Monday-morning quarterback these films. I can tell you that when we did the kills on FRIDAY THE 13TH, we didn’t think, “That kill’s okay.” We strived to do the best that we could within the confines of the budget and the date and all the resources that were available to us. This movie is the same thing. We’re just doing the best possible thing that we can and trying to be as creative as we can. I guarantee that the audiences will rip us apart no matter what, so we’re just putting our heads down and working as hard as we can.
Q: You talk about getting ripped up a lot, but some people have good things to say.
BF: Yes, but we ignore those.
[Laughter]
Q: What have you found that people do like about your films, and what encourages you to keep going?
AF: Nothing.
BF: Nothing.
[Laughter]
BF: You don’t get in the position we’re in because you love the accolades, honestly. It’s great and we’re lucky that we continue to make movies, and that in itself is good enough praise for us. The fact that the studios are giving us these incredible titles and letting us run with them…beyond that we’re in the business of pleasing people.
AF: We sit in the movie theaters on opening night, and we watch people watch the movie. We watch people jump out of their seats. We’ll use FRIDAY THE 13TH as an example. We watched that in many theaters around Los Angeles that opening weekend. We watched people laugh and scream. We heard them come out of the theaters when the movie was over and that they had a great time. That makes you feel really good.
Q: There’s a scene online that definitely people who don’t like things will post, and people who do have something positive to say, we’ll never hear from them.
AF: No, you really don’t. It’s amazing. The comments always skew very negatively.
BF: By the way, I’m not sitting here and being a victim about it. Michael’s having a horrible time right now on TRANSFORMERS 2, and we read other comments. We love horror movies, and we read what other people write about it. This is something that is part of the system now. This is not something that is specific to Platinum Dunes. The only movie that got away without any negative press was DRAG ME TO HELL. Every other horror movie gets it, and it’s part of what we do. We’re just not immune to the pain. We pay attention.
Q: At the risk of shooting us all here in the foot, do you think there’s too much attention paid to that stuff? There’s the theory out there that the fans want to see the war in TERMINATOR SALVATION. So TERMINATOR SALVATION came out, and it didn’t happen. Everyone wanted to see all these mutants, so they stuffed them into the latest X-MEN, and it turned out to be a mess. Is it too much? Can it be a bad thing to pay too much attention to the criticisms out there?
BF: As a producer, I think at the end of the day, I heard this from Jerry Bruckheimer and Drew worked for Jerry for four years, so he heard it a lot more than I did, but when I was talking to Jerry about what you were saying, Jerry says, “At the end of the day, I go with my gut. I just go with my gut.” When you talk to Michael, who spent a lot of time with Jerry, Michael just says, “I go with my gut.” These guys who are the guys that we look up to and who have done what we want to do, I think that Drew and I have this great way of working where we talk back and forth and we go with our gut.
Whatever the fans tell you what they want, they’re still not going to be satisfied. There’s going to be a contingency that’s not going to be satisfied. You can’t play to that exclusively cause it feels like they’re insatiable now. We try to do our research, and when I say “research,” we watch all the films, try to discern what works for us in it, and try to bring that to it. Inevitably, some of it works and some of it doesn’t. I can’t speak for what other producers do. The internet has really changed the game, and you have to decide as a producer what you’re roll is going to be with that group of people.
Q: Are we going to hear the Freddy song?
BF: Yeah. In the movie? Yeah, of course. Do you want to hear it?
Q: Yeah.
BF: Do you want me to sing it for you? [laughs] We definitely have it, and that’s an important part of it. When we’re doing these remakes, we talk about scenes or things or images that are important to us, and we figure out how we can integrate as many of them as we can.
Q: We heard about this five-minute sizzle reel that you guys put together. Is there any chance we can see it?
AF: I don’t know if it’s on set. Do we even have it? I don’t even know what we’d show it on.
BF: That’s up to the director. We have no problem showing it to you guys.
AF: We’d love to show it you guys.
AF: We think it’s really impressive, and we’re happy with it. If you can convince Sam, it’s his call. It’s not our call.
BF: You know what? Don’t go up to him. We’ll go up to him. [Laughter] Maybe we can bring a TV over.
Let me ask you something, what do you think of Jackie’s make-up? What do you think the fans are going to say about it, because I believe that half the people will think it’s really cool, and half the people will…I think it’s going to be split down the middle.
Q: I think it’s spectacular. The realistic feel of it and Jackie behind it. I mean, for all the bad that was said about WATCHMEN, I think Jackie’s Rorschach was the one constant that was all positive. Having that clout coming into this, the make-up is phenomenal. It really looks great.
BF: Is there anyone here who didn’t like it? [He looks right at me and points] You’ve got something up your sleeve.
Capone: What? I think it looks incredibly realistic. It’s beautifully rendered, and it looks exactly how someone in his shape would look. The thing I always liked about Krueger in the other films is that it almost looked like there was something demonic coming through the burn--the nose was a little pointed and the eyes bugged out a little more, the scarring looked deeper. I haven’t seen him act with is make-up, we haven’t seen too much of that, so I’m kind of curious to see how he plays with it on.
BF: Hopefully, we can show you the sizzle reel so you can see him in action.
Capone: I would say that I’m definitely undecided, because I need to see him act.
BF: That's fair.
Q: Honestly, when I first saw him initially, I was like, “That’s Freddy?” and then seeing him up close and seeing him in that scene pulling off the [Quentin zipper] mask…
BF: Which was horrible. That’s not going to be like that. It will be amazing in the movie. We were shooting different elements of it and the whole thing.
Q: For someone who grew up with Freddy over my bed since like age eight, it’s one of those things where it’s like, oh my God, they completely changed Freddy, but I’m digging the fact that he looks more like someone who has been burned. I like that it’s more realistic, but I definitely know that people are going to have an issue with that.
BF: Of course. You're thinking he might be more sympathetic?
Q: You’re like, “Aw, that poor guy.”
BF: That’s one thing you won’t feel.
[Laughter]
Q: Jackie’s a nice guy in talking with him.
BF: I hear what you’re saying.
Q: The thing is, you’re not going to make every body happy. Obviously, you’re going for the realistic thing, and you got to go with that. There are enough morons out there that are going to crap on anything.
Q: Do you have a big plan to reveal the look?
BF: It’s up to Warner Brothers. I mean, however they want to do it. Listen, they did such a great job on FRIDAY THE 13TH in our book that whatever you guys want. Just tell us what to do.
Q: It’s impressive that the images haven’t surfaced somehow yet.
BF: Don’t say that. You won’t hear me say that. We have been very diligent, or at least we’ve tried to be very diligent, about anything coming out there. We’ll see if we can get all the way through the movie.
Q: I think it’s smart that you’re allowing Jackie to bring the demon of Freddy out rather than having…like you were saying, I like the original Freddy, too, but it had that pointed face. Having Jackie do that for you, and he’s such a great actor, I think that he’s going to be the deciding factor.
BF: And he does do that. You’ll see him where he just walks up slowly and then when he lets it out, it comes out.
AF: The hard part is that when you get an actor like Jackie Earle Haley to play this role, which every time I say that I still can’t believe that that’s the case, he’s bringing something to it. I think that although he would never say this, I think he is adamant that this Freddy Krueger is his. Robert did his, and this is his. One of the things that we talked about, because we’re all aware of the stigma of remakes, but the fact is, THE MUMMY has been remade a million times and THE WOLFMAN has been remade, and I think that these characters we’re working with now, I don’t think we’re the last guys to remake these movies. I think these are characters that the reason people want to pay to see them is because they’re iconic, and audiences respond to them, and we’re just the guys lucky enough to have them at this time in history.
I’m sure 10-15 years down the line, there’s going to be, maybe my son, some else is going to be remaking these films, and they’re going to make their own Freddy Krueger and their own Jason and Leatherface and bringing their own thing to it. You know, over time, Boris Karloff was identified with those roles, but over time other people have to, you know what I mean? You have to bring your own thing to it, and hopefully not having that nose or being demonic that way, Jackie brings something else to it that audiences will respond to. And we believe that’s the case.
Q: Can you talk about casting Rooney as Nancy?
BF: Sure. I think the worst possible thing we could have done for Nancy was to get a girl who was big boobs and blonde hair. We would have been annihilated for doing that. I think one of the things that made the character of Nancy so great in the original films is that she feels like a real person. It’s amazing how difficult it is to find that in Hollywood now a days.
Going into the movie, we limited ourselves because we didn’t want anyone who’s older than the characters that they’re playing. We think it reads ridiculous when you have 25 or 30 year olds playing eighteen year olds, so we really wanted to get kids this age group. When you eliminate people who are over 20, 21 to play that role, you limit [yourself]. You can’t tell me the names of a lot of actresses who have careers who are 20 years old. There are a couple child actresses who kind of tried to make it work, but for the most part, you have to take the shot. And Rooney was someone who, to us, embodied that kind of natural, real-girl thing that Nancy had in the original. Some of the actors we torture and bring them back and bring them back and bring them back. Although she was the last one cast, she only came in once. Everyone saw her audition on videotape, and that was basically it.
It was very important to us to put a fresh face in there. There was that early rumor that Lindsay Lohan was going to be playing that role, and that was ridiculous. It’s not a slight to Lindsay Lohan, but how do you put Lindsay Lohan in a Freddy Krueger movie? It’s a Freddy Krueger movie, you know what I mean? Freddy Krueger is the star of the film, and everyone else has to be able to have the chops to keep up with him, but that’s the star of the movie. For all of the actors, we tried to find kids who had to chops to be really good actors.
Q: Do you have an original script in development too?
BF: We do. We have an original script with Scott Kosar [THE SACRIFICE] who we’ve been successful with two other times. We love Scott. He came up with an idea for us that was something we were very excited about, and he has promised me that we would read it by the time we wrapped this movie, so I’m very excited about that. THE UNBORN was another movie that we did that was an original, so we’re not excluding original material. The original material that we’re getting doesn’t grab us the same way that the notion of a remake has in the past. Going forward, I’m very hopeful that we do a lot of original stuff. I think we need to. Thanks guys.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcool.com
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