Based on the graphic novels by Hyung Min-woo, Scott Stewart's PRIEST is a big, post-apocalyptic, action/horror/sci-fi/western hybrid starring Paul Bettany as a battle-weary veteran of the Vampire Wars who's forced out of retirement when his niece is kidnapped by the savage creatures he spent years murdering in order to preserve civilization. Sound convoluted? Just remove the multi-genre window dressing and focus on the western elements. Yep, it's THE SEARCHERS with vampires. Though Stewart and his cast (Bettany, Karl Urban, Maggie Q, Cam Gigandet and Stephen Moyer) didn't come down to Comic Con last week to whip the Hall H faithful into a John Ford frenzy, it's the one idea that's kept me interested in the film since I visited the set last December. We've seen countless genre mash-ups over the years, but it isn't often that a modern studio filmmaker stresses narrative and theme over flashy design elements. Obviously, there are lots of cool weapons and monsters and vehicles in PRIEST, but Stewart seems to understand that this is all a waste of creative energy if you haven't crafted a story worth telling. Hopefully, by looking to one of the greatest films ever made, Stewart and screenwriter Cory Goodman will be able to hook us emotionally rather than simply overwhelm us with a non-stop barrage of eye candy. When I last spoke with Stewart, the studio had yet to announce that PRIEST would be converted to 3-D. Thankfully, they made the decision early enough in the post-production process that this won't be a shoddy rush-job like CLASH OF THE TITANS and THE LAST AIRBENDER. And while I'm still not sold on post-conversion (something I discuss with Stewart in the below interview), I love that they'll kick off the film with an animated prologue from the great Genndy Tartakovsky. Due to my constantly-shifting schedule at Comic Con, I was forced to leave Hall H before the PRIEST footage was shown. But I did get to chat briefly with Stewart and Bettany earlier in the day. They're both terrific guys. Hopefully, I'll be able to share my set visit report with you soon. First up is Stewart...

Mr. Beaks: We're still embargoed on our set visit pieces, so I'd like to start by giving readers a sense of the world you've created in PRIEST. It's an alternative version of Earth.

Scott Stewart: We've talked about it as an alternative present or an alternative future. Talking to Min-woo about it, and walking him through the art departments... one of the reasons I wanted to do the movie was that I really liked what it was about thematically. And it was an opportunity to design an entire world: weapons, bikes, buildings, costumes and all of it. That's a really fun thing, mashing those things together - different stylistic ideas - and seeing if we can make something new out of it. Min-woo was great. He talks about how his series is the past, and this is the future. It inspired him, because... he wrote sixteen books, and he never came close to resolving the story. It just ends with the promise of a book seventeen. But there is no book seventeen. But it did inspire him to go back and start writing. And that's what became [the comic book] PRIEST: PURGATORY. It's where his series leaves off and where we are in the movie. I think that's pretty cool. People are going to see a movie that tells a different story than the graphic novels, that has some of the same imagery. But I think they coexist in a really nice way and will hopefully inspire people to look at both the movie and the series.

Beaks: And the imagery... on this one you were able to shoot anamorphic.

Stewart: I did! I got to shoot anamorphic with [cinematographer] Don Burgess. That was one of the reasons we didn't shoot 3-D and opted for post-conversion - which people will get to see today. They'll see the footage we brought here in 3-D, and I think they're going to be pleased. We're taking six months to do it, not six weeks. All of the material that can be rendered truly in stereo will be rendered in stereo. There are shots in the trailer today that are true 3-D shots. And we have all of the Imageworks guys and the Sony 3-D people working on the conversion; they did ALICE IN WONDERLAND. And I'm very involved. I'm looking at every shot that comes in. It's not that CLASH OF THE TITANS or THE LAST AIRBENDER couldn't have done it well; it's just that you can't expect to do it well in six weeks. It's too hard. It's too much work.

Beaks: I don't know if you heard, but 3-D was the central topic of conversation in Hall H yesterday. At first, people were cheering the 3-D of TRON: LEGACY, which was astonishing because it was shot in stereoscopic 3-D. But then, as the day went on, people would boo at the first mention of post-conversion. I think CLASH OF THE TITANS and THE LAST AIRBENDER really left a bad taste in their mouths.

Stewart: But they don't even realize the number of films that they like that have been converted. ALICE IN WONDERLAND was converted. G-FORCE was converted. THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS was converted. No one complained about the 3-D in that movie. Yeah, they have every right to complain. There is a real cynicism out there about this stuff. As a moviegoer, I agree: if it's not done well, it's just a pure distraction from the movie. And I don't want people to be distracted from my movie. I want them to be in the movie. And if rendering the movie in stereo adds something to the experience, which I think it does, then great. But I don't want people thinking about depth while they're watching the movie. I just want them in the movie.

Beaks: So you still see conversion as a way of improving the experience for the viewer?

Stewart: It can be. In some cases it is, and in some cases it's not. I don't mean to say that in a flip way. In this case, when I saw the first test, I was sold. I was like, "Wow!" The desert just looked bigger, and the scale suddenly takes on a whole new dimension - no pun intended.

Beaks: And your background being in visual effects, I guess this is something you're kind of qualified to judge.

Stewart: (Laughs) Yes, I know a lot about the process that goes into it. And I know enough to know that it's absolutely insane that it exists as a process, because it's so labor intensive. But, anyway, I think it's fun.

Beaks: There's so much going on in PRIEST. It's an amalgam of many different influences.

Stewart: I think when folks see the trailer today, they'll see something that looks pretty different - but with elements that feel familiar.

Beaks: A little Leone, a little Ford... in fact, John Ford was a big one for you.

Stewart: Ford was a big one because it was big one for Cory Goodman, who wrote the script. THE SEARCHERS was a big influence on the story - so much so that the first image I drew was a woman standing in a doorway in silhouette. And instead of opening on Monument Valley, it opens out into this apocalyptic world with futuristic wind turbines blowing and nasty tangles of dust and bleakness - it's very different.

Beaks: I do like the idea of a John Ford film with the vampires as the savages.

Stewart: It's a really different movie as far as vampires go. The vampires in our story are the race that we've fought for hundreds of years. The vampires in our movie are not a metaphor for sublimated sexual desire: they're feral, they're extremely deadly, and guns will do something about it. There's no magic to dealing with them. We've changed the mythology in some respects; you could almost call them something other than "vampires". They don't look like people, so they become what they become. Obviously, if you're using THE SEARCHERS analogy, they're the Comanche. We don't know why we fight with them, but we fight with them because we hate them. There's this gray moral area there, which is what was so cool about THE SEARCHERS. We kind of get into that as well with the movie. It's about this man who goes out there to save someone he loves. It's not a typical vampire story in that respect.

That was ten minutes with Scott. Now here's a scant six minutes with Bettany. (I was offered more time with him later in the day, but sadly had to turn it down due to prior commitments. This bummed me out, as I wanted to continue the conversation I started at the end of this transcript.)

Mr. Beaks: What sold you on PRIEST: the material or a desire to work with Scott again?

Paul Bettany: It was entirely to do with our experience on LEGION. The head of the studio, Clint Culpepper, who's a maverick, saw the rough cut of LEGION and said [to Scott], "I want you take this script [for PRIEST], here's three times the budget, and I want you to do it with Paul." I thought that was marvelous. Scott and I really wanted to work together again, and as soon as possible. And it was incredibly different: LEGION is an homage to '70s and '80s schlock horror, and PRIEST is an operatic revenge/redemption story. You know, when you've got a tiny amount of money, you tend to trap your footage inside a diner. When you've got a lot of money, you fucking run to the desert. And we had so much fun.

Beaks: Being confined to a small set versus shooting on a much larger scale: how does this impact your sense of play? Do you come at the part differently? Do you get sort of giddy when you see these huge sets?

Bettany: I mean, the toys get bigger. The cranes and everything. And dragging a train across a salt flat at sixty-miles-an-hour, strapped to it... that's a lot of fun. But the sense of camaraderie on set, if it's a good set, it's the same wherever you are in the world for however much money.

Beaks: But just in terms of engaging the imagination, do you find yours is fired by an exotic-looking piece of production design or something like that?

Bettany: Oh, that stuff... coming down to the set and going, "Wow! You built a mountain out of foam!" That's kind of cool. (Laughs) It's really cool. Or coming down and seeing the artwork of the vampires, which looks so cool. I don't know if you've seen any of it.

Beaks: I was on set, so I saw quite a bit.

Bettany: Oh, right. Then you know. It felt really classy. I think Scott's done a beautiful job. And the sort of decaying cities from some past that looks reminiscent of our present... I think they're exquisitely rendered.

Beaks: It's not often that you get to do a post-apocalyptic echo of THE SEARCHERS with vampires. I assume that would make your character Ethan. Did you bring any John Wayne into this guy?

Bettany: (Pause) Yes. Those sort of stoic, archetypal cowboys, but as a vempire-killing priest. (Laughs) Definitely.

Beaks: Did you take anything from Wayne specifically? Did you go back and look at certain westerns to prepare?

Bettany: I think there's so much of our... I mean, I was raised in London, England, but Sunday morning westerns were my childhood. It was as much a part of my childhood as it was Cam's - maybe even more so because I'm a little older.

Beaks: So you had the experience of watching them cropped on a 4x3 screen with chunks of story missing. It's amazing how universal the American western is. They're beloved all over the world.

Bettany: That's because they're really Roman tragedies. Not Greek tragedies, but Roman revenge tragedies. THE SEARCHERS is an ancient story.

Beaks: I have to wrap up here, but last year I ranked the 100 greatest films of the decade, and I placed MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD pretty high on the list - although not highly enough for some people. In fact, if I had to pick a top ten in terms of enthusiastic reader reaction, that film would probably be in the top five. People really love that movie.

Bettany: Oh, thank you!

Beaks: But much of the enthusiasm was tinged with regret that you guys never got together to make another one.

Bettany: (Crestfallen) I know.

Beaks: I know it's almost impossible due to the expense of it, but was there ever anything planned? And do you think there's even a one-percent chance a second film could be made?

Bettany: I would love for it to be done. I don't know if it ever will be. The financial question is the question. It's a lot of money to have sea battles; that's a lot of cash. And it would be something different without Peter Weir. And for me, while there's a lot of action in the movie, it's a $100 million art house movie. How many of those get made?

Not enough. One more, Fox. Please. Do something right for a change. PRIEST has moved around on the schedule over the last few months, but it's finally set for release on May 13, 2011. That summer date signals some degree of confidence. I'm looking forward to it. Faithfully submitted, Mr. Beaks