MacGruber is back to save the world — whether he likes it, or not.
Will Forte’s juvenile-minded super spy began as a parody of ABC’s MacGyver television series of the 1980s and first appeared on Saturday Night Live in January 2007, in a comedy sketch created by The Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone. Forte stepped into the titular role with the support of his love interest Casey (Maya Rudolph) and work partner Vickie St. Elmo (Kristin Wiig). Nearly three years after using a paperclip, gum wrapper, and rubber band to bungle one rescue mission after another, the potty-mouthed hero jumped from the sketch comedy realm to the action movie one.
The movie, which was directed by Taccone and written by former SNL writer John Solomon, found MacGruber partnering with Lt. Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe) and Wiig’s St. Elmo, his new love interest, to stop the evil Dieter von Cunth (Val Kilmer) from shooting a nuclear warhead directly at the U.S. Capitol. While the movie has garnered cult status over the years, it didn’t achieve the necessary box office returns for a sequel to immediately be greenlit.
It’s been 14 years since the first MacGruber sketch hit the small screen, and he’s about to return in MacGruber — Peacock’s eight-episode sequel series, which will drop in full to the streamer on Thursday, December 16. This time around, MacGruber is plucked from prison — he got put there, in the first place, after all the over-the-top murdering he did in the movie — to go on a suicide mission to stop a terrorist threat and face an ominous villain from his past, in order to keep America safe. Again.
Taccone, Solomon, and Forte have returned as writers, co-showrunners, and executive producers on the series. Taccone and Solomon split directing duties on the project. Phillippe and Wiig will make their triumphant return as Piper and St. Elmo. Laurence Fishburne, Billy Zane, and Sam Elliott will also appear.
Rotten Tomatoes spoke with Forte, Taccone, and Solomon to find out more about the series. Here are five things you need to know about MacGruber.
Jorma was quick to admit that the Peacock series was probably the result of them all manifesting the sequel into existence, saying, “We just kept mentioning that it was happening in interviews, and then it becomes real because nobody has time to do any backstory, research on stuff. So we just sort of made it happen by saying that it was happening.”
To push this hard, for this long, to keep the MacGruber story alive, Taccone and team reportedly kept a living Google Doc for over a decade featuring every silly concept and fart joke they thought would fit into the story.
“It was just us running all the ideas that we had wanted to do for a sequel right after the movie came out for the first five minutes after it came out,” Taccone explained. “We thought it was gonna do really well. And then when it didn’t, all these ideas just became sort of like, well … maybe. Maybe. So we just kept adding to this Google Doc for over 10 years. A lot of those ideas ended up in the series. We’re just glad to finally use great jokes and ideas.”
Forte admits there were plenty of ideas that didn’t make the cut, which he hopes will be in a second season if Peacock grants them more episodes. But many of their favorite ideas do indeed play out here.
“We had always intended on having the phrase ‘I did it all for the nookie’ in there,” Forte said. “And we wanted the rule of ‘whoever smelt it dealt it’ to be a major plot point. It’s dumb stuff like that. We would just do this big document and throw whatever on there. And I think a surprisingly high percentage of things actually made it into the series from that.”
(Photo by Peacock)
Val Kilmer’s appearance in the original movie gave MacGruber clout. And his performance as the sinister Dieter von Cunth showed off the actor’s silly side while setting the stage for a trend of big-name dramatic actors showing up in MacGruber’s childish world. Laurence Fishburne co-stars as General Barrett Fasoose, an annoying thorn in MacGruber’s side; Billy Zane is Enos Queeth, the show’s big bad; and Sam Elliott lends his gravelly gravitas as Perry, MacGruber’s father.
“I still can’t believe that we got them to do it,” Forte admitted. “It was so exciting going into this and then hearing that those guys were all willing to be in it. It was already super exciting that Kristen and Ryan wanted to come back. It was really an embarrassment of riches.”
(Photo by Peacock)
MacGruber will bring the comedy and action scenes, as fans are hoping, but one new detail fans may not expect from the show is the big backstory reveal they’re giving to the mullet-having hero. Necessary? Probably not. But the emotionality in this new adventure will definitely pluck a heartstring or two.
“I would say, all around, it’s heightened with the gore and story, and emotion,” Taccone said. “And then there’s the backstory. I actually watched Fast Nine, recently. It was like, Oh, we’re just getting way too emotional with the backstory that you’ve never heard of. On every level, we wanted it heightened and to be a surprise.”
The backstory in question involves Sam Elliott’s portrayal of MacGruber’s dad, Perry. According to Forte, working with Elliott was a dream come true.
“There’s this over-the-top dramatic scene, which is just a bunch of silly, silly things said super dramatically. Right. And, of course, I come in and I do my side of it. It’s real hammy and with just super overwrought emotion. Then [Sam Elliott] delivers, like an Oscar-caliber, dramatic performance which totally fits in, and it just makes the scene so fun to watch. He is amazing. We all couldn’t believe it. That was the very first scene that he did. He just did this and our jaws dropped.”
(Photo by Peacock)
After riffing on MacGyver on SNL, the MacGruber movie helped the core team spread their creative wings and pay homage to other ’80s and ’90s action faves like Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Commando, and Rambo. As Taccone put it, “these are little nods to the things we loved.”
The cinematic influences will continue in the MacGruber series. Since the story stakes are higher, this time around, Taccone admits they have tapped into some movie homages with a bit more urgency.
“Armageddon was a real influence,” he continued. “Billy Bob’s in the command center that feels very much like our NSA command center. There’s the camera movement and there’s even a clock that was in the background I kept trying to get in shots. I kept being like, There has to be this clock behind Billy Bob! We wanted to change the vibe to have a bit more camera movement and be more like Bruckheimer and Michael Bay. Stuff like that. And, still on a shoestring budget.”
Two other titles that were regularly discussed in the writers room, according to Solomon, were Skyfall, “because, the brooding, you know?” and Fast and the Furious, due to all that pesky family drama.
(Photo by Peacock)
It’s a pretty safe assessment to say that, if given a rating, MacGruber would be clocking in with a hard-R. There’s over-the-top violence and profanity aplenty. But one detail that may come as a surprise to viewers is that there will be a bunch of nudity in the series. And that nakedness will be provided by just one person: Will Forte.
“It’s really funny because there were all these COVID protocols to keep everyone safe,” Forte revealed. “So I’m essentially kind of naked, but with a mask on.”
We’ll have to skip the spoiler-filled reasons when and why Forte is naked in the series and how it relates to the overall story being told. But, it is worth acknowledging Forte’s willingness to push his comfort aside to do what needs to be done. That’s a heroic work ethic, right there.
“For some reason, I’m kind of disconnected from the part of me that realizes then, down the road, that, Oh right, now I got to actually do this. Now I actually have to be naked. You know, it’s my own damn fault. A lot of times, I’ll pitch a lot of these horrible things that I have to do, but you just do whatever everyone thinks is the best thing. There definitely was some discussion. Is it going to be a pain in the butt to pull this off? There were definitely some discussions as to should I be getting clothes on earlier? It just made the most sense — for the story, and for what happens at the end of the episode — that I was just naked throughout.”
MacGruber season 1 drops on Thursday, December 16, on Peacock.
On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News.
(Photo by Mark Davis / Getty Images)
Ever since he created The Shield, any new Shawn Ryan show has been something to watch for. Even some of his short-lived shows like Terriers and The Chicago Code were great. Now he’s got a new series for Amazon, Mad Dogs, based on the British series by Cris Cole, who also created and produced the American version.
Joel (Ben Chaplin), Lex (Michael Imperioli), Gus (Romany Malco) and Cobi (Steve Zahn) go visit their old friend Milo (Billy Zane) at his lavish estate in Belize. They enjoy a little luxury and debauchery but it also provokes old feuds and judgements about all their mistakes. When a local crime element gets involved, the kettle boils over, and all that’s just in the pilot episode that premiered on Amazon Pilot season. We sat down with Ryan to discuss Mad Dogs and a few of his past and upcoming projects after Amazon’s presentation to the Television Critics Association.
Fred Topel for Rotten Tomatoes: How did I not hear about Mad Dogs the first time?
Shawn Ryan: Listen, I didn’t hear of it at the time when it came out. I think it was at the beginning of Twitter. Now it feels like we’re so connected with all aspects of the world that if something cool is happening somewhere, it feels like we’ll hear about it. In that case, I had to be told by my creative partner, Marney Hochman, “Hey, here’s something you should check out.” First thing I did was I read the pilot script and then I was like, “Oh, I’d like to see how they realized this.” Then I watched the first four episodes of that series and just got blown away by how different it was, how unique. It was unlike anything I’d seen. It had a different rhythm. It really vacillated between different tones. You were never quite sure exactly where you were and how to feel, which, as a viewer, I liked. It was kind of the opposite of comfort food. It just really appealed to me, so the first thing I said was, “I just want to meet that writer and work with him.” I didn’t know it would eventually lead to an American version of the show.
Rotten Tomatoes: Was it his idea to do that?
Ryan: It was actually Sony’s idea, because he and I were talking about doing a different idea. We were developing a brand new show when Sony, who’s my employer, bought Left Bank, which was the production company that made Mad Dogs in the U.K. Suddenly Sony had the rights to this and they knew it was an asset and they said, “Hey, we just got the rights to this. You already know Cris. You’re already working with Cris. Would you be interested in doing the American version of the show?” The first thing I said was, “Hey, they’re talking to me about doing the American version. I gotta tell you, the British version’s pretty fantastic. Is there a logic? Is there a rationale for doing the American version?” He thought about it and he said, “Yeah, I think there is. There are a lot of things that I wish I could’ve done differently in the British version. We thought we were only making four episodes so the story never got completely solidified the way it should’ve.” We started talking about the differences between British men and American men. All of a sudden we both got very excited at the notion, him to be able to redo something he’d done the first time and me to do something new that we could keep the aspects of the original that we loved so much but also the potential and the opportunity for completely original stuff.
Rotten Tomatoes: Cobi cheating on his wife will challenge audience sympathies. Do you see that akin to challenging our sympathy for Vic Mackey in the pilot of The Shield and then making us care about him throughout the series?
Ryan: I would say there are some similarities. I think cheating on your wife is a lesser crime than shooting a cop in the face. What I would say is that none of these guys are heroic. One of the things that always stuck to me that Cris said, I would ask him, “Why do you think the series was successful in the U.K.?” One of the things he said was that he was surprised how much women liked the show. It’s a very male show, all the main characters are male. In our series, some really great strong female characters do appear and play big roles, but obviously you have this core of men. I think ultimately they discovered that women liked it because they recognized their husbands, their brothers, their friends’ husbands in these characters. Obviously, infidelity is something that happens on a large scale. I don’t think it’s something that we’re celebrating. You see Ben Chaplin’s character very disturbed by the fact that his friend is doing this. There are ramifications afterwards in subsequent episodes to doing it. What I would say is a common thread between this and The Shield is that Vic Mackey, as played by Michael Chiklis, was very likable, even as he was doing unlikeable things. Here, Steve Zahn, there’s something that you just can’t help but laugh sometimes as he, playing that character, does some despicable things. I don’t know whether you will like Cobi but I do feel that you’ll like watching Cobi.
Rotten Tomatoes: We are drawn to watching unlikeable characters. That’s a bad Hollywood myth that characters should be likable.
Ryan: Right. I think it was mantra more in the TV world for a long time. I think people gravitate towards real characters. So you have a guy whose values, I think, initially in the pilot episode, are kind of shallow. He’s in this foreign country; what happens in Belize stays in Belize. He’s selfish and he’s going to behave in ways that he wants to and ignore the consequences. But because the show is what it is, there will be consequences. Things will come out of this and he’ll do some serious re-examination, and I think as long as your characters are true and honest to themselves, even if that honesty is about dishonesty, for instance, I think audiences can appreciate it and can recognize the humanity of it.
Rotten Tomatoes: They have bigger problems right now, but does the midlife crisis come back up?
Ryan: Very much so. Not even just with Cobi. Not even in a sexual way. These are all guys who are looking at having a fun long weekend that papers over the fact that, in various degrees, they’re all disappointed in their own lives. They knew each other when all their hopes and dreams were at their highest. They knew each other in college when the future seemed unlimited and there wasn’t going to be a cap. Now here you are 25 years later and one of their friends is seemingly very successful and has this amazing villa in the tropics. Another guy is just barely hanging on to his sobriety. Another guy is a frustrated teacher whose kids aren’t really talking to him. None of them would’ve predicted, other than maybe Billy Zane’s character, that this is where they’d be in their lives. They’re all looking to grab some kind of fleeting, reminiscing moment of that time when they thought something better was coming along. That’s why they want to be around each other, and yet that quickly morphs as you mentioned into something far darker, something far more dangerous, and now these are the people that they’re stuck with as they try to navigate out of that situation. Are these people really true friends? The main question we hit in episode two is “How strong are these friendships?”
Rotten Tomatoes: I don’t think they’re very strong in the pilot.
Ryan: I don’t think so either, but maybe there’s a potential to become stronger as they go through this crucible. We’ll have to see.
Rotten Tomatoes: Should we binge Mad Dogs?
Ryan: I hope so, and I think it’s been designed to do that. We spent a lot of time talking about how the binge viewing experience is different from the traditional viewing experience. One of the things we came up with is: when I was doing The Shield, we had a teaser and four acts. The end of act three was always the most important moment to me, launching the final act of the show, but there was enough in the middle that kept people engaged. Here, I think the most important moment of the show is the final beat of the show. Our goal is for it to be two in the morning and you know you have to get up at eight to work and yet you say to yourself, “I’m just going to watch one more.” You and the viewers will decide whether we’ve achieved it or not but our hope is that we’ve surprised you and defied your expectations enough each episode and ended on a note that just really makes you go, “I can’t believe that. What’s going to happen next.”
Rotten Tomatoes: Does the season end in a cliffhanger?
Ryan: No. This is a very, I think, satisfying 10-episode story. In wild success, in the future if we were to do more, the story would be very different, the location would probably different, some characters would be different. This is a story that will feel complete and, we hope, satisfying to you if you watch. It will not leave you hanging.
Rotten Tomatoes: I was never able to get an answer from CBS on why their Beverly Hills Cop pilot didn’t go. As a producer on it, could you answer that for me?
Ryan: Well, I don’t know that I have a definitive answer. I think there’s an official answer. I think there’s an unofficial answer that some investigative reporter might uncover one day. The official answer is they decided they liked other pilots better. If you look at what pilots they picked up that year, I think that’s kind of incredible. I would say there were a lot of 400 lb. gorillas involved in the show and sometimes the gorillas don’t always get along. It was a show that CBS did not own. It was produced by Sony and Paramount Pictures. You can do your own research into the relationship between CBS and Paramount Pictures.
Rotten Tomatoes: I accept your challenge to do the investigative reporting. I also suspected when Eddie Murphy decided he wanted to do another movie, that might’ve killed the show.
Ryan: That didn’t affect it. Eddie was great. The best part about the pilot experience was getting to work with Eddie. The saddest part of the pilot experience was people not getting to see his work in that. I’m proud of the pilot. I stand by the pilot and I think the pilot was better than the other pilots they picked up that year. Eddie himself was fantastic. If anything was a problem, it was Eddie was so good in the pilot and you knew that you weren’t going to have him for the majority of the episodes. Another possible explanation is it was hard to judge what the show would be without Eddie, because he was such an electric part of that particular pilot.
Rotten Tomatoes: Even Chicago Code and Last Resort only lasted one season. Would you ever develop for network again?
Ryan: I’m developing right now. We have a pilot that I’ve co-written with Eric Kripke for NBC that we’re awaiting word on. It’s called Time and it’s a time travel show that’s kind of a good popcorny attempt to do for television what Spielberg and Michael Crichton did in the movies. What’s a big tentpole thing that can touch on history? I’m pretty psyched about the pilot episode we’ve written. Hopefully we get a chance to make it.
Rotten Tomatoes: Do you believe in the Back to the Future, The Terminator, or Timecop rules of time travel?
Ryan: We spent a lot of time talking about the rules. We’ve kind of developed our own. Certainly they share some DNA with other famous time travel books or movies. You try to be consistent. You also have to think about making sure, if you end up making 80 or 100 episodes of the show, the rules have to be able to accommodate that. Yet, you also don’t want to be mirroring too closely something some other property has done. There’s no fading out in front of your eyes pictures as in Back to the Future.
Rotten Tomatoes: I’m okay with that, but I thought it was B.S. in Timecop that if you touched your past self you’d turn into a blob and disappear. You’re not the same matter as yourself when you’ve aged 10 years.
Ryan: Interesting. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Timecop. I don’t have the rules down but one of the things we discussed is you can’t have a situation where a person goes back and if it doesn’t work out, they can just go back to five minutes before that. You have to have some kind of rule that prevents that that makes sense. What’s interesting is even though time travel, to our knowledge, isn’t possible right now, everyone does have opinions on what’s real or not real about it. [Laughs] You’d think there’d be a little more flexibility. I think the important part of a show like that is to establish your rules and to live by them.
The entire first season of Mad Dogs premieres January 22 on Amazon. Read reviews here.
I’m not much for magicians, but apparently this Criss Angel guy is pretty famous, right? He’s got a TV series called "Mind Freak," so somebody out there knows who he is. Anyway, he’s turning an old comic book called "Mandrake the Magician" into a movie.
According to CinemaBlend.com, Mr. Angel will not only be starring in the "Mandrake" adaptation, but he’ll be working on the special effects, too: "I think with my show and how it’s based in reality it would be interesting to try and have that kind of transfer over into a movie. So that when you’re shooting this stuff it’s shot practical, and people can really get a sense of what’s happening and that it is really real. It has that quality about it, that spirit, you can’t get from CGI."
Created in 1934 by Lee Falk, Mandrake was turned into a 12-part movie serial in 1939. (Falk also created "The Phantom," which became a Billy Zane movie in 1996.)
Looks like Angel’s already snagged a director, too. It’s Chuck Russell, the popcorn movie maker responsible for "The Blob," "The Mask," and "The Scorpion King." The actor / magician also seems to claim that movies and magic don’t always go so well together. Guess he missed "The Prestige" and "The Illusionist."
Source: CinemaBlend.com
In this week’s Ketchup, some sequel news: the underperforming "Superman Returns" will likely get a follow-up as planned, and — gasp — so might the "X-Men" franchise, despite reports that "X-Men 3" would be their "Last Stand"!
Also spicing up the rumor week, Peter Jackson has been mentioned as the director of the Jackie Chan/Jet Li vehicle based on "Journey to the West." A few "Transformers" character pictures were leaked to tease anyone that’s looking forward to next summer’s blockbuster. What else struck our readers’ fancies this week? A purple-haired "Harry Potter" babe, naturally. Read on for more.
Banding together for their next "Last Stand"
This Week’s Most Popular News:
Will "Superman Return" Again?
By now it’s pretty much a well-accepted fact that Bryan Singer’s "Superman Returns" didn’t do the kind of box office that Warner Bros. was expecting. That’s not a knock on the movie, but the thing’s still struggling to hit $200 million, and some industry insiders were predicting the flick would tally that much in only a week or two. But, of course, there’s always sequel considerations…
"X-Men 4" Still Definitely Not Happening, Maybe
Remember all that talk about "Nope, no fourth X-Men movie, seriously"? Well, it’s only been about a month, which means that the new sequel chit-chat from the X-producers is now arriving exactly on schedule.
Peter Jackson to Direct Jet Li/Jackie Chan Pic?
As if the thought of Jet Li and Jackie Chan starring in a film together isn’t enough to get us excited, rumor has it that the pic might be helmed by one of the biggest directors around. How big? Peter Jackson big!
"Transformers" Pics: Less Than Meets the Eye?
Hey, here’s something fun to do for about nine seconds: Check out a pair of new "Transformers" character pics and then decide for yourself if A) they’re real, B) they’re fake, C) you really give a wet slap either way.
Harry Potter and the Purple-Haired Honey
The names Natalia Tena and Nymphador Tonks mean absolutely nothing to me, but they were both recently spotted on the set of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." And there’s a Potter-crazy fansite that has the pics to prove it.
In Other News:
This is just so hilarious I barely know where to begin. OK, you all know that Uwe Boll is arguably one of the very worst filmmakers on the planet … but now he’s really gone off the deep end. Seems Mr. Boll (who, yes, actually IS a doctor) wants to get into the boxing ring with five of his most outspoken critics. He just doesn’t know who they are just yet. Read on for one of the loopiest press releases ever written…
Thanks to SKNR.net for brightening my day with this hilarious news:
June 12, 2006 – Vancouver, BC – We are proud to announce that Dr. Uwe Boll’s BloodRayne starring Kristanna Loken, Michael Madsen, Matthew Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Sir Ben Kingsley, Will Sanderson, Udo Kier, Meat Loaf, Michael Pare & Billy Zane had a successful release May 23rd., 2006 on DVD in both Canada & USA.
Iain Taylor of Vivendi Visual Entertainment Canada stated, “BloodRayne ranked in the top 6 best selling DVD titles during the first part week of sales in Canada (Nielsen Videoscan Canada)”. In the USA BloodRayne’s DVD performance was even stronger. Tom O’Malley, GM of Vivendi Visual Entertainment (USA), said “For the first time in this industry, a Theatrical Release and the Complete PC Video Game were released together on DVD. BloodRayne ranked in the top 5 best selling DVD titles during its debut week (Nielsen VideoScan USA)”. In both countries unofficial DVD rental statistics have proven to be even more impressive.
Again the fans have shown that the critics of Uwe Boll are out of touch with want the general movie audience population wants. Dr. Boll has continually been roasted for the films he has directed and produced. His last two films, House of the Dead & Alone in the Dark, cost $20 million but they have grossed over $110 million to-date. The same negative reactions from some of the same press and the internet critics are now being directed at Uwe Boll’s latest film; BloodRayne.
Dr. Uwe Boll has had enough! Uwe Boll’s position is “I am fed up. I’m fed up with people slamming my films on the Internet without see them. Many journalists make value judgments on my films based on the opinions of one or two thousand Internet voices. Half of those opinions come from people who’ve never watched my films. I have been told that “BloodRayne” has a very bad IMDb rating, but how many of those votes of zero were made before the movie appeared in theatres.”
The criticism goes on and on.Uwe is now challenging the critics that failed to watch his films prior to reviewing or commenting, “TO PUT UP OR SHUT UP!”
On July 17th, 2006 Uwe will start filming his next feature film, “Seed”, starring Will Sanderson, Ralf Moeller, Michael Pare & Andrew Jackson. Following that film he will go into production in late September with another feature called “Postal”. Both movies will be shot in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Towards the end of the filming of the “Postal” the 5 most outspoken critics will be flown into Vancouver and supplied with hotel rooms. As a guest of Uwe Boll they will be given the chance to be an extra / stand-in in “Postal” and have the opportunity to put on boxing gloves and enter a BOXING RING to fight Uwe Boll. Each critic will have the opportunity to bring down Uwe in a 10 bout match. There will be 5 matches planned over the last two days of the movie. Certain scenes from these boxing matches will become part of the Postal movie. All 5 fights will be televised on the internet and will be covered by international press.
To be eligible you must be a critic who has posted on the internet or have written in magazines / newspapers at least two extremely negative articles in the year 2005. Critics of 2006 will not be considered. Please submit proof of your negative reviews & comments via e-mail to: info@boll-kg.de All challengers must be healthy males, weighing between 64 kilograms (140 lbs.) and 86 kilograms (190 lbs.). You will require to be physically examined by a doctor and sign the necessary release forms for liability, etc. You will not be paid or entitled to any residualsor fees. Your transportation & hotel costs will be covered.
Dr. Uwe Boll’s invitation to fight and / or appear in his film is extended to all his harshest critics. Roger Avary and Quentin Tarantino are among the most eligible candidates.
—
So it’s nothing more than a moronic publicity stunt, but someone might want to remind Dr. Boll of something: He could fight 15,000 film critics and it wouldn’t make him a better filmmaker.
Director Uwe Boll was kind enough to take time away from filming "Dungeon Siege" to answer a few questions about projects, past, present, and future for Skewed and Reviewed.
GVK: You are obviously a big fan of the gaming industry. What games are you playing now when your schedule allows and which ones are you looking forward to the most?
UB: I love to play Postal, Silent Hill and Hitman. I’m excited to do soon "Far Cry."
GVK: How did you get into film and how did you evolve into being the leading director of game-based films? Also, what films and directors inspired you?
UB: I made Super 8 and video movies as kid and I kept doing it. "German Fried Movie" – my first movie – I financed with $40,000 and distributed it on my own in all German theatres. I like a lot of movies and a lot of directors: Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, John Carpenter, and Brian De Palma. I love "Apocalypse Now," "The Deer Hunter," "Dances With Wolves," "Raging Bull," "Taxi Driver," "Fargo," "Jaws"…
GVK: What is your preference in the ongoing debate between PC Games and console games?
UB: I like to play with my Xbox.
GVK: What sort of challenges does adapting a game present that are not normally found in, say, adapting a book or television show?
UB: The games are, in a way, like movies and the gamers are looking carefully into every step of the production process.
GVK: What is the background and setting of the film and how much continuity does it have with the events in the games?
UB: The main point is to keep the characters, the mood and a few brand elements of the game and to bring that in the new story.
GVK: Will the film likely be PG-13 or R Rated?
UB: "Bloodrayne" is R. "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" will be PG-13.
GVK: Any truth to the reports that the film will be over three hours in length?
UB: Or longer. Maybe we have to do the "Kill Bill" variation – two parts. Nobody wants to sit so long in the theatre.
GVK: How has it been working with such a large cast with so many name actors and actresses in it and have you had to change your directing style to accommodate a larger cast and what challenges has this presented for filming?
UB: (A) good cast is important. Big names doesn’t matter if they are wrong for the part. In "Bloodrayne" and "Dungeon Siege" I have the right names for the right parts. It is a pleasure to work with all that great actors – and they feel better if the partner is also a well known face and good actor.
GVK: What can you tell us about the upcoming "Far Cry" and "Bloodrayne"? I know many people are very curious as to who will be playing Jack Carver and other aspects of the films.
UB: "Bloodrayne" starts in over 2000 theatres in U.S. and is a classic epic vampire movie with a great cast (Kristanna "Terminator 3" Loken, Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Billy Zane, Meat Loaf, Geraldine Chaplin, Udo Kier, Matt Davis and Michelle Rodriguez). And "Far Cry" – we have a great script and we are scouting right now locations. We are in talks with a few actors right now.
GVK: As a follow up, are there other game based films that you will be working on?
UB: "Hunter: The Reckoning" and "Fear Effect" and (withheld until the formal announcement).
GVK: Also, is there anything you can share with the readers in regards to “Night Claws”?
UB: I will not do it. I don’t know why it is still on IMDB listed.
GVK: With Peter Jackson recently being announced as part of the coming “Halo” film, do you think this will signal a new age for game based films to finally get the respect and support of major studios allowing them to see even more lavish productions?
UB: Hopefully.
GVK: Looking back on “Alone in the Dark”, what sort of changes would you have made or what would you have done differently if you could?
UB: The script needed another few weeks of work. And Tara Reid with a miscast.
GVK: As a follow up, do you think that many critics were unfair in their reviews for the film which in turn hindered its success?
UB: They write what they think. Hopefully they like "Bloodrayne" more.
GVK: If you were given your wish to make any film you wanted, with no restrictions on budget or cast, what would you like to make, and who would you wish to cast in it?
UB: (Answer to be included when the formal announcement of the project is made.).
GVK: Thank you so much, I and the readers really appreciate it.
And thanks to Gareth over at Skewed and Reviewed for giving us our required monthly dose of Uwe Boll.
