DAN’S MOVIE DIGEST 145

Filming started on 1 August in Hungary, with lead actor Ed Speleers. JohnMalkovich, Jeremy Irons, Djimon Hounsou and Carlyle will arrive in Hungaryat a later date. Malkovich will shoot for only two days, and will arrivelater this fall.

Eragon is being directed by Stefen Fangmeier from a Peter Buchman script,and concerns a farm boy who learns he is the last of a breed of benevolentDragon Riders, whose magical powers derived from their bond with the beasts.

Q: The Brothers Grimm is a project you’ve been working on for quite sometime. Why has it taken so long for this to see the light of day?

“It started way back in 2002, and I finished shooting at theend of November in 2003. I have two films in the next year. I finished offGrimms and went off and did Tideland and then came back and tidied bothfilms up. I literally had to go off in the latter half of last year and goto Canada to shoot another film, so Grimms was put on hold for a bit, andthen I came back and finished Grimms and Tideland together.”

Q: How did you first get your hands on the Ehren Kruger’s script for TheBrothers Grimm? Did he write that even before writing The Ring?

“Well, I don’t know exactly. Chuck Roven, who produced 12 Monkeys,he was trying to get me to do something again. He gave me this script, andit was intriguing, because I grew up with Grimms’ fairy tales and thought itwas an interesting way to take advantage of these decent, hard-working goodGerman people who’ve brought us all those great fairy tales. In effect,they’ve been trapped in a fairy tale of someone else’s making.”

Q: Was it made completely outside the studio system or did you have studiobacking?

“No, this was done with Dimension. We began this project with MGM,and we were in pre-production in Prague–everybody just turned up–when wegot this call that MGM had pulled the plug on it, so everybody had to get ontheir planes and go back to wherever it was they were. Within about 24hours, we got a call from Dimension that they wanted in, so I came out toL.A., met the Weinsteins, talked about it, and basically, off we went.”

Q: Between Baron Munchausen, Don Quixote and now this, you’ve built yourreputation on deconstructing folklore and fairy tales. What about doing thatintrigues or appeals to you?

“In this particular instance, it’s really about two brothers, onewho is a cynical pragmatic, and the other who’s a romantic dreamer and inmany ways, who is going to win? There are two different views of the world,and this particular instance, magical enchanted fairy tale aspects of theworld rears its ugly head, and that’s what’s going on in it. To me, fantasyand reality, I wouldn’t say they were two sides of the same coin unless ithappens to be my life, and that is two sides of the same coin. (chuckles)”

Q: How did you end up choosing Matt Damon and Heath Ledger to play the twobrothers and how did you decide which one of them would play which brother?

“Well, I actually think both are doing different roles, because Mattnormally is doing the more introspective character until he started doingBourne Identity, but even in that, he’s still quiet and is introspective tohis actions. In this one, he’s the extrovert, the big mouth, the guy whocharms women. And Heath, who’s often playing the leading man is now playingthe twitchy, funny brother, who’s sort of vulnerable. Basically, it wasabout casting against type, as usual. I just like putting people throughthings they haven’t done before and the same goes for the audience, tryingto give them a different ride where they can see these people as actors, andnot just extensions of one particular aspect of their character.”

Q: In some ways, the Brothers seem like Baron Munchausen’s personality splitin half, each with their own take on reality and fantasy. Did you see anycorollaries between the two films?

“My wife keeps accusing me of making the same film but just changingthe costumes. (chuckles)”

Q: The movie looks absolutely amazing, and I think the team you put togetherwas great. Can you talk about creating the look for the film?”

“Yeah, Guy Dyas, it was the second film he’s ever designed. He wasquite incredible. He had done X-Men 2 and he’s just this fantastic artist.He draws beautifully and quickly, and it was just a joy working with him. Igot Gabriella Pescucci back, who had done Baron Munchausen. She’sspectacular. It was a really fantastic team. The trick was trying to createa world that is both magical and totally realistic at the same time, ratherthan escaping what I see in a lot of fantasy films where the feet are nolonger on the ground. I wanted to keep our feet firmly on the ground, sothat when it does become clear that we’re in an enchanted forest that it’s areal forest suddenly coming alive in different ways then you normally see. Ijust thought that was essential, so everybody involved, even in the computergenerating animators, I kept trying to destroy their good work, because theytend to make things beautiful and floating around the place, and I justwanted to make it more realistic. Hopefully, I achieved that.”

Q: Your movies tend to have a look and vision that people automaticallyrelate to you. If Gilliamesque were an actual word, how would you define it?

“I don’t know. I mean, that’s my problem. Everyone keeps talkingabout a Gilliamesque quality or a Gilliamesque look. They start seeing amovie or a trailer and they realize immediately that it’s me. I honestlydon’t know what they mean, because it’s just the way I see the world. It’svery hard for me to get outside of my view of the world and look at itobjectively. I just do what I do. Pretty much everything I do I’m fairlyinstinctive about the way it looks and feels. I do think whatever they’vegot, whatever else happens in my films, there’s always a lot of humor thatpunctures some of the potential pretensions that I have.”

Q: Lately, there seems to be a lot more movies that have that sort of feelfrom Pirates of the Caribbean or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Doyou feel that way, too?

“Well, I just think that the big, heavy macho action stuff is nowbecoming very repetitive. We’ve seen so much of it for so many years that Iguess people are bored with it. When I go to the cinema and watch trailers,I swear I’ve seen that trailer twenty times already. They feel like the samefilms and they tend to take themselves so seriously, and it’s nonsense. Thereal world isn’t like that. Also, I tend to think if you spend too much timemaking macho movies of people shooting each other up, it starts infectingthe real world.”

Q: Are you almost done finishing Tideland?

“Yeah, I mean Tideland is finished now. We just finished it lastweek, and it opens in the Toronto Film Festival on September 9th. It’s quitedifferent than Grimms. It’s nice, because one’s big and beautiful and fun. Ikeep saying Grimms is designed to scare the children, and Tideland isdesigned to scare the adults.”

Q: Who’s going to distribute that?

“We don’t know yet actually. We made it completely outside ofAmerican money in any form, and the opening in Toronto is the moment thatJeremy Thomas is selling the movie, so hopefully, by the end of that week,we’ll know who’s distributing it. I quite like the two films, becausethey’re balancing each other in an interesting way.”

Q: Just to show how times have changed, the musical Spamalot based on thePython movies is now the biggest hit on Broadway. Would you be interested indirecting a film version of that like they’re doing with The Producersmusical?

“No, to me Spamalot is great, and it’s fantastic that it’s asuccess. I think there is talk about making a movie of it, but I don’t knowwhere that’s got to yet, but I can almost guarantee that I won’t bedirecting it.”

Q: Not into musicals anymore?

“No, I really don’t like going back. We learned a lot aboutfilmmaking when Terry Jones and I directed that, and it’s a wonderful film,and it’s in the past as far as I’m concerned. The fact that Eric [Idle] hasreinvented it for Broadway is clear that there’s an audience out there forit. That’s fantastic, but I don’t know, I want to just keep moving forwardrather than reinventing the past.”

Q: Over the years, there’s been a lot of talk about you directing moviesbased on well-known books like Alan Moore’s Watchmen, Neil Gaiman’s GoodOmens and even the first Harry Potter for a while there. Tom Stoppard, whowrote Brazil, has adapted the fantasy book His Dark Materials for thescreen, and they seem to need a director. Is that something you mightconsider doing?

“It was actually very funny when I heard about Dark Materials beingmade into a movie. I kept raising my hand at the back of the class sayingMe, sir! Me, sir! but nobody’s seen my hand, I guess. (chuckles) I know myagent was following it very closely. It seems to have gone to variouspeople’s hands at the moment. It’s a big project and I’m not sure the studioreally understands what it is, which may be why it seems to be languishingat the moment.”

Q: From what I’ve seen in Brothers Grimm, it definitely seems like you canhandle it.

“The thing is that I know how to do that kind of movie. I can do bigmovies with a lot of effects, but it doesn’t mean that I really enjoy themthat much. It’s a very different way of working. It’s hard work. You’rerunning an army and on the other hand, when I did something like Tideland,it’s a cast of four people, it’s a small budget, and it was reallyrefreshing to be able to work quickly. Guerilla filmmaking is sometimes alot more fun than the big stuff. The big projects, I really gotta believe inthem totally and utterly before I immerse myself in them.”

Q: Going back a bit in time, it’s been twenty years since Brazil, but itstill has a lot of resonance, especially with what’s going on in Englandtoday. Are you surprised by how much of the things you depicted in thatmovie have come to pass?

“No. The problem, particularly in America, is that people have lostany sense of history. They think that history began this morning when theywoke up. When I made that film, there were a lot of bombings going on. TheI.R.A. were busy working in London. They were at the end of their campaign.There were terrorists in Germany, the Red Brigade in Italy, so terrorism wasalive and well. What I was interested in was a response to big bureaucracieswhere their job is terrorism, how that even if there aren’t terrorists, forbureaucracies to survive, they need to invent terrorists. Now, maybe we’rein that situation now. All I know is that the Bush administration is verymuch closer to the Ministry of Information in Brazil than anything I’ve seenbefore.”

Q: At this point in your career, do you think that Hollywood is finallystarting to understand you and what you do?

“I really don’t know. I’m hoping that there’s a lot of people thatwere fans of my early work who are now running studios. Maybe they’llremember how much pleasure I gave them when they were young. That’s the bestI can hope for! (chuckles)”

Q: Incidentally, the trailer was very well received at Comic-Con last monthand The Brothers Grimm was picked as the top movie for August inComingSoon.net’s monthly readers’ poll.

“That’s quite interesting, especially since you haven’t seen much inthe ways of advertising for Grimms yet. I mean, that hopefully will startthis week, and I hope they do a TV blitz, so that a few other people outthere get to know about it before it opens.”

Q: So what do you think? Is the world ready for another Terry Gilliam movieor even possibly two?

“Well, I think we’ll find out in a month’s time. (chuckles) Let’shope!”

The Brothers Grimm opens in the US on 26 August, while Tideland should openthe ‘Toronto International Film Festival’ on 9 September.

All figures are weekend box-office gross.

• 1. The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) ($30.7m)
• 2. Wedding Crashers ($16.0m) (total to date: $169m)
• 3. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) ($11.0m) (total to date: $169m)
• 4. Sky High ($9.01m)
• 5. Must Love Dogs ($7.36m)
• 6. La Marche de L’empereur ($7.12m)
• 7. Stealth ($5.92m)
• 8. Fantastic Four (2005) ($4.27m) (total to date: $144m)
• 9. War of the Worlds (2005) ($3.55m) (total to date: $225m)
• 10. The Island ($3.12m)

UK TOP 10 (CINEMA)

• 1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) (£4.44m)
• 2. Madagascar (£0.85m)
• 3. Wedding Crashers (£0.84m)
• 4. Fantastic Four (2005) (£0.82m)
• 5. Herbie: Fully Loaded (£0.77m)
• 6. War of the Worlds (2005) (£0.57m)
• 7. Stealth (£0.52m)
• 8. The Skeleton Key (£0.43m)
• 9. The Devil’s Rejects (£0.32m)
• 10. Batman Begins (£0.07m)

All the following are U.K. release dates, and are subject to change.

• 12th August 2005: The Island, Fever Pitch (2005), The Rising, Supercross, Crash (2004), Primer
• 19th August 2005: Bewitched, Paradise Now, R-Point, Danny the Dog, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Bewitched (2005),
• 26th August 2005: Sisterhood of Traveling Pants, The Dukes of Hazzard (2005), Bad News Bears, Intruder, The Cave
• 2nd September 2005: The Business, The Honeymooners (2005), Red-Eye, On a Clear Day, Vital
• 9th September 2005: Cinderella Man, Land of the Dead, Rock School, The Man, The Longest Yard
• 16th September 2005: Four Brothers, Must Love Dogs, Pride and Prejudice (2005)
• 23rd September 2005: The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Revolver
• 30th September 2005: Goal!, Corpse Bride, A History of Violence, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Aeon Flux, The Perfect Man, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, The History of Violence
• 7th October 2005: Night Watch, Oliver Twist (2005), The Constant Gardener, Serenity, The Kinky Boot Factory
• 14th October 2005: Wallace & Gromit Movie: Curse of the Wererabbit, Lord of War, The Dark
• 21st October 2005: Nanny McPhee, Murderball, Elizabeth Town, Syriana, Sky High, Broken Flowers
• 28th October 2005: Doom, Flightplan, The Legend of Zorro
• 4th November 2005: V for Vendetta, The Exorcism of Emily Rhodes,
• 11th November 2005: Everything is Illuminated, The New World, Hustle & Flow, In Her Shoes
• 18th November 2005: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• 2nd December 2005: Tickets
• 9th December 2005: Hey Mr DJ, Just Like Heaven, The Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Shopgirl, Brokeback Mountain
• 14th December 2005: King Kong (2005)
• 16th December 2005: The Hawk is Dying
• 30th December 2005: Stray Dogs
• TBA: The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D, Domino, The Pink Panther (2005), Halloween 9, Final Destination 3D, Noel, The Tiger and the Snow, Underworld: Evolution, Walk the Line

All the following are U.S. release dates, and are subject to change.

• AUGUST: The Skeleton Key (12), Deuce Bigelow European Gigolo (12), The Aristocrats (12), Red Eye (19), Valiant (19), The Cave (26), The Brothers Grimm (26), Undiscovered (26)
• SEPTEMBER: Birth Of The Pink Panther (23), Legend Of Zorro (23), Serenity (30), Spy Hunter (30)
• OCTOBER: Wallace & Gromit (7), The Fog (14), Land Of The Dead (21)
• NOVEMBER: Cars (4), Harry Potter 4 (18), Brother Grimm (23)
• DECEMBER: Chronicles Of Narnia (9), Underworld 2 (9), King Kong (14), The Producers (24), Zathura (21), Mad Max Fury Road (31), Die Hard 4 (31)

Page Content copyright © Dan Owen, 2005.