Shawn Levy Interview

Shawn Levy may not be the biggest name in directing yet – titles under his belt include Cheaper by the Dozen, Date Night and the Night at the Museum franchise – but that could all be about to change with the release of Real Steel this autumn. An underdog sports movie (is there any other kind?) with its focus on a father-son relationship, not to mention some good old fashioned robot-on-robot fighting action, Real Steel is set to entertain the bejesus out of you. Levy was in old London town recently performing promotional duties at Empire’s Big Screen event. Being the very special internet website that we are, Blogomatic3000 was one of the lucky few granted a one-on-one interview with Levy. Here we discuss Spielberg, robots and punching bulls.

So tell us where the concept for Real Steel came from. It’s based on a Richard Matheson short story is it not?

It was a Matheson story that became a Twilight Zone episode that Matheson wrote himself. Spielberg and Dreamworks had been developing a movie version for like, seven years and they never quite cracked it and brought it to life. But they sent it to me and I felt like I had a take on how to make it and things moved very quickly from that point.

You’ve got Hugh Jackman playing a real bastard in your film. How did you get that performance out of one of the nicest men in Hollywood?

I really, really pushed him to play that asshole! I told him what I believe which is that he has such audience goodwill as an actor – I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love the guy. He gives off such inherent likability that I felt strongly that he could play it as a hard-edged bastard and not risk alienating the audience. I think that it certainly works and it’s why the third act where his character really has a catharsis works to the extent that it does, because he’s earned, he’s spent so much of his life and so much of the movie playing hard and remote and angry so when we see the softening of that, it’s very satisfying.

In the film you create the robots using not only CGI, but animatronics which was fantastic to see – how was it working with that on set?

It was really interesting, I mean really almost with incident. I have to tell you, the first time I saw Atom, the first time Dakota saw Atom, it’s like you kind of fall in love with this thing because on the one hand he’s this hulking machine but there’s a simplicity and an innocence to his design. Those inscrutable LEDs for eyes behind the mesh of his face – he was really evocative and expressive. I felt that bringing those practical machines into the movie added a lot.

Speaking of Dakota, he plays a precocious young man in the film – is he as precocious and as much of a livewire in real life?

He’s definitely not at all lippy. In the movie he is a smartass, a punk kid with a lot of attitude. In real life he is a well-raised, super polite little Canadian boy. I fear that the fame that this movie will bring to him will forever corrupt him, but I certainly hope not!

Early on in the film, one of the robots fights a bull. Now obviously it’s not real, but the fight is very visceral – I was wondering if you anticipate upsetting anyone over animal cruelty?

I can tell you that we did not have robot punch a bull in the face!

I was hoping not!

We did have a real bull for a lot of the charging shots, we had animal treatment people on set, so the bulls were treated very very kindly and any violence for fun’s sake was absolutely only done to digital creations. So far we’ve had no one offended by the bull sequence.

Obviously the scene is there to demonstrate the brutality of robot boxing and I think the scene works in that way.

That’s right. I’m sure there’ll be some backlash somewhere!

Tell us about the design of the robots. Atom has a lot of charm, but the other robots are a lot more elaborate.

We spent about four months just designing the robots and we did eighteen, nineteen of them. And the mains ones, Ambush, Atom, Zeus, Metro, Midas and Noisy Boy, we wanted each to have distinct designs and colours and personalities. And Tom Meyer, the designer, oversaw different design teams of men and women working on one robot from one another so that the whole visual approach to them would feel individuated.

I really liked Noisy Boy, I was sorry to see him get merked so early on!

I know, Noisy Boy with his shogun helmet and his striated torso – it’s a great looking bot. Little known trivia fact – the LEDs on his fists say things in Japanese like ‘pain’, ‘oblivion’, ‘the end’ ‘doom’!

One film series I’m sure Real Steel will be compared to is the Transformers franchise. Personally, I don’t like them and one of the criticisms they get is that they’re just about a load of robots hitting each other. Now your film has a load of robots hitting each other, but I really liked it! It had charm and character… Did you have Transformers in your mind when making the film?

If you live in… the world, you’re aware of Transformers! Look, I would be grateful to have fifty per cent of the success that Michael Bay’s had with his franchise so I say this with respect to that, but our movie is really, thirty per cent robot action, the rest is a straightforward father-son sports drama, so I think the balance is very different. The other thing is that you only care about the outcome of the robot fights in Real Steel because you care about the people in the corners and that’s something that’s quite different I think from the Transformers movies.

There’s the Steven Spielberg connection there as well, how was working with him?

It was a dream mentorship. The truth is, when you’re super successful, you can be selflessly generous in your advice and support. I think when you’re in the earlier years of your career and you’re scraping it trying to make it, you’re running your own race in your head and you’re worried about getting where you want to get. Steven has gotten to where no one has ever gotten and I found him to be an incredibly available, forthcoming mentor.

The film is not going to be in 3D – was this a creative decision from day one?

Yes. I knew that Transformers was going to be in 3D and we wanted to distinguish. I think that choosing to do the movie in 2D sends a message, and this was important to Steven and I, that this was a father-son action-drama, not a robot fighting movie. It certainly has qualities of robot action, but we wanted the focus to be on the people.

Finally, what’s next on your plate?

Well I’m producing a movie right now called Neighbourhood Watch with Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn, so that’s got me quite busy. I’ve also been working for about six months on a movie called Fantastic Voyage with James Cameron which I’m going to produce and direct and Jim will be producing that’s going to be this crazy, immersive sci-fi action movie. As such, it’s really complex and really pricey but we’ll make that if and when we get the right star.

Fright Night Review

It’s probably getting as tiresome reading it as it is writing it but VAMPIRES ARE FRICKINGEVERYWHERE (though fortunately not literally). Perhaps if I were a true journalist, rather than an unbelievably fortunate chancer who gets to go see films then write about them, perhaps I would offer a well-researched and thoughtful treatise on the socio-cultural reasons for this resurgence of interest in the undead over the last few years.

Perhaps I would lamely suggest that in these dark times of recession and corruption, we see our own society reflected in the vampires – a corruption of the human being, without soul or humanity, the strong few forming a parasitical relationship with the weak majority. Or perhaps I’d venture that we are currently enamoured with vampires because we seek escapism – because we wish to be strong, fast and near immortal. Or perhaps I’d conclude we seek the vampire because as more and more frequently our relationships with those around us are conducted via digital means and we envy the visceral intimacy of the vampire and its victim. Or maybe I’d just decide that Stephanie Meyer got lucky and ever since the success of Twilight, we’ve all just been following the money. Whatever. I’m not going to do that.

Fright Night is a remake of a 1985 cult favourite. Charley (Anton Yelchin)’s dreary suburban existence is thrown into disarray when his geeky ex-friend Ed (established Hollywood face of nerdiness, Christopher Mintz-Plasse) theorises that a recent spate of disappearances is due to the fact that Yelchin’s new neighbour Jerry (Colin Farrell) is a vampire. Charley, who would rather be spending time with his hot new girlfriend Amy (Imogen Poots) than with his embarrassing former ally, is at first dismissive, but soon finds himself having to protect his loved ones from Farrell’s threat. His only hope is the advice of David Tennant (who introduced the film at the Big Screen event)’s high-camp illusionist, Peter Vincent.

Director of indie favourite Lars and the Real Girl, Craig Gillespie helms the film and there’s a strong sense of fun about proceedings. Comedy is just as important as scares are in the feature andFright Night offers a decent laugh quota. David Tennant is the chief provider of giggles as the hammed-up performer, a sort of Derren Brown-Russell Brand mash up. In fact, I’d be surprised if Brand hadn’t been the first choice for the role as Tennant seems to be channelling everyone’s favourite Katy Perry-marrying former lothario to a rather large extent. Still, he mugs gamely and the charisma that won him legions of fans in Doctor Who, does him a lot of favours here. It’s also amusing to see him effing and jeffing and necking booze like it’s going out of fashion; he never got to do that in the Tardis.

The rest of the cast acquit themselves nicely. Mintz-Plasse is typically strong, as are Yelchin and Poots. Farrell clearly relished his role as the vampire and is seductively brilliant. And it’s always nice to see Toni Collette, in this film as Charley’s mother.

Fright Night is a little shallow – there’s not much going on beneath the jumps and japes – and I’d recommend seeing it in 2D if you can because the 3D version is incredibly dark, but beyond that, it’s a very hard film to dislike. One gets the feeling that on the strength of this, the vampire trend won’t be ending anytime soon.

Empire Big Screen: Disney Showcase and Muppets Interview

Disney’s showcase at the Big Screen event/festival/shindig boasted an interesting selection of clips and footage from some interesting looking films. Shawn Levy was first to show up with some fun footage from the robot-boxing movie Real Steel (which I did get to see in order to prepare for the upcoming interview I did with Shawn Levy, but I’m embargoed from reviewing until October 7th). The clips we saw included one boxing match and a scene in which star Hugh Jackman and on-screen son Dakota Goyo discover an old robot quite by accident in a scrap yard. Levy was keen to stress the film’s focus on the father-son relationship and its classic underdog sports story rather than the robotic brutality. Real Steel looks like a lot of fun, but who knows how good it will be? WHO KNOWS?

We also got to see quite a bit of footage from John Carter (formerly of Mars), Disney’s new space-fantasy tour-de-force (or Avatar cash in, if we’re being cynical. Which we’re not!). The footage was introduced by Pixar big kahuna Andrew Stanton, who has played some sort of role (often writing and/or directing and/or producing) on pretty much every film the studio has churned out. John Carter is his first live action flick and is something of a labour of love, given that Stanton has wanted to bring the story to the screen since his childhood. We saw a burly-looking Taylor Kitsch as the titular John meeting some green aliens and doing a lot of jumping around, followed by what looked an awful lot like the coliseum scene in Star Wars Episode II. The CGI didn’t look quite finished, but given that Pixar have been doing photo-realistic visuals for some time now, I’m certain the finished article will look fine. Overall though, John Carter looks good fun. The trailer was improved no end by the classy inclusion of Peter Gabriel’s ‘My Body is a Cage’ as background music.

The last major bit of the showcase was Spielberg’s War Horse, which was introduced by star Jeremy Irvine. Irvine had been playing a small chorus part in a stage production during his audition before getting the part; the jump up to the big league proving as surprising to the actor as anyone else. The footage we saw seemed as stirring and care-laden as anything else Spielberg has done and should do justice to the well-loved book by Michael Morpurgo and the stage play.

They also showed the teaser at the end of Captain America for The Avengers, which is basically a lot of fast cuts between people talking in a grey steel room.

Disney’s showcase was followed by a live satellite link up with Kermit the Frog (Kermit the goddamn Frog!) and director James Bobin (Flight of the Conchords) in which they chatted about the new Muppets film, The Muppets. The interview was a lot of fun and was many people’s highlight of the weekend. The new film seems very much in the vein of classic Muppet’s comedy and we were treated to a sizable chunk which saw Jason Segel, Amy Adams (both perfectly suited to The Muppets) and their Muppet friend Walter tracking down Kermit in order to convince him to get the old gang back together in order to save the Muppet Theatre. The clip included a very sweet song by Kermit and boasted a handful of big laughs, even in its brief duration, which bodes exceedingly well for the film’s release. Kermit’s chat – in which he took several questions from the ecstatic audience – was interrupted by Fozzie Bear and, of course, Miss Piggy who threatened to spill the backstage beans on Jason Segel before the clip cut off. February cannot come soon enough.