Director Ridley Scott, Writer Damon Lindelof and Michael Fassbender Talk PROMETHEUS at WonderCon 2012

Described as an action/horror/sci-fi tale about a team of explorers who discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe where they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race, Prometheus, from director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Damon Lindelof made an appearance at WonderCon 2012. Following their presentation, those two talented and imaginative men were joined by in-demand actor Michael Fassbender to talk with the press about the mysterious and highly-anticipated film.

During the interview, Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof, talked about how the technological advancements since Alien have effected Prometheus, how much thought was put into the technology in the film, the importance of focusing on just making a good movie, the score of the film, their approach for what the android would be capable of, and the bigger ideas that could lead to a sequel, while Michael Fassbender talked about what it’s like to play an android. Check out what they had to say after the jump:

Before starting the interview, if you missed the awesome new trailer which premiered during the panel, or the next part of the viral campaign, just click the links.

Question: It’s been awhile since the first Alien film came out, and there have been so many advances in technology. Was that a problem, in terms of writing this, or was that advancement a positive point?

RIDLEY SCOTT: It’s easier to carry it out, but it’s still as difficult to write something. In fact, it’s getting more difficult because there are almost too many movies being made.

DAMON LINDELOF: Yeah, and I think that it would have been really difficult to do a straight-up Alien sequel or Alien prequel because you’re beholden to so many of the things that came before it. To be able to shed that stuff [made it easier]. This was Ridley’s idea. From the screenwriting standpoint, for me, it was really just all about getting a clear sense of what was the movie that he wanted to make. It’s Ridley Scott. The movie is his vision, so I did my best to channel it. We had almost no conversations about any other movies, other then this one, which might have been hubris or it might have been freeing, but it felt good, maybe just because we were drunk.

How much thought was put into the technology that’s in the film, especially with audience expectations being so much greater?

SCOTT: You think about everything, down to the shoe laces. We even had a big argument about the globular helmets. I was certain that I wanted the fully spherical glass helmet. In fact, in my research, I read this biography on Steve Jobs’ life and he talks about how he wanted to make his entire office of this glass, which is called Gorilla Glass, and this guy said, “We don’t make it anymore.” So, Steve Jobs actually then re-opened up the factory and started remaking Gorilla Glass. If I’m in 2083 and I’m going into space, why would I design a helmet that has blind spots. What I want is something where I have 360 [vision]. Glass, by then, will be light and you won’t be able to break it with a bullet.

How did you approach the android and what he would be capable of?

SCOTT: What was important was the story. There’s nothing new about an android. There’s nothing new about a robot. That idea is 800 years old. So then, embrace what it is. By embracing it, he becomes that much more interesting because he’s just part of the ship. In a sense, he’s not just butler, but he’s housekeeper and maintenance man, who legitimately does not need to sleep. From that, then he also becomes extremely useful during the story, as it evolves. There’s a great scene where Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) is actually a bit of a bitch, occasionally, says, “Hey, you, boy!,” to him. I thought that was real cheeky. And then, he says, “Why are you wearing one of those suits? You don’t have to breathe.” It ends up with David (Michael Fassbender) saying, “Not too close, I hope,” referring to being told, “We’re making you guys just like us.” You don’t know who’s insulting who there. That’s when those turn-abouts starts to occur.

What is the mix of genres in this film? How much horror does it offer versus science fiction?

SCOTT: The bottom line is just to make a good movie. Just make a fucking good movie. It’s got nothing to do with horror or whatever. That’s why there’s only a few really, really great ones. Thereafter, there are only evolutions of copycats. There are two great horror movies that I never got over. One was called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre by Tobe Hooper. I knew I didn’t really want to go see that movie, just by seeing the fucking poster. But, eventually I had to, as research for Alien. The other great one, with a single idea, was the first Exorcist. Possession of the body by a demon was marvelous. Since then, there have been 900,000 clones of those ideas.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER: I could never swim in the ocean after seeing Jaws.

SCOTT: We’re trying to come up with a few first notions with Prometheus, and I think we did.

LINDELOF: In this day and age, when you’re trying to market a movie and you say, “It’s a romance. It’s a comedy.” Neither of those are inherent in Prometheus, although there are funny scenes and romantic scenes. I think there’s a lot of action adventure elements to this movie, in terms of looking at it, in comparison to the original Alien. But, the fact that we can’t really put it in that box of, “It’s a this,” is refreshing. I think that there’s a quiet suspense to the movie. It really takes its time. If you have a master filmmaker who’s working with incredibly talented actors, you just have to say, “We’re going to be patient. We do not need to have things exploding, every 10 minutes.” It’s a little bit of an old school approach to filmmaking, in that it trusts the audience to have a little bit of patience. Just as someone who is a fan of these kinds of movies, I’ve been astonished by the patience of the fan base, in terms of how little we’re telling them about the movie. We’re doing this dance together, as filmmakers, where people want to know more about it, but we say to them, “Do you really want to know?,” and they go, “No, no, no, we don’t. We actually just want to go into the theater, not knowing if there’s a bomb under the table or not, or when it’s going to go off.” Ridley has always had a tremendous amount of faith in the audience’s intelligence. He directs and tells stories in a way that you come up to them, as opposed to them talking down to you. I feel like Prometheus is a proud member of that thing he does so well.

Michael, how did you approach playing an android with no emotion?

FASSBENDER: You want to play with as many of those human traits as possible. You’re essentially trying to build a computer that has a physicality to it, that can respond and understand human behavior. It’s programmed to be able to incorporate itself within a human environment. You’re going into space, so you’ve got to get certain personalities that will get on in space. He has to be very flexible. So, what happens when you program that and the program then starts making its own connections and joins up to its own electrical linking to other areas and forming its own ego, insecurities, jealousy and envy? I don’t really think too much about things. I just try to explore what’s happening within the scene, moment to moment. What I thought was very interesting was that you have this guy who was on his own for two and a half years while everyone else was in cryostasis, so what did he do to amuse himself? The idea that there is something of a little boy there, and that he has to rely on his imagination to keep himself occupied, imagination is a very human trait. The fact that he’s curious, how far will that curiosity go? The way that Damon [Lindelof] wrote it, people treat him as a robot and there’s a bit of contempt towards him because he has all the answers. He’s hyper-intelligent. His physicality is more advanced than human beings. So, people don’t really embrace him. He’s sort of used and abused. How does that make him feel, if robots can feel? I didn’t want to make a direct, definite choice. I played with the ambiguity. Is this robot starting to develop human personality?

LINDELOF: I remember a conversation that Ridley and I had, fairly early on, about David. There was this idea that David is mass-produced. There are 20,000 other David units out there, who look exactly like Michael Fassbender. What a wonderful world that would be, wouldn’t it? It’s the idea that we all have our iPhones, yet we put different cases on them and different apps on them. This David, once you take him out of the wrapping, would begin to customize himself. He could change his hairstyle. He could change the way that he speaks. He could have different applications, based on what this unit is designed to do. That’s where I felt like, as soon as we cast Michael, that’s the killer app, right there. It’s pretty cool.

Alien had such a ground-breaking score from Jerry Goldsmith, that influenced a lot of films after it. Can you talk about the score for Prometheus?

SCOTT: Jerry Goldsmith has been around for awhile. I still think that was probably one of his best scores. The score is always a challenge. Every element you put into it, you always try to find something else. Before it’s done, it’s not written. Everything is abstract. It doesn’t really matter how good or bad the words in the screenplay are. Once you’ve got that hundred and some pages, you’ve got something to talk about. It’s the same with the music. You can get a lot of pretty good demos now, where you get the physical keyboard demonstration. It’s not a real choir or a real cello, but it’s digitalized. You don’t really know what you’re going to get until you’re actually in Abbey Road. That’s where I did all the music, in The Beatles’ place. You start to hear it then, and then you start putting it onto the film. Everything is trial and error. You’re always looking to find something more. That’s what’s interesting about filming, certainly for me. It’s always about, “Yes, but . . .” But, you have to always try to keep reins on it and keep yourself within the parameters that you create, early on. A three act play is a drama box. Create your ground rules and stay within that, and the chances are that you’ve got a good play. As soon as anything goes, it doesn’t work. It’s bullshit. Some writers work on the script with a board with every scene laid out, so they’re literally moving things around like chess pieces. Some people just start at the beginning and go through to the end, and then read it and go, “Christ, that does work,” or “That does work,” or “I have to do that and that.” Everything is always on the move.

Since you’re leaving this film open with these bigger ideas that could lead to another film, would you take that film closer to the Alien franchise, or would it be its own different storyline?

LINDELOF: I think that’s actually a really insightful question. This word “prequel” was on the table. It was the elephant in the room and had to be discussed. When I had first heard that Ridley was going to direct an Alien prequel, and then six months later my phone rang and the voice on the other end said, “Are you available to talk to Ridley Scott?,” and then I crashed into a telephone pole, I answered the call and Ridley was like, “Hey, man, I’m going to send you a script tonight.” And, he doesn’t know he’s Ridley Scott. So, I read this thing and we had a meeting, and he was already very clearly saying, “I want to come back to this genre. I want to do sci-fi again. I feel like this movie is just a little bit too close to Alien. I’ve done this stuff before. But, there are big ideas in it that are unique, in and of themselves. Is there a way to do that?” I said, “I think that that’s what we have to do.” If there were a sequel to this movie, it would not be Alien. Normally, that’s the definition of a prequel. It precedes the other movies. The Star Wars prequels are going to end with Darth Vader going, “Noooo!,” unfortunately. There’s an inevitability, in watching a prequel, where you’re like, “Okay, if the ending of this movie is just going to be the room that John Hurt walks into, that’s full of eggs, there’s nothing interesting in that because we know where it’s going to end. With really good stories, you don’t know where it’s going to end. So, this movie, hopefully, will contextualize the original Alien, so that when you watch it again, maybe you know a little bit more. But, you don’t fuck around with that movie. It has to stand on its own. It’s a classic. If we’re fortunate enough to do a sequel to Prometheus, it will tangentialize even further away from the original Alien. When you go to the concert that is this movie, you want the Stones to play “Satisfaction.” There is this sense of us saying, “We want you to do something new, Ridley, but just give us a little bit of space jockey. Just play it! Even in the encore.” And, I think Ridley has given us the movie that I think we all want to see.

Damon, going from working on a very large canvas where you could explore your ideas, on Lost, what was it like to pare it down to something more streamlined?

LINDELOF: A huge relief. Obviously, with Lost, it was six years of my life. Between Carlton [Cuse] and I, we were at the wheel of the car. The idea of telling a story over 121 hours of time just felt so unwieldy. I went away for a month after Lost ended, and then the first project that I committed the next year of my life to, exclusively, was Prometheus. So, the idea of saying, “Yes, it’s just going to fit within the confines of 120 pages,” was a relief. That’s the story, but you keep going over that same story again. And then, there was also the huge relief of whatever story is out there about me saying, “This is what you should do, Ridley,” it’s, in fact, the opposite. It’s Ridley. I came in and he had a very clear sense of the movie he wanted to make. We had a number of conversations, he was enormously patient with me, and then I wrote that movie. It was nice to be sitting in the passenger seat and being like, “Maybe we should just make a left up here,” as opposed to having to drive the car constantly. If you’re going to let somebody drive, I highly recommend Ridley Scott. Although, Michael [Fassbender] said he’s a bad driver. I think it’s exciting, if you might go off the road, occasionally.

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Director Rupert Sanders Talks SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN at WonderCon 2012

After showing some new footage of Universal’s upcoming dark and action-packed tale Snow White and the Huntsman at WonderCon 2012 (read our recap here), director Rupert Sanders met with press to talk about his take on the familiar story. In this re-imagining, the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) is ordered to take Snow White (Kristen Stewart) into the woods to be killed, but instead becomes her protector and mentor in a quest to vanquish the Evil Queen (Charlize Theron).

During the interview, Rupert Sanders talked about his decision to tackle such a huge film for his feature directorial debut, the discoveries he made about Kristen Stewart as an actress, developing the right accent for her character, her fearlessness in the horse riding and sword fighting, what Charlize Theron brings to the role of the Evil Queen, the decision to have eight dwarves instead of seven, his perspective on Tarsem’s take on Snow White with Mirror, Mirror, and the aspects of the fairy tale that resonated with him the most. Check out what he had to say after the jump:

Question: What made you decide to tackle such a huge film, right out of the box?

RUPERT SANDERS: I came straight from the Mattel factory into the director’s chair. Yeah, it is a big film. I couldn’t get a small film, ironically. It’s much harder to get a small film off the ground than it is to get a big film off the ground. But, the high stakes gamble on the roulette table is that, if it doesn’t fall on your color, you’re in a small prison in Burbank, for the rest of your movie-making days. Hopefully, that would happen.

Because you do such big-scale commercials, don’t you feel like that helped prepare you?

SANDERS: Yeah, if you think of the money we spend on a minute, I’m actually making a fairly low-budget film. I’ve definitely loved doing commercials. I’ve had so much fun. I’ve traveled the world and I’ve gotten to really take on a lot of challenging projects. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s not dissimilar. It’s like riding a bike. Once you’ve learned how to ride a bike, then you can get on a motorbike. It gives you confidence, knowing that you can work with a thousand extras or a massive fight sequence with 600 horses on a beach or whatever it is. I wouldn’t have done it, if I’d been wetting myself every morning, going in there scared. But, life is about taking those risks. It was a high-stakes risk, for myself and for the studio, who very kindly wrote a large check to me to get it done. And they weren’t there, whipping me into line, which was great. I was really expecting to be shuttered in, but they were great. They trusted what we were doing and they let us go, which is all you can really ask for, in a partnership with a studio.

As you got to know her and work with her, what were the discoveries you made about Kristen Stewart, as an actress, especially with how people perceive her from the Twilight Saga movies?

SANDERS: I think what I realized is that she’s such a good actor that everyone thinks she’s Bella Swan. They believe that that’s her. Obviously, an actor is playing a role. She is nothing like Bella. And, I got on really well with Kristen. It was great. As I was writing stuff, she was there. We had a lot of conversations, seeing through her eyes. We really hard on developing that character together. I was just amazed at her talent, really. She’s incredibly good at her craft. She’s incredibly instinctive. She’s incredibly intuitive. She will overcome fear, like no one I’ve met, when it comes to it. She didn’t really want to ride a horse. She had a bad horse-riding accident, as a kid. When you’re riding fast on a horse, with 200 others soldiers on horses riding behind you, through surf on a beach, that’s terrifying. She really went there. She crafted the accent, and it’s flawless. She’s a stunning actor. I saw her first in Panic Room. Then, I saw her again in Into the Wild. I loved her in The Runaways. I loved her in Welcome to the Rileys. I think she’s going to be incredible in On the Road. She’s a great actor, and people just go, “Twilight girl,” which is a testament to her. She’s kept this pipeline of interesting projects going on the side, so she’s not just going to be that girl, forever more. She’s a great actor and she’s made incredibly shrewd decisions for someone who’s half my age.

Considering that, what were the challenges in ensuring that your film didn’t get distracted by the fact that this is the girl that so many people see as Bella Swan?

SANDERS: I’ve never seen the Twilight movies, so I didn’t really care that much. I met her, I really got on with her, she’s a great actor, and she was right for the character. That’s it. It was as simple as that, for me.

People haven’t gotten to see too much of her Snow White in the trailer footage thus far. Is that indicative of the movie, or are you just being really selective about how much you show?

SANDERS: No, she’s the lead. I’m not a marketing expert, but the way it’s positioned, I think we’re starting to bring her in, more and more. We don’t want to give too much away. We just want to say, “Here’s the bad person, and here’s someone who’s trying to get to her.” We’ve only done teaser trailers. The more stuff people see, the more they’ll see of her and the more they’ll be pretty blown away by what she did.

Charlie Theron is known as being a great actress. What did she bring to the role of the Evil Queen, which could have ended up being camp, in the wrong hands?

SANDERS: When you’re playing an Evil Queen, you can go into pantomime very quickly. What she did and what’s indicative of the film we tried to make is that she grounded that in reality. She found a way of playing this character in a very modern, realistic and gritty way. She’s not, “Off with her head!” She’s not the Alice in Wonderland kind of queen. It’s not that kind of film. She’s playing it pretty straight, as a very disturbed character who’s desperately got to find this heart because she needs to live forever. It’s as simple as that. She’s someone who’s dead on the inside, but she’s determined that she will avenge her family and the tribe that she was with, that was constantly brutalized by kings and by other kingdoms. She’s determined that the world will feel the suffering that she felt, and she will stop at nothing to do that. She’s totally dead. She doesn’t feel anything of life, but she has to get that heart and she has to live forever and she has to avenge her people. She’s very driven by some very dark machinations. She’s also incredibly wounded and incredibly fragile underneath. It’s an incredible performance.

Will there be backstories for all of the other characters?

SANDERS: Yeah, all of them have very rich backstories. They’ve all suffered a great deal of loss. This queen took over a kingdom. She’s someone who’s suffered a lot of loss. She lost her family, she lost a tribe, and she found her way into this kingdom. Like a Trojan horse, she moves from kingdom to kingdom, hollowing them out from the inside. She’s like a siren who attracts these people to her beauty. The dwarves lost everything. They were down in the mines. They’re noble goldminers who see light in the darkness. When they came up from the mines, the world was blackened and they lost all the other people in their race. The Huntsman lost a wife. Snow White lost a kingdom, both her parents, and the love of the people. Everyone’s dealing with loss, in very different ways.

Fairy tale re-imaginings have been a staple in literature, for some time, but now they’re also hot in Hollywood. Why is this the right time for that?

SANDERS: These things are cyclical, and they come and go. There’s been a lot of superheroes and this big scale of movie. They’re always looking for something that they know something about, whether it’s a comic book or a fairy tale. It just happens to be that this is the time for fairy tales. Also, it’s a financial thing. Once one makes a lot of money, then everyone gets on the bandwagon. The same producer that did this, did Alice in Wonderland previously. He started this up again.

How do you feel the tone of this differs from Alice in Wonderland?

SANDERS: That was very hallucinogenic and it was very CG based and very otherworldly. Ours is a very realistic film. It’s really a big swash-buckling, knights in shining armor movie with lots of castles on hilltops and horse battles and shattering black armies. It’s a medieval fairy tale, the kind of scale of those films that people love, like Gladiator or Lawrence of Arabia. It’s got those big, sweeping vistas, and it’s a big, imaginative world.

How much are you aware of Tarsem’s Mirror, Mirror and what is your perspective on his vision for Snow White?

SANDERS: We used to be represented at the same company, so I know of Tarsem. It’s definitely a big veering from what he normally does. It’s comedy, which is something that Tarsem is not known for. We’re probably both getting a lot more publicity because both films are out there, but they’re very different. I think there’s room for both of them. I hope we both succeed, and I hope that people want to see two versions. People love to go, “Oh, Hollywood is making two movies about the same thing. They’re so dumb.” So, everyone talks about it and I think it helps the awareness of the projects.

Do you plan on seeing his film?

SANDERS: I don’t know. If you see a hooded man in the back of the theater, [it will be me].

Fairy tales have themes that speak to people, throughout generations, even though there are different spins on them. How do you think your film is going to speak, eternally and specifically to what’s happening right now?

SANDERS: It’s a film that was made by a lot of people who are in their prime. You can’t really hope to make a film for any other reason then it turns you on. I say, “This is what I want to do, and this is how I want to tell it.” You can’t sit down with a flow chart and go, “Well, 90% of the people want to see a raven, and 10% want to see this.” I’ll leave the focus groups to the marketing department. We just got on and made the film that we wanted to make. It was as simple as that.

Initially, fair tales functioned as parables, in a broader sense. What is the particular message you’re telling with this?

SANDERS: The messages aren’t dissimilar. No one sat down and wrote the parables. They were word-of-mouth that were transcribed later, over generations. These were stories that were told around the campfires, for God knows how many years before the Grimms wrote them. They are parables. They’re Biblical tales. The themes in ours are quite similar to the themes in the original. We’re dealing with a lesson in how to deal with some of those things that are difficult about the human condition, like loss and death. I hope that we haven’t been preachy and said, “Our parable is this.” I hope there’s enough in there that people take their own lessons from it. What we really wanted to do was make a film that touched people and stayed with them. I didn’t want to just create wallpaper that looked pretty and dazzling, and then it was forgotten as you walked out into the street and got a taxi. I hope that it’s something that stays with people, and I hope that people get something from it. We did a test screening for a couple hundred people and there were a lot of young people there, and a lot of the response was very positive. People said, “I really want my kids to see this kind of film because it’s not telling them to shoot people and drive fast cars.” It has moral messages, but it’s not like we’re saying, “Here’s your moral message: You mustn’t wear make-up. You mustn’t have plastic surgery. Beauty is within.” All those things are obviously part of it, but it’s not like, “Here’s our big message.”

Before this, you were well known for your video game commercials, particularly for Halo. Was there ever any talk about you attempting to resurrect the Halo film?

SANDERS: No, no one called me. The industry is always looking for the next big thing. They’re always trying to take people from commercials and music videos and film school, and find that. It’s hard to find a project. I didn’t want to just make a film. I waited five years, until I found a project that I really wanted to do. I was close on a couple of other things, and they didn’t work out. You put a lot of work into something, and then it just goes by the wayside. It’s a tough business and you have to stay strong, but you should never do something that isn’t within you. When I first read this story and started to work on it, I found that it was within me and it was a story I felt I could tell, rather than just going to do some comic book that no one was doing. It’s dangerous when you make a first film. You put so much of your life into it. I’ve done nothing but Snow White for over a year. It’s all-absorbing, and you have to do that, so you better make sure that you’re in love with it. It’s a marriage.

How appropriate is Snow White and The Huntsman for kids?

SANDERS: Well, it’s not for six year olds, but it’s for eight to 80. I think there’s a message in it for everyone. It’s certainly not for the kids who wear Snow White diapers.

What was your first exposure to the story of Snow White, and when did you learn about the darker elements of the Grimm fairy tales?

SANDERS: I read that before I saw the Disney one. The Disney one is still pretty dark, even for Disney. It’s got, “Bring me the heart, the lungs and the liver.” It’s a brutal story. In the original, she eats the heart, the lungs and the liver, and then finds out that it’s a deer. And then, at the end, to really rub in her jealousy, Snow White invites her to the wedding and makes her dance a death in molten steel shoes. It’s a dark story. I don’t think we’ve shied away from the darkness, and Disney actually didn’t either. They just took a very different approach than we did, but the heart of the story is the same.

There are iconic elements to the Snow White story, like the apple and the mirror. How do you incorporate those elements, while also keeping the film grounded in reality?

SANDERS: You take the root of that idea. What is the mirror doing to the character of the Queen? Why is she asking it these things? What is it telling her? What does the apple symbolize? Going back to the parable, there are so many Biblical images in the story. All of those things are so laden, if you read a lot of Jung or Freud. With the mirror, the apple, the snake in the tree and the dark forest, it’s a very rich world. We’re still scared of dark forests, for some bizarre reason. There’s nothing scary about trees or birds, but if you put someone in a dark forest, they get scared.

What does it add to the mythology to make this version of Snow White a warrior princess?

SANDERS: Warrior princess is something that’s external, rather than being internal to the character. She wears a suit of armor, but she’s not suddenly Bruce Lee’s adopted sister. She is wearing armor for protection, and she has to kill a queen. She’s not beheading people. She doesn’t suddenly acquire these skills. It’s very instinctual and defensive. She knows she has to kill someone, and that is abhorrent to her. That sword lies very uneasy in her hand.

How did Kristen Stewart take to the sword work?

SANDERS: I put that sword in her hand, as I would put it in any of your hands. If I told you someone was going to come through that door who had done something terrible to you and you had to kill them, I’m sure you’d fucking give them a good run for their money. That’s really how she fights. She’s no ninja or samurai. It’s purely reactive.

What was it about this story that resonated the most, for you?

SANDERS: For me, it was about loss, and being pulled away from somewhere you were safe and you were exposed to something terrifying. You have to find that within you, in order to tell a story properly. A lot of my process, going into it, was to find those things that really connected to me, and that was a recurring theme. You’ll see a lot of people being pulled away from each other. Those things really resonated with me, and that’s what I put into the story.

Why did you decide to have eight dwarves instead of seven?

SANDERS: I don’t know, really. It’s just weird, how those things happen. It wasn’t like, “We’ve gotta have eight dwarves!” It was like, “Fuck it, let’s have eight dwarves.” The Snow White story, or Snow Drop story, just had dwarves. We weren’t trying to beat Disney. We just wanted one more.

What role do they play in the film?

SANDERS: Mythologically, dwarves are latent sexuality. They are half-men, so they’re about sexual awakening. There are no dwarf gang-bangs. It’s really about another group of people who have lost everything, and they are touched by Snow White, and they decide that they will fight for their pride again, alongside her. They’re very instigative, in taking her kingdom back with her.

Are they still the comic relief, at all?

SANDERS: They are funny, but it’s not slapstick humor. They’re funny because they’re funny guys. Ray Winstone delivers this beautiful, allegoric speech about what’s happened to them, as a tribe of people, and it’s really heartfelt. And then, he goes off and is really funny. We just let them go. They’re a hysterical bunch.

How did you go about finding Kristen Stewart’s British accent for the role?

SANDERS: If you’re amongst the forest and there’s knights in armor, all looking chivalrous behind you, and then Snow White says, “Is that, like, my castle?” So, it was important that she wasn’t Californian. To fit into the world, all of the characters have accents from that part of the world. Chris Hemsworth’s accent is Scottish, and Kristen’s accent is very royal English. She was really great at it, and she did the work. It’s easy to do an accent for a few minutes, but to be able to do it without thinking about it, so you can concentrate on the performance, is very hard. She worked with one of the best British dialect coaches. It’s hours of work, and she did the work so that she was flawless. She didn’t need to worry about it, and could get on with the performance.

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Director Marc Webb Talks THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN; Reveals Running Time, an Awesome Donald Glover Easter Egg, and More

Just a few hours ago I sat down with The Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb for an extended interview at WonderCon in Anaheim.  During the wide ranging conversation we talked about editing the movie, deleted scenes, the music, what he learned from screening the movie, the running time, and a lot more.  Here’s a few of the things I learned:

If anyone remembers Donald Glover’s Twitter campaign to play Spider-Man, Webb said Andrew Garfield put a Donald Glover picture in Peter Parker’s bedroom!The movie will probably be around two-hours long.When asked about Easter Eggs, Webb said “there are moments, there are distant mountains as J.R.R. Tolkien says that refer to…that are little winks and we’ll see if the audience likes it enough maybe they’ll get another movie.”Webb learned after the first screening for friends and family that people really liked that the movie was funny, so they made sure to enhance it.Regarding his use of 3D, Webb says some things were created to pop out of the screen, but his main goal was to enhance the sensations of velocity, volume, and vertigo with 3D.Webb wanted to use a lot of practical effects to create a world that felt more grounded and realistic.Says he already has a few deleted scenes that are fun but just don’t belong in the movie for various reasons.Webb reveals that he just heard James Horner’s first cue for the film and he calls it “spectacular.”  I also tried to find out what songs would be in the movie and if he went after any bands, but Webb just smiled and wouldn’t answer.

Hit the jump for more.

Without a doubt, the highlight of the interview came at the very end when he told me Andrew Garfield put a Donald Glover poster in Peter Parker’s bedroom.  I really think that was an awesome thing to do and Glover fans will get a kick out of it.

As usual, I’ve time indexed the interview so you can watch the parts that interest you.  Look for a lot more WonderCon interviews over the next few days.

Marc Webb Time Index

:03 His go-to karaoke song. Says it’s “Thunder Road” but it’s hard to find.:26 His favorite movie, director and actor.1:38 Talks about the movie City Lights and how moments of the film feel transcendent and modern.2:23 How much the project changed over the course of production. Said Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have an enormous talent for improvisation, so there was always a playfulness on set and they were able to create an emotional authenticity. The two came up with lines on their own that were oftentimes funnier than what was written. Story-wise, the film didn’t change much.3:29 The 3D. Says there was a testing phase in terms of wanting to create the sensation of flight for the audience.4:19 Says things pop out of the screen a couple times in the movie, but the main sensations that he tried to enhance were velocity, volume, and vertigo through 3D.5:12 Says the movie will probably be around two hours long. Talks about the process of cutting the assembly down to a manageable cut.6:05 Deleted scenes. Talks about things that he’s had to cut out. Says they found that some of the exposition on the page wasn’t needed once they saw everything on screen.7:22 What did he learn from his first friends and family screening? Says people really liked that the movie was funny, so they went back and wanted to enhance some of the comedy. Says there’s a lot of levity, especially with the trickster quality of Spider-Man and the chemistry between Garfield and Stone.8:50 Music in the film. He just heard James Horner’s first cue for the film, which he was really happy with. He wanted someone who could do both grandeur and intimacy. I also tried to find out what songs would be in the movie and if he went after any bands but Webb just smiled and wouldn’t answer.10:30 His feelings on all the set photos that got out and practical versus CGI. In terms of the practical effects, says he wanted to create a world that felt more grounded. As a result of the practical effects, a lot of the webslinging stuff got out. They used the geometry of the practical stunt guy swinging to inform the visual effects-enhanced webslinging.12:35 Easter eggs. Says there are moments that are winks and if the audience likes it enough, they’ll get another movie. Webb says he thinks Garfield put a picture of Donald Glover in Peter Parker’s bedroom.

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EASY A Director Will Gluck to Helm HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY

Director Will Gluck is poised to tackle decidedly different material than that of his previous films. Gluck has found success with the highly entertaining, pop culture-infused pics Easy A and Friends with Benefits, but he’s now attached to direct a slightly darker film. THR reports that Gluck is attached to helm a remake of the 2006 Swiss drama Vitus, called How to Disappear Completely. The story centers on “an academic and music prodigy who suffers under the constant scrutiny of his over-protective parents. His life takes a dramatic turn after an accident causes him to revert back to ‘normal’ intelligence.” Ed Solomon (Men in Black) wrote the script, but Gluck is expected to develop a draft of his own. Hit the jump for more, including the trailer for Vitus.

I was taken aback by how much I enjoyed Easy A and, particularly, Friends with Benefits. Gluck has a knack for fun dialogue, and it’ll be interesting to see how his talents translate to more dramatic fare. He recently signed on to direct an action comedy called Secretaries Day from Iron Man 3 scribe Drew Pearce, so it looks like he’s capitalizing on his box office (and critical) success by branching out. Whichever project goes first, I’m eager to see Gluck’s next film. Watch the trailer for Vitus below.

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Director Gary Ross Says CATCHING FIRE Won’t Be 3D; Explains Why 3D Isn’t Appropriate for THE HUNGER GAMES Universe

Director Gary Ross’s adaptation of The Hunger Games opens next week, and early tracking numbers have the film poised to surpass The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1’s opening weekend. This thing is tracking like a sequel, so naturally the follow-up Catching Fire is all but guaranteed at this point. Simon Beaufoy was already writing the script for the sequel in January, and Ross is confirmed to return should the film get the green light (it will). Early buzz on The Hunger Games has been very positive, and many are noting Ross’ atypical approach to the camera work in the film. There are apparently a lot of close-ups and handheld shots, bringing a grounded and realistic feel to the tentpole pic. The director recently spoke a bit about Catching Fire, saying that he would never consider 3D for The Hunger Games franchise. Hit the jump to find out why.

Ross sat down with Josh Horowitz at MTV and talked briefly about his approach to Catching Fire. Since it’s early, he obviously doesn’t have much to say, but he did note that he has ideas of how Catching Fire will differ cinematically from The Hunger Games. Furthermore, Ross outright stated that he would never consider 3D for the series:

“No, absolutely not, no [I wouldn’t consider 3D for Catching Fire]. I don’t think it’s appropriate for this film. I think that if we shoot this movie in 3D, we become the Capitol; we start making spectacle out of something that I don’t think is really appropriate here. There needs to be an aesthetic distance because of the nature of the material, the premise, what they’re doing. I think that cinematic techniques designed to intensify the experience if you feel them that way, aren’t really appropriate. I mean I love 3D, I really do and I think it’s a wonderful tool, I just don’t think it’s the right tool for this.”

The director certainly has some great motivations behind his decision to nix the prospect of 3D. It’s obvious he approached the franchise carefully, not wanting to turn The Hunger Games into a clean, stylized version of the book. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, the Capitol is where the ruling government in The Hunger Games is housed, and the lives of those who live in the Capitol are driven by the importance of appearance and style. As a fan of the books, it’s encouraging to hear that Ross didn’t take a surface-level approach to his adaptation; he genuinely values the underlying themes of The Hunger Games and hopefully that translates to his film iteration.

Jennifer Lawrence previously stated that filming on Catching Fire is expected to start this fall, with a good deal of the production taking place in Hawaii. You can watch Ross’ conversation with MTV regarding Catching Fire below, but beware of spoilers for The Hunger Games if you’re unfamiliar with the books. If you missed them, be sure to check out our interviews with Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz and Wes Bentley, Alexander Ludwig, Isabelle Fuhrman and Amandla Stenberg, Donald Sutherland and producer Nina Jacobson.

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