Movies
Paul W.S. Updates ‘Castlevania’ and ‘Resident Evil 4’
With his remake of DEATH RACE arriving on both DVD and Blu-ray next week, director Paul W.S. Anderson has been out and about talking to the press. When not talking about unwatchable car action, the topic shifted to both Resident Evil 4 and the long delayed adaptation of Castlevania. Read on for the skinny on both.
Anderson informed IGN that the sale of Rogue Pictures to Relativity Media, coupled with last fall’s Writers Guild strike and the possibility of an impending Screen Actors Guild strike, have “derailed” the project indefinitely. He confirmed that Rogue Pictures is no longer involved with CASTLEVANIA, but that Sylvain White is still attached to direct it.
“We still want to make the movie, but I can’t say we’re going into production in January or anything like that. It’s a project that everybody likes. I love the videogame. I think the script is really strong. Everyone is really enthusiastic about it, but we’re still in the process of deciding when the movie gets shot,” Anderson explained.
As for RESIDENT EVIL 4, Anderson confirmed he is in fact writing it, as was reported a few weeks ago, adding, “Once again we’re doing it completely with the blessing of the videogame company. We got a lot of flack [on the sequels] for, ‘Why isn’t the movie set in the mansion just exactly like the very first videogame?’ That’s just not progression for me. As the Resident Evil videogames themselves have developed in leaps and bounds — it’s like when we did the last movie people were like, ‘Resident Evil doesn’t take place in the desert. What the (expletive) is this?’ Well, where does Resident Evil take place? Does it take place in Raccoon City exclusively? Well, I don’t think so because the game has been in Antarctica, in Raccoon City, now it’s in Africa.”
Anderson continued, “The game is constantly and so is the movie franchise. We’re doing it very much in conjunction with the developers of the videogame to give the audience something fresh but something that fits within the world of the videogame.”
I only pray they simmer down on the CG and bring back some practical effects for the fourth film. And Africa? What happened to Japan, or Alaska? Sounds like they’re thinking cheap…
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
You must be logged in to post a comment.