MattC
Guest
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2005
- Messages
- 1,286
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 31
I've just posted the first part of an interview that I conducted with Don Payne recently. I've split it into two parts as he spoke about the film in quite a lot of depth. I even managed to get him to address some of the aspects of the movie that have caused fans most concern, I know that one particular question that many have been asking will be answered in part two.
http://www.f4movies.com/interviews/581.shtml
Hope you enjoy it!
We had the great pleasure of meeting screenwriter Don Payne (The Simpsons, My Super-ex Girlfriend) last November whilst visiting the set of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The movie is now out in theaters, and so we thought we would catch up with Don and discuss the film a little further with him.
----------------------------------------
Can you talk about how you went about writing this film? 20th Century Fox has just offered you the film to write; how do you tackle a project like that?
You work closely with the director, the studio, and the producer. You try to give them what they want, while making sure it’s everything you loved about the FF – the action, the great characters, the gadgets, the dramatic and comedic moments, etc.
I had met with Marvel, Fox, and Tim Story individually long before I was hired to write the sequel. When they came to me and asked if I was interested in writing this, I was really intrigued because they wanted to include the SIlver Surfer this time around. They mentioned a few of the elements they wanted to include -- Doom, Silver Surfer, a wedding, etc. I came back to them with my take on the stuff they wanted to include in the story, and, after a little back and forth, I was hired on.
They had given me a 1 1/4 page beatsheet -- an outline of very broad story beats -- which they were interested in. I believe this is what had been worked on with the studio, director Tim Story, Marvel, and -- what I eventually found out -- Mark Frost, who had been hired before me. I revised it, added my own stuff, and then went on to write the first draft of my screenplay.
I did not see any other outlines, treatments, or screenplays by Mark Frost or any other writer while I was writing the movie. After I turned in my first draft, I was the only writer on the project, and I rewrote exclusively from my own first draft, writing multiple drafts throughout the course of production.
For the record, the official writing credits on the movie are "Story by John Turman and Mark Frost, Screenplay by Don Payne and Mark Frost."
Did the requirements of the story handed to you by the studio dictate certain pieces - for example, the use of the government and the bunker in Siberia, or the entire wedding sequence?
No. The use of the military was something that's a convention of science fiction films when dealing with an alien threat. We've seen the military respond to extraterrestrials in movies from The Day the Earth Stood Still to Independence Day. It just made sense that the military would be involved in a threat to the security of the country and the world. And I thought it would be an interesting situation for the FF to be caught in an uneasy alliance with Doom and the military.
I had met with Tim Story as he was finishing the first film and we talked about how great it would be to see the wedding in the next film and have it attacked by a supervillain -- as in the comics. Actually, in the comics, it was a huge number of supervillains trying to disrupt the wedding, all orchestrated by Doom. But, of course, it just made sense to include the wedding, because Reed and Sue got engaged at the end of the first film. And all Marvel comic book weddings wind up in a big action sequence.
So was it your idea for the helicopter crashing into the wedding, or was that part of the beat sheet?
It was not part of the beat sheet. The beat sheet was comprised of broad story beats. It said things like "Reed and Sue wedding" with no details.
My first draft had the helicopter crash to the rooftop during the wedding. It was Tim Story's idea to have the blades spinning through and chopping through the chairs and spectators. I thought he did a great job with that scene.
What do you feel was the biggest challenge of writing this film?
I think it was to try to make a film which was true to the spirit of the Fantastic Four comics. I wanted to write a film that was better than the first film, but, to do that, you had to use how everything was set up in the first film as a starting point and take it to a new level. But that wasn't just true of the writing. Everyone wanted to make that rare sequel that was better than the original, especially Tim Story.
How difficult was it to write the Surfer, as a being from a completely alien race, as compared to the other human characters in the movie?
It was a challenge. The Surfer is hard because he's such a complex character. We also wanted him to be mysterious -- a man of few words.
Was he more difficult to write than other characters in the film? Even given the small amount of lines he had? Did you find yourself constantly rewriting them, or did they just sort of come to you?
Everything he said had to be powerful and elegant and enigmatic. It was a challenge. It's not like you can just put a joke in the character's mouth. But I was determined to make every line of dialogue he had true to his character as established in the comics.
Before it was Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, did you have any titles in mind for the movie?
I just wrote it under the working title of Fantastic Four 2 -- which was never going to be the title because the feeling is that using a number in the title of a sequel is kind of lame. I think Rise of the Silver Surfer was better than any of the other possibilities out there. Although I pitched the idea of Fantastic Four: Doomsday, as I believe a few others had as well. That would have been good too.
What was the process like when the movie went into production? Were you involved on the set during filming?
Because I had a fulltime writing gig on The Simpsons, I couldn’t be on the set during production in Vancouver. However, I was able to get up there for three weeks right before production started, and I wrote some new scenes and reworked some others. It was a thrill to see this enormous production gearing up. During production, I would stay in contact with Tim Story via phone and e-mail. Whenever he needed a change or an alternate line of dialogue, I would turn it around quickly and shoot it back to him. So it all worked out.
Let’s say production is underway, you've submitted what may be a more-or-less final 'shooting script', and there's negative response from fans to information that leaks out. How do you feel about that, in the sense that it might be "too late" to change something that people are responding to poorly?
You can’t go by how people react to leaked information, because they’re not getting the whole picture. They’re not seeing it in context. You also can't change things based on fan reaction, because the fanbase is not some monolithic entity. As you know, there are lots of disagreements among the fans about what they want in a film, because they're all individuals, and the FF is such a personal thing to them.
I think there's too much of an obsession with rumors, leaked information, spy reports, etc. I know it's old-fashioned, but I think people should experience a film the way it's meant to be experienced -- in the theater after it's completed.
But, to be honest, I'm also guilty of jumping the gun and rushing to judgment based on rumors and leaked information. I was against the organic webshooters in the first Spider-Man when I heard about it. But it worked just fine in the movie and, actually, I realized it made a lot more sense story-wise. It's kind of a stretch that a high school kid (even a science prodigy like Peter Parker) could create this amazing chemical web substance -- a kid who also, coincidentally, has been given powers by a radioactive spider.
It seemed like Johnny’s power transfer was a little inconsistent at the end when he took on everyone’s abilities.
Well, in some of the earlier drafts, we actually saw him absorb more than one power when he touched more than one member of the team. But it was determined it was cleaner to see him just absorb one of each of the team members' powers until the end -- and it would be more of a surprise to see him take on all their powers at once.
The idea was that he was the conduit of the power switching, and by touching all of them at once, the switching went back and forth between him and the other members of the team, over and over again, going back and forth, building in intensity until he absorbed all their powers. Originally, it was Reed's idea, based on his analysis of Johnny's problem and what was conceivably possible if he were to touch all three of them at the same time.
Why did you use Sue as the characters who connects to the Silver Surfer, rather than Alicia?
The FF did a lot of globe trekking in this film. It made no sense that Alicia would go with them. In the comics, the Surfer fell into Alicia's apartment and bonded with her. But in this film, the FF were in the Black Forest of Germany and a military base in Siberia, or flying in the Fantasticar when Sue had her bonding moments with him. Practically, Alicia just wouldn't be there to do it. And I thought that Sue Storm was an empathetic character who was also capable of seeing the humanity within the Surfer.
That said, I think Kerry Washington is a great actress and I love the character of Alicia. I hope she will have a more instrumental part to play if there's another sequel. Especially if we use a certain relative of Alicia's.
We agree about Kerry. Did you intend to use Alicia as an external point of view for the audience to relate to?
I'm hoping that people can relate to all of the characters. But that's the great thing about Alicia. She has no powers, and she's living amongst these superheroes. But she's an incredible person who's got her own strengths.
How did you originally visualize Galactus? You have mentioned in previous interviews that he was written in a way that wouldn't rule out his appearance in any of his many physical comic-book forms in future films.
Galactus was written as a powerful force of nature -- a giant being of both energy and organic matter. I wanted to leave him a bit vague, really, because I knew that Tim would have ideas, and he'd want to try out different things with the visual effects crew. But it was important to me, as you've said, that it be done in a way that would not rule out any future manifestation of Galactus in any future film. Even something closer to the original Kirby 616 version. And I think this film leaves all possibilities open.
But didn't Galactus get destroyed by the Silver Surfer at the end of the movie?
Is the Surfer dead? It doesn't look like it. Is Galactus? Maybe. That's not my decision at this point. Nobody seems to stay dead in the Mavel comics universe! But, even if he WAS dead, that doesn't mean the SILVER SURFER film wouldn't go back and tell the Surfer's origin, where we'd see Galactus in all his glory. To be honest, I don't know what Fox's plans are with the Surfer.
Would you say there is the possibility that Galactus might have been transported to another universe perhaps?
I'd say anything is possible, isn't it? I don't mean to be coy. I just think there are many ways to interpret the end of the film.
----------------------------------------
Check back tomorrow for the second part of the interview!
http://www.f4movies.com/interviews/581.shtml
Hope you enjoy it!
Alive and mad, or course.
