Gavin Hood Interview, Wolverine

We had a chance to catchup with Gavin Hood and ask him some questions about Wolverine, knowing that all of you would want to know the latest greatest on the film. So without to much ado here is what he had to tell us. First off we asked him to tell us about the film.

 I'll give you two answers really quickly. One is called a college fund for my twins. That's what you're going to say so why don't we say it? You know, it's not often that a script like Rendition comes across your desk. We think that scripts are just out there and they're not. I read 70 scripts…And if you want to know about Wolverine, I'll tell you why I love Wolverine. I love Wolverine partly because it will pay my [daughters'] college fund. I'm doing it because that's the cynical answer but the truth is, I didn't, at first, when Wolverine was offered to me, I went, ‘Well, I'm the wrong guy for this.’

 

And then I spoke with Hugh Jackman and the truth is that what's great about the Wolverine character, he's really a character who suffers from a great deal of existential angst. So you want to know why Gavin Hood is interested as somebody who loves actors and emotions is because looking at it more closely, and I was raised on Greek mythology, not comics. I don't know anything about the details of the movie yet but what I do love about the Wolverine character is that there is within that character a great deal of disconnection from who he really is and what it means to be human. So what we're really getting a chance to do is do opera.

 

We're taking human emotion and in the way that you would have Zeus throwing thunder bolts, it's three claws. I happen to be a big fan of the X-men movies because I think those, especially what Bryan Singer did, those are movies about prejudice. They are movies about absence of prejudice and they happen to be done in a very accessible and commercial way. So I think there's a great deal of themes and ideas to explore in Wolverine beyond just three claws. And I'm not going to say anything more about the movie because we're here to talk about Rendition.

Q: What about doing big special effects?

GAVIN HOOD: Well, it's another reason to do it because to work in a visual way, and I happen to- - my first film world was still photography and I love the visuals. Yes, to work at a level of heightened visual effects is going to be an amazing experience, yeah.

Q: When will we find out about casting?

GAVIN HOOD: Honestly, we're involved in the casting process. We will not know for a good couple of months. We start shooting the film in December, possibly January. We're very involved in the prep process now and will be casting over the next couple of months. Not this week. Right now I'm still doing Rendition. That's all I can say.

Q: Will it have a PG-13 rating?

GAVIN HOOD: Yeah.

Q: How long will the shoot last?

GAVIN HOOD: Probably three or four months. Four months, about four months of shooting.

Q: Are you shooting on location or in the U.S.?

GAVIN HOOD: No, it will be in Australia and New Zealand and a lot of it in the Fox Studios in Sydney. That's as much as I can give you.