Patrick Tatopoulos Talks UnderWorld 3 Rise of the Lycans

At Comic Con we had a chance to catchup with Patrick Tatopoulos the director of Underworld 3. Look for our detailed interview with him early next week but for now we have a small taste. Patrick has worked in the industry a long time but this was his foray into the Directors seat. What he does with this movie will clearly decide his future as a director and he was open and honest about that during the interview we had with him. Hollywood as he noted is all about hype and what happens with Underworld 3 could make or break his career as  a director.

During our interview he let it be known that genre films are what he is interested in doing right now, and although this film is a prequel and the story somewhat already spelled out their was still quite a bit of liberty for him to add his own touch to the film while still staying true to the film franchise.

They shot the film in New Zealand which surprisingly was a major concern for Patrick. He told us the beauty of the country and its ties to the epic and sweeping movie Lord of the Rings concerned him since that was not the look or feel he was going for his film. He says however once he got their the obvious talent of the people there swayed him and that New Zealand proved to be the perfect choice for shooting Underworld 3.

The film Underworld 3 Rise of the Lycans is a prequel not a sequel and that means new characters, a new world and a question mark on whether fans will be prepared to accept it. The movie Patrick Tatopoulos tells us is pretty much done from the stand point of shooting but they do have alot of visual FX to add into the film. Since Patrick worked as the creature designer on the last Underworld movie he made it clear that although hes done filming he will be very much involved in the FX process and the final 'polish' of the film. As for the challenge of doing a prequel and pleasing fans Patrick told us;

Its been a challenging thing because we known everyone was expecting a sequel and to see charcters they are familiar with. Some of them are back. So to me the whole interest in what got me excited is because we go back to another time. We go back to a time where I could re-invent some part of the franchise. I was very aware I could not change the color. The fact I could create a new setting and a new world was very interesting for me. We are not making a big world of war. We are making Gangs of New York with Vampires and Werewolves. This is the scale.

We are not having 20million werewolves vs 200 milion vampires. We could never do this. So we contained it a little bit more. That story of the movie is the story of the slavery which is basically the roots of Lucian. The Romeo and Juliet aspect, the love story between the two characters felt very strong to me.

Its a bit like Romeo and Juliet meets Underworld. Thats very appealing to me. In this we have strong character development to play with and we have a new world thats darker, bolder because its a story scene from the eyes of the werewolf. We are not seeing it from the eyes of the vampires anymore.

As for what next project he would like to do, and what monster he would love to re-create he had a great answer. The Creature from The Black Lagoon. Look for our complete interview with Patrick early next week! More comic con Madness coming all weekend long!