Joel Silver Interview, Ninja Assassin

Joel Silver, one of the most prolific and successful producers in the history of motion pictures, has produced over 50 films, including the groundbreaking “The Matrix” trilogy, the blockbuster four-part “Lethal Weapon” franchise, and the seminal action films “Die Hard” and “Predator.” To date, Silver’s catalog of films have earned more than $10 billion in worldwide revenue from all sources.

Under his Silver Pictures banner, Silver is currently producing “Sherlock Holmes,” directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law and Rachel McAdams, and set for a Christmas release; and the action thriller “The Book of Eli,” starring Denzel Washington under the direction of Albert and Allen Hughes, and due out January 2010.

MoviesOnline caught up this weekend with Joel at the Los Angeles press day for his new film, "Ninja Assassin.” The film is directed by James McTeigue from a screenplay by Matthew Sand and J. Michael Straczynski and produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers. “Ninja Assassin” also stars Naomie Harris, Ben Miles, Rick Yune and legendary martial arts performer Sho Kosugi.

Joel Silver is a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about “Ninja Assassin” and his upcoming projects in development:
 
MoviesOnline: You first worked with Rain on Speed Racer. How did you meet him?

Joel: I had actually been in Tokyo on another movie, and I was in the hotel and I heard this huge commotion in an elevator. I said, “Who’s here?,” and they said, “That’s Rain.” I said, “Who?,” and they said, “Rain,” and I said, “Who’s that?” I had no clue who he was. I met him and I realized that he was this incredibly popular pop artist and singer. When we were making Speed Racer, we were looking for artists all over the world to be a part of it, and the Warners guys said to me, “You really ought to see if Rain will do this.” So, he came into Germany and he met the Wachowski brothers, and they decided to put him in this movie. At the same time, I had been talking to an executive at Warner Bros., when I made my deal. Dark Castle is a self-funded entity. We have money to make our own movies and distribute them through Warner Bros. One executive said to me, “Do you think that you could find a martial arts star? It might be nice to find a martial arts star. We’ve done historically great business at Warner Bros. with martial arts stars, back to Bruce Lee in “Enter the Dragon,” and they did movies with Steven Segal and Jet Li. That’s something that we don’t really have the ability to do. Maybe you could find that.” So, I told the Wachowski brothers that it would be nice if we could find that, one day, and when they saw Rain do his first training on the movie, they said, “We’ve got him. This is the guy.” So, we actually built this movie for and around him, and he delivered.
 
MoviesOnline: From a producing standpoint, are there any special considerations for a production of such international scope?

Joel: We developed it at Dark Castle to make it and it got a little big for us, so we had to join forces with both Warner Bros. and Legendary. It was intended to be what it is. It was a big international martial arts film with an international cast, which we hope will get an international audience.
 
MoviesOnline: This is a big action film, but it also has heart. Did you want to make sure that the backstory worked?

Joel: The intention was to make the movie work and to make it an effective story. It’s a fun movie and, in the opening scene, you know what you’re going to see. It’s meant to have you have a good time. It’s designed as that type of picture. And, I think that the most important thing is, “Can Rain pull it off?,” and I think he did.
 
MoviesOnline: Did you ever have discussions about the level of violence?

Joel: When we started “The Matrix” and we did all the kung fu stuff in there, we crafted a new look at those kind of Eastern movies with a Western aesthetic. The guys who did our martial arts work on this movie worked with all the big masters and they did this themselves this time. They brought a crew in from all over the world to be the ninjas, with all different martial arts techniques and styles. It was meant to be grounded. It doesn’t have the fantasy and wire work that we’ve had before. It was a grounded, hard action, ninja movie.

MoviesOnline: Whose idea was it to open this film on Thanksgiving?

Joel: The studio felt it was a good time. Clearly, this movie “New Moon” didn’t work so well, so nobody really cared about that. I’m kidding. But, the idea was that it was a good time of year to have a movie like this. There are no young male movies right now. We do tracking and research on what people want to see and, right now, this is the movie that young boys want to see.
 
MoviesOnline: But, you’re going to get girls too, don’t you think?

Joel: I think so. I hope so. I hope that will happen.
 
MoviesOnline: Do you see potential for a sequel with this?

Joel: We made a deal with Rain to do another movie. I hope we get to do it, whether it’s a sequel or something else. If the audience responds and he has an audience there, then we should definitely make more films with him. I think he could be a big star.
 
MoviesOnline: Were you concerned about the tone of this film and making it more serious?

Joel: We wanted to make it that kind of action movie. There are a couple moments of levity in it, but the idea of the movie was to do a ninja film. That’s what we wanted to do, and commit to the idea of making a ninja film. There are no turtles in this. The last big ninja movie was a turtle movie (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), but I think that this movie is what it is meant to be.
 
MoviesOnline: Was it difficult to oversee a film with people who didn’t all speak English?

Joel: We shot the movie in Berlin and most of the crew was a German crew. They spoke English, but it was a German crew, and we brought in some people from the U.K. We found a lot of these kids in Europe and we brought them together. It was intended to be an international picture, so we knew we were going to do that. I remember, a few years ago, when I made that movie “Fred Claus,” all of the elves were Russian because they had made a deal with some Russian circus, and we went through that. So, it was okay. We got through this one.
 
MoviesOnline: Were there any big challenges with this then, or did it just all go really smoothly?

Joel: It went pretty smoothly. We knew what we were doing. We know how to make this kind of movie, and we just launched into it, pretty much right after “Speed Racer” came out and didn’t happen. It was a good time for us to focus on making this picture, and it just came out great.
 
MoviesOnline: Can you talk about choosing James McTeigue as the director for this?

Joel: James had worked with us, for many years, as the First A.D. on all the “Matrix” films. When we finished the sequels, we needed somebody to come in and do a bunch of television advertisements for our promotional partners. The agencies all wanted Larry and Andy Wachowski to do it, but they really couldn’t because they were in the middle of finishing the movies, so we went to James and said, “How do you feel about directing some commercials for us?” He said, “Okay,” and he did a fantastic job. All the people he worked with loved him. And then, we segued from that into “V for Vendetta,” and he did a great job there. And then, he did all the Second Unit action work on “Speed Racer.” And then, he did this. So, he’s off and running now.
       
MoviesOnline: Being a huge pop star, did Rain have any diva element at all?

Joel: You wouldn’t even know that that was in his life. He is so committed, so focused and he worked so hard. There are some movies, like “300,” that are made today, where there are a lot of guys with a lot of abs, and maybe all those were not all there originally, but were helped with CGI, as they’ve said. But, this guy looks like that. That’s him, in all those shots of him. He had zero body fat. He was just completely focused and there. He is a great guy. He’s a sweet, smart, very talented and athletic guy.
 
MoviesOnline: What did you see in Rain that made you know he could do this?

Joel: It was when he started training and they said what he could do. I was already looking to find a guy to do a movie like this, so when they said, “This is the guy,” it just made perfect sense. We did craft this movie around him. Who can say what is a new martial arts star? What is that going to be? I think that he could be that.  
 
MoviesOnline: Are you excited about “Sherlock Holmes” coming out in December?

Joel: Very excited. It’s a great film. It’s really a sensational movie. It’s fantastic. People are going to start seeing it really soon, and I think there’s going to be a great response to it.
 
MoviesOnline: Are you hoping to make that into a franchise?

Joel: I would hope that it could be a franchise, sure. [Robert] Downey already has another franchise that he’s doing pretty well in, but Sherlock is a very different character than Tony Stark and I think you get a chance to see him do something that is very different from what he does in the “Iron Man” pictures. He’s so good in it. He’s so good at everything he does, but he’s fantastic as Sherlock and I think the audience will buy him as this guy. I think it’s a chance to make a really big movie.
 
MoviesOnline: When you were a kid, were you into the big action movies?

Joel: Sure. When I came to Hollywood, the summers weren’t full of action films like they are now. It wasn’t really like that. Except for the Bond films and the occasional “Dirty Harry” movie, there weren’t a lot of action films being made. The first movie that I worked on that I was really proud of was a movie called “The Warriors.” We did that in ‘78. And then, I did “48 Hours” in ‘82. Gradually, those became the prevalent movies that people wanted to see, and then that morphed into the comic book movies, which is where we are today. I always wanted to make these kinds of movies, and I really am happy to be able to do that, but I also like thrillers and horror films. I’m just trying to mix it up a bit.
 
MoviesOnline: What is “The Losers”?

Joel: It was a legendary comic book from the ‘90s that DC put out. It’s about a military team of a bunch of guys who get set up by their management and they end up having to go after them. It’s a great cast. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is in it with Idris Elba, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Columbus Short and Jason Patric. It’s directed by Sylvain White, who did “Stomp the Yard.” He did a great job. He’s a great fella. It comes out in April. It’s going to be a really good movie.
 
MoviesOnline: What is “Unknown White Male”?

Joel: That’s a thriller that I’m doing with Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger and January Jones. That starts shooting in January in Berlin, and it’s really interesting. It’s directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, who did “Orphan” for us. It’s a pretty exciting picture.
 
MoviesOnline: What is “The Factory”?

Joel: “The Factory” is going to come out next January. It’s a creepy thriller. It’s pretty hard-edged stuff. It’s fun. John Cusack is in that.
 
MoviesOnline: Do you ever get overwhelmed juggling so many projects?

Joel: The only difference now is that, when I used to do this years ago, people didn’t know about all the movies. Because of the Internet, everyone knows what I’m doing. The next one coming out is “Sherlock Holmes.” And then, I have “The Book of Eli” with Denzel Washington that comes out in January. But, now that everything is out there, people can sit and discuss all the things that I have in development.

“Ninja Assassin” opens in theaters on November 25th.