It remains, along withTucker & Dale Vs Evil, our favourite horror comedy of recent times.
Well, Im a bit nervous about the release, as you would be.
Hoping it goes well.
And Im reading all the press that people are writing, which I actually think is very interesting.
Sometimes its a bit deflating when its negative, and you feel shellshocked.
But when its positive, which Im pleased to say its mostly been, its just very interesting.
Its often quite refreshing and different to how you might think about it.
Youve broken the first law of the interview there.
Youre supposed to tell us that you never read reviews.
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No, I do.
I read them all.
But I prepare myself sometimes!
Theyre not always what you want them to be.
Do they matter to you?
Yes, they do actually.
Im of the opinion that the majority of film reviewers are being honest.
Not all of them, but the majority.
That its honestly what they think.
So yeah, when I read them I go okay, this is what somebody really thinks.
Also, with my films, what Ive found all the way along is they divide people.
You get people who love them, people who really dont like them.
Thats as it should be.
When you commit to a film, youre investing years of your life to one story.
So why did you want to in this case?
It is a big commitment.
They realise it is a big decision.
I love this kind of movie.
It was a magical experience for me, that made me want to try and make a film.
This film is very much aimed at a ten year old.
Ten year old you?
My memory of a ten year old.
The ten year old me who lives on in my heart.
It plays really well with kids from seven or eight through to about 14 or 15.
Older teenagers tend to turn their noses up at it.
Then youve got a whole swathe of adults who come in above that.
There are certain things that the character ofThe Mediatorsaid, for instance, that were quite complicated.
We found that kids werent able to follow it.
We reduced his dialogue to make these bold, simple statements.
The Mediator is a creepy creation…
He is, yes!
We talked a lot about the Child Catcher inChitty Chitty Bang Bang.
How he used to give us nightmares, but he didnt overtly do anything massively evil.
But he was an object of horror.
We made him a character who on the surface of it doesnt do anything especially nefarious.
Hes quite passive really.
You described this project back to us in 2012 as like Stand By Mevs robots or Gooniesvs robots.
What you didnt say at the time was that it would be Gooniesvs robots at the British seaside.
[Laughs] No!
But the locale is interesting.
I live by the seaside.
I live in a town thats similiar sized to the one in the movie, thats no coincidence.
I thought Id never seen that before.
Usually in a seaside town you think of Emily Lloyd cycling down the street on her bicycle.
You dont generally have these kind of movies set there.
The Los Angeles suburb, something like that.
Did you have the option to scale it up further?
I had a choice.
Or to stay here, which is what we did.
The budget has been reported at various levels, but it was a smaller budget, lets say.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Could you touch on that, and how deliberately youre looking to push the scare buttons?
The swearing was very conscious.
It wasnt a thoughtless thing, it was very intended.
And for me its not that sweary.
But obviously we all have our own standards.
I remember when I got my first job, which was a runner for a facilities company.
I was absolutely shocked by how much everybody swore!
Particularly the creative people, the editors, and the filmmakers.
This is part of that.
Knowing it was a bit naughty, a bit sweary, a bit scary.
And then I hope that the dad enjoys it too!
Its often forgotten thatThe Goonieshas a joke about hard drugs in it!
Yeah!The Gooniesis very sweary.
You think of the 80s as this more censored times.
The thing with scary movies is that its quite hard to predict what people will find frightening.
I remember being utterly terrified byThe OmenandThe Exorcist.
The thing that frightened me was the concept of the devil.
But admittedly I did spend some of my time in Catholic Ireland.
I wouldnt have said I was especially religious as a child, or had an especially religious upbringing.
But that just got under the skin.
Whereas for some kids its someone hiding in the shadows in the corner of a room.
We have some scenes in our film that are pretty intense, and that was intentional.
From your point of view, how do you manage and maintain the tone?
And verify the audience never jumps out of your film?
Tone is something that I had a baptism of fire on.
I didnt appreciate, coming from short films, how important it was.
My first film,Tormented, I really mixed two tones unintentionally, without knowing I was doing it.
I had certain characters in that film who were in a realistic film about teenagers.
You find when you come to cut it together that theyre fighting with each other.
So when I came toGrabbersI was very conscious to that.
I tried to make the tone as consistent as I could.
Which meant that things that were funny, but not really believable, had to go.
You set a certain jot down of realism.
I wouldnt say that Grabbers is realistic in any way.
But you have to buy it.
You lay out your ground rules and stick to them.
The best example is a film likeAn American Werewolf In London.
Its a horror comedy, but the rules are quite strict, and it feels quite plausible.
As a result, there are only a handful of jokes in there.
Theyre just really good jokes.
WithRobot Overlordsthen, where did Gillian Anderson and Sir Ben Kingsley come in?
Because both are casting coups really.
They are, yes.
Theres not been a bona fide international star.
So how does the mechanic change when these two walk on set?
We drew up a wishlist of who we wanted and they were both at the top.
But we had time.
I was very pleasantly surprised that they both wanted to meet.
And I think that they both saw something in the script that worked for them.
Gillian gets to play a mother, an ordinary woman in an extraordinary situation.
An English teacher whos drawing on her resources.
She doesnt have any special powers, shes just living on her wits, really.
She really enjoyed that, and actually found it quite challenging.
Shes often quite a specialist character.
Ben was really intrigued by the whole life under occupation kind of it.
Hes a collaborator in an occupied country.
He lives in a castle that remind you a bit of Colditz.
So there was all that stuff, and he really connected with that.
The backstory of the character.
It was very interesting to talk to him on the set every day.
That said, what happens the first time he tries something you dont like?
Does a little bit go through your head where you think, hmmm, thats Don Logan?
[Laughs] Well we had our Don Logan moment on set!
Would he give them something off camera?
He knew the camera wasnt on him, so he let loose.
We got a very sweary, angry, aggressive version of Robert Smythe.
James gets quite angry in the scene, and I think he actually forgot he was acting!
What Ben was doing was brilliant.
Hes not an improviser.
He doesnt like improvisation particularly.
Hes very particular about the script, and has a tight relationship with the continuity person.
Hell call them over and ask if hed said one word wrong.
And they might say, theres some intonation or other.
And hed be quite cross.
Then hed go for another take and get it right.
Im usually very sceptical about thatSexy Beaststory, and the idea that it was all done to the script.
That it was a word-perfect rendition of the script.
I always thought that was rubbish.
Having worked with him now, I think it was definitely to script!
But I wonder if thats partly what comes when you dig so deeply into a role beforehand?
I read that interview.
I think Ben is a sensitive character, extremely perceptive, and he thinks very deeply about everything.
But I didnt recognise Ben Kingsley in that interview at all.
Youve hinted anyway that there might be aRobot Overlords 2in the offing?
Weve got a big company in the UK, who are going to produce it.
And two big broadcasters: one in the UK, one in the US.
So itll be a pretty big budget, exploring the world of occupied robot Earth.
Its got a few hurdles to go.
Weve got a very experienced TV writer attached.
Its not going to me.
Weve got someone in to be the showrunner.
Im hoping to direct a lot of it.
I think thats the way to go in 2015 with this concept.
For us its a character driven film first and foremost.
The robots and the laser beams are secondary.
But theres always lots more to explore.
And is the TV show dependent on the performance of the movie?
It will go irrespective to the performance of the movie.
But it will be dependant on the quality of the script.
I feel thats very promising, given who weve got writing it.
Jon Wright, thank you very much.
Robot Overlordsis out today.
