Quint interviews Neil LaBute about his WICKER MAN remake!!!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another Comic-Con '06 interview. This time I sat down with Neil LaBute, director of the WICKER MAN remake. All my Comic-Con '06 interviews are one on ones. I don't do round tables, so every interview from the Con on this site will be unique. At least, I hope they are. hehe

One of the drawbacks to conducting one on one interviews this year at the Con is all but a few were only 5 minutes. So, the interviews you'll see hitting this week are short, but hopefully not full of fluff... no promises, though!

Here's my chat with Neil LaBute about his very controversial remake! LaBute seemed like a really cool guy, but honestly... they sat us out in the sun and I was facing that big yellow bastard through the whole interview and I couldn't even open my eyes for the last half of it. He must have thought I was insane... this weird fat dude with a scrunched up face, water spilling down his cheeks, asking him why remake WICKER MAN? Yikes... Anyway, here's the interview:

QUINT: I met Christopher Lee on the set of RETURN OF THE KING a few years ago and we actually talked a lot about the original WICKER MAN and about this sequel he was trying to get off the ground called MAY DAY.

NEIL LABUTE: May Day... didn't it have another name at one point... Like RIDING THE LADDIE or something like that.

QUINT: I remember hearing that, too. I'm sure it must have been the same project, maybe a subtitle or something. Did you know about that project when you signed on?

NEIL LABUTE: I certainly heard about it, but I don't know much about it. I'd heard rival things about it. Whether it was a sequel or if it took certain characters... I don't know that much about exactly what the story was, but I had heard at least he and Robin Hardy (director of the original WICKER MAN) were involved.

QUINT: Well, what Lee told me was kind of like what you guys are evidently doing, where it's a sort of re-imagining of the original, however he was still coming back as Lord Summerisle.

NEIL LABUTE: A character I can certainly see him playing more of. I was looking at it again just the other day... I certainly looked at it before I made the movie, but I thought I'd go back and give it a look again. He was just so relaxed and enjoyable in that movie. He's a great character... and a great look, too. I just love his turtleneck... We, in fact, put a nod to one of his looks in the movie. There's the whole gold turtleneck and jacket you'll spot on somebody.

I came to the movie loving that original movie, so it was not something where I was saying "Oh, that movie's crap, but I can make it better," you know? I really loved the story and I had a very different take on it. In fact, so different that I'm not going to even try to have somebody compete as Lord Summerisle. It's going to be a whole different thing, in this case a Matriarch. We all end up in the same place, but the journey is very different.

QUINT: Beyond the whole, "Why remake it in the first place?" argument, I can't believe you got a studio to do anything remotely like this... I would have a hard time believing they'd think this was an easy sell...

NEIL LABUTE: It's deceptive in a way. Ultimately, it's coming out with a studio, but it was made independently. So, it was picked up and it'll be distributed through Warner Bros., but it's actually an independent movie. But it's the same thing. Somebody with money saying, "Now... you want to make what?" It's a very... this movie is very much like the original in that you come out of it and feel like, "I've never been to a world like that. That was legitimately weird." So, yeah. Anybody who's trying to make mainstream movies are not interested in that kind of property, so it's cool to see somebody who said, "I'll put some money into that and make it happen."

QUINT: I take it Nicolas Cage coming onboard helped that a lot.

NEIL LABUTE: It didn't help. It's what made it happen. He was there before I was there. He had been shown the movie by Johnny Ramone. In fact, he tells the story that even when he was near death, when he saw Johnny, he said to him, "Are you going to make that movie?" That was really a driving force behind the movie for Nic. He kind of got really interested in it after he was introduced to it by Ramone. In fact, we have a "For Johnny Ramone" at the end of the movie.

Nic's power was behind the thing from the very beginning. Actors are often that driving force for a movie... That's not only who an audience connects to, but that's who can get these things made. I have no bones about saying that he's the reason that movie is up on the screen. It's a fact.

And he's the kind of guy who can make a character like that, who is the protagonist... Like, you know... he's very well known for playing character parts. Putting a world that's even stranger around him is no easy thing. It was fun trying to create that world.

And that's that. Told ya', short but sweet. I'm still very mixed on the idea of remaking a movie like WICKER MAN. I'm not sold, but the idea of Ellen Burstyn in the Christopher Lee role has me intrigued. I hope the flick stands on its own.

Got some more shooting at you soon. Sorry about lying and telling you guys I would start them rapid-fire style this past weekend (YackBacker), but some technical difficulties mixed in with my own personal laziness and a touch of film discovery kept me from transcribing duty. I'll make sure you have plenty to last the week.

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com