Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the first of two interviews going up from me on THE BOOK OF ELI. I conducted these interviews at the San Diego Comic-Con, but there comes a saturation point during the Con that I fear interviews will bury each other and get lost in the shuffle, so while I posted the majority of my interviews from the Con I intentionally held back a few to post closer to release. This was the first time I met The Hughes Bros and I found them to be real deal movie geeks, fielding obscure references and throwing back even more obscure ones. I haven’t seen the film yet, but this interview actually increased my anticipation, which was already high. I mean, it’s a post-apocalyptic movie with Gary Oldman as the bad guy. To the best of my knowledge the right quote is attributed to the right brother, but if I’ve mixed and matched… well, then sorry about that Allen and Albert! Let’s get the chat on!
Quint: How’s it going guys?
Allen Hughes: How are you doing? Albert Hughes: It’s good to meet you. Allen Hughes: So, where are you from?
Quint: I’m from Austin.
Allen Hughes: You live in Austin?
Quint: I was born in California, but I moved to Texas when I was a teenager, so I might as well be a native Austinite. But, yeah I believe Harry’s met with you guys, right?
Allen Hughes: Of course. We had a few burgers with Harry. We went to a diner at like three o’clock in the morning one time. Albert Hughes: Was it out there? Allen Hughes: It was in Austin, yeah.
Quint: You probably went to Katz’s or Hut’s.
Albert Hughes: You say Katz’s? It sounded like that. Allen Hughes: We’ve seen him a few times at a film festival or two. Albert Hughes: One in particular, we were out there for AMERICAN PIMP at The Austin Film Festival. I was very impressed with the film festival, too. They take good care of the filmmakers. Allen Hughes: There’s not a lot of hate going around down there like other film festivals.
Quint: No, you find down there that there are a lot of movie lovers. That’s why Harry is able to get away with having a lot of screenings down there. They premiered STAR TREK even before the official premiere… They premiered it down there as a secret surprise screening.
Albert Hughes: Oh wow.
Quint: They announced a screening of WRATH OF KHAN at the Alamo Drafthouse and we all went thinking we were going to watch a re-mastered print of WRATH OF KHAN and a month early it’s STAR TREK.
Albert Hughes: That’s a good bait and switch.
Quint: It was brilliant, because what they did is they played the first reel, so it was the credits for WRATH OF KHAN and then the film breaks and then suddenly up on stage is a guy in a trench coat and he takes off his hat and it’s Leonard Nimoy.
Allen Hughes: Oh shit!
Quint: And so he ended up delivering the film, but that’s the showmanship. They love that stuff.
Allen Hughes: That’s pretty elaborate!
Quint: They even surprised Harry. Harry didn’t even know, so it was…
Albert Hughes: How’s Harry doing?
Quint: He’s doing great. He’s here. It’s the first time he’s been at Comic-Con in a while, but yeah we should probably talk about THE BOOK OF ELI.
Allen Hughes: [Looking at recorder] I’m just looking at this rig...
Quint: It’s pretty sweet. It’s actually built for recording live music.
Allen Hughes: Oh wow.
Quint: Because it records in stereo… I use it for this and I don’t use it for its full potential I’m sure, but it certainly makes my job easier…
Allen Hughes: We can sing a song if you would like, man. Albert Hughes: (singing) “The Lavish Fool….” [All Laugh]
Quint: I love the post-apocalyptic genre and that’s something we don’t really get all that often. We don’t get A BOY AND HIS DOG anymore… or even the MAD MAX’s, which are so commercial…
Allen Hughes: We actually have the gun from A BOY AND HIS DOG, the actual gun, in the movie, but nobody will know it.
Quint: Really?
Allen Hughes: One of the snipers has the gun.
Quint: No way! That’s so awesome. That’s a movie that is so underseen.
Allen Hughes: We actually have the poster of A BOY AND HIS DOG in the background of one scene.
Quint: Really?
Allen Hughes: It’s a scene between Mila [Kunis] and Denzel [Washington] and it’s a very intimate scene and in the background, if you look closely, you can totally read it.
Quint: That’s great. Is it the mushroom cloud poster?
Allen Hughes: No, it’s the one with the woman. It’s a woman laying down. It’s a more complex kind of artwork and it’s Don Johnson’s face, but we had to rip it so you couldn’t tell it was him due to the rights issue, but you get the full title and everything.
Quint: That’s great! I know that the script, when it went around… we were hearing about it and it was a big deal when it hit. Were you guys attached right away or how did you guys get onboard?
Albert Hughes: I think it hit the town as a spec script maybe three months before it got to us and no, so it came and it was at Warner Brother’s and (Joel) Silver. They had it and I think it was one of those cases where they didn’t even know what they were sitting on, because they just got it and they didn’t know… We got it and actually defined it for them, so by the time we came in there, it was too late to go after other directors. Allen Hughes: We got this book together, like a dogma book with artwork and our take on the movie, the visual take of storyline that needs to be fixed in the script and our first meeting at Warner Brothers was like “Here’s what we want to do.” So at that point, because our agent was just so good to slip us the script really, really quickly, it hadn’t gotten to the point where it “got out” yet, so we were able to go scoop it up right away.
Quint: Was the studio on board right away or did it take getting somebody like Denzel?
Albert Hughes: It’s always a big piece like this where you say post-apocalyptic, they go “Well, we will only make it with only a handful of guys” and they were willing to make it with him as well as those guys, but with each person it was a different shape, form and budget and where you can shoot it, so it was a process. Once he got on board and came on board as a producer as well, I think it expedited that process a lot more, but it was still difficult. It wasn’t until Alcon Entertainment financed it. That’s when it started catching on with rocket fuel, you know? Because the whole business has changed, as you know. There are hundred and fifty million dollar movies and twenty five million dollar movies and this movie falls in between that, so that was difficult since we were right at that conundrum when the writer’s strike was happening and the business was going from this to this, so Alcon stepped up right in time I think, in the eleventh hour and we were like… We had Denzel… Make it happen!
Quint: And in that spot you are like “Come on, we have a great script. We got one of the biggest stars in the world. How is this even a decision?”
Albert Hughes: Exactly. Allen Hughes: But sometimes it doesn’t fall into a formula, you know? They know how much this sells and the mathematical equation of how to sell a movie.
Quint: R rated?
Albert Hughes: Oh yeah. There are heads being lopped off.
Quint: That’s what we want!
Allen Hughes: There’s that one 360 fight and you saw some of it in that teaser, the strangest thing about that in a good wau is that there is so much going on in that fight, you wont catch everything with the first go round. He lopped off like three guys’ heads and you wont even see it unless you pay close attention. There are arms coming off and limbs coming off… Albert Hughes: What he’s talking about too and this is the best place to talk about it, actually my brother didn’t slow the camera down or do any trickery except for adding the effects of blood and heads popping off and I don’t remember as a movie fan a major motion picture star, who is not a martial artist… the last person to do it in one take was Bruce Lee… We are talking about like a thirty second, with fifteen guys, one shot, you are not slowing down… you are not cutting, it’s not manipulated, and so all of these guys are like “I do my own stunts…” That’s one thing to do a stunt, but to actually lose fifty pounds and train with Dan Inosanto and Jeff Imada, disciples of Bruce Lee and actually do two scenes… that was a second scene that was done with one shot and the only effects being the blood and the heads flying off, was amazing for (Denzel). That’s what’s unique about this movie, he got to be who he is, which is a real individual salt of the Earth. We didn’t affect him, we let him effect the environment and that’s what we got visually.
Quint: That makes all the difference, I think, when you are watching it and especially if you are not putting in camera tricks… Everybody is used to the 300 slow motion stuff. I don’t know if you have seen ONG BAK, but there’s something amazing just seeing it happen and having it happen in real time.
Allen Hughes: Me and him had even talked a lot about that shot before the movie. I don’t even know if it was for this movie… Albert Hughes: It was like fifteen years ago, after MENACE (II SOCIETY). I told him “We should do a shoot out or a violent scene in 360.” I had forgotten about it. He reminded me a year or two earlier, like “We have got to do a 360 shot” and I go “I think I’ve found a spot for it, Allen” and we had been waiting fifteen years to apply it. I go “You reminded me like a year ago.” He goes “I did?” I go “Yeah, you did, because I had totally forgot that we had talked about this like fifteen years ago,” so it was a perfect kind of scene to do it in and it’s not even really about the shot. You set up the camera and don’t even move the camera, just move the dolly and let all of the players come in and out and let Denzel be the centerpiece of that, the eye of the storm basically, and let everything come to him and all you are doing is showing it like a circus show.
Quint: You are adding to the performance.
Albert Hughes: You aren’t trying to get in there and cut around and accent it at all, just let him do his thing, basically.
Quint: Well thank you so much for everything.
Allen Hughes: (Picks up the recorder) Shout out to Ain’t It Cool News! To all of the guys… Is there any gals writing for it?
Quint: No, but we need some, that’s for sure.
Albert Hughes: I’m gonna send some your way. They’re prostitutes, but… (laughs)
Quint: (laughs) Thanks! It was a pleasure meeting you guys.
Either later today or tomorrow I’ll throw up my chat with the adorable Mila Kunis… spoiler… she falls in love with me during that interview and I have proof. Just wait and see! -Quint quint@aintitcool.com Follow Me On Twitter
