Exclusive Interview With Last Supper: The Russellville Hacksaw Murders Director Will Sanders

TMT had the opportunity to sit down with Indie Film director Will Sanders for  an exclusive interview. Will is directing the forthcoming Halloween spin off Last Supper: The Russellville Hacksaw Murders which will mark his directorial debut.

Will is producing the film through his own company JKSR Productions along with his fellow friend and contributor Ben Heckenkamp of Bear Trap Productions.

We were able to ask will about his Halloween spin off, what his thoughts are on the recent barrage of horror remakes, and what’s next for him after Last Supper.

Where do you plan to film Last Supper, and will it be on location or on set?

It is going to be on location in Fairhope, Alabama. A nice little town in the gulf where there is a lot of farm land and old Victorian style houses. We can get a nice Midwestern feel out of it.

Has casting begun, and will you be using mostly unknown actors?

We are currently casting. We have some great resumes and have held a few auditions for Charlie. Most of the cast will be unknown, but hopefully depending on the budget, we will have a cameo or two from the original Halloween. None definite yet but we are working on it.

I had the pleasure of meeting Loomis himself Malcolm McDowell a couple months ago at a comic con I was covering, very nice guy. Have you attempted to contact him for a possible cameo?

Malcolm is a really great guy. I have met him a few times, he hosted the 40th anniversary of Night of the Living Dead in Dallas, that I helped with. I love him but he is no Donald Pleasence. No, I am thinking more along the lines of the original. I had the pleasure of chatting with Charles Cyphers (Sheriff Brackett 78 and 81) at a convention not to long ago. He said that he would love to get in some indie films.

When is production set to begin, and what stage in the production are you currently at?

We start production the month of all months October 1^st. We are in pre-production for now, sorting things out, casting, scouting, etc.

Aside from yourself in the director’s chair and Ben Co-Producing with you has anyone else come on board yet?

Yes, Marcus Koch (100 Tears, Walking Distance, the upcoming Sinners and Saints) will be doing prop casting and helping with additional effects. He is the master of indie FX' from Autopsy FX Group. He was also hired to do a music video for an upcoming Saw box set. 

Being this is an Indie production and the cost of sets and film production is quite costly, what equipment will you be using such as film?

As much as we would love to film on 16mm or 35mm we are settling for digital. We are going to be shooting on a Panasonic HVX200. I was online and saw this, believe it or not, Friday the 13th fan film called Friday the 13th: The Storm. The film quality is amazing almost studio quality. It was done using HD Cameras similar to ours.

Will the majority of the special FX be done practically or through CGI in post production?

I am big on practical effects. Especially in a film like this, I truthfully feel CGI has no business in horror. I mean if you are shooting an action flick like Blade, yes, but just for limbs and slashing, no practical looks more real than CGI.

As for Last Supper being based on a few line of dialogue from the original Halloween, was this an idea you had for a long time or did it just dawn on you while watching the film one day?

I have been a fan of Halloween my entire film watching life, I think I have watched it more times than any other film. I write short stories and scripts in my spare time and have been toying with this story in private for some time. I finally let some friends and colleagues read it and they loved it and said you should film this. Another reason this story came about and why I am making this film is, I got a small interview from Quakezine a local magazine from Russellville, Ky. They have been working one a story, that has been a project for a while, about the real Charlie Bowles. The real Charlie Bowles was a theatre Manager in Russellville, back in the early days of horror master John Carpenter. He used to attend or (as rumour has it)  used to sneak into Bowles theatre with his girlfriend. John was from Bowling Green and would travel over to Russellville, where she lived, to take her on dates.

Will you include any Halloween references in the film, if your timeline allows for it?

Yes, but only if approved by Trancas Films. I have sent them the treatment and script and they are looking over it.

Trancas own the rights to franchise don’t they?

Yes, Trancas International films was started by the great Moustapha Akkad and is now ran by his son, Malek Akkad, which was one of the producers of the last two Halloween entries.

Is this being developed with a possible sequel in mind, or is it a stand-alone film?

This will be a stand-alone film. I don't want to give to much, but there is absolutely no way for a sequel. I don't plan to do a sequel.

Can you go into details about the potential Halloween references in Last Supper?

I would rather not at this time, but I will say that one of the references will be similar to how Bowles was referenced in Halloween.

With Last Supper, are you hoping for at least a limited release or are you planning for more of a Direct to Video release?

It all depends on distribution, I would love a limited release and we are definitely going to take it on the film festival circuit. But how it does there will determine, where it goes from there. I get kind of down when I hear indie directors shooting down ideas and screenings because of how much money they will or will not make. With Last Supper, we just want the story to be seen and told.

When do you hope to start showing it at film festivals, and where would you like it to be screened first?

Late spring or early summer of next year if everything goes as planned. If I had my choice I’d say Screamfest LA, but in a dream world why not Cannes.

What era or time frame is Last Supper set within?

You know, that is the one thing I like about Zombie's remake, he never says. Some fans say 1978 is where it starts, but the remake part is definitely present day. It has to be with cell phones and modern vehicles. So that almost have to put it  around 1992 for Judith's murder. We are doing a similar route, the date will be left up to the fans.

Based on the the time line in the original Halloween, and the story being technically a prequel as well as spin off, wouldn't the story need to be set closer to the 70's that very latest?

The film is definitely set in October and around Halloween. Have you been to the small towns of the mid-west and south? If not for modern phones and autos, even in real life you can't tell what date it is. It could be 2010 or 1963 who knows? Oh there’s a cell phone it must be 2010. That is my point, the only definite thing is that Bowles' night of carnage will coincide with Judith's murder. But as for a date, none of the Halloween films got a timeline right? They are all over the place in regards to time, but you can only do that if you have a good story.

So the film takes place all within one day or is there a back story for Charlie Bowles?

There is back story on Bowles and his family, but most of the major events take place on Halloween Evening, Night and then Nov 1st morning. The story all takes place in the month of October.

So would you say the majority of the film has to do with the murders or is there more leading up to it, with the murders as a conclusion to the story?

You will have to wait and see that when it debuts. I want to leave it vague what Charlie does not in the film until everyone sees it. But really, everyone knows though, it’s a horror movie.What else could happen?

Are Charlie’s motives explored at all or is it more like Michael Myers as in He just one day decides “F*** it your all going to die, now!”

F*** It! you are all going to Die! I couldn't put it better myself. Charlie Bowles is a testament to those who say there is always a motive, sometimes people just snap. Motives to me are just excuses. Sometimes in my opinion folks are just born for it, it's their destiny. But I am trying to make it enjoyable for even those who don't know about Halloween.

I know that Ben Heckenkamp recently formed Bear Trap Productions after a trip to Show West earlier this year. What exactly is their involvement in Last Supper?

Ben has been a great friend. Right now, he is helping produce the film, but he has a lot of the same goals as me and it may end up being more than that. I am just waiting for the say so to add them on officially. If all goes well with this project, and there is no reason it won’t, I would love to do another with Ben and his company.

When can we expect to see some promotional art work, pictures, teaser trailer etc for Last Supper?

The one-sheet teaser image will be coming soon. We expect a teaser trailer by the end of July and stills will not happen until October. We were going to try to do some shots of the garage location and the saw next week for the teaser.

How do you feel about the barrage of horror film remakes in recent years?

I have mixed feelings on them. On one hand I think that most of them are a cheap cash in on the originals and most are forgotten as soon as the credits finish. On the other hand I see first hand, kids going out to see these films that have never seen the originals and because of thse films new fans are created, so it's a double edge sword. Overall I have approved of most of them, I love the remake of Dawn of the Dead, TCM and "at least" the remake part of Zombie's Halloween, but not the back story prequel part of the film.

True, but there is an excessive amount of shortcuts used in horror today like CGI for example, do you agree?

Yes, I totally feel, it is a cheap and easy way out, but in some cases especially in slasher films it just looks plain goofy

What’s next for you after last supper? Are you hoping this opens up other opportunities or do you already have other projects in development?

Yes, I have two other scripts I am wanting to work with Hell Broke Loose, that is a Bank robbery film with a plague and then Brainwrap, which is a Hitchcockian murder mystery.

Are both of those projects original ideas, and did you write them yourself as well?

Yes, they were actually written before Last Supper as it stands now. Hell Broke Loose is a collaborated effort of my friend and editor Chris Neal and Brainwrap was written some time ago. Both scripts are all original, I'm not a one trick pony that takes lines of dialogue and turns them into scripts.

Can you tell me about the premise for either of those?

Hell Broke Loose is the tale of two older bank robbers and a reckless brother that is just along for the ride. They have planned the perfect robbery...The last score. It all goes just fine, until hell breaks loose. Brainwrap is a psychological thriller about a projectionist that seems to always have people turning up dead around him.

Hell broke loose sounds like more of a studio picture where as Brainwrap sounds more indie. Would you agree? Or are these both something you see as studio pictures?

I would agree. Hell Broke Loose is going to have to have a huge budget. It is like 28 days later meets The Inside Job.

Also be sure to visit the Facebook Page and Twitter for Last Supper and JKSR Productions

Coming 2011

Exclusive Interview With Len Wein & Chris Claremont

Chris Claremont is one of the X-Men's most prominent writers, and Len Wein is one of the co-creators of Wolverine.

TMT had the opportunity to take part in a round table interview as well as an exclusive interview with Len and Chris at this weekend’s Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. You can read the exclusive interview below.

Len, Why is Wolverine from Canada?

No reason in particular, I just threw a dart at the map in landed in Canada, I said fuck it, he's from there. No, what really happened was, at that time x-men comics weren't selling in the states, but was selling in a lot of other country's, and the marketing people at Marvel decided hey lets make the characters from all these different locations to help boost the sales. The problem was, they didn't tell us where they were selling, so we just made the different characters wolverine included from wherever we felt like.

Claremont, your known for writing very strong female heroes, which is your favorite to write?

I've known them all so long how do you pick favorites, I could say I love this about storm or so and so is very cool for this. There really is no way I could narrow it down to just one character, I love writing all of them, for different reasons.

Len, How did creating Nightcrawler come about?

The thing about Nightcrawler is he started out just as a visual. We had a bunch of characters drawn up, that hadn't been developed yet. We wanted him to be the nicest guy on the team as well as the most Christian, partly just due to the fact that he looks like a very demonic character. We also thought it would be great for him to be best friends with Wolverine, just to really throw people off. Sometimes we would do ridiculous things just for the fun of it, no story arch, no plan, just for fun.

As far as Nightcrawler's ethnicity and his origin, that relates back to the Marketing people wanting every hero to be ethnically diverse and from all over the world.

What kind of decision making goes into killing off a character?

In some cases it's just a lazy writer, someone who doesn't care about that character. I'll notice someone is killing off a character, and I'll ask them why, they tell me because I hate them, so I say don't use that character anymore. One writer may hate a character they're writing and want to kill them off, but that doesn't mean that when they're done someone else isn't going to come along and love that character, but look now that character is dead.

Other times we'll plan to kill someone off right from the start. It can be for different reasons, they're popularity starts to fade off, or it serves a story arch that may last several months or years. A lot of factors are usually taken into consideration before killing someone off.

Back in the day, Marvel said if they're dead they stay dead, but now you can kill a character today and bring them back next week.

Len, What was your involvement with the X-Men animated series from the 90's?

I worked as a writer as well as director for a short period of time. I know that I worked on at least three or four episodes, but I was actually credited and paid for five (laughs).

What are your opinions on the Marvel Live Action films?

I loved Iron Man, can't wait for the sequel, and I liked most of the X-Men films. I always thought the casting was amazing. I mean Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry, for Wolverine and Storm were great. They got the heights right for Wolverine and Storm, except in reverse (laughs).

When Lauren Shuler Donner cast Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, that's when you could tell she'd earned her money, that casting was brilliant!

Robert Downey Junior as Iron Man, how many people heard this and thought, yes this is the guy. Another situation with amazing casting.

What do you think about Hollywood's current infatuation with comic book movies?

It all has to do with the studio executives. Their number one job is to keep their job. They pick books and characters that people will know, and then hire actors that at the same time are "hot", and if the movie fails, they can say how could I have known this would fail.

It's plausible Denial ability!

Exclusive Interview With Scott Morse

Scott Morse is an animator, filmmaker, and comic book artist/writer. Much of Morse's published work consists of stand-alone graphic novels. He's currently working on 'Cars 2' for Pixar Animation.

TMT had the opportunity to take part in a round table interview with Scott Morse, as well as an exclusive interview with him at this weekend’s Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. You can read the exclusive interview below.

What can you tell us About Cars 2?

I'm actually not allowed to talk about that at all right now. What I can tell you is that for the people who liked the first one, but didn't love it, they're going to love Cars 2.

How long does it take for an Animated Feature Like Cars, to be fully developed?

With movies like cars, where we're using 3D animation. It can take anywhere from 2-3 years up to sometimes 8-10 years from the original inception of the idea. A lot of time and money goes into developing these worlds the movies are set in, to make them appear as real as possible with out making it too realistic.

In other words in order to keep an audience interested for an entire film, the look needs to be somewhat grounded in reality, and have a certain element of realism to it.

What is the hardest thing to do with both 2D and 3D animation?

I would have to say in terms of 3D animation, whenever your dealing with water, its extremely hard to replicate cresting waves. If you look at Finding Nemo, you'll notice this.

As for 2D a lot of the time every different character will be drawn by a different artist. For example The princess and the frog, every character was different in some way because they had their own individual artist. It's very hard to integrate several different artists work together into one film to make them look cohesive.

Pixar has roughly 1200 people working for them, and maybe 100 of them actually draw traditionally.

Do you think that with Animation being done primarily in 3D, that 2D animation is done?

The thing is, 3D is getting to be alot cheaper and easier to do. So I think 2D will have to re-invent itself and in some ways learn to be smarter and stay relevant. 2D will need to evolve.

What are your thought's on Stereo 3D being used for animation?

I think it should only be used for event films, not just as a gimmick. Lately everyone seems to be turning to Stereo 3D just for the gimmicky effect. When it further expands the experience of going to the theatre to see a movie, then it's don't its job. People need to feel like they're getting something special when they need to spend so much to see a movie in the theatre.

What is your Favorite project, that you've been apart?

The thing is, whenever I get on a project I love it. Like Cars 2 for example at first it's amazing, and then about half way through I hate it, I want nothing to do with it anymore, then once we're closer to finishing it, you begin to love it again. It's really a love-Hate relationship with most projects.

My absolute favorite thing to do though, would have to be my own original graphic novels.

 

Cars 2 is expected to hit theatres Summer 2011.

Exclusive Interview With Bruce Timm

Bruce Timm is a man who needs little introduction, with his work on Batman: The Animated series just one highlight of an extraordinary career. He’s one of the main people behind a lot of the recent DC Animated features that have been released direct to video.

His next project to be released will be Batman: Under the Red Hood.

TMT had the opportunity to take part in a round table interview with Timm, as well as an exclusive interview with Bruce at this weekend’s Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. You can read the exclusive interview below.

Why did you choose Batman: Under the Red Hood as your next project?

When I was first Pitched the idea of Red Hood, I wasn’t at all interested, and I hadn’t actually read the comic at that point either. I picked up the comic, and I thought it was “okay”. It could be done, but I really wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t until after I sat down with Judd (Winik), for every issue I had, he had a solution. After that, we started working on it right away. We actually just watched the finished product in its entirety the other day. I’m not sure if its been officially announced yet, but our plans were to premiere Red Hood at Comic Con San Diego this July.

What would you say the tone of ‘Under the Red Hood’ will be?

It’s definitely a very dark and intense movie, It’s not geared towards the “soccer moms”, or young kids. I’d say it deals with very serious subject matter, and it’s a very violent film.

What is the MPAA Rating for ‘Red Hood’?

That’s a great question we’re always aiming towards a PG-13 rating, obviously because it’s a lot a harder to market a direct to video animated feature that’s anything more than a PG-13, and for the fact that “super hero” films are generally geared towards a younger demographic.

The problem we think we might have with Red Hood, is that it’s extremely violent, and not just for something animated. We’re hoping it comes back PG-13, but there is a strong possibility at this point its going to end up with an R Rating. We’d love to leave the film as it is now, we’re all extremely happy with how it’s turned out. But the marketing department at WB isn’t about to allow that. They’re a very conservative group, intent on having the direct to video features having an above average chance of making their money back.

If it does come back with an R rating we’ll have to change a few things to bring the rating down to a PG-13. In the opening sequence a teenager is beaten to death with a crow bar, so the tone is very dark. We don’t want to lose that, but we may have to tone it down slightly.

We were actually working on something a couple years ago that was planned to have an R Rating. It was a very popular book, I’m not allowed to say what it was, but it was before Watchmen came out. Everyone at WB was happy with it, the plan was to go ahead full force, and then Watchmen came out and tanked. The Marketing people and the exec’s said no, no more R Rated super hero films, especially not anything animated, and just like that the project was gone. That’s not to say it won’t ever happen, I’m sure at some point it is a possibility.

What will be your next project after ‘Red Hood’?

I’m not currently allowed to talk about that, not in great detail anyways. The people in charge of publicity at WB control what we say with an iron fist! We are however hoping to make two very exciting announcements soon. We have one feature in development and one that’s being animated right now.

Did you feel a lot of pressure dealing with such iconic characters, when you started working on Batman: The Animated Series?

There was definitely a lot of pressure. But we were actually quite lucky, when that show was being developed we were coming off the heels of the Tim Burton Batman films, which were very dark in tone. That actually created a great transition for the animated series. It made it easier to go to the Fox network and tell them we wanted to approach the show with a darker more serious tone, and more dramatic take on the character, which is what we had originally planned to do.

When you were developing B:TAS, you wanted to distance it from the 60’s animated series. What are your thoughts on the new animated Batman series ‘Batman: The Brave & The Bold’?

I think it’s really fun, it’s great because it came out around the same time as The Dark Knight. I loved the The Dark Knight, but it wasn’t really intended for kids, at least not young kids anyway. I think a lot of the time now we tend to forget that super hero movies and these characters biggest audience is the younger kids. With brave and the bold, I think we’re creating a whole new generation of Batman fans. It allows the younger kids to enjoy batman as much as we do while watching movie like The Dark Knight.

I always try to keep in the back of my own mind that these movies or shows are going to be generally watched by a younger age group. When I’m creating something, I do like to do things that I know I’d enjoy, or people my age would enjoy, but I have to remember to not make things too complicated or serious to the point that our biggest audience isn’t able to garner interest. Brave and the bold does a great job of giving the kids something that’s just for them

Are you still planning on doing an animated Vampire Batman movie? I know you had previously expressed interest in that.

Not currently, no. We were pursuing something related to the Vampire Batman not all that long ago, but then they did the Batman Vs Dracula recently, so it would really just seem redundant at this point to re-hash a story that was literally just done.

Are there any current plans to for ‘Judas Contract’ to be developed as an animated feature?

We had quite a few drafts done up, but nothing that we really loved. We did love what they did with it in the Teen Titans series, and for now we’ll continue to go that route. Again it’s like the Batman Vs Dracula, it was done recently, and it worked. It would be redundant to do something different right now.

Is there any chance of ‘Hush’ or ‘The long Halloween’ being developed?

Hush isn’t something that we’re all that interested in our end, but it has come up. The real problem with Hush is that it works better as comic then it would as a movie, it could work as a show, maybe. The same can really be said for The Long Halloween as well. It works a lot better as a comic, and not so much as a movie.

I wouldn’t rule out either of them altogether, but it won’t be happening anytime soon.

Is it true, that the Justice League Unlimited episode “Epilogue” was not originally intended to be the ending for Batman Beyond?

Yes. We did the return of the joker, and that at one point was almost how we were ending it. Then we did epilogue with Justice League and that worked. What we had originally planned on doing was another direct to video movie just for Batman Beyond, where Terry finds out that Bruce is actually his biological father. That’s something we were really looking forward to, but it didn’t work out at that point in time.

Are there any plans to re-visit Terry McGinnis (Batman Beyond) in the future?

Not currently. But I wouldn’t rule it out in the future. We’ve definitely discussed having a Batman Beyond re-union of sorts, but it won’t be happening anytime soon if it does get made.

Do you plan to have any of your DC animated films released to theatres, like ‘Batman: Mask of the phantasm’?

No. DC is really focused on their Live Action films right now. We were extremely nervous about Mask of the Phantasm. That kind of movie really work better for the TV movie or direct to video release.

When we did that, we had everyone from every different department at Warner Bros telling us how we had to do things, or what we had to be doing with Marketing and things of that nature. There was a lot more people to answer to doing a theatrical release than what there is with TV or direct to video.

If you could develop any comic book hero or story line into a theatrical release, what would you do?

There’s too many to name, and really the problem is more the ones being made are terrible. For example I read about the Avengers and Captain America happening, and then I’ll read something about them, and they sound like they really suck. It always seems to sound good on paper, and then you see what’s going on with a project and it just isn’t nearly as interesting.

Are there plans to do any more sequels for the recently released DC animated films?

We had originally planned to do sequels for Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, but Wonder Woman’s sales started out extremely slow and then over time were eventually able to catch up to probably Justice League Frontier. The Exec’s decided because it wasn’t able to sell quickly right away, where as Justice League was, that there wouldn’t be any more female super hero films right now. We were developing and hoping to get started on a batgirl film based on Year One, but because of Wonder Woman’s slow sales start, that won’t be happening now.

With Green Lantern, it didn’t perform nearly as well as what they had hoped it would. In the long run it eventually made its money back, but the sales weren’t there right away during its release. Hopefully with the release of the Live Action film next year, that will open up the doors for more Green Lantern relate material.

Are there any current plans for an ‘Aqua man’ animated film?

No. We did developed an Aqua man script for a direct to video movie. Marketing decided it wasn’t going to be profitable enough to release.

The comic book needs to be wiped clean and have a re-boot once a year, they’re not able to keep the fan base interested any longer then that.

Was there a reason you decided to use John Stewart in Justice League?

Well for one to be honest, it was affirmative action. Every hero included at that point was white, it was my idea to include him. I felt we needed not only a diversity in ethnicity but also in personality, and Stewart was great for both.

When you’re developing Justice League related properties, are you able to use any character you want, and are there certain characters you prefer to use over others?

We used almost everyone we wanted to, but there were other characters we weren’t able to use due to licensing or legal issues.

If you could cast any actor for any role, what would you do?

Whenever we do something with Batman, we’re like cant we just have Kevin Conroy do it(laughs). We actually tried to have Ed Harris voice Batman, but he was not at all interested in the slightest.

Does Warner Bros give you full creative control over what you do?

For the most part yes. We used to hand something in and have it turned down, and we’d be furious, but now whenever something like that happens it forces us to be more creative. We try to create things that we know will work to begin with, but even then there’s still some people at WB that are going to say “Batman can’t do that, or he doesn’t do this”.

I do wish they would be willing to roll the dice a little more often, and take chances on some projects.

What is your favourite Live Action DC Comics related film?

I would have to say the original Superman from 78’. It’s the one that I’m still able to sit through from start to finish and enjoy it. I would say after that I really like The Dark Knight, and even Tim Burton’s Batman films as well, maybe the first more so than the second.

I love what Nolan did but I also still enjoy what Burton did. It’s fair to say though that, Nolan’s batman is the polar opposite from Burtons, and I didn’t enjoy Schumacher’s Batman at all.

Batman: Under The Red Hood will be released this Summer. Check Back to TMT for our official review.