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Daredevilwriter/director Mark Steven Johnson made a public appearance recently at the LosAngeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention. Comics2Film correspondentJason Lethert was fortunate enough to sit down and have an exclusive interviewwith the young filmmaker.
Lethert askedJohnson about the process of creating a look for the big-screen version of theman without fear.
"It wasmonths and months and months of work. It started out, let's make it exactly likethe comic book, that was my goal. Then when you see people really dressed likethat you quickly change your mind and try other things," Johnson said.
Marvel Editorand Chief Joe Quesada was among those encouraging Johnson to rework the suitsfor the big screen. "I think Joe draws maybe the best Daredevil ever. Ijust think it's amazing," Johnson said.
"We triedevery different variation we could, always with keeping the red, keeping the'DD', keeping the horns, keeping it Daredevil, but at the same time making itreal world."
The suit hadboth look cool and be utilitarian, "That's what I kept stressing isthat this has to be something he would wear that would really support him andkeep him from getting injured jumping around from roof to roof. That's kind ofthe theme of the whole movie is, what would it really do to you physically andmentally to go out night after night and fight crime. What would that really belike?
"So theleather just came out of the idea of motorcycle leathers and protecting yourbody. Even that only works to a certain extent. You see him undressing he'scovered in scars and he's popping pain pills. It's pretty cool stuff. It'sinteresting anyway. That's how the costume came to be, to just do a realisticversion of it."
Johnson wasquick to point out that spandex, which many still assume is the fabric of choicefor the modern superhero, was never an option.
"It's funnytoo, because when you see Spandex on a human being it looks terrible. But that'salways the first questions, 'So, is he gonna wear red spandex,'" Johnsonjoked. "What? Why spandex? It's so gay! You know what I mean? If somepeople think the leather's gay, I think the spandex is just so strange.
The directorwent on to comment on the suits seen in other movies.
"WhateverSpider-Man wore, I thought looked great and that was appropriate. I guess thatwas some form of spandex," Johnson said. "I thought the originalBatman costume was pretty great, because he had the musculature but at the sametime you have this thing that's kind of like armor in a way. What I didn't likewas how stiff he moved in that movie. One of the cool things about Batman isthat he's gotten to know all these martial arts. He's a master of martial artsfrom around the world. He was just like this, you know."
His take on theDark Knight's restrictive suit influenced the direction of Daredevil's costumedesign. "I wanted to make sure with Daredevil we could build in themusculature to give him the comic book feel, but at the same time he could move,really move," Johnson told C2F. "He's blind and he's got to movefaster than the people shooting guns at him, things like that. He's got to movelike an acrobat and a gymnast and a martial artist. All these things. I wantedto make sure he had an incredible amount of flexibility.
"So we madesure that we always had stretch in the leg areas and the shoulder areas so thathe could really move and do the things he needed to do, whether it was Ben doingit or it was the stuntmen doing it, that was really important to me, that hecould move better than we'd seen a superhero movie. That was important."
When fans firstsaw Elektra's costume, many wondered why the outfit departed so much from thecomics.
"Again, theplan was to go just like the comic books, but once you see bright red sashes andhead-bands and stuff and skirts and everything else, it didn't feel right. Itfelt like we were doing a disservice to the character by actually trying to betoo true to the costume," Johnson said.
The directoroffered further explanation of the logic behind her movie gear.
"She's notElektra: Assassin in this movie. It's an origin story for her. So, for me, goingback to realism which is always the benchmark for this movie, I thought, well,if she's just learning to go out at night and do this, what she does in themovie, she's not skilled at it yet. She has no experience at it yet. And to go outin a bright red costume and it's like, 'look at me. I'm over here,' versussomeone who slips in and out of shadows, which is what a ninja would do,"Johnson said.
Of course,there's always room for a costume change.
"I justfound that that was the most realistic and the best version of her now. Not tosay that when she becomes an assassin, hopefully in her own film, which I'mhoping will happen one day then I think you do go the traditional because she'sso skilled she can afford to be more colorful. Up front I just wanted to keepher realistic."
Bullseye also underwenta drastic revamp from the comic books.
"TheBullseye costume: as a fan I love all the comic costumes, but in real life helooks like a tool," Johnson remarked. "It just looks ridiculous, theBullseye would never work.
"To me itwas let's make him a little bit more punk. Lets make Bullseye like Alex in ClockworkOrange. Let's make him really that scary, Sid Vicious, punk vibe. So wedid.
"TheBullseye in our movie, the bullseye on his forehead is scarification, heactually carved into his own forehead out of sheer boredom, as kind of a cockycome on to his enemy. Kind of like, 'you want me? Let me help you out. Righther, pal.'"
Johnson told usthat, as with Daredevil, he initially planned on a faithful reproduction of thevillain's comic book costume. Quesada quickly talked him out of that.
"He starteddoing some ideas and one of his ideas was that maybe Bullseye dipped his fingerin blood and did a bullseye on the forehead, which I though was reallyinteresting. I took it a step further and actually did the gouging in and thescarification and the bullseye on his head. We talked about the long coat, howhe'd need a long coat to hide all of his weapons, to give him a cape feelwithout actually having a cape.
"What[costume designer] Jim Acheson came up with, which I actually though was genius,was the idea that the style of the coat is one of like an animal," thedirector continued. "Bullseye is very reptilian, like a snake or a lizardand moves very graceful. It's cool because you can't quite tell if it's analligator skin or crocodile skin or snake skin or shark skin. You just know it'sa dead animal that this guy's wearing. And it's cool, It's just bad-ass.
"He uses itlike a cape when he's fighting. He'll do these flourishes when [Elektra's]trying to stab him and can just use that to confuse her. So even his coat is aweapon."
Look for morefrom our conversation with Mark Steven Johnson right here soon, as the directortalks about casting, violence, cartoons and the wonderful world of comic bookmovies!
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