Dean Devlin has made a name for himself as an event big screen producer and writer for films such as INDEPENDENCE DAY and STARGATE, but this Sunday (December 5) on TNT at 8:00pm, he'll be bringing his event expertise to the small screen with THE LIBRARIAN: QUEST FOR THE SPEAR. Directed by Peter Winther and executive produced by Devlin, the film stars Noah Wyle as a librarian who becomes a reluctant Indiana Jones-esque action hero. In a two-part Cinescape Exclusive, Devlin fills us in on THE LIBRARIAN and beyond. If you missed the first part of our interview click here to read it.
You were able to do a very big looking movie for a fraction of the cost --- what are the tricks in achieving that?
DEAN DEVLIN: I think a major factor was that this film was not made with a major Hollywood studio. We approached it as an independent movie. We shot the film entirely in Mexico and did an enormous amount of work against blue-screens. Not just spectacular FX, but also set extensions. While this was made at a Made-for-TV budget and schedule, we had over 300 digital FX shots in the film.
Will there be a LIBRARIAN follow-up?
DEVLIN: We're all hoping there will be. I guess the ratings will be the determining factor. But both Noah Wyle and I would love to continue these adventures. It lends itself nicely to a series of stories. Our hope is to do one movie for TNT a year for the next couple of years. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed.
You mentioned a possible feature film down the road -- would that include a whole new cast or would the cast move on to the big screen as well?
DEVLIN: STAR TREK really blazed the path on how a good television show can be turned into a feature film. Our hope is that if enough people enjoy and support THE LIBRARIAN ADVENTURES, we'll have a strong argument to bring it to the big screen relatively soon. As for changes in cast, etc, there are a lot of factors that will determine that, however, I like to think of these things like good recipes, you don't want to change the ingredients if it's working.
What other projects do you have in development?
DEVLIN: We're about to begin a big screen adventure about 20 American Boys who volunteered to fight for France in World War I before America joined the battle. They became the very first American Fighter pilots. It's an amazing story that I've been wanting to bring to the screen for over five years now. We're very excited about it.
It seems like Hollywood's formula for spending big money is changing. There seems to be the big tent poles, but lower budgeted horror films seems to be making tidy profits for them. You and Roland proved big event studio films can be done for a cost. Do you think the pendulum is swinging back towards doing big event movies for a reasonable cost?
DEVLIN: For all the obvious reasons studios would love for the price of event movies to come down, however the bar seems to be raised higher and higher each time and it gets more and more difficult to top what's been done before. But what we've seen, over and over again, it's not really how many FX or how epic the film is, at the end of the day people care about character and story. That's why these lower budgeted horror movies are doing so well. People are getting caught up in them and become involved with the character drama. So, I think we'll see both things happening; big budgets movies will continue to grow in cost and size, and surprising films will be made for less and capture the hearts and minds of the film going community.
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