Mania Exclusive Interview with Paul W.S. Anderson

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Death Race Interview IV: Paul W.S Anderson: Blood on the Tracks

Part I of our Interview with Death Race Writer/Director Paul W.S. Anderson

By Josh Gordon August 20, 2008

Paul W.S. Anderson, director of DEATH RACE(2008).
© Mania.com/Josh Gordon

Paul W.S. Anderson has made quite a career for himself in genre films. Starting with the surprise hit Mortal Kombat, he then went on to helm the sci-fi cult hit Event Horizon, another successful video game adaption with Resident Evil and the long awaited smash Alien vs. Predator. For his next number he tackles the revered 1975 cult classic Death Race 2000. Mr. Anderson sat down with Mania recently at Comic-Con and talked about CGI, the origin of the Death Race and adapting existing properties to the big screen.

Question: We’re seeing a lot of films this summer –

Paul Anderson: - I’m happy for you! I haven’t seen any films this summer! (laughing ensues)

Q: We’re seeing a lot of films this summer - If this movie had been made five or six years ago it would have been really CGI heavy but it’s become really practical again (as in “practical effects” – real world special effects). Do you feel like there’s any backlash against CGI?

PA: Yeah definitely. I’ve made my fair share of CG movies and I felt, for this film, I was heavily influenced by films made in the 1970s and 80s that I grew up watching; you know, Walter Hill’s The Driver, Peckinpah’s The Getaway, French Connection, Bullet, Road Warrior, Death Race 2000, I mean, the list goes on. .In particular, Road Warrior, where I borrowed my mothers Mini to drive down and go see it, me and my friends, and I remember being so energized when I left the cinema, I just wanted to take that Mini and drive it through the side of a truck and I don’t get that visceral thrill from many action movies nowadays – because it’s not real. You can see that it’s CG and you know, it’s spectacular but you don’t have that kind of visceral thrill of seeing real things get crunched up and the real sense of danger that can give you and I wanted to go back to making one of those movies. And let me tell you, it’s a really difficult way to make films. You can see why people use a lot of CG because there’s nothing easier than just shooting an empty plate and creating it all in the computer six months later. To put the stunts in this movie on screen as spectacular as they are, to do it all for real and not kill anybody, was a HUGE undertaking. Everyone was very excited about the idea of doing that but even our practical effects guys, there were some stunts where they said “you know what Paul? You should probably do this as a miniature” – like with the Dreadnaught – because no one had done that before – taking a 75 foot truck at 60 miles an hour, dead stop – let’s see what happens. What’s in the film, we did one take. We shot it with like 15 cameras and that’s the reality. We tested it twice before hand, both times something different happened. And that’s the thing when your dealing with practical effects like that – in a computer you plot it and if you don’t like it you change it but it doesn’t look real. You’re dealing with reality. It’s always uncertain – you know? It was very stressful. And seeing Statham do all his own driving- it was really stressful. There are some great scenes, like when he does the 180 in the Mustang? You can see the G-force on Statham when he’s doing it. That’s because he’s really in car, he’s really going 60 miles an hour and throwing it into a 180 – and you can’t fake that. I really think it gives the movie a sense of reality. But as a filmmaker, seeing him drive off in an armor plated car that doesn’t handle like a normal car at 60 miles an hour – reduced visibility because of all the armor plating, completely wrapped with cameras and lights so the guy can’t see where he’s going – he’s half blind because of the lights shining in his eyes – seeing him do these stunts – and not on a normal race track, on a dirt track with metal posts and concrete pillars, I mean, it was dangerous. My heart was in my mouth every time he went off and did it but I’m glad we DID do it because we got it on film and it really improves the movie.

Q: You’ve done, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil and Death Race. As a fan of these properties, how does it feel to be entrusted to do your version of it?

PA: It’s never completely my take because there are always a lot of other people involved. Like in Resident Evil - the first thing I did after signing the contract for Resident Evil was to get on a plane. I flew to Osaka and I met all the guys from Capcom and I talked to them about what I planned to do with the movie. You know, I told them I planned to make a prequel to the first Resident Evil game and the same thing, I had lunch with Roger Corman 14 years ago and I said I really want to remake Death Race 2000 and he said “that’s great kid! We’ll make it your next movie!” and in typical Hollywood development fashion, fourteen years later we finally made the film but it came out of those fourteen years I’ve had endless conversations with Roger, he’s read different version of the script he’s always made his comments on them, so it’s not like I’ve been making them in a vacuum but you do feel a certain responsibility, that’s for sure. I know there’s an existing fan base who love those properties and some people, you know, think it’s sacrilege to even touch them but for me, I feel like we have delivered a movie that’s different from Roger’s movie but is a very, very, valid film. Roger put it very nicely actually, he said he loves both films and he said if “If I was making the film I made in 1975 now, I would have made this film.”

Q: Why did you choose to set the movie in a prison?

PA: I was always fascinated with the original movie. Once you get beyond the cars, the nudity, the violence, how cool it is and how funny it is, It always fascinated me – the concept of the death race; how did that become the national sport of America? It wasn’t like the American president woke up one morning and said “I know, we’ll have a race across the country where people get run down and score points and televise it!” He clearly latched on to something that was a sport that was an underground event and kind of developed it in the same way that they didn’t just build the Circus Maximus in Rome; that came out of smaller gladiatorial combats and eventually the coliseum and Circus Maximus became the main forms of entertainment in Rome. So what fascinated me with the Death Race was how did it originate? How did it actually come into being? And that’s what I thought our movie should be about was the origin of the Death Race. How, in a very real way, could you imagine that happening? That’s what we tried to put on film. Where Roger’s movie is an overtly satirical film about the American media, ours is totally different but I think the kind of criticism of the media and where I think reality television is going is very much implicit in the movie.

Be sure to check out Part II of our interview with Paul W.S. Anderson tomorrow along with our review of the film. Paul talks about modern action film editing, the Death Race Blu-Ray extras and the upcoming Castlevania movie!

For more of Mania covering the Death Race premiere, you can check out our Jason Statham interview here also published today. For previous coverage, you can check out our interviews with co-stars Ian Mcshane here and Joan Allen here.