Josh Lucas stars in this week’s big shark movie, The Black Demon. The plot finds Paul (Lucas) and his family trapped on a derelict oil rig being circled by a mythic megalodon. Despite the premise, The Black Demon is far more than silly shark romp. Director Adrian Grunberg spins a story that is just as much about the greed of corporate America as the menace from the deep blue sea.
It’s not the first time that Lucas has backed a project with a strong message, his career is littered with titles that shine a spotlight on hot topic issues. At the same time Lucas has also maintained a career working in high-profile action stories such as Stealth, Poseidon, and Hulk. In The Black Demon Lucas has found a project to marry both sides of his work, creating an action-packed, but thought-provoking, tale.
Ahead of the UK release on 19th June, we spoke with Josh Lucas to find out more about what drew him back to the water.
People hear ‘shark movie’ and expect a certain OTT type of film, but The Black Demon is just as much a cautionary tale about American corporations. What was your reaction when you read the script and realised there was more going on than simply Megalodon run amok?
Well, first of all, the interesting thing is that there is an actual legend behind it. I’ve seen some documentaries and spoken to some people down in Baja, who claim to have seen it. It’s been kind of haunting the territory of Baja and the fishermen of Baja for hundreds of years. There’s this real sense of fear that lives In the minds of these fishermen down there, which goes to the whole mythological element of it too. Sharks have this weird place in our brain. In reality, sharks are probably not much of a danger to us, and yet, mythologically, they exist as this monster, this sort of boogeyman that’s always there any time we get in the water.
I think Adrian [Grunberg], the director, had the very smart idea to add the mythology of the God. An Angry God mad at what’s going on in climate change and human responsibility for climate change, and then throws in corporate America and oil companies. All of that is based in truth. It’s all based in what really happened in the early part of the deregulation of the Trump Administration with the oil industry and that they allowed these really rinky-dink small oil rigs to be built at high speed off the coast of Baja Mexico, and many places throughout the world where there was no oversight. So these actual horrible pollution events happened. And so it was a combination of all of that together, which I think, was a very interesting concept.
It also highlights a really sad truth as to what is going on in American corporate politics these days. Where in America, we don’t have to deal with it because it’s not affecting our village, it’s not affecting our home. I really appreciated that aspect of it.
You have also swam with sharks, did that experience help with the filming?
When you swim with them, you get this real sense of that ancientness of their soul. There’s something about it that you can feel and you can really see it in their eyes. I love nature documentaries. I love watching those extraordinary moments, with great whites coming out of the water, but at the same time, to actually swim with a great white…I would be terrified. The ones I did were with little reef sharks. They were swimming around and they actually knocked off my goggles, and it was that moment of do I panic here? It’s a miraculous thing to be in nature and experience them for real and have nothing but respect for that element. That’s one of the great things about the Baja Coast actually, is that there’s a level of nature and beauty there that is so spectacular. And really still very, very raw and very protected and beautiful.
Despite being presented the hero, your character Paul is quite a morally conflicted man. He is essentially a Carter Burke from Aliens type, only with a soul. What was it about him that appealed to you as a performer?
That’s a great analogy. I think that going into any character where you’re playing the obvious hero who saves the day [isn’t realistic]. In reality, as human beings, I don’t think we ever know how we’re going to respond in a situation that is that fraught. It’s one thing to have your own life be at risk, but the idea that your whole family is at risk, and the reality is that you are the reason why it happened, I honestly can’t imagine what that would feel like or the guilt or the terror that would go along with that level of feeling complicit. That you are a big part of the…and I think that’s part of it, is that he wants to ignore it. I think that’s part of the thing about these kinds of people who do these kinds of jobs that they’re able to turn a blind eye because it doesn’t actually affect them. It doesn’t really impact their community and they can still be a little league coach and how people love them and not know that they’re involved in heavy environmental damage and signing off on it. It just made the character have a much deeper karmic load.
Why should shark fans seek out The Black Demon?
I think it’s an unusual shark movie. It’s not a silly little romp. It’s much more an independent film about corporate America and how it’s doing these environmental atrocities in certain parts of the world. It’s made by a Mexican director, the entire group of people was from all over the world, but particularly from Spanish-speaking countries. All these people came together to try and make, in a sense, a lower budget movie that obviously has a shark as the primary boogeyman or demon of the film, but that’s not really what the film is about. The film is about a cauldron of other things, sort of colliding at the same time.
I’ll tell you, and this is a ridiculous thing to say, but my ten-year-old boy, when he walked out of it, he was like, that’s my favourite movie you’ve ever done dad! That’s partly why you do something like that, you do it because hopefully your kid thinks it’s cool.
One of your upcoming projects is Blood for Dust, directed by Rod Blackhurst whose film Here Alone I adore. Is there anything you can share about that project?
Now that’s an interesting film. It’s not a true story, but it’s somewhat based on a true story, about what was happening in Montana in the 90s. When America really started to change from having, particularly a strong middle class and this big divide that started at that point where it was kind of the rich and the poor and that it was impossible to make a living. This guy Scoot McNairy plays gets involved in a drug deal that’s gone bad.
It’s got a Fargo like quality to the movie where Scoot is very much an incredibly ordinary person. To go into this world where he’s dealing with the underbelly of big drug cartels that actually existed in Montana at that point because they were in the middle of the country moving huge quantities of drugs around America. It was a very dangerous, very dark, very interesting world. It’s got a Breaking Bad kind of quality to it. It’s a cool thriller that’s for sure.
Signature Entertainment presents The Black Demon on Digital Platforms 19th June and Blu-ray & DVD 17th July.
