Gareth Edwards’ MONSTERS was one of those films that people fell in love with. Made on a shoe string budget, the film highlighted just what could be achieved with some hard work, determination, and a good knowledge of special effects software. Now four years on there is a sequel on the way. MONSTER: DARK CONTINENT is set a decade after the events of MONSTERS. The creatures have spread further into the human population, there now being several danger zones. The plot centres on a group of fresh army recruits whose first mission takes them deep into the forbidden territory as the embark on a rescue mission.
The film is being directed by British director Tom Green. Green came to studio Vertigo Films’ attention thanks to his impressive short films BRIXTON 85 and KID, as well as his hand in E4 television series Misfits. In the run up to the film’s release we took the opportunity to sit down with Green and discussed how it feels to step into Edwards’ shoes, and the truth behind making a big scale movie on a small scale budget. Burgeoning film-makers should definitely give this a read.
How did you get involved with MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT?
So initially Vertigo Films just sent me a script and asked if I would like to come in and talk about doing something similar to what Gareth had done with the first MONSTERS. I’d seen the first MONSTERS and absolutely loved it, it resonated with me, I loved the principle of what he was doing which was taking a very low budget film, a small amount of money and thinking with real ambition and scale and innovation. Trying to build big world’s from found location and really out of your own imagination. I think that in it’s own way is what I was trying to do with Misfits, I had a very tiny budget on that as it was a very small show, and we were trying to build a bigger cinematic world and tell stories with visual effects. I thought it was one of the most innovative films I’d seen in a while and I didn’t at the time know I was going to go on and make the sequel of sorts. When they [Vertigo] approached me they asked if I’d like to do something like Gareth had done and I thought absolutely. It felt like really exciting film-making and going back to almost my short film-making roots, but telling a much more ambitious story. I think the misconception is that we had more money than Gareth and we didn’t really have that much more, it was very, very low budget. We worked in the same way, a small group of us went off to the Middle East and Detroit and came back with some rushes. We then spent a lot of time with some very clever visual effects people to make a big ambitious film I guess.
Gareth [Edwards] is on board as a producer, what did he think of your film?
Well I had a great screening with him. It was quite funny because we just met in a cinema in Soho. It was just us two sitting in the cinema, he was like ‘this is weird isn’t it?’ and I was ‘yeah pretty weird’. We had a good chat, traded war stories and then I left him to watch the film. He’s been nothing but incredibly generous and kind and supportive of the film. He seemed like he genuinely was impressed by it, he loved it. He felt that we’d made a fitting legacy to what he started. Which is really important to me because my film is always meant to stand alone. From the get go I said I don’t want to make a sequel in terms of narrative. I don’t feel like that’s really necessary or right. I think what there is here, if there is any sort of franchise or sequel, it’s the filmmaking ethos of taking a young, film-maker, first film with a lot of ambition and a small budget and go and think with great scale and innovation and come back with something that’s different. That is, maybe has more of a place globally in the film market than some British features at that budget level. So all of that really excites me, excited me then, and I just I think that what’s I wanted it to be and that’s what I wanted his film to be – it to be a legacy of that rather than it being a follow up in just the narrative way. I think he [Gareth Edwards] could see that. He enjoyed seeing that. He’s been very, very kind and supportive.
The first dealt with love, this one is more about war and brotherhood, so it’s tonally similar but also very different. The story features soldiers so I guess the temptation is there to do a James Cameron and make ALIENS. Was this ever on the cards?
I think that there’s this obvious like low-fi comparison, but being realistic MONSTERS was made on a fiver, and mine was made for about eight quid. We’re not talking about the budgets here of ALIEN, and ALIENS. Frankly, even if I wanted to make ALIENS, I couldn’t, or a more AVATAR version of this, I can’t. We did this for nothing. This is just shared people’s tenacity, love for it, fought for it. This is not a replicable film model really unless you just want to dedicate your life to it. My visual effects artists, it’s done with about five visual effects artists, they’re the core team. Obviously we had people helping them all the way. The nature of the film necessitates that it’s character driven and visceral. In Gareth’s sense it was a road movie, he was hoping on and off mini buses with his actors. I was hoping off of mini buses and a couple of cars in the middle of the desert. Trying to put the film together with a cameraman and a cinematographer I work very closely with who is a bit of a genius. We were trying to put huge scale and blockbuster ideas into the film but they always have to exist in the background, in some ways out of necessity for the film-making. We can’t put them up front and centre all the time, we just couldn’t afford to do that. You know that going into it so I guess that helps you shape the film in a way. The first part of the script we were resolving dramatic and narrative issue through spectacle and visual effects. As the conversations between me and my visual effects team supervisor progressed we realised that it just wasn’t possible. Which is fine because it just puts you back into character all the time. I think people might be surprised that its a much more visceral and tough film than Gareth’s original, but I think it needed to be different, we’re different film-makers. Had I made another road movie that was a love story I think everyone would have been asking what’s the point? For me the point of making a sequel, and I asked the producers this and myself this, for me it’s the ethos can I tell a different story? I thought yeah I could but it needed to be different and brake new talent and new actors. Whether people like war films, or war films mixed with sci-fi, that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it does stand alone.
Previous Vertigo directors Gareth Edwards and Rupert Wyatt have gone onto do some big movies, GODZILLA and RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Are you hopeful that you might get the same offers?
Well we’ve had some really fantastic responses and discussions being sent to me from the States. I spent some time over there at the end of last year and there’s some exciting possibilities and things out there. Nothing that’s confirmed and I can talk about today – if I could I would. I’m certainly hopeful that the next thing I do will be bigger in terms of scale and retain the same principals of character at the heart of MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT, but operate within a bigger scale of film-making. I hope I can emulate them in my own way.
MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT is released in UK cinemas on 1st May.
