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| James Cameron, Alister Grierson, & Screenwriter/ Adventurer Andrew Wight |
What’s up next Alister, now you’ve finished this?
I don’t know. I’ve been so buried in this; we only finished it a month ago. We had a quick break over Christmas then we headed straight back to L.A for promotions.
It’s being released in the States the same time as Aust I read?
It is, we’ve been very fortunate, and we’ve got huge support. We’re opening on about 4,000 screens in Europe and the rest of the world, and about 3,500 in the USA. So, Universal is really pulling out all stops for us.
That’s an amazing feat for Australia? Especially, because the majority of the cast is Aussies?
I agree, I hope so, and I hope when Australians see the film they realise the technical achievement that it is. Because it’s no mean feat doing what we’ve done, not to mention pulling it off on budget, and on time. Not that people see that when they’re in the cinema but I think people are going to be really surprised by the picture because of its scale. It’s not often you make Australian movies where your as ambitious as we were, to the scale of what you see on screen, I really think we’ve pulled it off. Certainly so far the response has been very positive, and people have been surprised on what the film is trying to achieve. It’s a really interesting film, it starts off as this ‘boy-zone’ pic, it’s almost tongue and cheek, though very quickly they discover it’s not the movie they thought it was going to be. By the end I believe we’ve really challenged them emotionally and mentally. We deal some pretty heavy subject matter and it can be quite confronting.
On the budget, I read it was 30million dollars, was the entirely funded by the states?
It is 100% funded through America?
What then would you say about the Australia film industry and funding from our government, would you say that the Australian film industry is under funded?
I think hopefully we can be a model for people who want to make larger scale films, and who that you can have partnerships with financiers all around the world – which is what happens the majority of the time anyway with films, even for independent films. Our film was 100% funded through one financing body, a company of film producers who looked at the concept of the film, the caving, the 3D, they loved the fact that Jim was a big part of setting the film up and the story telling, the making of the film, and supporting us through the process; it was a big gamble, and they put a lot on the line to support us, which is very stressful, particularly when making a film as complex as ours, where you have to build these environments – the engineering of sets, shooting underwater, the dangers of this film; if things went wrong, it could have gone very wrong, very quickly – it’s a big gamble 30million dollars. But to their credit, they did it, and I’m hoping that through the film, we encourage more filmmakers to be more ambitious with the stories they want to tell.
It seems Australia is turning that way doesn’t it, with ‘Tomorrow when the War Began’ and also this one?
I hope so, I hope people recognise that there’s room in the market place to have a whole array of different styles of films; through to genre, to the stuff we do really well, which is melodramas. Films like ‘Animal Kingdom’, I certainly don’t ever want to push those films as side, I think they’re the backbone of the industry, but, I think we can be more ambitious!
Once more; no projects on the horizon?
I’m looking for work! So, if you’ve got anything let me know!!
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