The panel was moderated by actor/director Todd McCarthy for some reason ("The Station Agent," "The Visitor") and to be perfectly honest, the footage looked excellent; funny, thrilling — like a deeply irreverent and filthy version of "The Lord Of The Rings" made by some of the core guys who created "Pineapple Express." The picture looks like a blast and if Universal markets this thing correctly — what do they really have to do other than let it sell itself — they should have a pretty decent-sized hit on their hands.
McCarthy saw the film earlier in the week and described it as "a hell of a ride. There's a lot action, it's funny as hell and there's some serious gore going on. But it's dramatic too. It sucks you in and you really care about these idiots in a really great way," he said to much laughter from the cast on the panel.
For those that are still wondering and puzzled as to why David Gordon Green went from lyrical dramas such as "George Washington" and "All The Real Girls" (the former of which made our best of the decade list) to relatively big-budget studio films about stoner princes trying to rescue a maiden from an evil wizard, they should realize eclecticism is big on the filmmaker's agenda.
" 'Pineapple' was a 180 turn from anything I had done before," Green said alluding to his early career of independent films that he joked that "three people saw." "But I really wanted to get into that [genre]. For me it's about the project and the cast and wanting to shake things up and try different things that I've done before and there's a great leap from drama to 'Pineapple' and an extraordinary technical leap from 'Pineapple' to 'Your Highness' and I'm always looking to take some left turns and do what's different, so I feel like the unexpected is the most interesting for me."
McBride did however admit that their first version of the script was unwieldy and overly ambitious. "The studio breakdown for the first draft was like a 200 million dollar movie, which is a little higher than we were shooting for," he laughed. "So we decided to be creative with it and pull it back and make it something that a studio would be willing to take a risk on and wouldn't sink a small nation."
The trailer is impressive, and as noted before, looks like a comedic riff on "Lord Of The Rings" without simply being a spoof. The action is almost as impressive as that Peter Jackson film, at least in the extremely entertaining and well-cut trailer. And Green said creating a movie that looked believable was paramount.
"We wanted the movie to be real, we wanted to be hands on, we wanted it to be tangible," he explained. "There's puppets in the movie there's guys in creature suits (made by Spectral Motion, the company that did Guillermo del Toro's creatures in "Pan's Labyrinth"), there's stop motion elements, CG and we kinda just took the best of the technology. We love and prided ourselves on finding beautiful locations and construct sets that were massive yet elegant and constructed as if we're making a serious period piece and approach it dramatically knowing the more serious we took the movie, the funnier it would get."
Though a fantasy film with spectacle-like set-pieces James Franco noted the shoot wasn't distinctly different from "Pineapple Express" and improvisation was still an important element in shaping the film and its comedy.
"You can [be free] to go anywhere," Franco said. "And that's the environment that David creates and that is unusual. With David you depend on the chemistry and relationship you have with the other actors. Despite the action and effects he does create a space where actors can discover things on set."
While it may remain to be seen what mainstream audiences will think of the film — it's conceivable, it could run into the same issues "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" did — there is no doubt that movie geek and fantasy types are going to flip for the trailer.
Given the thumbs-up reception the trailer received we don't doubt Universal will be putting it in front of audiences and online soon. "Your Highness" is set for an April 8, 2011 release and to be honest, we kind of can't wait.
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