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Roger Corman's Back with Sharktacular B-Movie Mayhem
 Curt Wagner - ChicagoNow.com
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March 11, 2010
If you made it through the Academy Awards on Sunday, you undoubtedly saw a kindly looking Octogenarian stand to receive an ovation for winning an honorary Oscar.
That gentleman, Roger Corman, has deservedly earned the title of Master of the B-Movie, having written, produced and/or directed more than 350 horror, sci-fi, action and drama films over the past five decades, including "Attack of the Crab Monsters" (1957), "A Bucket of Blood" (1959), "The Little Shop of Horrors" (1960), "The Raven" (1963), "Boxcar Bertha" (1972), "Death Race 2000" (1978), "Munchies" (1987), "Frankenstein Unbound" (1990) and "Raptor" (2007).
His latest project, "Dinoshark," premieres at 8 p.m. Saturday on the Syfy channel. In it, a prehistoric shark wreaks havoc off the coast of Mexico, gnawing its way through swimmers, fishermen and police officers before a showdown with the film's star, Eric Balfour.
The movie has a vague message about global warming--the warmer climate causes the frozen shark egg to thaw--but Corman knows that viewers will tune in for his particular brand of cheesy, mindless fun and "the terror, the horror of the Dinoshark," as he says.
"I have no illusions that this is going to convince anybody that doesn't believe in global warming," he told me last week, chuckling, "but it illustrates a possibility and to me, it's nice to do that. ... I'm pleased to be able to make a little bit of a statement."
"Dinoshark" follows Corman's last two projects for Syfy, "Dinocroc" and "Supergator." And even though the legend will turn 84 in April, he's not slowing down. Corman's also working on "Camel Spiders," "Dinocroc vs. Supergator" and "Stealing Las Vegas," a drama that Corman says turns the caper genre on its head.
His next Syfy project, called "Sharktopus," is currently filming in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, with Eric Roberts as the lead.
To listen to Corman joyfully describe the fantastic flick and the creature itself--a half-shark, half-octopus developed for the Navy as a weapon to battle pirates--is to understand why he's been so successful for so long and has influenced directors from James Cameron to Ron Howard. Read on after the preview for "Dinoshark."
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When I heard the title "Dinoshark," I had to chuckle.
Well, the title came from a picture I made a few years ago called "Dinocroc," which I sold to the Syfy channel and got the biggest rating of the year, so they asked me to make another one and up came "Dinoshark."
No "Dinocroc 2" then?
No, actually it's very interesting that you asked that. I was having lunch with the guys at the Syfy channel in New York, and they said they wanted another one. And I said, "Sure, "Dinocroc 2." And that shows that even at my age, you can learn something.
Tom Vitale, the head of the channel said, "We find out that when we put a No. 2 on a picture that's been a hit, it doesn't do as well. We want a similar title, but not No. 2."
So I said, "Did I say "Dinocroc 2?" I mean, of course, "Supergator."
And they said, "Right, we'll make 'Supergator.'"
So we made "Supergator" and that was a big success, and they wanted something else, so I came up with "Dinoshark" figuring that was still in the genre.
Does that mean "Super Shark" will be next?
No, it means "Sharktopus" will be next. And so these are the titles I came up with, "Dinocroc," "Supergator" and "Dinoshark." They came up with the title "Sharktopus," which we are shooting at the moment, as a matter of fact, in Mexico.
This gave me a real problem because all they had was the title and I said, "All right, I can make it. I think that title is a little wilder than the others, but I'm willing to give it a try."
Now, with "Dinoshark" and "Dinocroc," it's probably undoubtedly true that there were prehistoric crocodiles and prehistoric sharks. So I could extrapolate from that to have one [alive] today. But there was no such thing--to my knowledge of a prehistoric times--a half-shark, half-octopus, and I don't think anything like it exists today. So, this gave me a problem in trying to justify the title.
My feeling on all of this type of picture here is, the audience wants to see the picture, otherwise, they wouldn't pay their money or they won't turn on the channel. But all they're asking is some moderately reasonable way to explain it. They know it's fantastic, they know it can't happen, but if you can give them something that more or less makes sense, the audience in the classic phrase, "the willing suspension of disbelief," they'll go along with you.
But then you must be completely logical. You ask them to accept this frankly, semi-insane idea, but then you must be totally sane and logical and not cheat them after that. So, trying to figure out what to do, here was my reasoning: There is no such thing. I can't justify it the way I can justify "Dinocroc" or "Dinoshark." So it has to be something man-made.
So I came up with this: The Navy has commissioned a bio-engineering company called Blue Water to develop a half-shark, half-octopus with an implant in the brain so it can be controlled. And the reason for the bio-engineering to do this is that, in [battling] the Somali pirates, who operate out of small boats, or terrorists coming ashore in various Mid-Eastern countries operating out of small boats, the Navy cannot really go in because it's a violation of the countries sovereignty, but we want to stop the activity. So the Navy has created, or has Blue Water create, the Sharktopus, which say for Somali pirates, can go swimming under water [and] the tentacles can grab the boat. The tentacles of the octopus grab the boat, overturn it, and then the shark eats the pirates. So, that's our justification for the picture.
So, have you figured out what that's going to look like?
Yes. The head is the jaws and head of a shark, and then the rest of it is the tentacles of the octopus with a mouth underneath for the octopus. Because an octopus has a beak-like mouth and it feeds itself by the tentacles grabbing a creature and feeding it into the mouth. So the Sharktopus essentially has two ways [to eat]. And, of course, we're going to use these two ways, one the shark simply eats anything in sight, and second the octopus with the tentacles pulls anything it can find to its own mouth.
Will it swim more like an octopus?
It's a combination of both. It swims like a shark and the tentacles flail, or swim somewhere beyond it. It's about 40- to 50-feet long. The shark is about 10- to 12-feet long, and then we have 30 feet or more of tentacles trailing behind.
Wow. That's going to be a fun one.
The Toronto Film Festival is actually done something very strange; they've accepted it sight unseen, which they normally do not do. But they kind of feel that we're all going to have a lot of fun with this project. They're going to have it for their midnight screening. So that will be sometime in September, and I would think that probably sometime in October or November it'll be on the Syfy channel.
I noticed that you pop up in "Dinoshark" as an actor.
Yes. I play a scientist who, at first, doesn't believe it can happen and then I come to my senses and realize that it's real.
Do you enjoy that, acting once and a while?
Yes. It's fun. I like the idea of playing a part like that which takes one day. It's fun to work as an actor for one day. Beyond that, you're really working as an actor.
In "Dinoshark" you bring up the theme of global warming. Is it important for your movies to have a message? Or are you happy to just have them be fun?
It's of some importance for me [to have a message]. I like to work on two levels with my films. On one level, the service level, it's the excitement, the terror, the horror of the Dinoshark. On a deeper level, beneath the surface, is a statement that is of some importance to me.
And the other statement is "don't go in the water." Why do you think people are still fascinated by shark tales?
I think it's because it is a living monster. People have always been fascinated by monsters. The first English novel, if you can call it a novel, or story, was "Beowulf," the story of a monster. The concept of the monster is implanted in people's unconscious because there were what we considered to be monsters who came after the age of dinosaurs. They can't be dinosaurs, but there were Saber Tooth Tigers, there were Mammoths, giant creatures such as that. We're sort of hard-wired, quite correctly, to be afraid of that. And the monster gives one still a thrill, I believe.
You have either produced, or directed, more than 350 films in your career, which is amazing. Do you have any favorites?
A couple. Maybe one of the Edgar Allen Poe pictures, possibly "Mask of the Red Death." There was this science fiction picture I made, "X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes" that I liked. And then a film totally away from this called "The Intruder," which had to do with racial integration in the South, which I shot in the 1960s. It got magnificent reviews, won a couple of film festivals, and was the first film I ever made that lost money.
Do you have a favorite movie monster, either of yours or just in general?
would really have to go back to Frankenstein--the original, the 1930s Boris Karloff, "Frankenstein." I think that sort of set the bar for all of them. Later films have been more elaborate, with better special effects monsters, but I think that creature was, for it's time, the most frightening and is still frightening and interesting.
Hollywood is having this remake fever. Have you thought about remaking any more of your films?
A couple of our films have been remade. My picture, "Death Race 2000" was remade last year as "Death Race," which I went along as executive producer. My picture, "Piranha," which I am not working on the remake, will come out this summer in 3-D. Those are the two most recent. And I'm working, myself, on a remake of my own old film with Ron Howard, "Grand Theft Auto."
I remade a couple of my films. I don't like to remake them very much. I've only done two or three. I like to be as original as I can. But every now and then, the idea of remaking an older film comes back. I remade "Out of this Earth," also a number of years ago.
You've been given credit with hiring and giving many top directors their first early gigs. I was wondering, since James Cameron was in the news for the Oscars, if you could talk about finding him?
Yes. Jim started his first job in films as a model maker for us. He was making model space ships for "Battle Beyond the Stars." And the space ships were so beautifully made and detailed that he got promoted immediately and became the first art director, production designer, then head of all special effects, all production. He was really running everything, including directing the second unit on a number of science fiction films for us. I think he's brilliant, and I think I can say, in my opinion without question, "Avatar" is the greatest science fiction picture, truly ever made.
Have you ever thought about directing again?
I've thought about it, but no. The years have gone by and directing is difficult, difficult physically. People don't know how hard it is to be up there all day long. Motion pictures are not shot on an eight-hour day. Your average day is 10-12 hours. And it's easier to produce.
And to act in for one day.
And to act one day. Right. That's even easier.
What other projects do you have coming up?
Well, "Sharktopus," of course. And I've got a picture called "Stealing Las Vegas," which is a very low-budget film being done by the students at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. It's a switch on the caper film. It was an idea I came up with.
As you may know, Las Vegas is experiencing somewhat hard times because of the recession. So I've set up a casino that's going to close, and the most underpaid people who are going to be thrown out of work have decided to rob their own casino. It works something like this:
The plumber stops up the toilets and all the water supply of the casino at a specific point. At exactly that same time the electrician blows all the electrical circuits in the casino. The drink girls spill a drink into the lap of the security guard. The parking lot attendant parks a car in the wrong position, blocking the entrance into the casino.
So the poorest people on the lowest level rob their own casino because they know how that casino runs better than anybody else, including the owners. So, I think at least, it's a twist on the classic caper film.
That sounds like fun.
Yeah. That one I'm interested in because it follows something I like, which is to take a genre and then just sort of break the genre wide open and do it differently.
Are you happy that the cable networks, like Syfy, are doing more original movies? Do you find this to be a great outlet for new directors, new producers and people who wouldn't be able to get a theatrical release?
Yes. I think it's very good because the market for medium-budget and low-budget independents, which I've been in all my life, has become very difficult. We're no longer getting the theatrical releases we formerly did. Occasionally, we'll get one. But in general we will not. And so the cable channels and other outlets [are]. I'm hoping the Internet will come up as a market; I'm hoping a big market. But at the moment, the cable channels are helping tremendously. |
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