NYCC 2010: Gareth Edwards on His DIY Movie Monsters

Matt Patches: During the panel you described Monsters as a sci-fi version of Lost in Translation. Do you see yourself heading towards bigger genre movies in the future or are you more interested in relationship dramas?

Gareth Edwards: No, I think the one word that you could use on all my films, the one word I would like them all to have in common, is “epic.” I think movies should be epic, if it’s not epic, do it on the telly. That’s what tellies [do]. It’s like cinema is epic, it should be an epic experience.

Matt Patches: Now when you say epic, do you mean in scope?

Gareth Edwards: Emotionally as well...like a life-changing event. Not that you can do this in a film, this is too high an aspiration...but films sometimes do it. But you should be presenting an event that is life-changing. And so, for me I'd happily do a lot more science-fiction, but it should really punch you in the chest, as in you've got to really...ideally if you can, and I’m not saying we did this with Monsters , the goal was, you want to affect people, you want to be emotionally affected by it. Just the spectacle like “Oh, my God, I’ve never scene a UFO over New York !” I didn’t care about that so much, I mean, I enjoy it.

Matt Patches: Independence Day...Eh?

Gareth Edwards: [laughs] I wasn’t so keen on that film. When you compare it to Close Encounters and films like that...

Matt Patches: Yeah, but I guess at the end of the day, Close Encounters of the Third Kind isn’t really about the aliens.

Gareth Edwards: The build-up to seeing the UFO’s in that movie, kind of from the beginning, the hints in the desert, to the end, the reveal, they take a good hour and a half to build up to that moment to “Now you’re going to see it.” And Independence Day was like, “There’s no aliens, we’re not even thinking about it,” “Oh look, there’s a f*cking UFO!” You’ve just taken the most interesting part of your entire story and did it in two shots!

Matt Patches: I know you’re working on a film with Timur Bekmambetov [director of Wanted] – will it be epic?

Gareth Edwards: It’s going to be epic.

Matt Patches: Is it sci-fi? Or the same vein as Monsters?

Gareth Edwards: It’s science fiction, its definitely more science fiction.

Matt Patches: How did you get involved with Timur?

Gareth Edwards: We have the same agent, so that's one of the main reasons. As well, I'm a real fan of his work, and he really liked Monsters. He's the nicest guy, and he's not the guy you think you're going to get. You think you're going to get this kind of serious, brooding, Russian filmmaker. He's like a big kid, and he's --personality-wise, I think I'm quite similar to him, and so I feel like...Basically he's very generously offered to help me get my second film off the ground outside of the studio system. So the idea being that: you own it all, you can do whatever you want to do.

Matt Patches: Like District 9 and Kick-Ass?

Gareth Edwards: Yeah, you can do whatever you want to do, you can set it up at least to be the film you really want to make, and then you offer it out.

Matt Patches: Is there a plot line for that film?

Gareth Edwards: Yeah, it’s a very vague one.

Matt Patches: People Do Stuff: The Movie?

Gareth Edwards: Yeah, people do stuff – stuff explodes.

Matt Patches: That seems to be common. Bigger scope, more explosions.

Gareth Edwards: Something might break, a really big thing might break. No, What we’ve written is an epic human story set in a futuristic world without humanity. So it’s a human story without humanity, is a simple way of putting it. It’s fake, but I’m really genuinely excited about it. It’s a film I’ve wanted to make for a long time, and I might get to make it, it going to be fucking hard though. It’s very ambitious.

Matt Patches: That's the only way to do it.

Jump to:

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