Interview from
ComingSoon.net
John Carpenter on The Fog
Source: Heather Newgen
May 5, 2005
John Carpenter has been scaring up audiences for decades with his films such as Halloween, The Thing, and The Fog, which is currently being remade. His vision and understanding of the horror genre combined with his dark cinematography style and impeccable timing for making moviegoers jump has made him a prolific director thus creating an enormous cult following of his work.
ComingSoon.net caught up with Carpenter on the set of The Fog in Vancouver, Canada and talked to us about casting younger Hollywood stars, why he doesn't want to direct this film, and why it's time to remake his 1980's hit.
Why remake The Fog?
John Carpenter: Why not? If everybody else is making remakes and they want to pay me money to make a remake of an old movie of mine why not? It's a good idea. Seriously that's part of the answer, but my ex-partner, Debra Hill, who just recently died, had been trying to get this off the ground. We hooked up with David [Foster] here who did finally get it off the ground and it was kind of nice for her to see this being made.
Can you talk about the key differences between this version of The Fog and the 1980 version?
Carpenter: The styles are different. The actors are different. The director is different. It's essentially the same story with some basic changes in it. Its fog, ghosts.
Any of those changes you can talk about?
Carpenter: I have been sworn to secrecy in that matter.
Why did you decide to hand over this to another director instead of remaking it yourself?
Carpenter: I don't want to remake this. I mean I did it once. This was not my favorite experience of my own career making The Fog. It was difficult. We had to go back and fix it once we shot it. I've done this one. Let some younger person do it.
What's your role in this production?
Carpenter: I'm producer of it. I come say hello to everybody and then go home.
Given the inconsistent success of recent remakes of horror movies, was there anything you were insistent remain from the original or insistent they change to update it?
Carpenter: In the case of The Fog, it's a pretty fire proof idea in terms of what happens. It's a ghost story. The idea in this case is to freshen it up. There's a cultural mindset these days, that says anything over fifteen years is old-fashioned and old school. But we've sort of heard of it. The audience has maybe heard of it. So the thing to do is take it out and prop it up. Put some fresh coat of paint on it and see if it goes.
The original Fog didn't really skew younger the way this version does. What do you think has changed in the world of horror since the original Fog came out and where you have Tom Welling now instead of Tom Atkins?
Carpenter: It's a different era. That was 1979. I mean it's just a whole different time now. We didn't have the internet. Thank God we didn't have computer generated graphics and the whole celebrity showbiz thing was different. It was a different time. Horror movie and science fiction use to be portrayed with older folks. A little more mature I should say.
David Foster, a producer on the film elaborated:
We hired a lot of young actors too which was a very specific plan. Tom Welling is really popular with the young people. Lost [Maggie Grace] is a very popular series with all kinds of people. And then there's Selma [Blair] who's also young, but she's not a television star. She's sort of glued to the young people. It was a very calculated thing. These pictures fail or succeed based on young people going to the movies and mostly young girls. It's amazing".
Were there creative solutions you had to find to bring across the horror you wanted [because of the PG-13 rating]?
Carpenter: I'm just a producer on this. I just sit home and watch basketball games on TV. These guys go out and make this movie. It's designed to be a PG-13 film. Horror has really changed a lot. It used to be a lot much more hard core. Today it's drifting towards PG-13 and you know getting girls in and girls don't like yucky stuff, you know what I mean.
Did you have any final say on the script?
Carpenter: I read it. I liked it. But, you know the script evolves. It keeps changing as you make a movie. Look my whole philosophy is that it's a director's film. It's not my film. I made my film back then when I was young and happy. This is a new director and he's bringing his vision and his sensibilities and I have a real hard time telling anyone else what to do or interfering in his vision. It's his movie.
Sony Pictures' The Fog is scheduled for an October 14 release
