After months and months of no news on Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, the writer/director showed up at the 2007 San Diego Comic Con with exciting info to share about his second feature film. Southland Tales not only has secured a November 9, 2007 release date, Samuel Goldwyn Films printed posters to prove they’re serious about getting the word out on Kelly’s much anticipated film.
How happy are you about that November 9th date?
“I’m very happy that they’re putting it out in the fall and they’re really confident in it. They still haven’t seen the finished version. They’ve seen a lot of new visual effects, and they’re seeing how it’s like tying the whole film together. You can tell that they’re behind it in a way that I’d never expected.”
Do you know the studio's plans for the release pattern?
“The release pattern hasn’t completely been decided how they’re going to platform it and when they go wide and all that kind of stuff because it’s like no one’s seen the finished completed version yet. The trailer will come out in mid-August. So the way it’s being released is Sony is handling all the marketing. It’s like their special little project within Sony and then Goldwyn is distributing it, which they often partner with Sony on kind of weird movies that don’t quite have a home within Screen Gems or Sony Classic. It doesn’t fit right so they figured Goldwyn was the best partner for it. And Goldwyn’s been great and they’ve actually been around a long time. They really know what they’re dong. They’re a very classy company.”
Are they behind it as in being intrusive or are they leaving you alone?
“No, no, no. They’re behind it like helping me. They gave me a bunch of money to do all these new visual effects. And it’s been great, actually, working with a big studio. I went in very nervous. I knew the deal was if I cut a shorter version, I had a chance of getting more money for visual effects because that’s what I needed. We ran out of time; we ran out of money. And if I was never going to get the extra money, I was never going to be totally happy. So I figured out how to get the length down. I cut like 25 minutes out of it and they gave me a bunch more money, which was just a huge sigh of relief.
Starting in April, we started the visual effects and now we’re almost done with them. It was a big gearing back, gearing the movie back up and moving it all over from where it was, but I’m really happy. Sometimes you work really, really long on something and it either goes off the rails or it stays on the rails. I think this one has definitely stayed on the rails.”
After all the delays, did you always have faith it would get a theatrical release?
“Yeah, I absolutely did. I had to. You invest so much of your life in something, it’s like to give up would have been devastating. It would have killed me to give up on this movie.”
But you had to lose 25 minutes of the movie…
“I did, but I figured out how to do it where I’m still happy. We still have a longer version with all the new visuals. I can then restore a longer version for the DVD later. But I’m really happy with it.”
Did the cuts affect the storyline?
“There’s a couple sub-plots that got deleted, but they are the more sci-fi, philosophical, esoteric, environmental catastrophe stuff. I mean it’s stuff that gets into metaphysics of like the ocean waves and human behavior.”
The kind of storyline that might not connect with all audience members?
“Stuff that the geeks will flip out for, like sci-fi people will love it. But to get the running time down, to make sure that I get my visual effects money, it’s like sub-plots that can be restored.
It’s like doing a really delicate surgery. Not only that, it’s so complicated and there’s so many different universes to the film in terms of alternative fuel, Patriot Act surveillance, Big Brother, neo-Marxist, porn star reality show, all these different elements…the election…that you have to balance in three chapters - and in three graphic novels that lead up to it. Having to recap essential elements for people who haven’t read a graphic novel, so it’s like we really needed this long. I swear to God it’s the longest post ever, but we used every minute of it. We used every day of it.”
Were you ever worried about overloading the audience? That maybe moviegoers won’t get everything you’re trying to say?
“You know, there’s always that risk. But I think we’ve made it as accessible overload. It’s going to be overload. It’s one of those movies that’s going to melt your brain. It’s definitely going to melt your brain when you watch it, but I think it’s now going to melt your brain in a way where you’re understanding it just enough to keep going with it. And the important thing also is you’re laughing.
If there’s plot twists that are like hard to follow - completely follow - at first, or I mean some of my favorite movies, when I saw 12 Monkeys for the first time I was like spinning. I was like, ‘We’ve got to see it again.’ When I saw Brazil for the first time I was like, ‘Gotta see it again.’ So I hope this will be one of those movies that people are going to want to see a second and third time. It’s definitely designed that way. We definitely designed it to have all the clues and the details on an even greater level than Donnie Darko. Some of the new stuff we’re adding is stuff that you need to freeze your DVD and look at stuff in the frame.”
But you’re not suggesting don’t go to theaters on 11/9 and watch it on DVD instead.
“Definitely see it opening day because it’s a big screen movie. It is a big theatrical experience and it’s going to be a blast to see in theaters. But I was just saying you can’t freeze the projector to read what the screen said.”
Wouldn’t it be interesting if you could?
“People might get irritated (laughing). Like that one guy with the remote, like that one guy in the audience keeps freezing it.”
