Casting Two-Time Oscar-Winner Hilary Swank in the Lead Role: Does having a high-caliber cast fight the misperception about the acting quality in horror films/thrillers? “I think that, you know, there’s a lot of competition out there,” answered Silver. “The movie has to be a good movie, it has to attract an audience, has to have some elements in it that are fresh and original. I think that really haven’t seen anything like this before. It isn’t like another retread of, ‘Oh that movie I’ve seen before.’ It’s really a fresh movie. She’s this miracle debunker and her job is to check occurrences out around the world where things occur that essentially could be miracles. She has to show, scientifically explain, how they occur. She gets to this city in Louisiana where she can’t do that, and I think that’s a fresh idea.”
Shooting The Reaping in Louisiana: Filming was disrupted by the horrific hurricanes that wiped out large parts of the state. Silver said they initially chose to film in Louisiana for economical reasons. “That was economically advantageous because the state is very movie-friendly, far more so than our lovely state here in California. It made financial sense to shoot there. So as we were shooting there, we decided to set the movie there. It made more sense. I think in the original script it was, well originally it was Connecticut or something, but it was better in the Bible-belt type setting and it worked much better where we did it. I think it worked great down there. It was rough, but I think it worked great down there.”
The hurricanes dramatically affected the film’s production. “It was horrifying. Most of our crew that was local were from New Orleans and they lost everything. But we had housing and food and ice and electricity and everybody was able to come up with us and their families and live with us. Everybody didn’t want us to leave. They wanted us to stay and finish the movie. There were jobs and kind of an infrastructure that could function. We did what we could. We had to give up our radios and our generators to FEMA. We were part of the relief effort, but we got through it. We survived.”
Releasing The Reaping Around Halloween: Studios used to avoid the holiday like the plague but it’s become a popular release date. The Reaping is set to hit theaters on November 8th. Silver says, “It’s a good date for the movie. It’s a really good date. It’s a Wednesday so it worked out really good for us. When we first – not like it was a hundred years ago - we started doing the Dark Castle movies, the first one was ’98, there was a rule of thumb that you couldn’t put movies out at Halloween. There really was. All the kids that are going to go the movies are out trick-or-treating. So we put a movie out on Halloween that did very well and now Halloween is full of horror movies. But there’s a bunch of films around us. We’ll be okay. I think we’ll be okay.”
The competition for audiences over the Halloween 2006 weekend includes a lot of sequels – and even a prequel. “I think there’s Grudge 2 and Saw III and there’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.l I don’t know. But it’s okay, I think we have a different kind of movie. It’s a supernatural thriller. It’s a Hilary Swank movie. I think that we have a good shot. It’s a good movie.”
Future Projects with the Wachowski Brothers: Silver says, “There’s something coming,” and the Wachowskis may be officially getting behind the camera. “I hope. Perhaps. Looks like it.” Silver added, “Look, I love them, they are incredibly talented guys. They are so focused. They’re great guys and they’re funny and I love being with them, but they are so focused and when they commit to something, they commit to it. We’re close to committing to something that I think would be fantastic for them to do. And if they do it, which we’re close to, then it will be great.”
Silver refused to provide any hints on what the project may be but did say, “If they pull this off, it’s again going to do things you’ve never seen before and in a way that you can’t imagine. But they’re studying all that now, and if they can do what they want, it will be great.”
Page 2: Joel Silver on Wonder Woman, Logan's Run, and Fred Claus
