Director Bryan Singer's take on the classic fairy tale Jack the Giant Killer - better known as Jack and the Beanstalk and now titled Jack the Giant Slayer - opens in theaters this weekend. The tale follows Jack (Nicholas Hoult), a farm boy who must face his greatest fear, heights, in order to face-off against a once-mythical enemy and save his lady-love, Princess Isabelle (Elinore Tomlinson).
We had the opportunity to talk with Singer recently about his approach to the design of the film, and how he thinks today's audience may relate to this childhood tale.
(Take a look at our X-Men: Days of Future Past interview with Singer as well.)
IGN: When you were thinking about how to translate the story, how did you want to balance the scarier elements of giants biting off heads with the comedic and playful elements of more of a family-friendly film?
Bryan Singer: Well I knew that this one was going to have a body count, so I figured that if I balanced the action or any of the intense stuff with some humor, and taking a cue off The Princess Bride and that kind of tone, that I could get away with it and make a film that is scary, potentially, but not upsetting. There's a difference between a child seeing a movie and being scared - which is good, that's the fun that gets you excited - as opposed to having them upset. If you were to show Zero Dark Thirty, they'd be upset.
IGN: [Laughing] One would hope. There's an element to the film that's kind of consciously about passing along stories and how they evolve over time. As you were thinking about delivering this classic story to a contemporary audience what are some of the things that you wanted to introduce?
Singer: I wanted there to be traditional elements like Jack, the hero's journey, the rags to riches hero's journey and the love story with the Princess. I wanted to kind of play on those. By having the tone be a bit heightened and reminding the audience that it's a story about storytelling - certainly with the opening scene and the ending of the movie - it let's you get away with the fairy tale aspects without being too sappy. I think the acknowledgement was that it is a fairy tale, but you have some cool stuff in it too.
IGN: Who is your target audience, ultimately?
Singer: I think families. I mean listen, it would be great if teens went because they're going to be entertained too. They're not going to be bored during it, I don't think. But also, it's something that families can go to that they can just sit back, pull out the popcorn and just enjoy the adventure. Awards season is over. Enough. It's time to have an adventure. I even asked Warner Bros. if they could create an ad for around the Oscars that would kind of speak to that idea. So they created this intersticial where there is a red carpet and a limo drives up and a big foot squashes it.
IGN: For the design of the giants, how far did you want to go? How realistic did you want to make them?
Singer: It was a very delicate balance, because I didn't want them to be monsters and yet I didn't want them to be big people, either. So they had to be a hybrid. So we used the surfaces of nature. If you look at them they look like living, breathing creatures, but if you look close the boils on their skin can resemble rocks, weeds or grass. So my feeling was that they were created by something. They don't have a culture, I mean they have a culture in terms of this community, but they were crafted magically somehow. So that was our inspiration for the giants, mostly making sure that they were humanoid, but not too human, and not too monster.
IGN: One of the funny things that I did walk away thinking was, "how do they breed?"
Singer: They don't breed. There's a finite amount. They're just up there. There's a bunch of them. And that's why they're so old, and that's why the armor is ancient that they wear. They're a thousand years-old, give or take, and that's why they look the way that they do - cause' they're eternal. There are no youthful one's up there. There are no giant babies, there are no different age groups, they were crafted. I imagine that they were all crafted at the same time. For what purpose, I have my own theory. It's a little like The Tower of Babel. You know these monks try to go to heaven and you're not really supposed to do that. There's a barrier between Heaven and Earth and it's Gargantua, the land of the giants.
IGN: That's a really interesting theory. There are lessons to every fairy tale, so is that one of the lessons in this one for you? Don't overreach?
Singer: [Laughing] Yeah, don't mess with mother nature. I mean there is a lesson to overreach in a way. There's Isabelle and Jack who seek adventure, and seek each other. For Jack as a farm boy, his dream of being with Isabelle is a big dream. The beanstalk represents a big dream and I think giants are big. So in a way it is asperational, but at the same time I had to create a mythology to the giants so that I knew what they should look like. Because it was very challenging. There was a version of the script before I came on board where there were baby giants. and what started to happen was that it started to get confusing like, 'It's Jack the Giant Killer or Slayer, but what if I like the giants?' Whenever I read the story Jack and the Beanstalk as a kid I felt sorry for the giants. I mean Jack went into the guy's place, stole his stuff and then killed him. So I was like, 'We're not going to have sympathy for these giants, these giants will not be sympathetic.'
Bryan Singer on the set of Jack the Giant Slayer.
IGN: You've worked with Nicholas Hoult (Jack) on this, as a producer on X-Men: First Class and he's now set to reprise his role as Beast in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Is this someone that you just feel has an incredible future? What is it that you see in him?
Singer: Yes. I think he's like a young British Jimmy Stewart.
IGN: You mean you think he has that - actually very rare in an actor - "every-man" quality?
Singer: Yeah. He also has a sense of humor and vulnerability which was very necessary, particularly for Jack, so that the audience roots for him. And you root for Nick, he doesn't alienate you, he invites you in. Some guys are hunks and you're like, 'Okay, I get that he's a hunk and he's appealing but I can't relate to that character.' I may not look as good as Nick Hoult, but I can relate to him. I can relate to his awkwardness, his fears and his desires.
Jack the Giant Slayer opens in theaters on March, 1.
Roth Cornet is an Entertainment Editor for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @RothCornet and IGN at Roth-IGN.
Source : ign[dot]com
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