Interview – Breck Eisner

We are still early in the 2010 movie season, but I have to say that out of all the genre flicks to come out this year, The Crazies has impressed me the most. Breck Eisner pulled off the rare feat of improving upon the original source material with a deft hand and an understanding of the nuances of the horror genre.

I had the opportunity to chat with Breck about his remake of George A. Romero’s 1973 film that is currently playing in theaters across the nation.

Jason Bene: There has been talk of you directing the remakes of The Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Brood. How did The Crazies come across your desk?

Breck Eisner: I am not on “Creature” anymore, I was on that for almost two years, I think. I have been approached for The Brood, but I am not committed and I haven’t decided if I’m going to tackle that. I have no idea on that at all. While I was developing “Creature“, I was also concurrently developing The Crazies. In fact, The Crazies was probably a three-year process. I think I started The Crazies actually before I signed on to “Creature”. I was brought into it by Michael Aguilar and Dean Georgaris who had a production deal with Paramount. They got the rights to The Crazies directly from Romero, and the fact that Romero was deciding to option his own material and was going to benefit financially from it were two indicators that gave me confidence in doing it. As we developed the movie, The Crazies script came out great. They had a script when they first approached me – I liked it but I had a different point of view on how to do the script – so we hired a different writer and rewrote the script. While I was developing “Creature” it didn’t quite go as planned scriptwise, and then the writers strike hit and “Creature” went on hold. Then I put my energy towards getting The Crazies off the ground. We actually jumped around from three studios. We were at Paramount first and they decided they weren’t going to make it. Then Rogue picked it up and then they changed ownership, and they decided they weren’t going to make it. And that’s when I finally got it to Overture Films and Participant Media.

Jason Bene: The original had that Romero vibe of being filmed around Pittsburgh and you chose Lenox, Iowa for this film. Besides being part of the script, was there something interesting about the rural setting that you liked?

Breck Eisner: Yeah, there were a couple of things. We shot in Iowa and Georgia specifically because of tax incentives and aesthetic, they go hand in hand. There was no way we could afford to shoot in a state that didn’t have a tax incentive, which Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania didn’t have at the level that these places (Georgia and Iowa) had. But even before the tax incentive we developed the movie with the idea of an open midwest state. I wanted the idea of this kind of North by Northwest open epic feeling where you can stand in the middle of a crossroads and turn 360 degrees and see for miles and miles with no trees, no buildings, no mountains. This idea that would allow me to shoot these kind of epic vast plains, but at the same time it would feel contained and claustrophobic because there is nowhere to hide and nowhere to go. You are a target for the military or for the ”Crazies” at any point. It seemed like a way to really give it a vast scope, yet at the same time still keep it kind of claustrophobic and dangerous.

Jason Bene: I like the fact that “The Crazies” have the diseased look, yet they are not part of the undead family. Was there a conscious effort to stradle that line between zombie and horribly infected?

Breck Eisner: I really didn’t want it to be a zombie movie. Obviously everyone hears Romero, remake, and then said let’s see the ads – zombies. Yes, there is a zombie quality to the movie overall, I guess, but if you want to really pigeonhole it into a genre you could say it. They are not zombies. They are clearly not undead; they are not acting as a cohesive whole. Everybody’s not trying to do the same thing like eat brains or infect. People maintain a sense of their identity just ever so slightly. The disease unleashes this raw, inner kind of turmoil that exists in all the different characters and this rage state they go into. So, I didn’t want it to be undead and we kind of tried to follow that in the design of them as well. When they first start to go crazy they don’t exhibit any external signs of the disease, but as they become more and more infected the disease takes over and ravages the body. But it’s not like they turn grey and sort of decay, in fact, they get more red and they pulse with life as the blood courses through their veins. They actually are burning brighter and hotter, but shorter, as they fade out in a day or two.

Jason Bene: George A. Romero is a producer on the film. Was he hands on or did he leave you alone to make your picture?

Breck Eisner: He definitely said make your own movie. He was on in the very beginning and he sold the rights personally to Michael and Dean, so he sanctioned making the movie. And then he said “Look, I’ve made this movie once, you guys do your thing. This is an interpretation of what I did, you have my document, which is the movie that I made to see what I did. Go and do what you want to do.” Then when we finished we screened it for him in Toronto and I had a very nerve-wracking call after. He was very positive when I talked to him and he went on record publicly saying how much he liked it.

Jason Bene: Did you feel there were improvements you could make on the original? The Crazies is not considered a classic like Dawn of the Dead.

Breck Eisner: I’m a lot more comfortable remaking a movie that is not considered as classic as another one. You’re still remaking the master George A. Romero, but it’s not like you are remaking one of his known to be best films. It’s a good movie, I like The Crazies, but it does have some flaws. I think primarily because of his really limited budget. When you are talking as a low a budget he had, in the $200,000 range, he couldn’t hire professional actors or military set designers. He couldn’t do the wardrobe right for the containment officers. That was one aspect of the movie that we really updated. I wanted the military to look really real, I wanted the protocol to feel very real. I wanted it to feel like it was a movie that you could believe that was the response that the military would take.

Jason Bene: This past weekend you went toe-to-toe with the biggest movie of all-time, Martin Scorsese, Bruce Willis, and The Olympics. I believe $16 million at the box-office for a “R” Rated horror film with these obstacles is quite remarkable.

Breck Eisner: Thank you, I appreciate it. We were in a lot less theaters and had a lot less advertising dollars. It’s a testament to the fans, the fans really came out, which I appreciated. Hopefully they will continue to see it in case they missed it this weekend and will support a movie that got strong reviews and people really did respond to. It’s a genre that I love and a genre that I think a lot of people feel very passionate about and it’s one that I respect. I don’t think it can be a cheap genre that you can just throw it by the book numbers moviemaking. I tried hard to make a movie that had strong characters, had interesting scares, had a good story to tell, and hopefully people respect it for that.

Killer Film would like to thank Director Breck Eisner for giving such an in-depth interview for our readers, and you can read my very positive review for The Crazies here.