Warning: include(): http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_fopen=0 in /home/leesmovi/public_html/special/UnderworldInterv.php on line 58

Warning: include(http://www.leesmovieinfo.net/ads.php): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/leesmovi/public_html/special/UnderworldInterv.php on line 58

Warning: include(): Failed opening 'http://www.leesmovieinfo.net/ads.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php54/root/usr/share/pear') in /home/leesmovi/public_html/special/UnderworldInterv.php on line 58

Warning: include(): http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_fopen=0 in /home/leesmovi/public_html/special/UnderworldInterv.php on line 125

Warning: include(http://www.leesmovieinfo.net/leftnav.php): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/leesmovi/public_html/special/UnderworldInterv.php on line 125

Warning: include(): Failed opening 'http://www.leesmovieinfo.net/leftnav.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php54/root/usr/share/pear') in /home/leesmovi/public_html/special/UnderworldInterv.php on line 125

 

Underworld (Interview)
by Gareth Von Kallenbach

Gareth Von Kallenbach sits down for an interview with Underworld writer/producer, Kevin Grevioux.

Gareth Von Kallenbach: How did you get into writing/producing and what was your big break?

Kevin Grevioux: Getting into writing is actually quite easy. All it takes is for one to have the discipline to sit down and actually put pen to paper and "viola", you're a writer. So, I've been writing for a few years now. Breaking into the Hollywood scene is another issue.

UNDERWORLD was my first produced piece of work. You could say that began about ten years ago when I met a guy named Len Wiseman, who did a phenomenal job directing UNDERWORLD, on a movie called STARGATE. He was a prop guy and I was an extra trying to learn the business. He approached me about being in a small independent film he was working on at the time and liked my look for a character in a script he was going to direct.

Through our conversations he discovered that I was trying to become a screenwriter and that we both were genre nuts. We developed a friendship, wrote a couple of scripts together and here we are years later with UNDERWORLD. I've always had a penchant for the fantastic, especially science fiction. My entrance into it was actually comic books that I've been reading since I was about eleven or twelve.

GVK: What was the inspiration for the film and how did you go about making your vision a reality?

KG: Well, the actual direct inspiration was my love of the old Universal horror classics, THE HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN. In those films you had the monsters of legend going at it toe-to-toe and as a kid I just ate it up!

However, thematically, the inspiration was a little more real, and I have to say more tragic. And that's the experiences I've had with interracial dating and different biracial children I had come in contact with over the years. It's amazing the hatred that's hurled at you because you may date someone from another race. It's almost as though man has learned absolutely nothing about brotherhood in the past fifty years.

Bringing the concept to film was no small task. I remember it started out as a simple werewolf project that Len was interested in developing, but even he wasn't sure if it was going to work. So, since I had already written a script he liked and wanted to direct, and he liked my ideas and ways of thinking, he called me one day and asked me what I thought about doing a werewolf movie. Well, my immediate reaction was, "No."

The reason being is because there had only been one or two decent werewolf movies to speak about and the "cheese factor" is so high. But after kicking the idea around a bit over the course of days I said, "What if we do a love story, like Romeo and Juliet or Westside Story? But instead of Montagues and Capulets we have werewolves on one side and vampires on the other." We put together a good working script and got a lot of bites around town, but we were having trouble with certain aspects of the script. That's when this genius of a writer, Danny McBride came along and basically told us how to fix it.

GVK: How would you describe the film and what did you setout to do in creating Underworld?

KG: UNDERWORLD at its core is about a race war between two warring factions that are essentially the same, and the relationship that occurs when a woman from one side falls for a man on the other. Furthermore, there is an edict that the races should never "fraternize" in a sexual sense for fear of creating what we call the "hybrid."

The hybrid is a fiercely powerful progeny of the union between lycan (werewolves) and vampires. We tore this aspect from the pages of real life racial hatred and fear that still exist in the world. In our film, the fear is that biracial hybrids will one day take over and the races will cease to exist. It's really funny – they're both monsters yet they can't see that. It's the ultimate manifestation of "the pot calling the kettle black."

To answer the second part of your question, this material had the high potential to be corny or cheesy if not done improperly. Face it, how many good vampire and werewolf movies have there been? What I wanted was a sense of history with this story. I wanted to go back in time and give an origin for these creatures of legend – how they came to be and how the war started. I have to tip the hat to Danny because he took part of that history and took it even further and really made something special out of it.

Interview Continued >>


Underworld Total US Box Office: $51.600000 million

Visitor Rating Average: B- (50 votes)
Seen It? Rate It: A B C D F