CraveOnline: What is your next film going to be?
Jonathan Levine: I am working with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg again. They’re going to be producing this thing I wrote that is hopefully the next one. Nothing is etched in stone yet but it is a comedy with drama that is kind of a Christmas movie.
The kind of Christmas movie that will come out at Christmas, or the kind of Christmas movie that comes out some other time of year?
No, I think it’ll come out at Christmas if I can fucking do it.
Will it also be an R-rated Christmas movie?
Yeah, yeah, yes. Definitely. I’m pretty excited about it but I can’t really say anything about it because I don’t know anything about it really.
Did you want to go back to something that was more human drama after the special effects movie of Warm Bodies?
Yeah, I feel like that’s always something I’ll come back to. I like to branch out as much as I can but I feel like the movies that are closest to my heart are The Wackness and 50/50, the ones that are dramedies that have that human element to them. Hopefully I’ll divert from that every other movie and then come back to that every other movie. I have no idea. I’m trying to figure it out now. I don’t know why I do anything.
What were your favorite horror movies?
The movies that I’d rent all the time were horror films and slasher films, and those were the movies that I really grew up on that I used as an inspiration for this, whether it be I Spit on Your Grave or Nightmare on Elm Street or the original Chainsaw. All that stuff was a huge inspiration.
That’s a pretty diverse spectrum, because I Spit on Your Grave and Texas Chainsaw are raw and brutal. Nightmare you might say is more elegant.
I mean, I think that what we were trying to do with this was akin to I Spit on Your Grave and Chainsaw but with a bit more lyrical cinema to it. Even Virgin Suicides or Malick movies, we had stills from all of those movies on the wall in the production office and were sort of just trying to mash them all up.
Was it ever going to be as brutal or graphic as I Spit on Your Grave or Chainsaw?
No, I don’t think it was. In fact, the only excessive violence that’s in there now was actually additional photography because we thought we were kind of pussying out. We added some of the more violent stuff at the end, and it was also just because I think we didn’t really know what we were doing and we couldn’t quite get the effects together. So no, there was only intended to be offscreen violence and I think towards the end of the editing process I realized that the audience would want more satisfying violence. Now looking back I wish it was even more violent.
When did you do additional shooting? That still would have been six years ago, right?
Yeah, it was months after we shot it. That was still 50 years ago.
In the time since you made the movie, VOD has become a real thing. How do you as a filmmaker feel about people discovering movies at home in that format?
I think it’s wonderful and I think it’s great for certain movies. As a filmmaker it’s scary because you always want people to go have the experience of cinema, but I’m not as scared of it as I used to be. I think people will always want to go see a movie, whether it’s a comedy and you want to see it and laugh with people, or whatever. As my friends are having kids, I see how much they want to get the fuck out of the house on a Friday night so I think people are always going to want to go somewhere and leave their house to see movies, so I’m not as worried about VOD.
I think it’s a really nice option. I’ve seen a few movies recently on VOD that I’ve really, really enjoyed and it’s really fun. Anyone who works in LA in the movie business who’s bitching about VOD is kind of full of shit because they watch every movie that comes out after October on a screener at home anyway. I can’t be a hypocrite and dislike VOD and I think it’s great for a movie like this to help it find its audience. I think it’s great.
Since it took so long to come out, were the actors able to use any scenes from Mandy Lane in their reels?
I really don’t. That’s a good question. I don’t know. I’m going to see them all tonight so I’ll ask them.
Amber was already breaking out, but a lot of them might have been waiting for this to be seen.
Yeah, I think that’s another great reason for it to come out is because we have so many great actors and it’s great for their work to be seen by everyone.
And a lot of them got discovered after, like Whitney, so it’s great to see her earlier work.
Totally. Anson [Mount] too. There are some great actors in this film and I’m really, really so excited that people are going to get to see their work. It’s awesome.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
