Underworld Awakening (2012)

Richard Wright, producer. Mans, director. Bjorn Stein, director. Gary Lucchesi, producer. James McQuaide, executive producer and visual effects supervisor. What, you get two titles? - Well, you know. Big shot. So here we are... ...at the beginning of the fourth Underworld movie. That's right. Been a lot of them. The first appearance of Len Wiseman's... ...new logo. - New logo. The world premiere. - In 3D, no less. Oh, my God. It's like our life flashing before our eyes. Yeah. We've lived through these. Exactly. I think it's fun to say that... ...I think we cut the... Edited the whole film for eight weeks... ...and then we spent three weeks editing the first three minutes. That's exactly right. - It was crazy how to get it... And it was, "Shall we do a recap or shall we not? Does it feel cheesy with a recap or is it good?" But I think that everybody agreed in the end... ... that we have this wonderful library or cupboard of wonderful images... ...SO let's use it. And it's a wonderful way to get into the mood... ...and this is the world. lt has been a while too, since Underworld 2... ...where this one picks up from. We're reminding ourselves of all the characters. It's not cool, but in the end it... Wow, it really works. Yeah, I had a friend-- We had a premiere yesterday, actually... ...and I had a friend who hasn't seen the prior ones... ...and she said it was helpful... ...to just get into the soul of what this is, so.... And it's so nice to see Michael Sheen... ...and Scott Speedman and Bill Nighy. Yeah. - Losing their heads. killed the elders.... Yeah. One of the things we really liked when we got the script... ...was that number four... That it was the beginning of something new. That it was not just number 17 or something. It was.... The trilogy was done... ...and now we got into something new... ...which is exactly what we're watching right now. And this was a big thing how... That we wanted it to be brutal... ...and hand-held and gritty, using a camera language... ... that hasn't been used in Underworld before. Yeah. To turn everything upside down. This is another part of the film where we did... ...a tremendous amount of work trying to figure out... ... how to frame the fact that we're 15 years in the future... ...and the world has changed... ...and how you do that economically... ...In a different camera style than the rest of the film. Because this is in 2D, not in 3D as the rest of the film is. One of the biggest inspirations for this intro... ...Was actually the Gavras video, the M.I.A. video. What's the name of that? "Born Free." - "Born Free." Oh, that guy. - He's great. This guy, he's just at casting... ...and we realized that we need something... ...and we cut this rollout and then suddenly we needed him... ...SO this is his casting tape. - His audition tape, yeah. Yeah. - Yep. Used it in the film. I love that head shot. James really enhanced this with the visual effects he put into it. These creatures, yeah. The creature shots. Because they weren't shot that way. Yes. They're hard to come by, these creatures. That one was a real one. That's a real one. - Yeah. A real Werewolf. Yeah, we had a few. - Yeah. We can cast them in the forests of Vancouver. What we just saw... That girl on the wall... ...IS Kate's stunt double. - Yeah. She did... - Alicia. Alicia Vela-Bailey, yeah. She took iPhotos of her body for each bruise she got. She was black and blue, this girl... ...and she's the toughest girl I've ever met. Went to the hospital more than once too. Yeah. - Yeah. But as he said, the toughest girl I ever met. Yeah, always with a smile. Always with a smile. And you will see her getting thrown around a lot in this one. All of those flying-into-the-wall sort of things... . It's actually a person, Alicia, getting thrown in. Or Kate sometimes, as well. - Yeah. So we wanted to start off in 2D, gritty... ...and then since this is 3D movie... ...we wanted it to... Really make it big... ...when we see Kate for the first time, and that's when we switch to 3D. This shot was actually planned to start inside the fire... .In the beginning, inside a skull... ...and then going through the flames... ...a Vampire skull, but it became too tedious. That was the four-hour version. Yeah, this... We're very European. European version. Very... It was also a shot that we fought to keep in... ...and there was some obstacle to that... ...but we succeeded in keeping it in. Obstacle being money. - I love the way you say that. We ran out of money. And you see the surroundings here is-- We tried to create... Since this is the first time we introduce a man really... ...In the Underworld franchise... ...we wanted to find architecture... ... for the city that wasn't, you know, just another city. And after a lot of thinking and looking.... You know, we were thinking the first film was shot in Budapest... ...and it had that gothic feel to it and... By the way, great blood splatter there. - I love it. That was beautiful. And then we found something-- If you haven't been to Eastern Europe... ... you see all these beautiful houses... ...but next to them you have these concrete, hard, depressing buildings. And there's something called brutalism. You mean brutalism? - Brutalism, yes. A word we've heard 700,000 times during the making of this film. You were insanely annoying by just trying to put brutalism in... ...brutalism in, put brutalism in... ...to find what we call neo-Goth. Which is a new Goth. - Neo-Goth, yeah. This plate's actually from Underworld 2. This was.... We were doing tests for that boat that exploded... ...and we went back and found the footage... ...and stole that plate and revamped it here for what you see. Yeah. The secret of every great artist is knowing where to steal. Where stuff is hidden, in this case. - Yeah. It was one of the biggest challenges that we didn't have Scott Speedman. So that was a face replacement of a stuntman... ...and I think that was the trickiest part to pull off, I think, in the movie... ...because we're setting up this love story. She's running for her love and we don't have the real guy. Yeah. - But I think because of the recap... ...we do get that.... Do you see that city in--? That city is all CG behind her that's burning. And I remember James had said, "What do you think?" And I remember we asked about that, like, months ago... ...or half a year ago, and I forgot about it... ...and then you just come up with this. It was like a birthday present. I was so happy. All these backgrounds in it... ...makes It so much richer. And remember this next shot coming up too of Kate swimming... ...was really the last footage that we shot on the movie. Yeah. In the tank. We all had this great concern that, you know... ...can Kate swim or not? She ended up being a fantastic swimmer. She was great. She was.... This is more than swimming. It's performing underwater. She held her breath so well. lt was unbelievable. We were.... - Yeah. Well, that's typical Kate, you know. Everything she does, when she does it is, like, perfect. Yeah. - Yeah. But filmmaking's about being afraid... ...things aren't gonna work. - Right. We had anticipated the worst and we were wrong. And this is-- Originally the Underworld title was here. This is our homage to Tree of Life. - Yes. We had the title here at one point... ...and this is a transition... ...which is very abstract and weird, actually. But I'm happy with it. These were the things... ...that I remember it was hard to describe. We were very sure exactly how we wanted it... ...but we couldn't really say "this is how to do it"... ...because we'd never seen it before. But now when I see it... James, who did this? - Celluloid. Fucking great. - It's great. Yeah. It's great too, because we added the spin... ... sort of late in the equation. This may be an intellectual idea. Hopefully it works. To sort of make the audience... ...particularly when you see it in 3D, disoriented. Kind of like Kate was as a result of being underwater... ...being Knocked out and waking up 12 years later. There's something about spinning... ... that sort of makes you visually confused. Also, not only the spinning, but also the kind of... ...stop and motion feel to it, that it's... - Time passing? lt has a time-lapse feel to it... ...which, you know, was a subtle way of saying time has passed... ...actually, 12 years. - It's one of my favorite shots. Yes. - This is beautiful. Another very disorienting shot, though. So this is actually Alicia hanging here... ...and it's Kate's face replacement on her. Yeah. And the ice is CG. - Yeah. Smoke is CG. I am glad that we put the name on the glass there, "Subject 1." Yeah. So nobody would get into the wrong tank. No, but the thing is, I don't think it's just for like: "Oh, it's for the idiots." But I think it looks good. Subject 1 sounds brutal, I think, in a very good way. There's that word again. - Yeah. And remember that set initially... ...when we first saw it, had all these shower curtains in front of it... ...and we asked Claude to remove them. Yeah. - Oh, right, yeah. One thing that we really wanted to do in this movie was that... And we told Brad, who was the excellent second-unit director... ...and stunt coordinator, we said that we very.... We want to hurt Selene a lot. "Could you find somebody we can do that to?" Yeah. Because she wasn't that hurt in the other movies. We said, "We really want to--" Do you think anybody's listening to you right now? The naked girl, I'm watching that instead. Everybody's so nervous when you shoot something like this... ...but Kate was so cool. She was. Yeah. - Yeah. It was nothing. - Here we have Stephen Rea. Yep, there he is. Our Irish. - Yeah. I think, yeah... I really liked working with him. He was... Stephen is a handful, but he's also.... He gives you what you need. Is there anybody in this film that ended up doing their native accent? The North Americans were doing English... Kate. - Yeah, Kate, that's true. Everybody else was doing a different accent. Sandrine Holt there. - Sandrine Holt. Hurry. Releasing... ...maximum dose of fentanyl.

Oh, we started watching the movie. - Yeah. This is cool. - Will she make it? Got her clothes on. One of the things that we were very keen on... ... that we wanted, was that we wanted.... We had this ambition... ... that the audience should have their first breath... ...after the first 10 minutes... ...when she gets dropped off the truck... ...which we will see. And when I was watching the premiere yesterday with my wife... ...when she get-- She: At exactly that spot and I felt, "Wow... ... this was exactly what we were aiming for." I think the audience was a little surprised too. We had the premiere last night so we got to watch... ... the movie with a big audience. But they were surprised at the level of violence of the movie. This is a tougher movie than the other movies. Selene is a lot more badass in this movie. She kills a lot of people. - Yeah. Went through a lot more buckets of blood too. A sign of the times, I suppose. Yeah, you'll wish you hadn't done that. This was one of the big scenes in the trailer... ... that we had shown Screen Gems right at the beginning. I love the little splat of blood hitting there. That was sweet. I repeat, full containment... No, there was buckets of blood. I mean, it's.... Violence Is an aesthetic I think that, I mean, goes a hundred years back. Yep. Have we actually done a body count in this? It's a lot. You know what? I did once. Did you? What'd it end up being? - I can't remember. Counting Lycans and humans. Yeah, dead-- Corpses. Now, this moment was an additional shoot moment. It was the first thing we sh... - Wes Bentley, yeah. It's the last and first... - The uncredited Wes Bentley. The first and the last... - This jump was the first thing we shot. First day of shooting. - Look at this boom here. There. That hit in that shot, was Alicia... ...our excellent stunt girl, who just smacked... It sounded like the worst sound I ever heard. It's like, "We killed the stunt double on the first shot." And then you said, "Let's go again." The first day of shooting went so well... ... that I walked away thinking, "God, this is gonna be an easy movie." Oh, my God! - You were wrong. I was wrong. It was so difficult. This was the toughest by far we've done. They're not supposed to be easy. No. - There's a direct correlation... ...between the amount of suffering to do a movie... ...and how well it turns out. We never did a film, like, with this big budget kind of thing... ...but I think you always end up in the same position, you know? You don't have enough money. You always... Imagination can always outrun money. Yeah. - Yeah. The 3D made it more complicated too. Yeah, the 3D really-- You know, nobody had really done it. You know, how to plan it and how to shoot it and.... This is where we want people to breathe. Yeah, here. Here's brutalism again. - Yeah. I was talking with the cinematographer... ...ocott Kevan, last night and... Who did a great job. - He did a great job. And the person... I introduced him to my daughter. My daughter said, "Was this your first 3D movie?" He said, "No, my second. I made all my mistakes on the first one... ...So this one I could get right." Yeah, he was the only guy kind of who had done it. Yes. - And he kept telling us: "It'll take a long time." I remember-- Gary, you said: - It did. "If we go down the Amazonas, it'd be nice... ... to have someone who's been there." Done that trip. That was true. Scott was really there. - Yeah. He was great. But it's also-- It has been very... ...weird. - First shot of Kate. This was the first shot of Kate. Yeah. - First night. That terrible night when it would not stop raining. This was one of those.... - There's a gale right now. When the duck flew into the light? - Yeah. It was a duck who came from the sky... ...and landed in the middle of the set. The camera broke down about four times. Yeah. No, just shooting 3D was a weird experience in that sense... ... that we hadn't done it before and all the rules that you get... ... from various people who has done it... ...Just turn out to be not true or.... - Bullshit. Total bullshit. I don't know if the Red Epic that we used, the camera... ... kind of discarded some of them so it actually works now... ...and it's also.... You have to realize you're telling a story... ... you're not doing a 3D ride. Although this movie is like a ride but... No, but I think what.... True, because... .all these people that we talked about, they were technicians... ...and not filmmakers or storytellers. So they speak about the perfection of everything... ...and that's not really interesting, perfection... ...ecause what you go for is emotion, and emotion is not always perfect. It's also... You know, 3D is in its infancy. People really don't know the rules. When we took those classes... ... there'd been like six movies made and so people didn't know. Half of them were not real 3D, either. - Correct. Where you actually were using binocular cameras... ...to shoot the entire movie, which we did. I don't think any... There wasn't a rule they gave us... ...that we didn't break. - No. I mean, it was... - No. Everything. This is that hybrid POV, as we Call it. It's when Kate starts seeing through.... She thinks she sees through Michael's eyes... ...but it's actually India's. Eve, her daughter. This is so hard, I think, to decide as a filmmaker... ...when you do this. What it should look like? - No. Not technically, but I'm saying the suspension of disbelief... ...of is it Michael or not, and.... We didn't know... All the marketing now you've seen... ... you know, It's all out that she has a daughter in this one... ...which, you know, when we were planning this.... Hopefully that would be the secret. It's gonna be a surprise, yeah. - "Wow, she has a daughter." But.... And I think what helps us Is that we... - Michael Ealy, by the way. Michael Ealy. - Appearance of Michael Ealy. What helps us is the pace that we had to this. You just move so fast that, you know... ... you don't leave time for the mind to think that much. But it's.... Yeah, it's interesting. One of the scenes we shot here is outside in Vancouver. Vancouver-- When we heard we're shooting Underworld... ...and we're shooting it in Vancouver... ...we thought that was pretty strange because it's not gothic. But as Bjorn was talking about... ...when we found the neo-Goth and the brutalism... ...Vancouver Is fantastic. - We'll start counting... ...how many times that word comes. - You do that. It might be even more people than die. Yeah. A couple of words about Kate.... She's a movie star and a really, really good actress. Sometimes that's not the same thing. But she is, and she's very fun to work with. And she... You know, she's British, she always... Theo James. - Theo James. Very witty, yeah. - Young English actor making his... Who's also extremely funny. - Those damn Brits. Yeah. He's so funny. And you're around people who are gorgeous and funny... . It takes its toll on you. Yeah, it doesn't go together usually, yeah. No, and you just stand there in the middle and talking really bad English. I love this shot we did with Stephen. I remember we were shooting it, he was really somewhere else. He was... That was a scene we added after we had started shooting. It was Gary's scene. - That was my idea. We initially had a scene outside of here that l.... I remember seeing this location. I thought it was beautiful... ...but I couldn't wrap my head around a desk being in an exterior atrium... ...so I was struggling with that, but I'm sure glad we did it. I think it looks beautiful. I think you said when you saw it, "It's outside?" It started raining. - "It's outside?" And it was freezing cold. You remember how cold it was? Oh, my God, it was freezing. - God. This is the second... - Then we said: "We have all this concrete and it's freezing cold. Let's get water everywhere. That'll make it really comfortable." This is day one. Day zero, we did the jump we saw before. This is day one where it was full-on, all teams... ...SO this is the first scene that we shot of the whole film. And this shot was actually blown up. We had shot it wider, but we were able to push in on it. We did that with an enormous number.... One of the beauties of using the Red Epic camera... ...was the ability to push in and resize afterwards... ...1N postproduction. That's 175 percent. - Yeah. One of the things I believe that Mans and Bjérn should discuss... ...because we experienced it our first day of shooting... .IS that they are slightly unorthodox in terms of a directorial team. Slightly? They alternate the days they're shooting. So the first day, I believe it was Bjérn, right? You were directing the first day... ...and then Mans would direct the second day. And so, you know, you guys may wanna enlighten the audience... ...as to your procedure. - This was Mans. The prior one in the corridor, I did. I can't remember, but we always have the producer flip a coin... I did. I remember I flipped a coin. Yeah, flipped a coin and whoever gets the tails... ...whatever we decide, begins the day. The thing is, when I'm directing, Bjorn's my best buddy... ...as we Call it, and he doesn't do anything... ...except helping me. Nobody's allowed to talk to him. - Wait. We'll miss Wes getting thrown through the window. This is a totally reshot scene. - Yeah. We had another scene that was... - Just not working. No, it was a bit of a disaster. We got the opportunity to reshoot this, and I love this scene. I love it too. - It's great. This whole spider-webbing window thing.... That was actually Len Wiseman's idea of having him... ...be pushed through the window as it spider-webbed behind him. Yeah, we had.... Yeah. Fantastic idea. - Yeah, great shot. In the background, you see he's got little stuffed animals... ...because we wanted him to be a tinker... ...because he's been tinkering with her... What? I never saw those stuffed animals. I love this shot. I love this. It's too short. - Way too short. Yeah. It's way too short. You know, if you're starting to do movies or anything.... Please listen up, because Bjérn is saying something important. If you get into doing green-screen stuff, stay on it longer... ...because the visual effects will come in and you'll go: "Why the hell didn't we stay longer?" You had 36 frames of tail handle that you didn't use. So it's... So there. - Bollocks. I did not see that. - The famous.... Larz. Thank you, Larz. This is a 300-pound dummy in steel. Oh, God. Nothing.... I mean... Larz is the visual effects... - Special effects. Special effects. We thought, "There's no way. That's not gonna smash the car." Larz was like, "It's gonna smash the car." It did. - It smashed it great. Larz was right. It worked. And I love this shot of the camera pulling up... ...and catching Theo there. - Yeah. SO we are boosting up the mystery here. Theo, who is this guy. - The mystery man. And hopefully you don't know that he's a Vampire yet. He could be anyone, probably a human. Yeah, that was one of the challenges, as well, with the introducing. We introduce Michael Ealy, who plays Sebastian... ...and we have introduced David. We had introductions of a character called Quint, which is... Love this knife. - Yeah. The Uber-- Who was a Lycan, but it was taken out. Because there were too-- Yeah. Kris. - Kris Holden. Brilliant. - Brilliant guy, brilliant actor. It was taken out because there were too many people presented... ...and he gets presented after the car chase... ...and we only see him once. I'm not sure if that was perfect. In hindsight, maybe we should have. - But it's tough. That's... This is a movie where there's only one character... ... left over from other films. Every character has to be introduced. At a certain point, it's a struggle... ...trying to figure out ways to do it without overwhelming the audience. So we just caught a glimpse of the lower Lycans. And one of the things that we really loved in this one... ...was that we could expand the mythology and the universe... ...by inventing new creatures. And we liked the idea that they have been living in the sewers. There's one now. Yeah. And, you know, we thought, you know.... Here we thought Gollum. We thought rabid dog. We thought puss-- Run... Is that what you call it? Puss? Pus. - Pus running. Yeah. Saliva. Fucking crazy in the head. Rabid crazy. That... - Syphilitic. We wanted to because there's... One of the most wonderful lines... .In the history of Underworld is: "You're acting like a pack of rabid dogs! And that, gentlemen, simply won't do." That Michael Sheen says in Underworld 7. And we said, well, let's turn them into those rabid dogs now. They-- You know, they have lived here underground for so long... ... that they actually became these rabid dogs. Yeah, we actually don't see these guys as being human anymore. They're just Lycans. - And they... They turned out beautifully, James. Really beautiful. - These are my favorite Lycans. I think if there is a part five, there should be just these guys. I love them, just those.... The horde. - Yes. Really sick. It was the first time we moved away from suits. We always relied on practical prosthetic suits... ...and this was the first. This and the Uber are the two creatures that are purely CG. The Uber was hard to cast, so we had to go CG. This is an important moment. I loved shooting this. - This is where Selene sees... ...this child for the first moment. Without realizing who it is. - Right. She thinks it's Michael. I remember when shooting it... - She expected to find Michael. Right. Exactly. And she was so beautiful, and she looks so scared. Vulnerable. - Yeah. And the whole thing here we set up, you know.... We're gonna reveal later in the van, when she rips the Lycan's head apart. Hopefully that works, because we set up this girl as weak... ...as we see here, and vulnerable and so on... ...but she is the daughter of Selene, which means the girl's got powers. She's got the kick-ass gene. - Her name is Eve... ...which is never pronounced. - No. It isn't? We never say it? - We never say it. She says, "I'm Subject 2. You're Subject 1." So we might give her another name if we want to for the next one. Eve is perfect, I mean. No, but I think Selene is so beautiful... ...because Selene means moon in Greek. Is that right? - Yeah. Selene means moon in Greek? - Don't you know your Greek? Apparently not. Good Lord. Yeah. So here's the car chase, as we Call it. And it is pretty much... ...on the money on every shot that we storyboarded... ...which is extremely rewarding for a director... ...to see that it pulls off. This is also a triumph of visual effects. Probably half of the scene it was pouring down rain... ...and shooting in 3D, which means you can't really shoot. Shooting in 2D. We shot most of it in 2D. Because you can't shoot in 3D, the rain hits the mirror. The half-silvered mirror that you use in a 3D rig. So this whole thing was pieced together... ... from very, very rudimentary pieces.

By the way, there's my daughter, I should say. In the car. Ashley McQuaide, her big cameo. She's great. She's gonna go do good. She's very sought after in Hollywood. The one thing I can say is this. This crash coming up was a bit of a fuckup. The taxi was supposed to fly over the other car. SO we were disappointed... ...but I think that the shot still looks pretty bitchen. It looks fantastic. Your eye is drawn to the Lycan. Which is what it should.... - Could have been better. And here-- You know, Paul Haslinger did the music here. I love this, you know, how we changed into this new... ...Style in the music exactly when we get into close combat here. Paul, being an old hand... ...having done the score for Underworlds 7 and 3. He did an amazing job. - Amazing job. Yeah. - Yeah. Every-- All these Lycans are CG Lycans... ...but they mostly are.... There were guys dressed in blue with funny heads. So they look like really big... - Suits kind of looking like... This was a big moment. - Looks great. And India's face.... We really didn't do anything to it. She was able to scrinch up her face. - Yeah, she's a badass. Well, there's a bit of CG going on. We changed her eye shape and the color of her skin, obviously. But she was good. - This is an old trick, you know. The guy dry his fist across his mouth. I told Theo to do that. But it really always looks good, I think. It's the moment too, where Selene realizes... ...that this creature back there has... ls connected to her. - ls connected to her. She saw a level of power in there she hadn't imagined. Here's the Kris Holden-Ried introduction. Yeah. Here's where he comes in. Might have... And it's not even the last new character. In the script, this is the third time we see Kris... ...or Quint. - Quint. And here, we talked about that scene... In the apartment when she throws the guy out of the window. If you look at the monitor, there's actually a shot from... ...coming out of the club... ...which was Prey. So we used footage for that as well. lt was not a waste of time shooting there. Very expensive stills. - Those two days... ...that we spent shooting there. - That town is all CG, and then we.... Somebody gave us that in the last... There were so many people working so hard... ...for no money for this one. I love it. - Yep. How did you find me? Now we have an actual conversation. An actual dramatic scene. Yeah. - The first of the entire film. There's not a lot of talking. - Yeah. I think Michael Babcock, who did the sound design... Which is so beautiful, I almost cry when I think about it. When we heard about... "What did you do, Michael?" "I did Inception and Dark Knight." We're like, "Okay, good." And I think when he showed us the first reel... ...we had, like, no notes. lt was perfect. Anyway, he said... ... after we'd done this, "I really enjoyed working with this. ll even do a talkie with you guys." That's nice. - Yeah. I remember at the end of this scene, when we did India's side... ... that Kate went up to her and complimented her and said: "You did a really great job." - Yeah. And it was a.... It shows Kate's consideration... ...for other actors, and really the.... The person that Kate is. You know, because here's this young girl... ...who was clearly a little bit nervous acting... ... against a movie star, and an actress of Kate Beckinsale's quality. Yet Kate was very generous with her. The funniest thing-- Not funny, but extraordinary thing about India... .IS that she is like a very old soul in a young body. Oh, my God, yeah. She's 17 when we shot this movie. But she's incredibly mature. - Yeah. Incredibly. And sometimes when I talk to her, I feel very like a kid... ...and she's the old-- Yeah. Yeah. - She's the grownup. But she knew this character. And so many times, "No, let's do it like this." And she always stood her ground, saying, "No, she wouldn't do that." And I love being told that... ...because that means the actor knows. Are your fingers crossed? - No. No. No. Okay. All right. Okay. No, I like it when the actors know their characters, so they... Yeah. This is also our first day shooting. I loved shooting this scene. Oh, God. This scene. "Blight of nature." That's, you know, epic Underworld dialogue. It's one of those scenes that in 2D doesn't look great. In 3D, it looks spectacular. - Yeah. Why is it raining? Because it looks nice. Why is it thunderstorms? - Because it sounds nice. Theo James, stunt driver. - Yes. You can actually see that a bit. Yeah, and if you look at the van, I mean.... All the.... We wanted everything to be low-tech... ...as all the other movies. The low-tech is very important. That combined with the Vampire aesthetics that you see. The Celtic signs of Kate's corset... ... the weaponry and stuff like that. This area here is actually shot in that dam. In the actual hydroelectric dam. What's the name of that dam, Richard? I can't remember. Spencer Dam or something? - I don't know. It's outside... Up above Vancouver. - Up above Vancouver. Nobody shot there. Like, 20 years ago... ...someone shot there. I can't remember what film. It's been closed down, so.... We were the first to... - Part of the water supply. Amazing location. - Yeah. Absolutely beautiful. And brutal. - And remember how it--? Brutal as well? - Brutalism. But it also rained... ...torrentially before we shot. We thought we'd get two streams of water... ...and we got the whole megillah. lt was fantastic. This is one of the things I love about Underworld. These, you know.... The looks. And it feels... It makes me believe that this world exists. Now we're also back in... This is Underworld. We've been in brutalism. - Yeah. Now we're back in-- Oh, yeah. This is a wonderful set that Claude Pare designed. Our production designer. Wonderful production designer. Award-winning production designer, might I point out. And this, actually, was fun... ...ecause I was walking the streets and suddenly: Here in L.A. before we started shooting. I started talking to Kate and Len, and Len... And Kate says-- I don't know how she came up with it... ...but she says, "I know Russian." So I said, "We must get some Russian in, then." So.... Because I think it's so sexy. - Yeah. Of course that means Charles Dance... ...as to Know Russian too. Yes, and Theo James. That's Kate's mother, by the way. The Sony people, when they heard that, were excited. Because internationally, Russia is now a big territory. So.... At a certain point, they said, "Can you have more Russian in the movie?" This, again, being Charles Dance... ...a well-known British actor. Charles Dance is one of those fantastic old-school actors who... ...when you give him direction, he looks at you and he says: "Thank you, sir." Then he does exactly what you asked him to. He does exactly what you ask for... ...and It's such a pleasure to work with him. Listen to me. I start speaking British. And the actress here playing the doctor is... Her character's name is Olivia. Is Catlin Adams... ...who is Kate's.... Acting coach? - Occasionally. Kate recommended her. - Happy family. That's how Underworld is. - Yeah. Or SCars. I've never seen a child... We should have had more Swedish in the film. We have a little. Underworld 5, actually, I've heard that there's a big Swedish subplot. I had Kate say: Which all Swedes will understand, but she said it. It's very cute and.... So she, you know.... Because she's.... The musicality of it here. Her Russian is perfect and it... She speaks, I don't know, how many languages? Five languages. - A lot. Yeah. And she could just start speaking Swedish. That was insanely fun. I love this sequence... ...because it's so many things at the same time. I think it's terrifying, but I also think... ... It's, you know, touching, but also sexy. I think it's one of the most disturbing scenes in the movie though. Where you realize that this girl... ...who you thought was this innocent child... ...now has this voracious taste for blood... ...and has now gone to a different place. She is a creature of the night. - Yep. The blood on her face was great. You added that afterwards, James? - It was all CG, yeah. Good.

I think a lot of all these shots of-- Just of India. lt makes me think of Turner. Like old Pre-Raphaelites, and so on. She looks so beautiful. So perfect. Also very fun with Charles Dance that... When we talked to Len... ...and said we would love to have Charles for this... ...e was our first choice... ...and we were very happy that he could do tt. And Len was like, "Oh, great! I wanted him for the other films as well." Because he's always thought of him as a perfect Underworld... ...actor. - Yeah. I think he's perfect. Now we don't have Bill Nighy anymore... ...because he's dead. - Yeah. We chopped his head off rather thoroughly. And even so, he kept coming back. - Yeah. But he can't come back anymore, I think. No. - No. Not at this time frame. - Never say never. So that's Kate's mother in the background there, which is.... I love the shot of this tic she gets in her face. That's me screaming, "Twitch, twitch! Twitch!" - It was great. It gets cut off a little bit by the wipe... ...but it was such a great detail. And then Selene... ...has an emotional moment. - Is crying. Yeah. And here we had.... There was.... Now we have this, but before, I think, until the very end... ...It was flashbacks more of him. Right. - Their history, kissing and so on. Originally, it wasn't supposed to be that underwater sequence. lt was supposed to be him in all his glory and beauty. But it actually works really well... ...because you've seen that piece before... ...and it works better as a memory. - I think so too. This was a wonderful time in the filming... ...because all of a sudden... ...we went from the cold exteriors of Vancouver... ...where it would rain every day. It continued to rain, but at least we were inside a studio. We were there in this set for... - A while. Yeah, two or three weeks. And I remember Mans said to me, and Bjorn, they said: "This is our favorite point in the movie." I think it was. Yeah. - When I think back to it. Every day you'd go to work, and you'd be in this pretty set. We were doing interesting things. It's actually where most of the performance... ...the acting, took place. - Yeah. Here, we have an actual dramatic scene. Yeah, but also, it felt like we actually controlled the 3D beast here. The camera lived on the crane the whole time. Yeah. It didn't control us. We knew it. We understood it. I can give courses. And we weren't standing around at night in the rain. Right. - Exactly. There's that physical comfort part of it. We had a subway train to contend with a little bit. Every fourth minute or something. The elevated train that went by every 15 minutes. But I mean, I just want to say a couple words about Kate. She's so great here and she's so focused. It's crazy. You talk very little to her. I think good direction is more about being than talking. And with her, knowing the role so well... ... you kind of say, "So this is kind of what we need for the scene." She knows exactly, and then it just happens. This is a beautiful shot. I love that shot. If you want to make a small, small change, it's... You can direct her like a surgeon... ...ecause you can do so small changes. And it's exactly what you're looking for. I'm happy actually that that scene stayed in the movie. Because it's not.... - Me too. Me too. Almost came out, but you're right, it is... This scene almost came out too, but I'm glad-- This was a oner that... Everybody thought this scene would go. I liked it. I really fought for it. I really loved it. - It's so creepy too. Yeah, but I think it's important, because this is about the little girl... ... realizing her new identity. And this is a teenage, you know, coming of age, and so on. This is the creepy stepfather. - This is an incredibly creepy scene. It's a beautifully staged shot. You've gotta have a few of those in the movie, right? He wants to kill her, and here he is being nice and.... He wants to absolutely wipe her off the face of the earth. Yeah. He despises her. I think one of the most common words I used, or we used... ...Was "contempt" and "despise" to actors. Those are two great words for actors. - Yeah. And she nails it. She nails it. - Oh, those eyes. It's funny, because she has to do a lot of acting in this film with her face... ...where she doesn't have a lot of lines to really chew on... ...but she really is able to do a tremendous amount... ... Just with facial expression. "You could talk about pebbles, Charles, and I would be listening... ...going, 'Really?" - Mesmerized. "Wow, pebbles. You can put them next to each other?" - Look at this. There's a girl in shiny trousers here, and you don't think about it. It's crazy how well it works... ...how completely you buy this mythology. Yeah. - I never really understood... ...why she has the latex, but... Because that's what one wears... ...when one's a Death Dealer. - Kill with style. Well, it also protects her against the sun, doesn't it? It's, like, SPF 200, that thing. But Alexander Corvinus gave her a gift, so she.... Protect them? They leave tonight. So there's.... "Is cowardice, plain and simple." This is-- I love this kind of dialogue. - Well, this is also... ...the father-son conflict. - Yeah. Yeah, you go, Theo. This was made up on the day, I think. - Yeah. This was Kate's suggestion, actually. Yeah. We had such a hard time. The entrance of the movie. - The entrance of her coming in... . Just felt clumsy. And what is she doing? She's just sitting there. And then Kate suggested, "What about if she cuts herself... ...ecause she's just realized that she, you know, can self-heal. She's drunk blood." - There was always this contemporary... This is like a contemporary version of a teenage-angst scene, I think. That's why it's so great. But it's not just that. But it's also about seeing actual physical cutting... ... looking at It heal, seeing the blood. lt works both as a teenage-angst thing, and as a just... A "who am I, what am I" kind of thing. And this scene-- This is actually one of the things that I really miss. And if we're ever gonna do a director's cut... ... this scene will be longer, because in the end.... The whole film would be a bit longer. Yeah, two minutes. But when the little girl... Kate gives the blood to her daughter here... ... later on, in the original version.... And it's my favorite shot of the movie because it's so beautiful. When she pulls the hand away and you saw her. And it's that perfect combination of beautiful and sexy and touching... ...at the same time. But it had to go. I'm not bitter. Just pissed. - I am. Very bitter. No, but and also Kate here. Seeing Selene like this is truly wonderful, I think. That was one of the things we talked about when we got the script... ...and we read it. So what we have here is Selene being a mother... ...which means she's more vulnerable... ...and emotional than before. She's also more ferocious and, you know, protecting her cub kind of thing. So she kills more uncontrolled, you know. She's not in control. That was one of the things we wanted. We don't-- We want to bring her out of her safety zone... ...was one of the things I remember saying in our pitch for the movie. I remember shooting that scene we just saw... ...and I'd say, "This is ultimate Goth." These girls in this room, talking about what to do. It's so Goth. That's why you guys took the movie. - Yeah. Actually it was. I just must say-- "

I remember saying to Charles, "Can you--?" That line is not in the script. He improvised it. - I told Charles, "Can you... ...say something like, 'Stay in your place?" This shot in 3D is my favorite 3D shot in the movie... ...with the chains coming down. Absolutely gorgeous. It works very good. And Charles just came up with, "

It's like, "Thank you." - It's in the trailer. In the trailer. - Yeah. It's funny, there's moments... ...when you realize, "That's in the trailer." Yeah. - Yep. There's another one coming up.

Munitions," I never heard that word before. I thought that was like... "Annihilated." Annihilated, also a very good Underworld word. By the way, he says that with full-on Vampire teeth. Not the easiest thing in the world to do. No. - It sounds better. You get the S's. Yes. It becomes difficult.

We got so much mileage out of that set too. Yeah. - It just looks like it goes on forever. And most of all, it looks really real. Yeah. The texture-- The scenic painting and the texturing is first-rate. Claude, the production designer, said that he took great pride in detail. He said, "That's my middle name." And also in the wood too. The way they sandblasted the wood... ... to make it look ancient, it's just great. Yeah, I remember I talked to Gary, who was the art director. When they presented to Claude... ...Claude just... Like I said, they were working so hard with the detail... ...and Claude had been doing some other stuff, came back... ...and walked around, and then took Gary's head and kissed it. On the forehead. And he said, "Thank you. It's gorgeous." - Sounds like Claude, yeah. And here we are. - This is a fantastic scene. Yeah. There's a shot coming up that is just... ...beautiful, that Brad Martin, the second-unit director, shot. It's just... This oner. This is one of the things we.... This one. This one here. It's fantastic. There was no way we would have staged this shot as we did... -.../f it wasn't a 3D movie. - Yeah. Yeah. We wanted much more, actually, than we... That's all one shot. - Yeah. All with CG. It's... - That was a blend of CG and suits. Here, it's just CG. In the end of that scene, it was suits as well. Yeah, everything mixed. Like every trick we had In one shot. Here's suits and CG mixed. - That's a suit. Suit, suit. Background guy's CG. - Background guys are CG. That's a real one. Yeah. - If they're moving, they're CG. I remember at a certain point too... I remember at a certain point, for budget reasons, we had to cut... ...a lot of the CG shots of this sequence. You look at the sequence now and you can't imagine.... Well, Clint did give us more money. No. But I remember once we got the rule... James just said, "We can only have--" - There she goes. "We can only have 36 Uber shots in the movie." It's more. - Oh, yeah. There are 275 creature shots in this movie. Is that right? - The other thing is... ... for the audience, we keep using this word Uber because... It's not in the movie. - It's not referred to in the movie... ...but this larger than... This five-times-the-size Lycan. We sort of... - Nine foot tall. We... - We called it the Uber-Lycan. The inner circle called it the Uber-Lycan. He's not 9 foot tall. - Twelve feet tall. Fifteen feet tall or something. Theo, extremely... - Nine hundred pounds. Did all the stunts himself. The Necklace. - Yes, the Necklace. We give all these kind of moves aname. That was the Necklace. You threw that in, the head getting blown off. Had to happen. - Yeah. It's an Underworld movie. I love that when she bites him. - What? Where'd that come from? This one's great too. - Yeah. It's great. Oh, I remember... - The blood spray. We had to fight for that ax in the head, which I don't understand... ...because it's kind of given, I think. Always... - Was that a gibe? That was a gibe. No. And always put people in water. - Oh, this too. Yeah. Because they like it. - Yeah. Actors really like being cold and wet. No. It was freezing cold. Theo was extremely cool. Yeah. Not cold. Cool. - I really hate Theo, actually. I sincerely hate him for being gorgeous... ...and he played me the first two days, and I thought: "Oh, is he slow, this guy?" And he was so much smarter than me. And he was pulling my leg and just, you know, he was.... He's a perfect human being and so kind. So, you know.... I hear he's single. - Yeah. I hope he can't draw. He actually had a very nice... He has a very nice girlfriend. Even the sun has spots, I guess. Anyway, he's just one of those perfect human beings... ... that walk around there which makes you feel not perfect. Yeah. - The weaponry here... ... you saw that little glint there, or what do you call it? The: On her gun. I mean, the weaponry Is real important... ... for the Underworld movies. One of the things that we also love. I don't know how many hours or days we actually talked about what kind of... ...guns shall she have and when and where. It's an enormous amount of research. This was inspired, by the way, to shoot... To have the Uber-Lycan appear... ...and to do his first shots where you didn't see him... ...and then have a second reveal. We actually-- This... That came up because of the set. We didn't plan that. Then we saw the set, and I think... . James, it was your idea that we should have... This is the Uber-Lycan. And this is what we talked about. We really wanted to hurt Selene. We really wanted to, yeah. Although she hurt him, didn't she? Yeah. - That'll teach him. That's a setup for later on. You know, look, the fact of the matter is, when we shot this, we had... ...Kate or her stunt double in the foreground doing all the stunts. That's Kate there. - The Uber-Lycan... ...was placed in afterwards and.... - Yeah. Just brilliant. Just brilliant. - Yeah. Remember the giant to-scale Styrofoam gray Uber head? Which we all laughed at on the set. - No, I remember... Kate doesn't like shooting these kinds of things. She's like-- Because she feels like... You know, she does it perfectly, but it's, you know.... It's not her favorite thing to do. - No. It's hard. Because you look at the Styrofoam thing... ...and it's hard. - Yep. But she does it perfectly. - Yep. There's our dam. The Suede pose. - Yeah. This is beautiful in 3D. Yeah. He looks like Brett Anderson in Suede. Beautiful death. Death position. Yeah. Yeah. He died with style. - Like a dying dandy. One of my favorite Swedish paintings, The Dying Dandy. Yes. Wow, you really snuck that one in, didn't you?

So here.... - See those small particles... . flying around? You see one or two? Yeah. - We had an ambition of... ... having them all over, because creating depth of a 3D... I'm happy we didn't. - We would have come down... ...with black lung disease. - Yes. I wouldn't mind that. lt wouldn't-- It would've stolen... Anything for my art. It would have stolen the attention of the emotions here. But we were really adamant about having them. And very annoyed when we couldn't have them because... Annoyed? You guys were such gentlemen all the time. Laughing on the outside, crying on the inside.

Little montage that's not in the script. This also got switched around from the way it was shot and written... ... the order of things happening, but it works really well. Yeah. He never died on camera. We just shot that for "good to have" kind of thing. Right. - And it was. Yeah. - Yep. And I also got to kill Theo who I, as you know, hate because he's perfect... ...sO that was the main reason. If you hear this, Theo, I'm sorry. - You do worse later. I do love you. - Yep. I remember when we gave this coat to Charles and I asked him: "Do you like it?" "Yes. It's very punk."

And yeah. And I said, "Yeah, sure." - Punk. I'm not sure I'd use that word to describe the coat. I think he was thinking, like, Vivienne Westwood, or I don't know. Very British. I love it. "So be it!" - "So be it!"

At a certain point, you really can do the entire dialogue. It's not so hard in this one because they don't talk. There's 12 lines in the movie. But we loved shooting this one. When me and Bjérn... We do it, like, every second day. But there's one exception is that if one day goes on until the next day... ...we don't change. And I think this one took two days to shoot this whole thing. And I loved this because If you think about what she's talking about... ... you know, it's hard to do this for real. She's talking about Werewolves and so on. But she does it for real. - She sells it. Yeah. She sells it. Yeah. - She really does. Yeah. And, I mean, every good actor finds truth in anything. They can find truth in anything. And then they get... And it was also-- I remember when... - Hang on. This scene here. This scene is one of the trippiest scenes in any of the Underworld films. And it is real. - Yes. No CG. That's so fun. Because it's an entire thing... ...we built up. - That's CG. That's CG. Other than that. - That's CG. No, but the shot is actually done... It's actually set up so that we could do it live in-camera. Todd Masters and the guys did a great job with his stomach. This is your revenge on Theo. - Bollocks. That's a real stomach. The blood pouring? - Yeah. Well, yeah. But the stomach is real. - Now, now, boys. Boys. The old hand squeezing. The heart-squeezing shot. Well, remember she has the blood of Alexander Corvinus. That's right. That's the old Corvinus injection... ... that he's gotten there. I always call this the Videodrome shot. Yes. - Yep. That of course Is... - "Long live the new flesh." ...a prosthetic chest that's put on top of him. His body is underneath. - No, it was me cutting Theo. We knew you wanted to. The audience was applauding when they saw this scene. They thought it was great. - Yeah. Here is Richard's shot coming up. Thank you. I like that shot. - It's a great shot. You said we needed it so we got it, and I'm happy we got it. It's in every trailer. - Slow-motion too. Yeah. This worked out well too. - Yeah. This, I thought was a waste of money, these two shots. And it's really, really cool in the end result. This was one... My biggest fear actually... ...because Goth people don't look good at daytime. They are born... They are made for the night. They're plain silly in daylight. Exactly. So I was concerned that will she look silly in daylight. Yeah. This is the darkest-looking daytime... ...and maybe that's the Swedish influence. Don't you have half the year where it's dark? This is sun everywhere. It is, but it's inside a dark... - It's not a beach. Scott lit it... - I agree. What else did we shoot this day? That was cool. The old cowboy switch there. Yeah. - Love it. Then we think-- I think we shot the exterior of her coming out... ...of the tunnel or something and the Lycans following her? That's it. Yeah. - There's something called ADR... ...which means additional dialogue recording. It's when you get bad sounds so you re-record the sound. Right. - This scene was ADR"d... ...and you usually hate ADR because you always lose performance. It's not the same when the actor's standing there with... ...a cup Of latte in their hand and everything. Or mocha latte. - Mocha latte. Whatever. In Burbank rather than in the real world. But that scene was so good in ADR. Because she was able to whisper... ...which she couldn't do on the real set. Right. And get the... - Yeah. So she-- It's so much better. It was so noisy, so they wouldn't have heard each other... ...If she whispered. - Yeah. This is one we call the All the President's Men scene. Yep. Our homage to... I loved this ceiling. - ...Investigative reporting movies. Yeah. - And this is the-- What was this? It was the legal library of the university. That was being rebuilt. It was gorgeous. It's not there anymore? It's gone? This is the last thing that happened... ...and then they tore it down and rebuilt it. That's just brutal. - Yeah. That was brutal. To destroy something brutal as that. But you see the squares and the concrete. Yeah. Wow, what a place. We talked for hours what kind of concrete should be used. Some concrete was wrong. And this concrete is right. Michael. Cool guy. - Yep. Loved him. - Yep. First thing that-- The scene we just saw. He walks up to the set. He never worked with Kate. Kate says, "So, Michael, sexiest black guy on the planet." That rocked him on his heels. He should have said: "SO, Kate, sexiest woman on the planet." He could have. And if he was British, probably he would have said that. Who are the two ugly gimps next to them? That's not fair.

After today's surgery.... So here's the big turn in the movie where.... The majority shareholders in Antigen. Yeah. And they all look like Kraftwerk. Yeah. - Dressed like. I don't know why... - Funky guys. The guy behind here to the right... - Extra here. Extras here. They have a Cronenbergian feel to them as well. They're Canadian. - Yeah. Probably that. You know, some... Scanners or something. I just love the look of them. Stephen does a great performance. - She'll wish... ...she never came through that door. Yes. I loved shooting this. This was one scene, one day. Perfect. Sandrine Holt here. - Fourteen setups. Yeah. This was also written as, you know, around a conference room... ...around a table. - Yeah. Which we said, "It's not very visual. That's pretty boring." Yeah. - Yeah. So we put it here in the control room. - It was a good stage. But look at those Kraftwerk dudes in the background. Yeah. - "We are the robots." Yeah. - And the panel there blinking. "Safe from extinction." As you can see the-- Yeah, again the whole background with all the.... It's very low-tech. Everything is analog. - Soviet, '50s era. Analog was the key word here and all the time. Because it's more interesting... ... than digital bullshit with holograms and so on. Snap her neck. They did just what you asked. - Yep. That's why it's cool to be a director. - You are God.

Yeah. Here's another Turner painting, when we see her, I think. She looks... ...like Ophelia. - Wake up. It works. Can I be a director? She's gorgeous here. - She is gorgeous. It looks like a painting. - Yep. Now, this was you guys. Whose idea was it... ...to put the needle in his eye? That's creepier. - Well, it's from Lou Reed, actually. ls that where it's from? - I think so too. There's this myth that he shot heroin or speed... Into his eyeball? - Into his eyeball. So we had to do that. That's a waste of good heroin. - Yeah. But it makes people cringe. And, you Know, sometimes....

Don't be too proud. You know. - Steal. Do good things. - Steal madly. Well, it's from another art form, at least. It's actually sort of a Bufiuel moment too. Isn't it? It is. It is totally Bufnuel. Did we blow this up or was it shot this tight? This is shot this way. By this point, we weren't afraid of going... ...a little bit closer. We were told you cannot do close-ups. I know. - That-- Bullshit. Whoever said that, you know... - Should be... ... taken out and whipped. And here's also-- You see-- It's also interesting if you watch it in 3D. The black side of his face, because he's lit like that. Said, "It'll just be a hole in the screen and you won't get it." Yeah. We were told... - Wrong. Wrong. That's a load of crap, actually. - Yep. It looked gorgeous. - This is truly sick, guys. And here-- This is, yeah. But... The theme here works very well... ...because this film's very much about family. A family that slays together stays together. I was completely serious. But Kate and her daughter and this is father and son. But I love the way Kris says, "Yes, Father." Remember that "silver munitions" sign argument? Yes. - I wanted to put it on the day... ...and you were like, "No." - There was never no argument. Oh, please. - We said, "Of course." And we shot it. - It didn't say "silver munitions" before. No. - How will they know it's silver? We put it in later. - They did. This is my one "I told you so" in the movie. Okay? It says "Ag" and everybody knows, right? Everybody knows the elemental symbol for silver. Of course. Do not underestimate your audience. They do know. All this was shot with four cameras. What do you call these? GoPros. - GoPros. And it was.... We thought it actually would save time. But it was.... - No. It was a mess. But it ends up looking great, though. No. It looks exactly what we wanted. It's also interesting how technology moves. When we started shooting this, you had to... Since we mounted these small cameras... ...we had to go up, take out the disk and put it in another place. And turn them on. We'd play for 45 minutes before you were ready to shoot. And then, in the end of the shoot, you could have a video assist to it. So it just develops. Yeah. - We couldn't shoot in... When we shoot slow-motion, when you shoot film... ... you have go to another camera. Here you can do 120 frames, which is.... Regular speed is 24, or 25 in Europe. And you couldn't do more than 72 in 3D... ...but by the end of the shoot, you could do 120. We're the only film ever to do that. Oh, really? - And the Epics, not even today... ...in 2D can do 120. They made that special build just for us. And they've never updated the build to 120. Why not? - I don't know. They should. - Because we're cool. This scene was.... It was dropped for a long time because it was too slow, people thought. But then, I think it was Gary or someone.... You wanted it back and we were so happy... ...because it's actually giving us some kind of backbone... ...on why they work together. - Yes. And it was emotional for Michael Ealy. And it actually showed that Selene was sensitive to his back-story. And it showed why he was helping her. That's right. - Yeah. This is us being Swedes, having a Volvo. Sorry about that. That's actually something we had to fought for. It was brutalistic. - Yeah. It is. Boxy. - Now this was... They're boxy, but they're good. What was it called, Fraser University? Simon Fraser. - Simon Fraser. Yep. - Yeah. Yeah. It's in the... - Here's brutalism galore. It's just... Insanely. - Yeah. In the script this was set in a skyscraper, an ordinary lobby. Right. - And we thought, "That's so boring." And then we saw this place and it was like, "Wow, this is so...." We have more space for guys running around shooting and stuff. Yep. She takes bullets. Don't you get excited when you see that? Don't try this at home, kids. It really does hurt to get shot. - I love this. I love that. Taking a bullet. These guys running had Werewolves' teeth... ...and they looked ridiculous. We had to cut out so many of them. This is one of my favorite shots. The li-- The-- What do you call it? The color? Perfect. - Yeah. And also this whole sequence, the elevator sequence... ... that starts kind of now until we blow everything up... ... It's one of the things, from a directorial point of view... ...we're extremely happy with because it's so... Planned. - It's very complicated. Deceptively complicated. - Yeah. You don't realize how many pieces are stitched together... ...to make it work. - And everybody did their share. Yeah. And at the end, it becomes cinema, I think. Yeah.

But also the way that Jeff McEvoy, our editor on the film... ...Was able to mine different areas for tension. And this whole-- This is very suspenseful, this whole piece there. The way he was able to stitch it all together was really genius. Jeff did an excellent job. - Shout-out to Jeff. I totally agree. Jeff was one of the finest editors I ever worked with. He was a true gentleman and he was really fast. Yeah. - He had edited Lincoin Lawyer for us. Yeah. - We had a great experience with him... ...SO we recommended him to you guys and we were really happy that... ... you accepted him. It's funny, because he's such a nice, pleasant gentleman... ...but he has a sort of a black heart, which is nice. Yes. - It's always nice. So, what she's blowing up here is the silver nitrate bombs. And we wouldn't know that if we hadn't read "silver munitions" earlier. Exactly. Exactly. But I'm so happy, James, when you showed us... ...because the silver nitrate that glows is all CG. Yeah. - This Is.... I've said it all the time, this is one of my favorite parts. But I remember when we were doing the mix here... ...and I said, "Paul, I can't help it... ...but, you know, this music, this guitar is kind of, you know... ...kind of too simple, but I love it." And he says, "Yeah, it's a guilty pleasure."

I think in the very early draft... ...we actually started cutting her up. Yeah. And then we realized, but she's healing instantly... ...SO actually that will just be a problem. It'd be kind of comical. Cut, cut, cut. - "She's healing!" Also here we.... I remember we just had scrubs on them, but Monique... ...who did the costume, she made this Antigen Labs.... The scrubs. Yeah. - Yeah. They were special. Michael Ealy's big moment. The blooper gun. This is the first time that this gun is used on film actually. Is it? - Yeah. We're trendsetters. Yep. Yep. This big black one. - Yep. Parking Level 3. Doesn't sound menacing, though. Blooper gun. No. It sounds like a joke. - Yeah. But the gun guys, who are really cool guys in Vancouver... ...when they were talking about... ... there had been this convention in Las Vegas. A gun convention in Vegas, and I said, "I actually wanna go there." God bless America. Yeah. God bless America. Here's a shot while we're in... While editing... - Great shot. While editing, everybody hated this because it looked so silly. And James, when you came in, "I think it looks pretty bitchen." And it does. - I know. It's funny when you go through all editorial with gray-scale animation... ... approximating what people are gonna look like... ...and then you finally see it done... ... it transforms the movie. It goes from being really bad to go to very exciting. It's... Yeah. - That's a huge step. That's a nice step, though. I like it when that happens. I remember shooting this. Kate was like, "Where's the camera?" "It's right behind here." "Naughty. Naughty." And also, you know, seeing all the gray scale and stuff... That's why we didn't test the film because it's pointless. You can't see what it looks like. It does look silly and just like a bad cartoon... ...So there's no point in testing it. Because, you know, even we, who are supposed to be really good at this... ...when you see it all together... ... you know, the final product, so much happens... -.,.be@Cause... - Let's be honest. And James can speak to this better than anybody... ...but my recollection was that in the last week prior to delivery... ... there were still 200 shots you hadn't received. Easily. - Yeah. I'd walk into his office every morning and it was like... These are things... - "How is it?" What's it like?" "A hundred and forty shots left." It was Wednesday and we had to deliver it Friday. The studio was saying, "You have to deliver the film three weeks earlier... ...than you thought you had." - That was a blow. There are versions of the visual effects that are different in the IMAX version... ...to the theatrical 2D to theatrical 3D, the video master. It was all depending on what the schedule would allow for. We kept working until... ...we couldn't do any more. I'm very happy here. We never shot the reverse of the guy getting shot. And people were angry at me because I was directing this day. But it's because the effect is there. When the effect wasn't there, it didn't work. I Know. But I think that's cool. Because I think it looks very '70Os. - It's like, "Shut up. Just get out of my way." - Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shaft kind of cool. Then this is one of my favorite blood splatters. That one. - That's real, actually. That was beautiful. Real? Did we shoot those guys? - Yes. Yeah. I love them. I will now resign. Did we kill people? - They meant they had squibs. Selene has to make the choice, does she go back to her husband or lover? Or does she go after her daughter? - Yep. Or does she try to have both? - The dilemma. One of the things that we were struggling with... ...In this script was that we thought, "Can we have a good third act?" Because the second movie, it's... The setting is so beautiful... ... with its old castle and underwater and so on. And, I mean, we scouted so many parking lots, it was obscene. Yep. Another example of how we wanted to hurt her so much. Yeah, that was Alicia, our stunt double, taking that hit. She landed on it. She's insane. - Yeah, well... Here's a shot that we don't think Is silly. No. No. It works. - Works. At least we think so. I hope you guys watching this think so as well. But it was always like: "Oh, so only his hand will grow very, very large and hairy. This will look so extremely silly." But it actually worked. This is when I think homage is really in a good way. Yeah. - It's not a fucking steal. It's you take something from 7... ...and you do it... - Underworld 7. The drop through the floor, right? - Yeah. And you update it. - Invert it. It's inverted. So I think that that's... That works really good. Len's-- That was Len's idea. The whole-- It's very scripted... ...how he shoots it.

That was also, by the way... Len was director of 7 and 2. He's married to Kate. And he was one of the producers on this one. It's extremely good, being a director, having a director as a producer... ...because we speak the same language. Remember when we were shooting... - He speaks Swedish. When we were shooting this scene, we had to hose down the whole... And David Kern, who was one of the executive producers... ...on the film, really should be sitting here... ...talking with us, but he's in Australia shooting a movie. I have this video of him.... He just picked up a hose and started hosing down the floor. Just to.... I don't know, it was a Zen thing for him. It's creative producing. But it was that moment in the film when we were all, like, almost crazy. Almost, like, almost getting carted off to the loony bin. Yep. And where does the water come from? Has the sprinklers been on recently? Really? Where does it come from? lt comes from where water comes from. To tell you the truth, it just creates very nice reflections... ...and looks damn cool. Yep, and you never wonder where it came from. If you start looking at movies, especially action movies, like that... ... the streets are always wet because it looks so much better. lt comes from David Kern with a hose. The longest transformation in an Underworld movie... ...I think this one is. - Absolutely. And one that was completely reimagined in postproduction. There's nothing practical in that shot. Yeah, the background even is CG. - Yep. Yep. - Scary. Thank you, lidar scanning. Thank you for making us do it. I love this shot coming up where Selene whacks him. What was the name of the fellow--? Joel. - Joel Whist. Boy, he was great. - Joel Whist was fantastic. He flipped that van like you can't believe. We were all, like, "It's not gonna work." He's like, "It's gonna work." He had it on a big cable. He had a hydraulic with a big cable, remember? But the special effects guys are always going through that. "It's not gonna work." "No, it's gonna work." And it works. - Yeah. I think it was Brad's idea, we said, "We need her to stop the car." He said, "I've never seen somebody T-bone a car." I think he said. A person T-bone a car? - Yeah. Yeah, that's not something you see every day. Happens all the time in Sweden. - Yeah. Well, with Volvos and all. - Yes. Cool shot. Nice one. - Yeah, cool shot. Also a shot that you never thought was gonna work that actually does. This is a great one. I love her jumping. That was beautiful.

And then the old, "Oh, I think I should go under."

We didn't spare any.... - "Don't shoot me. You piss me off when you shoot me." "I just bought this shirt."

I think there was a huge concern before shooting this... ... that: "Will we see the other ac--?" Because there's three actions going on. Oh, yeah, that's true. - SO.... We were always kind of sure that... You know, it's a movie. So when we are in the sequence, we're there. We don't think about anything else. - Yeah. When you start thinking about it, then it's almost like you can't shoot it. Otherwise you drive yourself crazy. - Yeah. And we know how that place looks, and it's so hard. It's so hard to get geography for an audience. Watch out for her. She's pissed. He's also pissed. Everybody's pissed here. Not a lot of love going on. - Stephen did a good performance. It was just that we didn't have time for talking here. Right. We didn't have time. - No. There's no space for it. That was the suspension of disbelief of everything happening... ...at the same time here. If you have a long dialogue there... . it's like, "Isn't there a couple of fights going on in the background?" You would start to listen for them and say, "It's awfully quiet in here." And here's a really good thing, I think, coming up. Todd Masters and the guys did a really good job with the Werewolves... ...but we were never happy with the way he looked. We thought-- Although he looks perfect, picture real. I think it was Bjorn, you came up with... ...S0 let's shoot him in the face. - Right. So this is all post. - Right. Suddenly he turns.... Swedish company called Fido did it. Very proud of those. - Go Sweden. He looks really, really gnarly. - It really works, yeah. And when he headbutts her, coming up here.... With his bloody head, yeah. - It's so cool. The other thing we decided... ...IS we really did like Theo's performance earlier in the movie. So he'd come back to life. You know, Selene brought him back to life. And we thought, "Let's put him in this finale." This is my favorite part of the whole end fight, where she's in here. Yeah, it's so gritty, and he looks so big. Yeah, so big. - And here we throw Alicia again. Yeah. Just never stopped throwing that girl. - Wait a minute. ls that a grenade? - Yeah. Maybe it's good. I thought it was too on the head. "On the nose" you say, right? - Yeah. On the nose. But maybe it's necessary. - That poor Lincoln Continental. And it's all show off. He can just walk-- Pass by. Okay, coming up.... Yeah. - And the blood spatters? Yeah. - Okay, this one.... No, wait, where is it? - No, it's coming up. This is one of the things that we asked: "James, can we please have a head popping off?" "We can't afford it." Then you came with a surprise. Look at this little bonus. - "Look what I got you."

This one. - There you go. It's beautiful. He's waiting for a second, like, "Should I go to the left or right?" I think it's a very fine balance act of doing violence on film and whatever. But that's just funny to chop his head off like that. It's just on the right side of everything. And this. - And this is also too much. The trachea moment? - Yes. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. James. - But this is a fairy tale. You outdid yourself with the fluttering trachea. Sweden again. Sweden again. lt works. Trust me. She's got a badass line there. - She does. That was a big applause line. Yeah. Yeah. - In the premiere last night. SO wait a minute, Selene's not out of the woods yet. Oh, is she escaping? We think Selene is just... - Hopefully we're thinking that. She's got problems. And he's thinking, "I cannot come in here." "But wait a minute," he says. Actually, I think it looks really cool... ... this concrete and stuff. I think we were worrying too much about that it didn't look visual enough. I think it works. He looks like... - This is your favorite shot, James? Yeah, it's beautiful. - Here. This one. I don't Know why, but it's... The bluest eyes in Texas are haunting me tonight. Yeah, you don't think about his ass. Everybody was talking, "We're just gonna see his ass." Oh, come on, he's got a nice ass. - Yeah. Kris was a very physical actor. - Yeah. And he stood around naked on set for two days in the freezing cold. Yeah. Very... - Good sport. Very dedicated. Yeah. Remember that grenade we saw a minute ago? That's right, there it is. - That's the key. I don't get it.

Now you got it, right? - This is what I love. Once the gre... That's it going off. Okay. - Yeah. Well, I didn't know. Last night was the first time I had seen this shot finished. The MPAA, remember, was really worried... ...we were gonna put a giant set of genitalia on him. Oh, they did. - Oh, they did. Yeah, that's the director's cut version. This was hard, I think. Because we had just been in this violent extravaganza. And now for emotions. But I think it works. - It works great. Because Kate is good and India is good. "You came back for me." - Yeah. And I remem-- This-- All... The tears and so on on Kate is completely real. Yeah. - But this is why she is, you know... This is why Kate is a movie star. She times it so the tear comes exactly where you want it. And I remember.... You only get that from professional actors. They know their body like, you know, true musicians. Go. I'll send them... ...on a different path, buy you some time. This is a part of the movie where we struggled... ...tried to figure out what to do now. How do we end the movie? - Yeah. We went through so many different permutations. We did film Michael watching them. - Yep. From the roof. - Yep. This scene was always in the film. - Yeah. That she comes back and finds the.... There was a period where we weren't. No. This was actually decided... It was not in the script. This was halfway through the shoot, we realized we needed this scene. We didn't wanna end on a rooftop... ...because it's kind of cliché a little bit. We did it in our Swedish film, Storm, actually... So then we ended it on a rooftop. - So-- But, you Know.... Sometimes cliches work. - Yeah. I think it's better than a forest. lt worked for the voiceover. Yeah, it was in a forest. Yeah. That was-- Yeah. But you want a nice wide shot. - Right. You see the city, see the world. And.... - The close-ups. I remember waiting for Len to write this voiceover, it took forever. But then he got it, and it was great. - Then he delivers. Because you get this "fuck, yeah" feeling. I've always thought that it's Kate that writes them... ...but Len actually does write them. Well, we'll never know, will we? I like those guys. That's those Swedish guys, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Wonderful writers, John Hlavin... ...Michael Straczynski, Allison Burnett. Yep. There's Len again. - Len and John Hlavin. Kevin Grevioux, shout-out to Kevin. - That's right. Anyone fancy a pint? - We have to trash everyone. We have to trash those guys for sure. - Producers. David Kern, there he is. - And David Coatsworth. Good on you, mate. Yeah, that's it. - That's it. Scott Kevan, DP. Excellent. Yep. - In the house. Claude Pare. - Yes. Award-winning production designer. Jeff McEvoy, the gentleman. - Yes. He was there the whole time. - Monique Prudhomme, costumes. Paul Haslinger, Underworld veteran. Are you gonna go through all of these? I'm just reading. It's not that hard. Tricia and Deb did all of the Underworlds too. Couple of small words here. - Needs no introduction. India, she was the third girl or second girl in the room. Remember that? - Yes, absolutely. And we just looked at each other. "This is the girl." "This is the girl." In, like, five seconds. Me and Bjérn never did big Hollywood movies. But you sure as hell had before. - Yes. "Does it work like this? Can we say yes?" You were like, "Yeah, yeah. I think we should go." That was amazing. That'll be the last time that ever happens in your career. When we saw Theo, we all liked him... ...from the very beginning too. - Yeah. But India was... She was the first day of casting. But Theo we cast in London, though. Yeah, but the moment we saw the tape, it was done. But that was after going through a lot of people in L.A. Yeah. A lot. - Yeah. Richard Wright. - Yeah, how about that? Yeah. Love that guy. Yeah. - Yeah. Paul Barry. I Know it sounds funny but... We forgot to shout-out to Paul Barry. Paul and Nee Nee. - Best first AD ever. And here it says.... - Brad Martin. Gets his own card, damn it. - Yes. As he should. You should work with him if you wanna do good action. Oh, you know-- I actually am right now. How about that? Good for you. I thought this Evanescence song worked too, quite frankly. Yep. America's biggest Goth band. They're Americans? Yeah. - Yeah. Dude. - Yeah. "Dude." - What? But there's-- It's... When you sit here... ...and look at the names of all the people that worked on the movie... ... you realize what a collaborative effort these things always are. The fact that the five of us can sit in a room... ...and talk about it is one thing... ...but the filmmakers are really everybody on this list. Well, but the other.... I agree, but at the same time l.... After we finished shooting the film, which was a very difficult shoot... ...we came back to Los Angeles and we cut at the Lakeshore offices... ...and Mans and Bjérn were there religiously every day... ...putting their heart and soul into the movie. And I think they were... They put their heart and soul into the movie... ...from the moment we met them to the moment the movie was finished. So as producers, I think we have to really thank them. Thank you very much. - Yeah. That was very nice words, Gary. Thank you. - You're welcome. We are as tall as we are... ...because we stand on the shoulders of giants. Yeah. - And I kept saying to myself... And this is the part where everybody turns this stuff off. Nobody's listening right now. - We worked our asses off. But James McQuaide delivered on those visual effects. I Know. I gotta tell you, man.... It only took five years off the end of his life. Oh, jeez. The best he's ever done. lt was fantastic. It is very therapeutic to watch this. It is, isn't it? Yeah. - Now it is done. We can move on. - It's done. Yep. And it's Friday night at 6:20 p.m. And.... Film's opening tonight. - Yeah. Have we got numbers back? Have we got numbers about how it's doing? Yeah, very good so far. The advance New York early-screening report... Excellent. Didn't you say that it did great in Thailand? Taiwan. - Taiwan. Thank you, people of Taiwan. - Yeah, thank you, Taiwan. Shout-out to Taiwan. All right, so this is pretty much it. Thanks, everybody, for listening to our babbling. And have a good night or a good day or whatever. Are you gonna say something in Swedish?

I liked the rehearsal. Let's do it for real.