This past weekend, New York Comic Con audiences were witness to a big treat: the first footage and trailer of David Gordon Green’s medieval stoner comedy, “Your Highness” starring an all-star cast of James Franco, Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel, Danny McBride and Justin Theroux (a multitude of photos arrived recently, and note McBride is writing a prequel comic).
The panel was moderated by actor/director Todd McCarthy for some reason (“The Station Agent,” “The Visitor”) and to be perfectly honest, the footage looked excellent; funny, thrilling — like a deeply irreverent and filthy version of “The Lord Of The Rings” made by some of the core guys who created “Pineapple Express.” The picture looks like a blast and if Universal markets this thing correctly — what do they really have to do other than let it sell itself — they should have a pretty decent-sized hit on their hands.
McCarthy saw the film earlier in the week and described it as “a hell of a ride. There’s a lot action, it’s funny as hell and there’s some serious gore going on. But it’s dramatic too. It sucks you in and you really care about these idiots in a really great way,” he said to much laughter from the cast on the panel.
For those that are still wondering and puzzled as to why David Gordon Green went from lyrical dramas such as “George Washington” and “All The Real Girls” (the former of which made our best of the decade list) to relatively big-budget studio films about stoner princes trying to rescue a maiden from an evil wizard, they should realize eclecticism is big on the filmmaker’s agenda.
” ‘Pineapple’ was a 180 turn from anything I had done before,” Green said alluding to his early career of independent films that he joked that “three people saw.” “But I really wanted to get into that [genre]. For me it’s about the project and the cast and wanting to shake things up and try different things that I’ve done before and there’s a great leap from drama to ‘Pineapple’ and an extraordinary technical leap from ‘Pineapple’ to ‘Your Highness’ and I’m always looking to take some left turns and do what’s different, so I feel like the unexpected is the most interesting for me.”
Asked whether the studio was nervous about such a wild and strange picture or had reservations, Green shrugged and said Universal and he were on the same page since day one. “I don’t think they would have let us out of the gate on something like this if we weren’t clear about the tone we were going for,” he said. “There’s some degree of risk. Any time you’re gonna do something that’s left of center I think people are a bit nervous about it, but when you’re all looking at each other and thinking, ‘This is someone we wanna get into business with, let’s fucking do it.’ It worked out great for everyone.”
McBride did however admit that their first version of the script was unwieldy and overly ambitious. “The studio breakdown for the first draft was like a 200 million dollar movie, which is a little higher than we were shooting for,” he laughed. “So we decided to be creative with it and pull it back and make it something that a studio would be willing to take a risk on and wouldn’t sink a small nation.”
One of the joys of the trailer and looking to be a scene-stealer throughout is Justin Theroux as the evil wizard Leezar. McCarthy also noted that Theroux’s character was one of his favorites. “He [something]… he kinda breaks your heart in a wizard way,” he said. Theroux’s objectives and inspirations were simple. “I watched a lot of Gary Oldman,” he said. “And I just thought, ‘If I could kick Oldman’s ass…if I could do better than he has, I’d be OK.’ I just kinda hammed it up.”
The trailer is impressive, and as noted before, looks like a comedic riff on “Lord Of The Rings” without simply being a spoof. The action is almost as impressive as that Peter Jackson film, at least in the extremely entertaining and well-cut trailer. And Green said creating a movie that looked believable was paramount.
“We wanted the movie to be real, we wanted to be hands on, we wanted it to be tangible,” he explained. “There’s puppets in the movie there’s guys in creature suits (made by Spectral Motion, the company that did Guillermo del Toro’s creatures in “Pan’s Labyrinth”), there’s stop motion elements, CG and we kinda just took the best of the technology. We love and prided ourselves on finding beautiful locations and construct sets that were massive yet elegant and constructed as if we’re making a serious period piece and approach it dramatically knowing the more serious we took the movie, the funnier it would get.”
However period exactitude wasn’t on their minds. “We pride ourselves on the historical inaccuracy like trying to slip in some powdered wigs,” he quipped.
Though a fantasy film with spectacle-like set-pieces James Franco noted the shoot wasn’t distinctly different from “Pineapple Express” and improvisation was still an important element in shaping the film and its comedy.
“You can [be free] to go anywhere,” Franco said. “And that’s the environment that David creates and that is unusual. With David you depend on the chemistry and relationship you have with the other actors. Despite the action and effects he does create a space where actors can discover things on set.”
While it may remain to be seen what mainstream audiences will think of the film — it’s conceivable, it could run into the same issues “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” did — there is no doubt that movie geek and fantasy types are going to flip for the trailer.
Filthy and hilarious, it also boasts a lot of action and one of the sheer delights is watching Natalie Portman really going for it and treating the material (and her action sequences) deadly serious (which of course causes more comedy). The trailer begins with melodramatic music right out of a “Harry Potter” film before segueing into the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” and there’s no doubt the picture is going to be very R-Rated (the trailer shown to NYCC fans was definitely a red-band one). When James Franco’s doofus prince character asks the wizard played by Theroux how he’s going to steal his princess Deschanel away, the sorcerer answers simply,” Magic… Motherfucker!” There’s another line about Zooey Deschanel’s vagina that we won’t spoil here, but suffice to say all those in attendance were rolling in their seats.
Given the thumbs-up reception the trailer received we don’t doubt Universal will be putting it in front of audiences and online soon. “Your Highness” is set for an April 8, 2011 release and to be honest, we kind of can’t wait.