April 18, 2009

If there’s someone who can give you the real scoop on what Rob Zombie is up to, then you should be chatting with Andy Gould, Zombie’s long-time producer and friend. ICONS got the chance to talk with Gould briefly in-between takes of H2, Zombie’s HALLOWEEN sequel out in theaters August 28th.

After Zombie completed the publicity tour for the first HALLOWEEN 2 years back, he had sworn off coming back for a sequel. Well, as the musician/filmmaker/artist has said many times since, “Well, I say that after every tour too…” I asked Gould when he knew that they’d both be back to make a HALLOWEEN sequel. “When we were filming the first one,” Gould recalls, “there was a moment there when Rob had said – we even called the studio and said “we can complete this if you let us do 1 and 2 together.” (Laughs) And they were like “Uh, no.” As always. Rob always had this thought that there was a continuation of the story. He just wanted to have his take on it. Because the first one was great and it told a lot of his story, but it also was a retelling of the original and this one he wanted it to be a completely original Rob Zombie story. Not a re-tell.”

From the conversations we’ve had on set thus far and from what we’ve seen, H2 is definitely a far more ambitious film for Zombie then the first HALLOWEEN was. “This one’s got a bigger scope to it,” agrees Gould. “Just the overall feel of the movie is a little bigger, the other one was a little more contained. And ya know, when you’re retelling a story, there’s a part of it where you have to stay within the context of the story because you’re damned it you do, damned if you don’t. If you follow the story too closely, you’re ripping it off, but if you go too far all the purists are like “fuck you!” How dare you? This one was a joy in that respect, because it’s Rob’s original idea. This is definitely a Rob Zombie “Halloween” story, as opposed to coming in and taking elements from elsewhere. The only real element in this is obviously some of the characters. This one picks up where the first one left off.”

The most interesting thing about H2 has been Zombie’s approach to take all the characters in radical new directions that we’ve never seen in previous HALLOWEEN movies. That includes Michael Myers himself. “As I said before, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Especially with the real die-hard fans. If you do it the same, they say, “It’s just like everything else”. And if you take something and go with it, “You’re trampling on an icon” but actually I like what he did with Michael. I like that. I like taking an idea and fucking with it. That’s the thing with Rob is that he wanted to have a character driven piece, that was one of the things that we wanted to have more of then in the last one. You felt for these characters, and with Laurie you have this thing, what would happen if you went through this kind of experience? Really. Horrible things happen to real people. How would that affect you if you went through something like that? That’s what I love about this one. I like this character studies. There’s a Dr. Loomis character study. There’s a Sheriff Brackett character study. There’s a Laurie character study. There’s even a Michael character study! They converge towards the end of the film.”

As with all movies, there are many challenges and obstacles that come along during the making of the film. But what about afterwards? As of press time, FINAL DESTINATION 4 (aka FINAL DESTINATION: DEATH TRIP 3D) has moved its release date to August 28th, the same day as Zombie’s H2. “It’s really hard, because you try to put a movie where there isn’t another big one,” says Gould. “I think one of them’s going to move and it ain’t going to be us! (Laughs)”

In the past year prior to Zombie’s involvement with HALLOWEEN 2, the filmmaker had been posting production art from TYRANNOSAURUS REX, a project that Gould loves and it very excited to make. “We got another studio that are very interested in making it, but this thing came up and we were like, ‘We should go. If you want to tell the rest of this story, tell the rest of this story.’ We did have a 2 picture deal with the studio, so now we’re done with that and we can move on to some other pastures. And there’s some really cool stuff out there. We really want to make T-REX.”

So with H2 winding down and heading straight into post-production to make the August 28th release date, what’s next for Gould and Zombie post H2? “T-REX is set to go. I’d like to do it next. We’ve got THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO finally done and out of that studio. That’s all finished completely, finally. It takes so long to do animation. We’re expecting to do a limited theatrical on SUPERBEASTO and then DVD. We have a new Rob Zombie album in the can, ready to go and we want to put the album out around the same time as HALLOWEEN 2. We want to do HALLOWEEN (H2), then his album and then SUPERBEASTO Spring of next year.”

On the subject of animated features, one of the journalists mentioned HEAVY METAL, which is currently being prepped by David Fincher and Kevin Eastman. “They had actually asked us to do it. They asked 5 filmmakers to do it and they asked if we would be interested when we were available.” Would Zombie be interested in combining his music & animation for something like HEAVY METAL? Gould replies almost immediately, “Yeah! Of course! It would be great! To be honest with you, it’s amazing to have the kind of artist like Rob who just does a lot of everything. It’s just keeping up. He’s always got such a veracious appetite. He’s called me on Sunday on downtime after weeks & weeks, and says ‘what are we doing next?’ Next? I’m on a vacation! (Laughs)”

-Robg.

CHECK BACK EVERY DAY THIS WEEK FOR A NEW REPORT FROM THE SET OF H2: HALLOWEEN 2!

Rob Zombie returns to write and direct HALLOWEEN 2, which stars Scout Taylor-Compton, Malcolm McDowell, Tyler Mane, Brad Dourif, Sherri Moon Zombie, Danielle Harris, Brea Grant, Bill Moseley, Caroline Williams, Margot Kidder, Daniel Roebuck, Chase Wright Vanek, Dayton Callie, Richard Brake, Matt Bush, Howard Hesseman, Bill Fagerbakke, Ezra Buzzington, Jeff Daniel Phillips & Mark Christopher Lawrence. H2 hits theaters this August 28th!