New still of Edgar Frog in action!
Before he was hired by Marvel to write an adaptation of the 1970s pulp horror series “Werewolf by Night” writer Hans Rodionoff whipped up a treatment about wave-surfing lycanthropes. He titled the story “The Tribe” and Marvel ultimately recruited Rodionoff to pen “Werewolf,” impressed by his outline. “[The Tribe] was something I was just thinking about one day,” he explains of its origins. “Surfers are so territorial, they run in these packs and their lives are dictated by the tides. The tides are dictated by the moon. What other thing in the world is dictated by the moon? Werewolves. I wrote this whole treatment and I pitched it around town.” Studio reps who received “The Tribe” passed on the project citing too many similarities to Joel Schumacher’s 1987 The Lost Boys. “Even Warner Bros. said that. Then they started talking about a sequel to that film and thought the vamps should be these adrenaline junkies fixed on extreme sports and stuff like that. Someone over there said, ‘I remember this Hans guy had a script that was too Lost Boys,’ and it eventually became The Lost Boys 2.”
In post-production under the watchful eye of Warner Bros. at the time of this writing, “Lost Boys 2” is directed by P.J. Pesce. Principal photography based on Rodionoff’s screenplay began earlier this year in Vancouver. Tad Hilgenbrink and Autumn Reeser star as Chris and Nicole, respectively, son and daughter of Michael and Star (Jason Patric and Jamie Gertz’s characters from the first film). With their parents gone, they relocate to Luna Bay where Nicole unknowingly takes a vampire for her boyfriend. Chris then turns to the authority on bloodsucker beatdowns Edgar Frog (Corey Feldman reprising his role) for help.
“It’s definitely not a repeat,” Rodionoff tells Shock in an exclusive chat. “I think, on the surface, you can read the logline and it seems like a remake by a different name. What we had first was that it was going to be the original but flipped on its head. Our protagonists were already living in the town and the vampires are the ones who blew in. That’s still true, but the only person who’s a constant figure in the town is Edgar Frog. Chris and Nicole Emerson and the vamps arrive, they converge on Edgar.”
Leader of the new vamp pack is actor Angus Sutherland, real-life brother of Kiefer, here playing Shane who travels the world with his fanged chums. Yes, they’re surfing vampires. But Rodionoff is quick to dismiss that these are not the stereotypical “bro” and “dude”-dropping wave riders we’ve seen in cinema countless times. Roving gypsies is more like it. Traveling the world and pissed off that they’ve been deprived of sunlight.
“You don’t really get to see them surfing much in the movie. I didn’t want them to be fake and create surfers that don’t exist. If I did that, I knew my surfer friends were going to be beat me up and then the horror crowd would beat me up,” he laughs. “The idea isn’t that they were vampires who decided to start surfing. They were surfers who, while they were in Fiji or something, were attacked. They can’t go in the sun. They have to get their kicks now in other ways – which translates to killing. They’re not what you think of when you say surfers.”
The vampiric abilities established in the original film haven’t changed either. There’s still flying and a sundry dramatic ways to bite the dust (garlic bolos, holy water balloon grenades) – which makes Frog’s job all the more unpredictable. Scrutinizing fans will note, however, a change in the overall look of the vampires. “It’s more 30 Days of Night and less Lost Boys. That’s the only difference stylistically. P.J. did his homework. You watch the first film and then this film and you feel like they fit. There’s no digression in tone. There’s a love scene that’s all full of dissolves and ‘Cry Little Sister’ plays over it.” Hold the phone, Gerard McMann’s pulsing, fist-pumping, essential-for-any-iPod theme from the original is making an encore? Rodionoff tells us it’s going to be a cover, and, better still, “The saxophone guy comes back in a way that’s pretty great! I had written that in the script. And it was funny ’cause it was a reference nobody at WB got except for P.J. He was like, ‘I got your back brother, we’re getting him back in the movie.’ To me this movie feels like a nice tip of the hat to the original. What Schumacher did to the original was so different. There are those movies that create a new language for cinematic look. The Matrix created a look of green movies, 300 will spawn imitators. The Lost Boys was like that.”
Of course, a proper sequel like this couldn’t thrive without a few returning characters (beyond the aforementioned greased up sax player). The return of Feldman and fellow Frog Jamison Newlander more than fills that need. “Corey is ridiculously cool – he steals the movie. Corey is there 110-percent every minute he’s on the screen. Every line he delivers is perfect. If this movie goes theatrical, it’ll be a comeback movie, but even if it doesn’t, fans will look at him differently. He sells lines that you don’t think are sell-able.”
Rodionoff laments the early death of one scene that proved too costly to film. In an homage to Lucio Fulci’s undead/shark ocean floor tussle, he says he wrote a vampire versus Great White shark smackdown that, “would’ve been epic!” In the film’s opening that was indeed shot, FX maestro Tom Savini appears in a cameo turn. Shooting the scene demonstrated a sick synchronicity between Pesce and his writer. “The surfers hop Savini’s fence and he’s got this kick-ass pad right on the beach. They surf out in front of his house, you don’t know they’re vampires yet. So they’re coming out of the ocean and Savini comes down and he’s like, ‘What are you doing on my beach?’ And they something about him not owning the ocean. Savini’s like, ‘I own everything on this beach, the ocean and your four asses right now.’ The moment is a bit Blade II-ish. So I told P.J. that you want to create a situation where you feel like someone’s the victim, then you turn it. Savini turns into a vamp and is about to kill these guys but then they turn into vamps and kick the shit out of him. Then they cut his head off ’cause they don’t want him coming back. PJ was like, ‘Then they should take his head and punt it into the ocean!’ I was like, ‘I really, really like you.'”
Warner Bros. is still deciding on whether The Lost Boys 2 will go theatrical or direct-to-DVD. “The theatrical thing is a carrot they usually dangle in front of you during production,” says Rodionoff. “But the fact that they’re talking about it even during post-production is a good thing.” And, of course, the door for a third chapter is wide open. “We’ll see if Lost Boys 3 ends up happening, I’ve got some great ideas for that. ‘Cause it’s gonna be a whole different thing. If they do a third one, it has to be about Corey – Edgar Frog’s movie all the way.”
Source: Ryan Rotten
