Ralph Winter Interview

Clayton: First off, why the X Men?

Ralph: I got involved because of the script. The issues, the ideas about tolerance and how were gonna get along – I think those are timeless issues for our culture and that’s what attracted me. I’ve got experience doing big science fiction movies with large casts and lots of visual effects, but I think the ideas about tolerance are the things that attracted me to this franchise.

C: Did you think that the time was right for another shot at the superhero film genre?

R: On the first one I wasn’t sure. In terms of “was this gonna work” I don’t think any of us were sure. That was some of the pressure that we had on the first movie. There was an anxiety level of “Is anybody gonna come and see this? Will they enjoy this? Will it make any sense?” I think we were unsure, we didn’t know if it was gonna work but clearly ‘X-Men’ opened up the door for a lot of recent movies.

C: Were you a big comics fan before working on the X Men?

R: Not really! When I brought the script home and I told my son he said “Dad that’s great, look at this.” And he took me to his closet and he’s got comic books in plastic sleeves and he’s got the essential Wolverine – now I know where all that allowance went that I gave him, he was spending it on Wolverine! So I ended up having my own research library right in my own house and I didn’t even know it. That showed me, very quickly, the penetration of these comics and how many people are fans of these heroes.

C: With the first film under your belt, and such a success, how did you go about crafting a sequel?

R: Well, Bryan pretty much chose to continue to follow along in Logan’s journey and part of the comic, the “what god loves, man kills” idea is what got him excited about this. I think it’s really just an attempt to go deeper and further. Since the first movie laid the foundations for all the characters and the world and how things operate and all of that, this was intended to go further and build on that and get into a very specific storyline to find out more about what our characters can do, what they believe and what they value.

C: With so many storylines having appeared in the comics, did that make it easier or more difficult to work out how the story would progress in X2?

R: I think difficult. I think we suffered, especially in the Marvel world of the X-Men, there are so many choices, so many characters that you want to see. We, at one point, had Angel and Beast, we had the “Danger Room” – we had lots of things in there and at some point you’ve got to say;”wait, we’ve got to choose. We’ve got so many characters we can’t add five new characters and pay attention to the ten characters we had in the first movie.”

So that’s what was difficult, there are so many storylines, so many choices, so many opportunities that we tried to be strategic about each one.

Bryan chose Nightcrawler because he had a different power and other abilities than the other X-Men that we had and he looked different. Although he’s similar to Mystique, I think that was a good choice on his part and, if you’re a comic fan, you know the deeper story that’s behind it, but if you’re not then it just looks like maybe they’re a different race or kind different type of mutant. I definitely think that (Nightcrawler) was a brilliant choice, but I think Bryan struggled with it all for a long time.

C: There are also a couple of other new characters in this film…

R: Yes. There’s Pyro, who was just hinted at in the first movie and there’s Collossus who has a little cameo piece. Kitty Pride has a little bit more in this movie and of course there’s Lady Deathstrike, William Stryker’s henchman or ally. So, yes, there are a few more characters that we’ve introduced.

C: Were there many heroes that nearly made it to the screen, but ended up on the cutting room floor?

R: Well, there’s none on the cutting room floor, but there are characters that almost made it in at the script stage. Beast and Angel are two that are beloved by the fans. But it was a problem working them into the storyline in a meaningful way and also executing yet another believable, fantastic character. Already we had Nightcrawler in four to six hours of make up, Mystique taking five to seven hours – to add yet another character like Beast who would be say six to eight hours, or even Angel and having to make wings that were believable and the effects and wire work that go with it… Well at some point we just had to make the choice to lose those two.

C: I know that when the first film was in production, there was a lot of interest on the internet. One of the areas that provoked some of the most fervent discussions was the costume designs. How much notice did you really take of what people were saying online?

R: There was a high level of anxiety from the fans during the first movie and we did watch that and pay attention, and we noticed that the volume was turned down a lot on the second movie. The fans were worried about the uniforms; they were worried about Wolverine’s hair; about the casting of Hugh Jackman; about Storms hair; about Mystique and whether we could get her right. I think our execution of the first movie demonstrated to the fans that we’re not total boneheads; we did know what we were doing and although we maybe did some things that they didn’t want us to do, we did them in an elegant way so that they now probably can’t see a character like Mystique in any way apart from how we did her.

So we did pay attention, and in the second movie we’ve tried to make some things even better when it was just okay in the first. For instance, with the uniforms we have rebuilt them from the ground up. We went back, and instead of designing one uniform for the boys and one for the girls, we specifically did body moulds of Hugh Jackman and we built a uniform for his body. We built a completely different uniform for Famke and her body, because her proportions are so different from Halle Berry’s or anyone else. So we went back and specifically tailored those to each actor – and that made them even more heroic. I don’t think that the average viewer is going to notice any difference, but we do, and we see it as a leap forward in terms of our characters.

C: The first film, although stunning, seemed to shy away from really letting our heroes give full reign to their powers, was that a budgetary restriction or something else?

R: It was a combination of laying the foundation of who the characters are, which took a long time to do, but it was also budgetary since we didn’t have the resources to let Wolverine do an all out fight or have Cyclops or Storm completely let go. Although I think we’ve remedied that this time around.

C: I have heard that the sequel lets the X Men really go to town at the finale; can you give us a little hint about what were going to see?

R: Well, for instance there is a fight sequence with Logan and Lady Deathstrike that I think fans are going to cheer at and come back for repeated viewings, just to see this fight. We’ve done it in away that I don’t think has ever been done before and it’s been photographed and staged in a way that’s just really fun!

C: How much more are you spending on the SFX for the sequel?

R: I’d say that the special effects budget has almost doubled! You also have to remember that even though the visual effects may be double, there’s a knock-on effect to all the other production departments that go to help create those effects, so it’s more than just a doubling of that part of the budget. There’s a lot more action in this movie and I think that was deliberate from the beginning. We recognised that we didn’t deliver as much of that as we wanted to in the first movie. We knew we had to set up the franchise and do it on a budget for the first one or else we wouldn’t be here doing the second. The pain that we went through to get the first one in the theatres was worth it because it meant that we could get more money for this one, which we think will raise the bar even further.

C: It wasn’t just your sequel that was relying on the success of the first film. There are a lot of films that have made it to the screen on the back of the success of ‘X-Men’.

R: Yeah, we opened the door.

C: How do you feel about that?

R: Well, we feel very good about that. I think that in Hollywood, all of us are encouraging of each other. It doesn’t help any of us when a movie fails, but when a movie is successful it invigorates the audience and it opens up the possibilities for other movies that we can all make. We all try to be cheerleaders for each other – dragging each other down doesn’t serve any of us in the end.

C: The casting of the first film was fantastic, and I know that Patrick Stewart was a fan favourite for the role of Xavier for quite a while. How did you decide on what changes you were going to make to the depiction of various characters in the comics? For example, in the comics Rogue (played in the film by Anna Paquin) is much older.

R: You’d probably have to talk to Bryan to find out more about that. In terms of why Anna Paquin is in the movie is to do with the ability to hit different market segments. Anna, Pyro (Aaron Stanford) and Sean Ashmore who plays Bobby will all attract a younger crowd. They’re all under the age of twenty-one which probably played into Bryan’s thinking. I don’t think we were considering anyone other than Anna for that role in the first movie – but I don’t remember as it’s been a while.

The cast we have is great fun. It’s great to attract a lot of different segments of the market. With Patrick and Ian we have the incredible stature of theatre trained actors – senior statesmen of our business. In Halle Berry, Famke and Rebecca we have these beautiful women who are just stunning to look at, and we’ve got Jimmy Marsden who eleven year old girls go ga-ga over. So it’s pretty much fun with all the different cast members we’ve got.

C: I’ve heard a rumour that Halle Berry was a little disappointed with the size of her role the second time around, was that a big problem?

R: It was a concern, and I think we addressed it and gave her more to do, but there’s naturally going to be problems in a movie with ten characters. It’s easy for people to feel like they’re not getting enough attention, and with Halle Berry coming off an academy award winning performance she had to realise that the stories not about her, it’s about Wolverine. She understood that, she was happy and she did what she could to help.

C: How soon after completing the first film did you decide to go for a sequel?

R: I think that the studio was giddy after the opening weekend box office and it got everybody thinking; “You know what? We ought to start planning a second one because this is going to make some money, there’s an audience out there and we’ve got to give that audience something else.”

C: Was Bryan Singer always going to direct a second film?

R: I think so. I don’t think there was any other discussions on his part, or the studio, I think that it was always going to be him.

C: How many films were the cast signed up to?

R: Well, some were signed up for two or three. Some of them have a third option, but not many. Even if they had third options, I think this group would be hard to get back together. ‘Star Trek’ seems to be over, so Patrick is out there doing a lot of stuff; Ian has ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ and his plays in London now; Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry and even Rebecca Romijn-Stamos are making more movie than we expected. It’s staggering – Rebecca’s made two or three movies in between our two.

C: Were all of the cast happy to return to their previous roles?

R: Oh yeah! I think they were all a lot more relaxed on the set and had a lot more fun being back together again. They all looked forward to that, which was enjoyable. When we started the first movie, they were just learning what their characters were about and now they can have some fun with them.

C: One of the earliest rumours that surfaced about ‘X Men 2’ was that the giant, mutant catching robots, the sentinels, were going to be featured. Was that ever the case?

R: Yes, it was. We did a lot of concept work trying to figure out how to work them into the story, but I think ultimately Bryan felt that the sentinels didn’t have the souls inside that would work for him as he tried to craft a character driven drama. Other than big machines that walk around, squish things and knock walls in, there wasn’t much there to work with in terms of personality. The destruction and overwhelming size of these things would also have eaten up an enormous amount of the budget without really servicing the nature of the story. It was really tough to make a decision.

C: I would have been nice to see them on screen though.

R: Maybe at another time, when we move it away from as many characters… But we did a lot of planning. We did a lot of research on the history of robots; how they all looked and how they all acted – we did a lot of work on that, but ultimately it was way over the top in terms of what we could achieve.

C: You talked about things happening further down the line, do you think that l the ‘X men’ will be returning for a third or fourth outing?

R: Oh, I think so. I think that if this film performs as well as we think mist going to then there’s a franchise, which is what we set out to create in the beginning. So unless we’ve made an incredible blunder and stumble here, I think there will be more adventures to come. The practicality of getting this cast together again, however, might mean that we’d see fewer characters; maybe we’d see Wolverine out on his own. I think you’d also like to see Patrick, because you know that Xavier is the most powerful mutant, and see what he does. You could see the junior X Men, the kids, out on an adventure as they are just experimenting and learning about their powers. There’s a huge book of Marvel characters on my coffee table, an enormous amount of characters that you could use.

C: If you want to bring in a new character, who do you have to go to first for approval?

R: You have to check with Marvel in terms of “if it’s viable” and make’s sense in terms of their whole universe, but it’s also what’s going to be commercial for the studio and be attractive not only to the core fans but also to the ever-expanding world of new X-Men fans. Also, if Marvel said lets make a movie about whatever obscure character I think the studio would be open to that as well.

C: At the end of the first film, Hugh Jackman’s character, Wolverine, heads off to try and find out about his origins. How much of that is shown in the new film?

R: More than you think. The key thrust of the movie is for him find out from Alkali Lake, which is where he headed off to, what’s there, why is he like he is and why does he act the way he does. That is the key to this film, mixed up with the values of Xavier, Magneto and Stryker and how Wolverine tries to make sense out of all that as well.

C: I have heard that there may be a Wolverine sequel in the works. Will you be part of the team that brings it to the screen?

R: I don’t think that there are any specific plans for that. I think there are rumours because of interviews like this that say “where could you go?” and it’s a logical choice “lets just keep following Wolverine”, it makes sense and if you can’t get the whole of the cast, maybe just get Hugh Jackman back. I don’t think that you could do a movie with just one of them though; I think that the fans would be disappointed with that.

You could almost do a movie with any of these characters – you could even do a TV series (if it wasn’t so expensive) following each one, each week. That’s what “Star Trek” did; have each character doing their own stuff.

C: How do you think the success of The X Men has affected Hollywood?

R: Well, it’s opened the door to these comic book movies, which I think is very important. We demonstrated that this sort of reality based comic book, not campy but reality based, could be regarded critically and looked at seriously. I think we saw a lot of serious actors that you might not have pictured in a comic book movie do well and do a respectable job and I think it’s enhanced the careers of a lot of these people.

C: Do you think that with such a lot of superhero films either in production or being planned, that there might actually be too many, and that they will flood a market that is at the moment so hungry for this type of film?

R: It could be. I think its will revolve around whether we stray to far from the characters and the core values of the books. If it moves towards being more about the visual effects and the spectacle, it’ll go the way of disaster movies and just be part of the cyclical nature of Hollywood. If we can keep them character based, and still fascinating, I think we can keep making these for some time.

C: Obviously Fox have also released ‘Daredevil’, and I have heard that they are going to be behind the ‘Fantastic Four’ film. Considering the amount of crossing over that went on in the comics, do you think we’ll ever see the ‘X Men’ meeting some of Marvels other heroes on screen?

R: Well that’s interesting, I hadn’t thought about that. Why not, that might be fun. Sure, it happens in comic books, I don’t see why it can’t happen in movies. I think that’s probably fuelling what Warners is doing with ‘Batman & Superman’, trying to have them meet up. We have to be careful we don’t just end up with a spectacle – people want characters that they can follow on a journey, and if they want to go on a journey with Superman, Wolverine or Batman, it’s because they want to be in the place where those characters are, because they know the right things to do at the right time. That’s why you want to escape for two hours; you want to be with one of those characters like Indiana Jones or Jim T Kirk or Luke Skywalker. They know when to fight; when not to fight; when to break or bend the rules; they know what they have to do.

C: You just mentioned James Kirk, and the ‘X Men’ films aren’t the only fantasy movies that you have been involved with, in fact you also produced ‘Planet Of The Apes’, ‘Inspector Gadget’, ‘Mighty Joe Young’ and you started off with some of the ‘Star Trek’ films. Of all the films that you’ve been associated with, which is your favourite?

R: Oh I think that ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’ is my favourite. I think we developed a very accessible story that reached out to non-star trek fans. It was humorous and lovable and when I speak in elementary classes for kids what’s fun is that they’ve seen the movie, but they’ve never seen it on screen. They’ve only seen the movie on DVD or video and it always amazes me the power of movies to endure so that another generation enjoys the movie even though they never see it on screen the way we did when we made the movie.

With that film, the story was fun and it was the most enjoyable film to make.

Several days after we finished making the movie we saw it cut together and we were elbowing each other saying “this is gonna be great.” It rarely happens that you know how good something is going to be that early on.

C: The ‘Planet Of The Apes’ project was one of those that was off and on for quite a few years, how did you get involved with that one?

R: I met Tim Burton when I was finishing ‘X-Men’, we hit it off and I got involved with it. We had no trouble attracting talent to the film, people just said “Tim Burton - ‘Planet Of The Apes’, sign me up.” Tim is such a visual artist that we all wanted to work with him. The movie was a spectacle and it was fun, I think ultimately though, audiences didn’t connect with Mark Wahlberg as much we had hoped, and I think our ending was not as good as it could have been.

The end was the subject of a whole year of discussion on our part. We knew we could never top the first movie since it’s ending worked on so many levels; it was a twist in the story; it was a comment on our culture, and it hit at a particular time in our culture that ,because we weren’t at the same time, we could never hope to top it. So we tried to go against that and came up with ideas that didn’t work. Frankly, in the end we just ran out of time to come up with an idea that would be at least acceptable and competitive with the original. I think Tim really tried to come up with something that was thoughtful as a response to all that had gone on, but how could we do an ending that wouldn’t look like it’s competing, but does make you think – and we just didn’t come up with the best idea… You know so far, nobody has come forward and said to me this is the ending that you should have had. It was a really tough one.

C: The end of the film left the way wide open for sequels, are any planned at this stage?

R: I don’t see anything in the offing. It’s always possible, but I think the studio is still sort of smarting from the criticism and the lack of box office that it achieved – and that was an expensive movie to make. So I think a lot more time is going to go by before the studio think of trying to make that one again or adding on to that adventure. But we had fun making it!

C: What other projects have you got in the pipeline?

R: Well, I have three other movies coming out this year. I’ve been deliberately pursuing movies that are low budget. I have a very low-budget movie with my friend Bill Shatner and Harry Hamlyn called ‘Shoot Or Be Shot’ which will be out in the Fall. I also have a two million dollar movie about bullying in high school called ‘Hangman’s Curse’ which again will be out in the Fall. Lastly I have a Christmas movie with Levar Burton directing, starring Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Pollack, Christopher Plummer and Brenda Blethyn. It’s a live action story about Christmas, reindeer and Santa Claus and that’ll be out in the holiday period. We’re finishing up all these movies right now and then looking for the next ones.

C: Well good luck with ‘X-Men 2’ and thanks for talking to us.

R: Thank You.