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In
The Halls Of Dark Horse Indie
An Interview with Chris Tongue
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Don't
you wish this was YOUR office?
Chris Tongue looks for reading material.
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Back
in February at WonderCon, we got invited to a press conference
announcing "Dark Horse Indie," an independent
film production company formed by combining Dark Horse Entertainment
with Image Entertainment. Their first big "find"
was Monarch
of the Moon, a faux 40's film serial they debuted
two weeks later at the New York Comic Convention. And yes,
we knew it wasn't real at the time.
At
Comic-Con, Dark Horse Indie held a panel with scenes and
discussion about a couple more of their films, Splinter
and Driftwood, interesting small
films with two things in common: Dark Horse and Diamond
Dallas Page.
So
we had to sit down with Dark Horse Indie executive Chris
Tongue, who gave us the lowdown on the company's slate,
starting with a long-rumored film that should get fanboys
drooling now...My Name Is Bruce...
Derek
McCaw:
Can you talk about the Bruce Campbell movie?
Chris Tongue: I can talk about the
Bruce movie. I don't know how much you know, but it's Bruce
Campbell starring as Bruce Campbell directed by Bruce Campbell
and co-written by Bruce Campbell and Mark Verheiden.
The story is a small town being terrorized
by zombie monsters figure that the only person who can save
them is Bruce Campbell. So they kidnap him off the set of
his latest B-horror movie and force him to do just that.
At first he thinks it's this great publicity
gag put on by his agent, played by Ted Raimi. One of the
many characters Ted plays in the film.
Derek
McCaw: Ah, so Ted gets multiple roles…
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Can Bruce
Campbell believably
portray Bruce Campbell?
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Chris
Tongue: Oh, yeah. Just like Evil Dead. We've
got the same composer from all those movies, too, Joe LoDuca.
We'd actually been up in the air between Bear McCreary,
who does Battlestar, and Joe.
Derek
McCaw: But Joe's got the Evil Dead cred…
Chris Tongue: He has the pedigree.
Derek
McCaw: So that just wrapped.
Chris Tongue: That just wrapped.
We shot that in Medford, Oregon.
Derek
McCaw: I once bought a leather coat in Medford.
Chris
Tongue: Ahhh…
Derek
McCaw: Yes, the summer that I spent in Ashland.
Chris Tongue: You were there for
the Shakespeare Festival?
Derek
McCaw: Well, I wasn't in the festival, but
I had a friend who was.
Chris Tongue: I've never actually
been to that but I've heard it's quite a draw.
Derek
McCaw; Sometimes it's really cool, sometimes
it's really horrid. As any great artistic endeavor can be…
Chris Tongue: Well, I like to think
that our movie is both.
Derek
McCaw: How did Bruce approach Dark Horse with
that?
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Proof
of the relationship.
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Chris Tongue: We've been friends
with Bruce for a while. Dark Horse just did the comic book
adaptation of Man With The Screaming Brain. Mike
Richardson was on set for Army of Darkness hanging
out with Bruce's dad while there were like eight Bruce Campbells
running around.
It's a relationship that we've had for
quite some time.
We said, "hey, Bruce, you want to direct
something for us?" and he said, "sure, here's a great idea…"
And we brought Mark Verheiden on to write it, who is another
relationship that we've had for a long time.
Derek
McCaw: Now, we're in the offices of Dark Horse
Entertainment, but My Name Is Bruce will come out under
the Dark Horse Indie label…
Chris Tongue: …which is our partnership
with Image Entertainment, who are a huge DVD distributor.
Derek
McCaw: Okay, so how did that come about? Why
create Dark Horse Indie, and how active is it?
Chris Tongue: We've got three films
in the can, done. And Bruce just wrapped yesterday. The
straight Dark Horse Entertainment label is what we do our
larger films through. The Mask, Hellboy, AvP, that
sort of thing.
Dark Horse Indie is independent level budgets,
low, low, low million dollars for these things that Image
puts up directly. Basically, it makes us into our own mini-studio,
so we don't have to deal with notes from tens of executives.
It's not art by committee; it's what we want to do.
Derek
McCaw: It will be much more directly in touch
with what you think the fans will respond to.
Chris
Tongue: Exactly. Which is really more in touch with
the original Dark Horse philosophy - letting the creators
do their thing.
Part
Two: Monarch of the Moon, why Dark Horse Indie irritated
Aint It Cool News, Splinter and Driftwood...
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