What the Folk!

Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi Team Up on a Vampire Comedy
By Rebecca Murray, About.com Guide February 28, 2012

Taika Waititi's coming of age tale Boy is arriving in U.S. theaters on March 2nd after already winning over audiences in New Zealand. And in support of Boy's release, we talked with Waititi about that popular film which American audiences are finally going to be able to get the chance to check out [that interview will be posted later this week]. We also had the chance to ask writer/director/actor Waititi about his upcoming projects, one of which is a vampire movie. Yes, another vampire movie is on its way courtesy of Waititi and Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords). In our exclusive phone interview, Waititi gave us a few clues as to what we can expect from their vampire film:

What's your next challenge as a filmmaker? What are you working on?
Taika Waititi: "I'm just preparing to shoot two films. One of them is in New Zealand and I'm doing that with a couple of films and that's a vampire film - comedy. And then I'm shooting another one, hopefully by the end of the year, and that will be another comedy that's set in World War II."

Vampires? Are we still stuck on vampires?
Taika Waititi: "Well, I feel that vampires are quite a new genre that not many people have explored yet. I feel that this is the time to pull them out of obscurity and make a movie about them. No, this is my plan to finally kill the vampire film movement with this final film. This will be the last film for many years about vampires."

You will put a stake in the heart of the vampire genre.
Taika Waititi: "That's right. The final nail in the coffin and the stake in the heart of the vampire genre."

And this is the film you're doing with Jemaine Clement?
Taika Waititi: "It is, yes."

How is your vampire story going to be different than any other vampire story we've ever seen?
Taika Waititi: [Laughing] "Well, it doesn't have those people from Twilight in it. That's a good start, I think. You know, it's more like the sort of down-to-earth aspect of vampires. It's like a real look at vampires, not a romantic look at vampires. It's telling their story because they've been misrepresented in most movies, I feel."

Are your vampires sexy?
Taika Waititi: "No. Vampires aren't sexy. That's what people keep forgetting. People don't realize that. The movies have totally got it wrong. Dead people aren't sexy. Everyone knows that except for Hollywood."

Your vampires are not sexy and they're not Twilight.
Taika Waititi: "That's right. And also, threesomes between a human, a vampire, and a werewolf are also not sexy."

So there won't be any of those in your movie.
Taika Waititi: "I hope not."

How do you follow up Boy with a movie about vampires?
Taika Waititi: "I don't know. I just think you don't think about your last one. It's all about what you would like to see. What I do is when I try to make a film or write one or think of one, I try to imagine a film that I would want to see. And then I spend ages writing it, and then making it, and then finishing it, and then by the end of that whole process it's the last film I'd ever want to see [laughing] because I've seen it 200 times."

perhaps part of the vampire deal is that they are forced to wander through existence wearing the clothes they were buried in?

That's way too much pressure to put on one outfit.

Speaking of pressure, I wonder if Taika is worried about his next movie... people's expectations will be so high after Boy. It has to be difficult to follow up your own huge success. (Not that I would know, I'm just surmising.)

Taika mentioned doing a vampire film with "a friend" at tonight's Boy Q&A. Funny that he didn't mention J by name. I got the impression that it's really happening like now, and that it isn't some far off thing. Of course by the time US audiences get to see it....

Awesome! Do you think "now" like they've already done work on it? Taika will be in the US for a bit promoting Boy, and Jemaine has MIB3 to promote and then the tour...

What are you doing for your next film?

Taika: I've got two. One of them is one I'm doing by myself, which I've written, which is gonna shoot in Europe -- and that's a World War II comedy. And then Jemaine [Clement] and I are writing a vampire movie that we're both in with a bunch of our friends, and that will be shot in New Zealand. So that's the New Zealand film and that's a hard one to get up and running because there's a lot of effects.

Is it a comedy?

Taika: It's a comedy, yeah. We actually came up with the idea in, like, 2005, when no-one was making vampire films and the only films that were coming out was something like Blade, or Underworld. We were like, "Man, vampires are blooming lame, no-one's into vampire movies -- let's make a vampire movie." And it took us five years to write a script and get our s*** together... and now vampires are lame again. So it's kind of cool to come in at the end of the reign of the vampire stuff.

Are you directing?

Taika: We're both gonna direct and be in it together. It's just hard to make, really. We just wanna do stuff outside of studio control. Not that we're big studio-involved people, but just me having been in a movie like [Green Lantern] and having worked with studios on a lot of things, and Jemaine's done a lot of work in the studio system now... we just would like a lot of freedom with this film, and we wanna make it cheap. Ultimately our attitude is just that we wanna do it like how we would make something in New Zealand in the '90s -- by ourselves, with our friends, and just being left alone to do our own stuff and then showing people at the end without contracts and things going on and lots of people giving comments and stuff like that.

Viva La Vampire, Jemaine & co shooting on Cuba St. shh pic.twitter.com/Jie5MrpV