Exclusive: Steve Niles on ‘30 Days of Night: Dark Days’
Posted on: November 24, 2009 | Filed under: 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, Film News | 0 Comments
Call it counter-programming. At a time when vampire romance tales threaten to completely extinguish any reminder that the undead were once creatures to be feared rather than swooned over, shooting has at long last begun on the sequel to 30 Days of Night, the Josh Hartnett-starring film adaptation of Steve Niles fan-favorite comic book. Filling in for the Melissa George, the first film’s heroine/survivor is Lost’s Kiele Sanchez, who’s joined by genre veteran Mia Kirshner and Sanchez’s fellow Lostie Harold Perrineau. Last week we chatted with Niles from his home in LA about what we can expect from 30 Days of Night: Dark Days.
How did this come about in the wake of the first film?
We thought the first 30 Days did really well. It did really good at the box office and has certainly gained a lot of popularity online. So we were pushing that right from the get go. But at first we didn’t get the immediate response we wanted. Then [director] Ben [Katai] and I made the deal to just go ahead and do the script. We had such a great time doing the script, pretty soon after that we got the whole thing greenl it. This is really the strangest project in that it went from one week when it didn’t look like it was going to happen to the next week, when they were like, “Pack your bags for Vancouver.” I’ve never had anything turn around so fast. I think a lot of that goes to Ben and the script, and what he’s been doing with directing and keeping this project moving forward. It took sevens years to get 30 Days of Night on the screen so that was like the ultimate slow grind and then this was all the sudden, “It’s happening!” I’ve never had that happen.
Exclusive: Producer Talks 30 Days of Night: Dark Days From the Set
Posted on: November 24, 2009 | Filed under: 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, Film News | 0 Comments
Dread Central hit the set of Sony’s 30 Days of Night: Dark Days earlier this month – the film wraps principal photography today in Vancouver, Canada, under the watchful eye of co-scripter (with Steve Niles) and director Ben Ketai – and while there sat down with producer JR Young (among others) to discuss the flick (cast interviews to come).
“This is a very edgy film,” Young, who previously produced The Messengers, told Dread while intently watching a scene being played out in video village – a scene which featured a rather hysterical and bloody actress (Katherine Isabelle) pleading for her life. “Ben knows this world. I think it comes natural to him.”
Starring Kiele (A Perfect Getaway) Sanchez, Mia (De Palma’s The Black Dahlia) Kirschner, Rhys (“Entourage”) Coiro, Diora (Night of the Demons) Baird, Harold (“Lost”) Perrineau, Troy (A Marine Story) Ruptash, Jackson Berlin, John De Santis, Marco Sorian, Monique (Cabin in the Woods) Ganderton, and the previously-mentioned horror-fave Katherine (Ginger Snaps, “Supernatural”) Isabelle, Dark Days appears poised according to Young to be a rather faithful adaptation of Niles’ graphic novel of the same name.