Movies
Full Details on the Pang Brothers’ 3-D Sequel to ‘The Eye’
More details have been revealed for the first Asian digital 3-D horror film coming to theaters, courtesy of Universe Films and the directing twins Danny and Oxide Pang. The $4.5 million The Child’s Eye in 3D (announced on March 10) will begin shooting in June in Thailand. The Pang brothers, who are overseeing the postproduction of their $12 million comic adaptation The Storm Warriors, due in December, will return to the horror roots that brought them international attention with 2002’s The Eye, which was remade as a U.S. version starring Jessica Alba.
The visual stimulation offered by the stereoscopic 3-D format will be used to the full in the signature Pang brothers’ jump-out-of-your-seat shock tactic and spooky style, the twins told The Hollywood Reporter.
“The Child’s Eye in 3D” tells the story of six stranded Hong Kong travelers during the shutdown of the Bangkok airport in the November 2008 anti-government protest and their supernatural encounters after the disappearance of three in the group.
The showpiece of the film will be an underworld made up of paper replica houses, filled with paper dolls and paper cars — a city formed by all the paper-made facsimile of the real world burnt and offered to the deceased in the traditional Chinese ancestor worship ritual. The twins also will be introducing a monster in the film.
“The way to handle a monster is the same as creating spooky and suspenseful atmosphere, so it’s something we want to try in this film,” Oxide Pang said.
The twins will work with Hong Kong film equipment outfit Digital Magic for filming and with their longtime collaborator Fat Face Prods. for visual effects.
“We always enjoy new visual styles, so we went to see the 3-D Hollywood films the first chance we got,” Danny Pang said. “The technology of 3-D filming is now well-developed enough for us to try applying our horror style.”
The recent success of Hollywood 3-D offerings, including “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “Bolt,” was the driving force behind greenlighting “Child’s Eye,” said Alvin Lam, COO of Universe Films, which has signed a 10-year exclusive contract with the Pangs.
“We see that there’s an established audience base for 3-D films,” Lam said. “Besides, a 3-D film increases the audience’s willingness to see it in a theater. 3-D is a lasting trend.”
Universe is in the final stages of negotiations with a Singapore and Malaysian distributor for the film.
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
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