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08 DECEMBER 2016
EXTRAS
A fter Shrek 2 and Madagascar 3,
making an animated film for adults
was a dream come true for
Sausage Party co-director and producer
Conrad Vernon.
"Doing something adult with animation
had been a lifelong dream of mine, but
it was surreal in the sense that I was
ecstatically happy,” he says. “I had to stop
and think, ‘I’m actually making this!’ In fact
everybody on the movie would stop and
laugh and say, ‘I can’t believe we’re getting
to make this, it’s fantastic!’”
Written by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
and Jonah Hill, Sausage Party offers a
rudely revealing look at the secret lives of
grocery items. Nevertheless, Vernon admits
that getting the film greenlit proved to be a
challenge, despite the involvement of some
of Hollywood’s biggest comedy stars.
“When Seth and Evan first pitched it
to me, I was going to be handling the
animation side and they were going to be
handing the actors and script side of things,”
he explains. “Once we had all that figured
out, we got a bunch of designs together and
it was three years of pitching to pretty much
every studio in town. That was the biggest
challenge of the whole thing – getting
anyone to buy into it.”
Scott Hocking
Sausage Party is out on December 7
HEAD BANGER
T aika Waititi
admits that he
hasn’t really
had a chance to draw a
breath in 2016. His
fourth studio film Hunt
For The Wilderpeople
not only became the
highest grossing New
Zealand film of all time,
but went onto become
a critical hit all over the
world. For much of that time, however, the
New Zealander was hard at work on his first
major Hollywood assignment Thor: Ragnarok,
filming for which he had just completed when
STACK caught up with him for a quick chat
over the phone.
Although he was looking forward to a quick
break in NZ, he would soon be heading to
Los Angeles to start on post-production, so
it’s looking as if next year is going to be just
as busy as 2016.
Waititi couldn’t say much about what fans
could expect from the third Thor film, except
they can look forward to “a very new and
fresh direction with Thor”. Asked whether
it would be a more irreverent take on the
Marvel superhero, Waititi wasn’t sure. “I
don’t know, the first place I usually go is
the irreverent side,” he says. “But it’s the
same with Wilderpeople – there is a lot of
irreverence but you also have to give it some
heart and ground it in something emotional.
So I hope to get a similar balance with Thor.”
Waititi also couldn’t offer any detail
on Wilderpeople
star Sam Neill’s
involvement in the
new Thor movie (“I
can’t talk about what
Sam’s role is because
it would give away too
much”), but he’s been
pleased with the way
Neill and his young
co-star Julian Denison
have been handling
the international press duties for the Kiwi hit.
“I didn’t get to go on any of those trips but
I think they are a good team – when they did
interviews together they bounced off each
other well.”
However, he admits he was a little
surprised by how Hunt For The Wilderpeople
has been embraced by international
audiences. “I knew it would appeal to New
Zealanders – and to some extent Australians
– but we didn’t realise it would travel so well.”
Waititi believes its appeal lies partly in the
fact that it’s a true underdog story, but also
because it’s not as cynical as many modern
day movies. “There is a little bit of that in
there, but at the end of the day it’s a nice
story about two people trying to find family –
and then they do.”
John Ferguson
Hunt For The Wilderpeople is out on now DVD
and Blu-ray; Thor: Ragnarok is due in cinemas in
the latter half of 2017
all in a day's work
From Hunt ForTheWilderpeople to Thor 3 , 2016 has been a big year for
TaikaWaititi. However, the Kiwi director has been taking things in his stride.
Last month saw the release of Oasis:
Supersonic, which documents the Britpop
icons' first five years and their meteoric rise in
popularity.
McGee, the colourful former boss of Creation
Records, is not surprised that Supersonic only
covers their early years. In a wide-ranging
interview, he told STACK: “I think it would be
really hard to do a film on their entire career –
really difficult, to be honest with you.”
However, he admits he was surprised when
they eventually split up. “I thought it was going
to go on and just beThe Rolling Stones – it was
our generation’s Rolling Stones.”
Nevertheless, he doesn’t envisage that they
will be reuniting anytime soon. “Noel Gallagher
will never reform, but maybe Liam, in five or ten
years time, might form Oasis and not have Noel
in it,” McGee says. “I think he’ll get away with
it because all people really want is the Oasis
songs done by most of the people in the original
band with someone who can play as good as
Noel.”
Paul Jones
Oasis: Supersonic is out on
now DVD and Blu-ray. Check out
the digital edition of STACK for
the full interview.
SHAKERMAKER: ALAN MCGEE ON OASIS
Alan McGee, the man who signed Oasis, was surprised when they
split up – but doubts they will get back together again.