<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"\n\nYes, Attack the Block is a movie about aliens. But instead of a worldwide outbreak as we've seen so many times, what if these aliens landed in one particular area\u2014perhaps even just one neighborhood? Attack the Block begins, auspiciously enough, with a group of teenagers somewhat violently mugging a woman on the streets of the Lambeth neighborhood of London. After the aforementioned mugging, the sky begins to rain down a plethora of nasty critters as our villains-turned-heroes navigate the streets in an effort to stay alive. What makes Attack the Block drastically different from your average alien invasion film\u2014and we've seen a lot of those this year\u2014is that these young scoundrels quickly become the protagonists of the film. But, wait, these guys just did an awful thing, aren't we supposed to hate them? Isn't that a bizarre way to begin a film? It is, but ecutive producer Edgar Wright, along with his first time director Joe Cornish, aren't exactly known for their ability to conform.\n\nSince Attack the Block's debut at the South by Southwest film festival in March, the Internet has been abuzz with tales of indecipherable accents (not true) and what is possibly the most unique movie going experience of 2011 (very much is true). GQ spoke to Cornish and Wright about their film, opening in limited release in the U.S. this Friday, and how Attack the Block can avoid the same box-office fate as Wright's critically beloved 2010, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.\n\nGQ: I truly despise the main characters when this movie begins. That's unusual. \n\n Joe Cornish: Yeah, the film is unusual in lots of ways: It's not a sequel, it's not based on an existing brand, it doesn't have any major stars in big roles, it's not a reboot, it doesn't have that much CGI in it, and it also centers around an anti-hero. I think a lot of those things are unusual. But a lot of people are reacting to that in a really good way. You know, I think a lot of contemporary movies bend over backwards to make their protagonist as lovable as possible in the first 20 minutes. And we kind of do the opposite; we flip it around. But then, of course, the bad action that my lead character does at the beginning sort of invites retribution from above and he goes on a journey and we go on a journey with him. Hopefully it gives him a little deliverance kind of thing.\n\nGQ: What's the fine line between having your main character do something bad and doing something really bad where there's no way we could ever root for him again?\n\n Joe Cornish: There was loads of discussion. When you make a movie you get hundreds of people involved in giving notes on the script and the tone. We were very aware that we were walking that line. But, at the same time, it's a comic book movie; it's kind of an escapist movie\u2014a fantasy movie. And the bottom line is: It's not real. And it's got aliens with glow-in-the-dark teeth. So, you don't want to take it too seriously; it's a journey kind of connecting back to anti-heroes from movie in the past. I think the basic idea is that the person who does something bad is also capable of doing something good and it's not particularly radical to me. It exists in various extremely ancient faiths; it exists in many movies from the '40s onwards. It may seem unusual now because of the current, maybe, conservative climate in moviemaking, but to me it was why I was interested in doing it and it's what drove me to do it.\n\nGQ: You mention that the movie isn't real\u2014and that's obviously true. But I do think it's one of the most realistic depictions of how a human being would react to an alien invasion. In most films the characters accept the fact that aliens exist way too quickly and just move on to \"We must fight them!\"\n\n Joe Cornish: I did a lot of research for the film and I spoke to hundreds and hundreds of kids from the neighborhood I lived and where we shot the film and recorded them. What I'm trying to do here is fuse the real world with fantasy and mix the two up and create a heightened reality. So, some of the reactions are real and some of the dialogue is real from what I got from kids when I researched it. And my alien wishes he landed in Elliott's back yard [laughs].\n\nEdgar Wright: I think that's something that Joe and I are both interested in as well: taking that keyhole response to a bigger situation. It's something that I've dealt with as well in my films: How would you really react? You're not responsible for saving the world but you're reacting to a thing in your backyard. I think you're right, in a lot of big Hollywood films you're looking at a military response\u2014you know, Transformers or Battle: Los Angeles. And that's very different, what would the government do and what soldiers do, which maybe isn't as interesting as what you or I or younger kids would do in that situation.\n\nJoe Cornish: Yeah, this is very much a character piece. It's a character study. It's using a crazy alien invasion to study the character of this kid. And that's absolutely what motivated me to write it: to explore the character. So the military or the police are only relevant in the sense of how they would be relevant to that character.\n\nGQ: And it's great to see the reason for the invasion is more to do with alien biology than alien dickishness.\n\n Joe Cornish: The idea was, really, to create a creature out of all the epithets the British media sometimes use to describe those kids. They describe them as \"feral,\" or \"animalistic.\" And my idea was, \"OK, what if you created a creature out of all of those words and set it against this stereotype? How would you then see the humanity and the truthful dimensionality of the characters?\" So, yeah, that was very much the idea.\n\nGQ: You mentioned the conservative moviemaking climate. Does being away from the Los Angeles studio structure help the process of making something original like this film?\n\n Edgar Wright: Joe and I have hung out recently in L.A. as well. [laughs]\n\nJoe Cornish: I love Los Angeles! It really excites me, but I'm also cautious...\n\nEdgar Wright: I guess the thing is with an independent film, you have the license to be more specific and you get very different rewards from the movie. So I think it's, you know, sort of similar to when I did Shaun of the Dead, people responded to it because they were seeing a neighborhood they haven't really seen on-screen. It's not just similar with Attack the Block in terms of European. There are so many genre films\u2014there have been so many alien movies\u2014to find any kind of new angle on it. To be incredibly specific about whom you are going to show and whom you are going to represent and see how they are going to respond to this situation\u2014I think it is just more interesting. I think Hollywood movies, in a way, are to show a universal response. Within a Transformers movie, the characters in it get even played in terms of their sex, age, race and everything else. Like in Independence Day, you're showing an entire world reacting to this crisis. And what's great about Joe's film is that you're looking at a very specific corner of the world.\n\nGQ: The aliens themselves are quite frightening\u2014glowing teeth and a lot of black. Did you almost take a \"less is more\" approach to their design? \n\n Joe Cornish: I knew we didn't have the budget to do a fully CGI creature. And I didn't want to do one because I loved practical creature effects. I love E.T., I love Gremlins, I love Predator\u2014I love the style and sense of authorship and sense of honesty and also the sense of physical connection you get in those movies. I prefer puppet Yoda to CGI Yoda! I don't mind that the tips of his ears boing around; I like that he's in the scene. So we used CGI to actually remove detail rather than add it. So we had a practical effect; the creature in the shot was either a guy in a suit or a puppeteer or animatronics, depending on what the setup was. We used CGI a little to enhance, but mainly to remove details. I have this thing about CGI monsters in contemporary movies: They're very \"samey\" to me. Like the dragon in Harry Potter could wander into Cloverfield and no one would bat an eyelid. And then he'd wander into Battle: Los Angeles...it's like the same monster is casually strolling between blockbusters.\n\nEdgar Wright: How do you know it's not the same monster?\n\nJoe Cornish: Maybe we're on to something here. Maybe it's an iPhone app for CGI monsters.\n\nEdgar Wright: He's actually a very well-known character actor in Los Angeles [laughs]. It's never, \"Hey, it's that guy.\" It's \"Hey, it's that monster.\"\n\nJoe Cornish: I think he's going out with Lindsay Lohan. Or that's what I've heard.\n\nGQ: When Attack the Block premiered at South by Southwest the topic became \"should an American release have subtitles because of the accents?\" So by the time I saw the film, I was honestly expecting not to understand the accents, but I understood everything perfectly and I'm not that smart.\n\n Edgar Wright: I think that is what sometimes happens...it's definitely an effect of the Internet: One person hypothesizes about it and then it becomes a story.\n\nJoe Cornish: There's a name for it, it's called \"churnalism,\" isn't it? It's just churning the same thing around.\n\nEdgar Wright: To be honest, it's no different to...it's just a cultural thing. Even in the U.K., the point of the slang the kids use is because they don't want adults to understand them. It's sort of actually used as a deliberate barrier. Isn't that right, Joe?\n\nJoe Cornish: Absolutely. Yeah, you know, if you read Dickens or Chaucer or Shakespeare, that's sort of slang. Watch Shakespeare in Love or Braveheart\u2014for me, that's the cool thing about movies; especially sci-fi movies. I like crazy words that are kind of a secret like Bespin or Hoth or dilithium crystals\u2014my mum doesn't know what the hell those things are, but me and my friends do. I think it's an asset; I think it's part of the whole bubblegum enjoyment.\n\nGQ: Last year at the time, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World had so much momentum coming out of Comic-Con, but failed to find an audience. How can this be different? Why did Scott Pilgrim fail? \n\n Edgar Wright: Well, I'm glad you asked that. I've been thinking about it a lot [laughs]. Well, I think the thing is that nobody is suggesting that Comic-Con represents every single person in the general audience in the United States. You know, it's a convention for comic book fans\u2014it originally wasn't even a film festival. The thing is, we did Comic-Con last year and it was fantastic and I have absolutely zero regrets about being here. Even a couple days later when you're doing a nationwide tour, you realize that you have a lot of work to do to get a general audience to understand what the film is. If you make films that take a gamble and do something slightly different\u2014in that way I think Attack the Block is easier than Scott Pilgrim. It's got an easier sell, \"young teens on the wrong side of the track take on aliens.\" Scott Pilgrim is something that was a little bit more difficult to put in one box. But, to me, that's not necessarily a bad thing about the movie. It says more about how movies are marketed on people's preconceptions. And, you know, a lot of movies you see do well that you or I don't think are any good, it's usually because they've got a trailer and a poster that work\u2014so even a font or a couple of faces that you recognize. I think Scott Pilgrim it was something where the general audience didn't necessarily understand straight away what it was.\n\nThe irony is that a year later is that it's done very well on Blu-ray and plays around the clock on HBO and I get people saying to me, \"Ah, I love Scott Pilgrim! Why didn't I see that in the theaters?\" And I say, \"I don't know, but, you know what? I'm glad you watched it now.\"\n\nGQ: I had a lot of friends in their 30s not realize that a lot of the jokes in the film were meant for people their age.\n\n Edgar Wright: That's just a thing about movie marketing. It wasn't like I was unaware of how difficult it was to explain because I would find myself on the publicity tour eventually just saying that it was a comedy. It was difficult to explain the kung-fu fights and everything else and I'd just say, \"It's a comedy!\" You realize when you say more than two genres you're kind of like...people want to put things in a very specific box and the thing I'm proudest of with Scott Pilgrim is that it doesn't fit into a box\u2014but that doesn't necessarily mean it's easy to market.\n\nJoe Cornish: Plus, I think if anybody made a list of the best movies ever made and the most successful movies ever made, there wouldn't be that many of the same movies on the same place on that list. The top ten of the pop charts are not the best songs in the country. I think people are smart enough to know that. And, also, the great thing about movies is that the theatrical release of a movie is the beginning of its life. And they last a long time. And there are many movies that don't fully catch on in the first two days that become classics\u2014and I actually love more because of that. And there are movies that are massive that nobody gives a shit about. So I don't think you can look at it like that and I don't think it's useful to look at it like that.\n\nGQ: Regardless, I do wish you the best of luck with Attack the Block because it's one of my favorite films so far in 2011.\n\n Edgar Wright: I would like to ask you something.\n\nGQ: OK.\n\n Edgar Wright: Don't go see any more movies this year."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/edgar-wright-joe-cornish-attack-block-interview>