- Title: USA /CANADA: JOEL SCHMACHER PREMIERE'S HIS LOW BUDGET VIETNAM FILM " TIGERLAND"
- Date: 15th September 2000
- Summary: TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA (SEPTEMBER 14) (REUTERS- ACCESS ALL) SCU (SOUNDBITE) (ENGLISH) COLIN FARRELL SAYING OF LEARNING A TEXAS ACCENT, It was tough, yeah. It was hard work but it was great. It was great to be able to get the chance to do that and, you know, I love the accent anyway, the Texan drawl and the southern thing. It has a certain musicality to it that isn't unl
- Embargoed: 30th September 2000 13:00
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- Location: TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA & LOS ANGELES, US & FILM LOCATIONS
- City:
- Country: Canada
- Reuters ID: LVAA85LQ1LKSOAX346CNF09QXKZH
- Story Text: After helming big-budgeted blockbusters such as two "Batman" films and two John Grisham thrillers, filmmaker Joel Schumacher scales things way down with his latest effort, the low budget, no-name ensemble cast Vietnam War drama "Tigerland." Schumacher attended the film's Los Angeles premiere.
To today's audiences, Schumacher is the director who has perfected the summer blockbuster genre.
Four of his recent films, "The Client," "A Time to Kill," "Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin" have grossed in excess of $100 million while boasting of huge stars and even bigger budgets.
But many people forget that he started out his career directing low budget, character-driven features with largely unknown casts such as "St. Elmo's Fire," "The Lost Boys" and "Flatliners."
Many of the actors in those films got their big break with Schumacher and went on to become huge stars, including Julia Roberts, Demi Moore and Jason Patric.
Even his later work launched unknowns such as Matthew McConaughey and "The Client" star Brad Renfro.
Now Schumacher is poised to strike again, this time with an ultra low-budget gritty drama about young men training for combat in the brutal killing fields of Vietnam, circa 1971.
His big discoveries this time around include Colin Farrell, a charismatic Irishman who perfected a Texas accent to play Roland Bozz, a defiant and rebellious recruit desperately trying to avoid service in Vietnam.
Even though this is his first leading role in a feature film, Farrell is already gracing the covers of American magazines and being touted as the next big thing.
Also on the upswing is Matthew Davis, who plays Private Jim Paxton, the film's nararator and overzealous enlistee who naively sees Vietnam as a chance to write the great American novel. Davis recently had a supporting role in the number one horror hit "Urban Legends 2."
Rounding out the main cast is another newcomer named Shea Whigham. He plays Wilson, the bloodthirsty grunt who relishes the opportunity to do battle in the jungles of Vietnam.
Schumacher illustrates the dedication and talent of his young cast by telling the story of an audition he staged with Farrell and Whigham for the film's producer Arnon Milchen in an expensive hotel suite in New York.
In the film, the two actors play vicious adversaries who come to blows several times. They played out one such scene in the hotel room, almost destroying their lavish surroundings in the process.
After the dust settled, Milchen and Schumacher knew they had found their actors.
Once the cast was assembled, the actors underwent two weeks of boot camp basic training, not unlike the training real recruits would've experienced back in 1971.
Once filming began, the actors endured long hours, performed their own stunts and were stripped of all luxeries usually associated with Hollywood filmmaking, even makeup.
The result is what Schumacher calls "the closest thing I've done to a documentary."
"Tigerland" opens in select theaters throughout the United States this week.
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