Comic Con @ Home – Guillermo del Toro & Scott Cooper talk Antlers

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Fox Searchilght's ANTLERS, like so many 2020 movies, has been sitting on the shelf waiting out COVID-19. And while everyone involved and those of us excited for it have to wait until life returns to normalcy for the film to come out, we can still stoke our excitement with an early (relatively speaking) look at thriller. During a recent Comic Con @ Home Zoom call with director Scott Cooper and producer Guillermo del Toro via Collider, we get to hear the two dish about ANTLERS, take a peek at a new look at the film thanks to a featurette, and listen to the filmmakers talk about their favorite films, their working process, and more.

Here are some highlights from the chat, which you can watch in full below (new featurette included): 

– When asked what TV series Cooper and Del Toro would like to write/direct, Del Toro answered Night Gallery or Kolchak the Night Stalker.

– When asked which movies they have seen more than any other, Scott Cooper says he has seen The Godfather and Jaws more than any others because they're always on, although The Conversation is the film he seeks out the most. Del Toro says, Catch Me If You Can, Duel, Blade Runner, Creature from the Black Lagoon, among others.

– Del Toro says the three filmmakers who have influenced him the most are Walt Disney, Luis Bunuel and and Alfred Hitchcock. 

– If either of them could make any film they could right now, Cooper says it's a murder mystery taking place at West Point with Edgar Allan Poe as the lead character. Del Toro says At the Mountains of Madness or Frankenstein, two movies he's been linked to for many years. 

– Both Cooper and del Toro consider the Coen Brothers to be the best living filmmakers. 

– Cooper speaks in detail about how much research he did with Native American experts into the legend of the Wendigo, the main creature and villain in the film. 

– Del Toro says that when creating the Wendigo creature, he told the FX team they weren't creating a monster, they were creating a god. He had to look ancient, powerful, and one with nature. It was important to them to make the creature look like it literally came from the center of the Earth. 

– The creature was made with a mixture of practical effects and CGI. Del Toro has been combining both techniques since Mimic. 

– For the lead role, Cooper wanted to find a child actor who had never been in a film before, and after a long search he found him in the form of Jeremy Thomas. Cooper admitted it wasn't an easy shoot for the young actor. 

– Cooper isn't sure what his next project is, but he has written scripts for Christian Bale (who he directed in Hostiles and Out of the Furnace) and Elisabeth Moss. 

– Del Toro talks about the difficulties of getting Nightmare Alley back up and running because of scheduling amid the pandemic. 

It's an interview filled with interesting filmmaking advice/stories from both Cooper and del Toro, so check it out below!

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