Directors Mans Marlind And Bjorn Stein Open Up About ‘Underworld: Awakening’

The ‘Underworld’ will once again see war when it rolls into theaters later this month, but instead of just Vampires and Lycans, humans are now involved. Bringing this war to the big screen are directors Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein. This is the biggest movie that the duo has ever been involved in and in an interview with STYD, they talk about their vision and what they hoped to accomplish within the ‘Underworld’ franchise.

Although the war has now elevated from the “Underworld” to topside, Marlind and Stein both state that they strove to keep the same tone that was in the previous ‘Underworld’ movies. They wanted to make sure their movie kept that ‘Underworld’ feel. As Stein says, “The tone of ‘Underworld’ is that it takes itself kind of seriously… The seriousness of it works because there’s so much cool (stuff) in it like the gizmos, the weaponry and the fight sequences.  All of that makes it impressive.”

Action is the key word for the film. When the two directors came on board, they wanted to push themselves and see how intense they could make ‘Underground: Awakenings.’ “One of the things we worked the hardest on is delivering hard-hitting action,” says Marlind, “We wanted to start tough and keep pounding away until the end of the first reel, which is 13 minutes later.  I think we f**kin’ pulled it off…. We had our stunt coordinator working with us a lot to work out the action and especially in 3D.”

Also expect to see many more and different creatures than before and a different kind of Lycan! In order to achieve this, the duo used both CGI and good ol’ costuming and make up. “We have one werewolf that is really, really, really big that we could not have pulled off with a suit.  That will be all CG.” Stein explains.

As for a possibility of a sequel to ‘Underworld: Awakening’, all they say is “It’s the beginning of something new.  I’ll say that our ending, it totally leaves the door open for a future.”

For the full interview, visit STYD and if you didn’t get a chance yet, check out all the action Marlind and Stein talked about in the movie’s full theatrical trailer.

‘Underworld: Awakening’ stars Kate Beckinsale, Stephen Rea, Michael Ealy, Theo James, India Eisley and Charles Dance and will be released on January 20, 2012.