While we’re digging the cyberpunk look of Duncan Jones‘ ‘Mute’ which is being released today, at one point the entire film was going to be something entirely different. Instead of being a live-action thriller, he originally had the idea of using motion captured actors to make an animated movie. Not quite what we ended up with in the slightest and, to be honest from the trailers, I’m glad this didn’t come through.
The movie was in production in one form or another for the last 16 years and to “drum up interest,” Garland at one point pitched the project as an animated film and “also tried with a graphic novel” though nothing ever came from either of those ideas.
To expand on the animated film:
“It was motion capture, computer generated. We were really just trying different avenues to get people interested in making it. What was against us, as you now know, is that the script was so dark and difficult, and the subject matter just so atypical of anything that the studios might be interested in. It was just not going to happen that way. Stuart [Fenegan, producer] did this incredible job of trying every avenue, and he found that Netflix might be willing. I guess we hit the right combination of budget and cast; if we could get this cast, we could do it at this budget. That fills a slot they have in their stack sheets as far as how to make films.”
‘Mute’ feels like a movie which could have lent itself to maybe an anime style similar to that of ‘Ghost in the Shell‘ but I’m not sure if the look would have felt right in CGI. At least, until more recently when you could get the kind of clean-cut animation which we’ve seen from the previews of the upcoming ‘Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse.’
Are you happy that ‘Mute’ ended up as a live-action movie or would motion-captured CGI worked better for you? Share your thoughts below!
Source: Deadline
