MARK STEVEN JOHNSON TALKS DAREDEVIL

By Rob Allstetter / The Comics Continuum

PASADENA, Calif. - Continuing the The Continuum's series of reports from the Daredevil movie press junket, here's the first part of a roundtable interview with director Mark Steven Johnson.

QUESTION: Why didn't you have any test screenings? Was it to keep it off the Internet?

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON: That was a big part of it. Yeah, I was really excited about not doing the test screenings, and then I kind of missed them because we were in a vacuum for so long. You just go, "I don't know if this is funny. I don't know if people are going to get this. I don't know if we went too far." You really don't know.

I was glad, and I was also worried. Literally, the other night was the first time we played it in front of a big audience - ever. I did one little press screening at a theater at Fox and then that was it.

So we rushed in there and snuck in and sat down and starting watching it. And it was like, "Wow! This is a real audience." It's packed in there and it's on the big screen, and I never saw it like that.

QUESTION: How close what you had in your head the past 20 years saw its way to the screen?

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON: Really close. I'm really happy. Surprisingly close. It is really is up there. Certain limitations you always have because of physical cost or whatever. This isn't a $140-million movie, you know what I mean? By big movie standards, it's actually an inexpensive movie, believe it or not.

The budget's $80 (million). Our visual effects budget is $6 million. Spider-Man was $40 million. So that just shows you the difference. I'm really proud of what we got up there for $6 million. I think it's pretty amazing.

QUESTION: How hard it is to avoid comparisons to Spider-Man? How do you go about creating something from a world people know about it, but make it different?

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON: I just keep coming back to what I loved about it. And I figured if it works for me and works for the fans, I think the general audience will respond to it. I really believe it.

People always say, "Well, you've got to please the general audience because nobody knows who Daredevil is," which is true, but this character works. He's been around since '64. So many characters come and go and can't hold up a comic, but this one does. There's something about it that people respond to.

So I always just go back to the comic. I'd be on set, shooting scenes, and I would just tear out pages, put them up on the wall and say, "This is what we're shooting today and I want it to look just like this." The Frank Miller stuff, I'd just take it out, and say, "I want it to be lit like this and framed like this," and everything - just have this tone.

We'd do that all the time. Not just to be a geek, but because it works.

QUESTION: What went into the decision of having him take these long jumps and leaping over things?

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON: He does do this stuff in the comic book.

QUESTION: But not to the extreme…

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON: He actually does. If you look at some of the stuff in Guardian Devil, he does huge leaps and big swan dives. Frame-by-frame stuff, you'll see from that run.

The idea was that by the accident giving him his hyper-acute senses, with the touch and everything else, it would also help him with strength and balance, so he would do things that we can't do. He doesn't have the strength of 10 men, but he does know how to land, how to fall, how to brace himself. He uses his senses that way, and uses his radar sense also to navigate himself.

It's a thing between, yes, it's realistic to show the repercussions of that. He'll do that big, amazing dive, and it's like, "Wow, nobody can survive that dive!" Then you'll see that guy with knee surgery and Vicodin, and he's scars. And he doesn't have bullets bouncing off his chest. It's both worlds. I'm trying to do both.

I'm trying to get the big "Wow" shots and at the same time also show they are repercussions to it. Punishing your body like that really does hurt. He really does feel it. Especially, which I think is really cool, if you've got super-sensitive touch, he would feel things worse than the average guy. That's why when the tooth pulled out, I really pumped up the sound effect of that sound, because that would hurt more for him than a normal person, which I think is a cool idea, too.

QUESTION: The original comics weren't quite this dark. Did it come later?

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON:They came during the Frank Miller era. Frank really brought Daredevil to another place, a much darker and grittier real-world place, where he got mixed up in right and wrong, and he keep trying to do this right thing.

It got super dark. In Frank's version, Karen Page - the secretary you see in the office getting the coffee - she becomes Matt Murdock's love. And they end up breaking up and she becomes a porno actress and becoming a heroine addict down in Mexico and selling out his identity for some smack. It doesn't get much darker than that.

QUESTION: Was there any pressure to change the tone?

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON: I was really, really appreciative of the studio for letting me do this. Because, after Spider-Man, it would have been very easy for the studio to say, "OK guys, we want to do bright, primary colors. We don't want this gritty look that you've been talking about. We don't want this shot, that shot. They're going to live happily ever after."

It would have been really easy to do that. People do that all the time, just to make as much any they can. Now, they want to make a lot of money, and I hope they do, but they also knew we had committed to a very strong point of view, a very different tale for a super-hero. Whether it works or not, I don't know. Maybe people won't dig it.

We don't have that big third act, on top of the bridge with the Green Goblin holding the cub scouts and the car, or the mutant thing at the end of X-Men on the top of the Statue of Liberty taking over the world with that big mutant wave.

We don't got that. And it might be a mistake. People are so used to seeing that huge, bigger-than-life thing at the end. It might be a big mistake. I don't know. We just have two guys fighting in an office, and I think that's cool. But that's where with testing … people might say, "Where's the big finale?" I think it's cool. It's more personal.

QUESTION: I liked Kingpin taking off his mask.

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON:Oh, good. That drives me crazy in movies. It always drives me nuts. I always think, "Why don't they take their masks? Aren't they curious who it is?" And so I thought, "I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to have him take it off." And also there's so much more emotion to see Ben (Affleck) fighting and actually see the emotion of his face, where it can't be covered up.

QUESTION: How did you know Ben was the right person for Daredevil?

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON:He's a fan, like me. He's been a geek. And knowing that I wasn't a logical choice for this, that I was long shot but that I cared so much, I just wanted somebody who got it, who really wanted to make the movie that I wanted to. When I read his introduction to Kevin Smith's run, I went, "Oh, cool. That's exactly how I feel. He feels exactly liked I do."

So when we met him, it was just shorthand. It was two geeks talking about a character they've loved all their life. That meant more to me than anything.

I'm also a fan of his. And physically, I thought he was right. And I was excited, frankly, to another side of Ben. He's really different in this movie. When you meet him and you see him, you really forget about Ben Affleck, which is really tough to do with all the media hype. To really believe that he is Matt Murdock.

QUESTION: As a comic geek, can you talk about Kingpin being a black actor? Was that a hard decision?

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON:Not really. At first, I definitely planned on casting a white guy because I wanted everyone to look exactly like the comic book. The problem was there were two groups of people: Great actors who weren't big enough. Because when you see Ben, and he's in the boots, he's almost 6-4. He's huge. And this Kingpin, the whole thing about him is his size, and to find a guy bigger than Ben is tough. And so that was a problem.

And then there were wrestlers who were big or whatever and had the muscles and size, and they couldn't act.

So I kept thinking, "God, Michael Clarke Duncan is perfect for me." I looked at the shaved head, the deep voice, the strength, the presence, the size, everything. He's perfect. But he's black. And, at one point, I thought, "This is just stupid. I'm being so much more to be truth to the spirit of that character to cast Michael than to get some other guy who is white but doesn't have those other attributes."

I knew the fans initially would freak out because I cast this black guy in the role.

QUESTION: Have there been things on the Internet?

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON:Oh sure, there was a whole "we want our Kingpin white" kind of thing going on. Which is fine, by the way. I'm the biggest geek of them all. I get that.

But I know now there's been a big turn. Because people are starting to see him and go, "Wow, he really is the Kingpin." He is.

Some of the fans, what they don't understand, is in the comics he looks obese. But in fact, he's solid muscle - this grotesquely over developed muscle. And that in hand-to-hand combat, he kills Daredevil, breaks him in half. Which I like.

Otherwise, you just end with a Lex Luthor guy, a bald, white guy who's a billionaire. And who needs that? I wanted a huge mano-y-mano fight.

QUESTION: Why did you hire Jennifer Garner and what was she like to work with?

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON:Well, you see her. She's a dream. She's unbelievable. We looked at literally hundreds of people for the role, some unknown and some famous actresses. Lots of people. Great people.

But until you get two people together, you just don't know. You see a really beautiful actress, real famous and real talented and you go, "This is going to be great." And then she's with Ben, and nothing happens. You don't know why. It sounds stupid, but it's true. It's just chemistry that doesn't work.

Jen and he had chemistry. And she also had this great soul. When I was in New York for a couple of weeks, I had Frank Miller come - who created Elektra. And I was really nervous about him coming for a lot of reasons. I really wanted his seal of approval.

And when he met her, he got really emotional. It was really cool to see Frank get choked up. He's like, "That's her."

And I'm like, "Really?" Because she's not in the red dress, the red outfit, and she's not Greek."

He said, "That doesn't matter." And he took out his Elektra Lives Again book, which he had brought me and had autographed for me, and he covered up everything but the eyes. And he said, "Look at the eyes."

And it's cool. If you look at the cover of Elektra Lives Again and you see these eyes - even though she looks all bad-ass, she's got her sais out - her eyes, she looks like she's wounded. And Jennifer's got those eyes. Oh, you just want to take care of her. Even she's being bad ass, you worry for her.

QUESTION: How did Daredevil come back from his injury?

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON: The idea was that the priest stopped the bleeding. He was able to the bleeding to stop, that was the first thing. He was able to treat his wound.

And the second thing, was the classic super-hero thing where you have to reach down to for something extra to continue. As he says to the father, "Have faith, father, isn't that right?" The idea that he's fighting in this church and there might be some sort of spiritual intervention, that somehow God is involved in it.

It's definitely there. That's why they're fighting in a big church. That's why the movie starts there and, in a way, ends there.

QUESTION: What make the super-hero movies work? What is the pattern?

MARK STEVEN JOHNSON:I don't if they all are working. I know the Marvel ones are working because they are more real world. I think that people relate to them a lot more.

I was talking to a friend of mine. I think it's a different time now, quite honestly, and people want heroes. It sounds corny, but I think it's true. I think people want someone to believe in.

What I like about Daredevil is that I really feels it's a post-911 hero in a way. It's not black and white; it's not clear-cut what he's doing. He's not grabbing purse-snatchers and saying, "Here's your purse, m'aam." It's not about that.

It's a very confusing world. And theme of the movie, "Can one man make a difference?", at the end of the movie, he's saying it about Ben Urich, the reporter, in a way, which I think is really cool He's not trying to save the world. He's just trying to make a difference in the neighborhood

X-Men: The Next Dimension (PS2) Bastion and his prime sentinels have devised a way to destroy the mutants once and for all. They've kidnapped Forge to help create the ultimate weapon. Now it's up to the X-Men to smash the scheme before they bite the dust, even if it means teaming with their arch-enemy, The Brotherhood. Features:Destroy your environment as you fight, and use nearby objects to fend off foes. Bring 24 of your favorite X-Men characters to life with incredible graphics and smooth animation. Battle through expansive 3D levels that imitate epic comic and film superhero battles. Enjoy 21 mind-bending, dynamic environments.Experience large-scale close-up combat.