Interview: Skyline Co-Writer Liam O’Donnell Part II

In part one of our interview, Skyline co-writer Liam O’Donnell and I discussed marketing, issues with the screenplay, and the MPAA. In the second part of this post-mortem interview, we cover creature design, the ending, and sequel plans. Note that there are spoilers throughout this interview for those who have not seen the movie.

Creature Concepts:

Even if you feel the acting and story in Skyline was lacking, I felt that the special effects kept audience interest throughout the movie. There was a nice mix of both hi-tech ships and monsters that you don’t see in modern sci-fi invasion movies.

Jonathan: I think that the creature concepts really worked for this film and are what will keep people interested in this movie down the line.

Liam: I really like our aliens. You can make fun of our script and plot, but I’m very partial and defensive of our aliens. I think the way they decided to take out an entire civilization was really cool and there is obvious love and affection by everyone that worked on them.

Jonathan: Were the final alien designs similar to what you had in mind when writing the initial draft script?

Liam: No, it always does change, but development time was so short…. I did have visual references early on for the mothership and the other creatures took a little while to nail. The tanker [creature] was nailed pretty early on. We were in love with that guy.

There were a couple different competing designs for the drones and smaller ships. We knew they were going to have tentacles, but how they moved and stuff like that was nailed in the animation during post-production.

There is an interesting thing I’ll say about some of the design comments in the message boards. I’ll see [people] that are convinced our designs are ripped off from a video game like Resistance, or Crysis, or … Mass Effect 2, but the thing is that none of us have played these games. The last time I was really into [a game] was Halo 3 and I had to put it down because I had to focus on my newborn son.

It’s funny that all of those different gamers think that different concepts were taken from their game, but half the ships were designed by a completely different guy at Hydraulx and the tankers were designed by ADI and I think it just shows how similar everyone’s idea is for what a cool extraterrestrial [should look like]. It is a recurring theme you’ll see in many films, from Starship Troopers all the way on…

Jonathan: Off the top of my head, I can’t think of too many modern movies that have mixed both the idea of the hulking creatures with the high-tech designs of the mothership.

Liam: That is what we thought was cool too. I love the big hulking creature. If I could do anything, I’d put more of him in there, because it’s so fun to work on that kind of scale. When you see that kind of animation come in, it’s really fun.

Acting:

Skyline did not have the budget to hire a leading male that would add instant credibility to the movie or fill seats. Regardless of the intentions of the filmmakers, much of the acting did come off as over the top and I was interested in knowing how much of this was intentional.

Jonathan: I curious about some of the acting in the film and whether or not some of these actors were intentionally saying their lines like they were in a 50’s B-movie Sci-Fi. In particular, I wanted to talk about David Zayas who I really enjoyed in the film.

Liam: The interesting thing about David Zayas is that his character is very divisive. In a lot of reviews, some people go to attack it like the worst thing ever, while other say it is the saving grace in the film.

We were definitely pushing him to be big. You lost Donald Faison and you are unsure of where things are going and we wanted to infuse this big strong personality into it, so [Zayas] was pushed to be a big personality in the movie. He’s the guy Josh and I wrote the role for. There’s not too many people we thought could play Oliver and we were really excited to have him do it. His son read the script and said it was cool, so we were really happy to have him and love his performance. We loved his performance, but I noticed that his performance is incredibly divisive and that is kind of the movie in a nutshell.

The Ending:

The ending is a love/hate thing among those who watched Skyline. It was either the final nail in the coffin or this crazy insane ending you wished kept going for an extra 30 minutes.

Jonathan: Let’s talk about the ending. Was the idea always that Jarrod was going to turn into an alien?

Liam: That idea grew. It was a lot more mysterious. In the first draft, she [Elaine] woke up and heard her name and it was very ambiguous. As it grew, we wanted to make this weird scene with the she witness this brain going into an alien. Was it Jarrod? Wasn’t it?

The night before we filmed that scene, we [directors/writers] started thinking about how we could be more visually dynamic with the scene. While the original idea worked read well on the page, but you couldn’t picture what the hell was going on. When we started going over ideas, it got much longer and ended up being the sequence we saw.

Turning him into the alien was always a vague ambiguous thing that became cemented and him turning in the movie got bumped up with 2-3 days of reshoots to play up that plotline a little bit more.

I can see where people come up to that scene and think it is the best part of the movie and wish it was part of act 2. I think that goes back to what I was saying about a shorter development time. I really like the ending and it feels where we started to get free of the conventions and the settings and I wish that had been earlier and that we could further explore the dynamic. I really love that Jarrod alien character.

Jonathan: I think anyone who enjoyed the ending just really wanted to see it a little bit more. Once you see him turn into an alien, you want to see him take over the mothership and get a sense that this could help turn the tide of the war.

Liam: The sequel treatment we wrote is pretty insane and I don’t know if it will see the light of day. Maybe a graphic novel or something because it was a much bigger budget… we had a really cool place to link it up with another character and have a really cool dynamic between the three of them.

Jonathan: We see Jarrod getting exposed to the alien light during the film. Is it that exposure what allowed him to take over the alien he was in or was he just genetically unique? Is this happening to other people around the world?

Liam: There were different opinions in the production. Part of us were thinking maybe he was the only one or maybe it would be something we’d explore in the sequel with the possibility of others.  He was perhaps the first one, but others may follow.

Sequel Plans:

The ending of Skyline leaves a sequel wide open. It felt as if we only got to see 2/3 of the movie. Will fans of the film ever see a sequel?

Jonathan: Getting back to sequel plans, is that something that will be decided on based on DVD sales? I know it has been said that Skyline is already profitable.

Liam: It is kind of tough, because financially it would already make sense, even if it were direct to video, but we kind of wanted to go bigger and do something more ambitious, so there is some frustration there about changing plans, so we’ll have to see how it shapes up. Maybe there is a sequel that has elements of what we want to do but is a bit more grounded so it isn’t a 40 million dollar movie.

It is a little risky because of the both critical and audience reception, even though the movie made around 75 million worldwide with a budget of 10 million dollars. It all could make sense, but you don’t see the rabid hunger out there for a Skyline sequel, so it would have to take time to see if there is an audience there. We are enthusiastic about it, and we’d obviously want to continue to do the story, but I want people to want it.

And that wraps up our interview with Liam, who I want to thank for taking the time to speak with Daily Dead. For fans of Skyline, we have one more exclusive image of concept art from the film. The image below is the “pilot” alien concept art created in collaboration by ADI and the design team at Hydraulx.

The latest project Liam is currently working on is titled War of the Ages. The plan is for Skyline directors Colin and Greg Strause to direct the film, which they describe as "a big sword-and-sandal epic":

"Basically, an ancient artifact is uncovered, time is shattered and the seven greatest war leaders in history have to battle each other out. It’s sort of like The Lord of the Rings meets Gladiator. You have Napoleon vs. Julius Caesar vs. Attila the Hun vs. Genghis Khan vs. Alexander vs. Hannibal. So, there you go. It’s going to be in 3D and it’s a big sword-and-sandal epic."

>Go Back To Part I...