24 January 2012

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When it comes to the depiction of Canis lupis in the movie THE GREY, director Joe Carnahan is ready to defend his big, bad wolves. At a recent press event with THE GREY cast and the director, the animatronic wolves in the movie were criticized for their unrealistical monstrous size.

In THE GREY starring Liam Neeson, a pack of wolves hunt down the stranded plane crash survivors in the snow-filled wilderness. In writing and creating his wolves for the movie, Carnahan intentionally went big. He wanted his wolves to be menacing and epic.

“I have a photo reference of wolves that are bigger than the alpha in our movie, that are 6 feet five inches on their haunches. The idea that these wolves would be out remotely, in the middle of nowhere and because they had to take down bigger game, they would genetically be bigger. For every kind of immutable law that we have about how a wolf is going to behave, or how it’s not going to behave, we can look to nature, which is the most wild and unpredictable thing and say that’s just not the case.”

To make his point even clearer he used an example of an incident in Siberia where 400 wolves created a giant pack and killed over 30 horses in two days. “Are those wolves behaving like regular wolves?” he asks.

As a big fan of studying evolution Joe went on to explain how Adaptive Radiation is changing things every day. He used an example of Sherpa children that have been born with 25 additional genes that we don’t have because they grew up at a higher altitude where the elevation has caused their lungs to adapt. But when it comes down to it, the wolves are larger than normal in THE GREY because they are meant to be mythic and ethereal. In THE GREY, the wolves are meant to be a threat.

Liam Neeson also defended the size of the wolves and compared it to the shark in Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

“It’s a movie! And the wolves in our film are slightly mythologized. They’re not quite real, but they should have a little bit of the aspect of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. It’s like a Great White, but it’s exaggerated.”

Liam Neeson Interview

Dermot Mulroney also references Spielberg's shark and looks to literary history to explain that THE GREY isn't the first story to use wolves as antagonists.

"If there was ever a creature that we are hard-wired to fear it is the wolf. It’s that thing out there in the woods. The Grimm Brother’s made it a wolf. James Cameron made it an alien. Spielberg made it a shark. So this is just that and only that. It’s not a statement of what we should be doing with wolves or managing them.”

Frank Grillo is hoping that the audience will not get hung up on the wolves.

“It’s not how authentic we can make the wolves look, that’s not what we set out to make. It’s not like we said okay these have to look exactly like these wolves. They’re kind of mythical, they’re on the periphery, and that’s how they are supposed to be. So hopefully people will get it.”

James Badge Dale concurs with his co-stars and director.

“It’s not a literal movie! It’s a yarn, it’s a fable. There is something kind of ethereal about the whole thing, something more on the fantastical side. It’s a plane crash and wolves eat everybody.”

With a budget of 25 million, there was very little CGI in THE GREY. The wolves were mostly animatronic with about three men manipulating each wolf puppet. Liam Neeson said that when the wolves are facing you down and you could feel their breath on your cheek, the effect was very real. But, when asked how he could keep himself from laughing, he said, “You just don’t.” For Neeson the wolves were real.

No matter what the reaction is towards the wolves, the director and the cast are braced for controversy. “Do I make them a greater threat? Absolutely!” claims the director.

“Like Jaws a shark won’t butt his head against the side or bend the planks of a boat. Or, jump up on the stern of a ship and tip the thing over. But I also think, and what I heard is really interesting is that there are these absolute truisms, empirical evidence of what they will or will not do, I just think that’s really short sighted. I’m not making a documentary here.”

Dermont goes on to explain THE GREY is a fictional movie and the wolves are merely an obstacle for the characters. For those taking the movie as a statement against wolves are mistaken, he says.

“I have seen a number of other movies where they make stuff up. So that’s the answer to whether wolves are good or bad. And if anybody’s going to take up the protest that we are wolf hating then I think they are looking at it the wrong way.”

Is THE GREY portraying the big bad wolf in an unrealistic way?  What are your thoughts?

THE GREY is in movie theatres January 27.