The movie of Maurice Gee's fantasy tale Under the Mountain has weathered some storms. Heading to the end of the shoot, director Jonathan King and star Sam Neill talked to Russell Baillie
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It might be Glenfield outside but inside the geography has come adrift.
It's as if bits of Auckland have been sucked through time and space - or at least past the retail outlets of Wairau Park - and through the warehouse doors.
There's part of the crater of Rangitoto Island complete with viewing platform and ti tree looking dark and creepy. There's a bit of the bottom of Lake Pupuke. There's a slice of a nice Takapuna townhouse - with a painting of Rangitoto silhouetted on its walls. There's bits of police station upstairs complete with interview room, the scorched furniture of which suggests the last interrogation didn't end well.
But through the next door is the really impressive bit, the innards of a rickety mansion which at the moment is a hive of industry - it's interior is getting a makeover which suggests something very nasty has taken root in its floors, walls and ceilings.
Welcome to Under the Mountain , the movie. The 1979 children's story by Maurice Gee has already been adapted for the screen in the 1981 eight-part television series. It scared the bejesus out of Kiwi kids in a way Dr Who's Daleks had done a decade before.
The story centres on redheaded twins Theo and Rachel and the mysterious Mr Jones who revealed to them that only their special powers could help them save the Earth from the slug-like aliens called the Wilberforces, who hid under Rangitoto.
The film is the second feature to be directed by Jonathan King after last year's zombie sheep comedy Black Sheep. It has faced some hurdles on the way. Production was postponed for three months in May after one of the film's backers, international sales agency Capitol Films ran into difficulties.
That forced the producers to refinance the $10 million-plus budget but cameras started rolling in August, just in time for the rain.
"We had two dreadful weeks,' says King as his crew sets up another shot, "And started taking it very personally - it starts affecting your ability to work. You start thinking it's going to affect a film that is going to be around for the rest of my life.'
"The most frustrating thing has been standing under an umbrella in the rain thinking 'f*** I will not be able to come back to this location. I have three shots left but I only have time for two shots what are those two shots going to be?'
But it's now day 28 of the 38-day shoot. Outside the sun is shining and it has been all week.
The air of quiet industriousness which pervades the Glenfield studio today suggests the film is nearly in the can before shifting to Wellywood facilities like Park Road Post for the six-month post-production period. Weta Workshop has also been involved in the design of the movie's creatures.
The schedule on the production office wall still has much location shooting to do, some at Takapuna's actual Lake Pupuke where the outsides of that mansion - chez Wilberforce - have been built on the shore.
Showing TimeOut the designs for the film and the house with its purposefully skew-whiff angles and rotting weatherboards, production designer Ralph Davies laughs that his crew was approached by someone offering to reclad the place in nice new cedar.
The camera today is crammed into the house, an interior replication of a real Takapuna house used earlier in the shoot. The early afternoon session is taken up with a front-door encounter between Rachel (Sophie McBride) one of the film's teen twins and the evil Mr Wilberforce (Oliver Driver).
"Look, there's Oliver Driver latex-free - cutting a fine figure,' shouts Sam Neill across the warehouse dock as his co-star heads towards the set, all 2m of him in a police uniform.
"This is a world in which policemen can mutate,' Neill chuckles. He's thankful that as Mr Jones - though like the Wilberforces, from another world - his role doesn't require any prosthetics.
"I've served my time in latex.'
Though he seems quite excited by his own outfit, an ancient sports jacket topping off his geezer-ish get-up. And not just because it was made - many years ago it appears - in Mosgiel, down near where Neill lives when he's not tripping around the world, acting.
"It's the first time I have ever worn a costume I actually envisioned in my head beforehand. And they produced ... exactly the jacket I was thinking of.'
For Neill, this marks two New Zealand films in close succession - he plays the title role in Dean Spanley, the second feature by Toa Fraser after his No.2. And no, he's not bringing his high profile to these films out of the kindness.
"No I don't have an altruistic bone in my body. I only do things for selfish reasons and one of the selfish reasons is it's nice to be home.'
Under The Mountain might be a family-friendly sci-fi fantasy feature but his Mr Jones will be different to the book and the TV series.
"I think he's a rather darker character than we are used to. He's less benign than a kindly uncle.
"He's been here for 200 years trying to save the world and trying to blend in - not particularly successfully - and so he has seen a fair bit of Auckland. He's seen a few mayors come and go and he knows all about the traffic and has seen some absolutely shithouse development here and there.'
Asked about Neill's involvement, King jokes: "Someone needed to give him a break. Can't get any work at home so ... no we are thrilled to have him.
"We wanted someone of substance in that part and who better from New Zealand? And it's so great for us to have such a terrific actor in the part and someone with such weight, which will be great for the film at home and also internationally.'
King says he and co-writer Matthew Grainger had made some changes to the story - they've made the twins older for one thing. "We wanted it to be a scary film. The kids in the film are older than they are in the book. So they are 15 in the film and that has been a really important thing tonally.
"We've added some subplot elements and back story elements to the human story - not to say the original didn't have it.
"But for the demands of this kind of film, post Lord of the Rings and post Harry Potter, we wanted to make as rich and complex a version of the story as we could, and add some elements to the story that respond well to the kids being older and the emotional and life stakes being higher.'
And aside from the the likes of Neill, Driver and a a cast which ranges from newcomers McBride and Tom Cameron as the twins, to a range of experienced actors, some of whom appeared in the TV series, one of the major characters in the film is Auckland.
"Auckland is quite a scary, eerie place with strange and sinister undercurrents. Auckland is a city built on a ring of volcanoes. So we wanted to make that an aspect of the film and that is something that appealed internationally about the story.
"There is a certain vision of Auckland which is endlessly repackaged and sold back to Auckland and we weren't interested in that. We all live in Wellington. So it's interesting to come here and look at Auckland just through the lens of this story.'
LOWDOWN
What: Under the Mountain, the movie
When: Due for release late 2009
