Although he may only have two feature films to his name, director Panos Cosmatos has established himself as one of the most recognizable voices in the world of cinema in the past decade, with no other director fully capturing the stories or style set by the big screen. From the strange sci-fi head journey Beyond the black rainbow Or the drug-fueled path of love and revenge mandy, featuring an all-time great performance by Nicolas Cage, there are few dreamers like Cosmatos. In this respect, it is not surprising that Guillermo del Toro, a one-of-a-kind filmmaker, recruited Cosmatos and mandy Co-Writer Aaron Stewart Ann To Develop Part Of The New Netflix Series Guillermo del Toro’s intriguing cabinet.
Netflix describes the series, “Guillermo del Toro – master of horror – offers an unprecedented and genre-defining collection of stories that will challenge our traditional notions of horror. Guillermo del Toro’s intriguing cabinet An anthology of sinister stories, told by some of today’s most respected horror creators – including directors BabadookAnd the paste or collectAnd the mandyAnd so much more.”
In Cosmato’s “Watching,” a group of strangers is brought together by an eccentric for a mysterious “watch,” which is sure to change their lives forever. “Watching” stars Peter Weller, Eric Andre, Sophia Boutella, Charlene Yee, Steve Agee, Michael Thieralt and Saad Siddiqui.
ComicBook.com met with Cosmatos to talk about episode development, working in episodic structure, and whether he’ll be the next filmmaker to join Marvel’s roster.
ComicBook.com: Just the fact that this was a project coming out of Guillermo del Toro, what is your personal relationship with him and what effect has it had on you as a storyteller?
Panos Cosmatos: Oh, wow. I’ve always really admired Guillermo’s visual acumen, and his knowledge of the genre is unparalleled. So it’s like working with an amazing librarian/creator himself. I have the utmost respect for him and am so touched that he asked me to do this.
I like the initial out-of-context reaction like, “Oh, working with Guillermo is like working with a librarian.”
I mean, this is the best way.
Yes, of course. I think the wealth of knowledge he has is more than his storytelling style, he is definitely like the guardian of horror masters. I totally see what you’re saying.
It was funny because it came to me, I think, with five different scripts that were already written, or short stories, but I’d rather create my own stuff from the ground up. I had an idea of what I wanted the short film to be like, but…sorry, I lost track of the question and started answering a question you didn’t ask.
This will literally be my next question. I was curious about how you, Aaron, and Guillermo came together to develop this, if it was a completely original idea, or seems to have been influenced by some of the ideas that Guillermo might have brought you?
No, I eventually asked him if it would be OK if we just created our own story, Aaron and I. I had an idea for the collector, and I’ve always been fascinated by the collector, being one person to a certain extent, and wanted to do something about the addiction. Aaron and I were able to tell this story that involved both of them, I hope.
Your episode crew is awesome. Given that the people out there, probably Peter Wheeler out there, are comedians. Were they people you’ve always wanted to work with and had the opportunity to match the tone of the piece or was it a traditional casting process?
In general, the people I want to work with have been almost completely. I’ve always wanted to work with Eric. I love him. I’ve always wanted to work with Peter, and I’ve always wanted to work with Sophia. These are the guys who were on my radar who I thought were amazing, and I wanted to give a little different window into their abilities.
Once we actually brought them in, was there a lot of development in the story? They get comedic bits of dialogue and comedic conversations, but have they all pretty much shared, “No, that’s a horror story, so we need to introduce that first,”?
I think the story is two things. It’s a horror story, it’s an addictive metaphor, and it’s also a Scooby-Doo animation. Truly one of the biggest influences on the tone of animation was Scooby-Doo and EC Comics.
I can totally see it. Besides, and maybe that’s a bit of an answer, what I like about your episode and Beyond the black rainbowYour tone of voice is definitely high, but it never feels cynical. Never feel like you are intentionally inclined to items of this nature. Was there too much of a challenge when it came to finding that tone? Or since Scooby-Doo had an impact, were you just thinking, “Go as silly as you want, go as big as you want, and we’ll find it in the mod,”?
We did a lot of reading as a group, so we found the tune, I hope, before we filmed. So this is how the process went.
Talking about Beyond the black rainbowWhether in that or in your episode, the visuals are absolutely insane. There are times when I feel like my mind is completely melting as I watch one of your pictures unfold.
Thanks man.
For you, no matter what project you’re working on, do you have something on your mind, “This is exactly how I want this picture to appear”, or do you just have a concept that is collaborating with a visual effects artist to communicate that vision?
Usually, I have a very specific and distinct idea of what I want the final thing to look like. But the great thing about working with very talented people is that their ideas are generally good and their abilities… they are at the top of their field for a reason.
I knew I wanted to try to go further with this look as much as using font filters, star filters, and things like that. So me and Mike [Ragen] We worked to make sure we tried to make every shot stand out.
Through this story and some of your other stories, they are really giving us exactly as much information as we need while also inviting us into this vast surreal world where there are other people, there are other characters, and there are other monsters like this that exist in this world. Once this story was told, did you see this as a potential start to a bigger story? Do you feel like you have more stories in this world to tell or is this a complete thing?
This is a complete thing. It’s an EC comic, after all, and an episode of Scooby-Doo, so it’s over.
Maybe not necessarily from a budget standpoint or anything like that, but you’re limited to one episode, this isn’t a feature film. Were there any challenges, either from a storytelling perspective or from a production perspective, any unexpected, perhaps not even challenges, that could be gifts, or change your feelings from making a feature film to making an episode of this anthology?
Well, generally when I’m writing I can’t speak for Aaron, but generally when I’m writing a script on my own I’ll get to page 45, and then maybe I’ll get to the end too. And then I’ll say, “Now what?” So it’s easy to write 45 pages with a head full of steam and fire. In general, I will start with the beginning of the movie and then the end as well, and then repeat the middle parts. But actually, I think this loop is a fairly complete feature, compressed. It’s just under an hour. I think it has a first chapter, a second chapter after it, and a third chapter.
Some are faster, some not so much. I just wanted to put these actors in a room and have them interact with each other and see what came of that beat.
It’s interesting because the size of the episode was actually, in terms of production, very similar to it Beyond the black rainbow As far as a few night shots on location at the beginning, a few days somewhere at the end, and in the middle, just in one place basically for a complete shoot with creature and stuff. It was very similar, but now I was only dealing with a more advanced crew that had just gone out of business nightmare alleya lot of them, so they were really at the top of their game.
Where mandy That was a great achievement in Cannes, I know a lot of indie filmmakers, they’ve been so successful, and then the big franchises are like, “Hey, come on, have a meeting.” For you, do you have any interest in working on a production of this scale, “Hey, here’s $200 million to make a Marvel movie”, is that even on your radar or does this not at all align with your feelings?
I’d like to get $200 million to make a non-Marvel movie. I honestly don’t think I need $200 million to do what I want, and these are really personal movies.
I love the idea of being like, ‘Oh yeah, sure, I will code For $200 million,” and you spend $10 million making the movie, and then just another $190 million, you’ll spend it on a nice vacation.
Well, Lord knows I love Blade, and maybe if I had been shown to Blade in my New Line cinema days, I would have picked it up, but not my Disney days, I don’t think so. I don’t think I’m a Disney movie maker.
Maybe they can somehow hold you back and say like, “Well, we just need a few fewer head-melting strings to get the TV-14.”
One of the things about the melting heads was that they were all filmed functionally and in composition, so it was a really fun experience shooting, melting headboards and exploding. This was fun.
Guillermo del Toro’s intriguing cabinet Premieres on Netflix October 25th.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can communicate Patrick Kavanaugh live on Twitter.
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