Caffeinated Clint
At the L.A junket for his “Cats & Dogs :The Revenge of Kitty Galore”, director Brad Peyton briefly discussed spoke about the recently-announced “Journey to the Center of the Earth” sequel, which he’s inherited the helmer’s hat from (“Journey” director) Eric Brevig on.
Returning for the sequel is young Josh Hutherson (Who, you’ll recall, was one of the frontrunners to play the new Peter Parker), back as Sean Anderson, the youngster who, alongside his scientist uncle (Brendan Fraser, who played his uncle, is sitting this one out), last embarked on a mission to the Earth’s core.
”In the first one, [Sean] was a little kid”, Peyton tells Collider.”Now he feels like, “I didn’t get credit for that. I was just along for the ride. But, now I want mine.” And, we try to bring it back to what I related to when I was 17. I just wanted to get the hell out of home and go do my own thing. We’re building a great story around that kind of idea.”
Peyton says the film will be loosely based on Jules Verne’s “The Mysterious Island” (and he hints that we might even see ‘Captain Nemo’).
”Well, it’s just taking from Verne. One of the things that excited me was that, before speculative fiction came out, science fiction had this H.G. Wells, Vernian slant. That science fiction came from another world was H.G. Wells, and Verne was that science fiction came from our own world. So, when I read the script and I talked to the producers, I was like, “This is a really great idea. This, to me, is the brand. We should look at Verne as the source material, and his approach to everything.””
Peyton says the script reminded him of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.
”I got really excited ‘cause that’s one of the movies I grew up on. I’m very, very excited by it.”
For more on the “Journey” sequel (and another of Peyton’s future projects, which sounds like less of a certainty than the former) click here.
