Albert Pyun’s “Tales” Stand Tall

B-movie maestro Albert Pyun on a $2 million "Spider-Man," flummoxing Dennis Hopper and his new "Tales of the Ancient Empire."

I was surprised to notice San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom’s wife Jennifer Siebel was cast in “Tales of the Ancient Empire.”

Yeah, when we cast her, I didn’t even realize she had just married Gavin. She plays the Queen and the authority figure in the movie. It was unintentional.

It actually reminded me of when you cast Matt Salinger as Captain America, who was JD Salinger’s son.

With Matt, we had to go through a difficult approval process with Marvel. The suggestions that they’d made were… I just couldn’t see the movie working. They were typical, non-actor, big buff guy-types, and I didn’t really see that it was going to work with bodybuilders. The thing I liked about Matt was he was a little off, a little different. That could be his upbringing, but he struck me as someone who didn’t seem to be from any world I was familiar with. I thought that quality might work well for Steve Rogers. Once I realized his father was JD Salinger, I used that point to get him approved by Marvel.

How do you feel about the upcoming Captain America movie?

I think it’s great. It’s a difficult challenge they have to make it work, because of all the baggage that that character comes with. It was really difficult for us. We ended up having a severe budget problem. Financing dropped out while we were shooting. We almost did “Spider-Man” too. We had built the sets and got within two weeks of shooting in North Carolina in ’88.

By the time I went to “Captain America,” I was familiar with the challenges ahead of working with Marvel, but also in bringing to life a comic book hero on a very limited budget. Obviously they’re going to put a lot of money and resources into “Captain America,” I’d be curious to see if they solve some of those problems.

Are you surprised by how popular comic book-inspired movies are these days?

No, because growing up, I loved comic books. I’m more surprised by what a challenge it’s been for comic books to be done well. When I was doing them, nobody seemed willing to put any money in them. Our budgets were always below a million dollars. “Spider-Man” was the biggest budget I would’ve had, and that was only $2 million.

There are some actors you’ve worked with again and again since the ’80s — do you ever step back and reflect on how all of your careers have gone?

[laughs] What’s interesting is the path we all went on from the ’80s to today. I did a film called “Knights” with Kris Kristofferson and Kris [was] reflecting back to the time he was doing “A Star is Born” with Streisand and he was the number one box office male in the world. He was talking about how things could be here today and gone tomorrow really fast, and how you needed to find sort of an even keel.

If I were to work with Jean-Claude [Van Damme] or Steven Seagal or some of those other actors again, it’d be really interesting to do a project that brings all the baggage of these 20 years, and have that movie reflect the bumps and the bruises of the decades of being in this business.

Did you see Van Damme’s “JCVD”? It was a similar idea, but with someone who didn’t have your history with him.

That was a good choice for him — he needs to look forward towards more that type of character and less of the iconic characters that he did in the ’80s and early ’90s. One of the reasons I continue to do weird and interesting films is that I’ve been able to evolve creatively over time. I didn’t try to look back and repeat anything I’ve done in the past. Seagal and Jean-Claude, they need to do the same thing, to try to find new challenges.

You’ve made over 50 films in less than three decades, usually shooting films back-to-back — do you keep up that pace nowadays?

Not nowadays, but in the past, I would be shooting one movie and then making one on weekends or that night, after the shoot day. You have to make a choice when you have a limited budget — less production value over a longer period of time, or do you shoot a shorter period, take that money and try to give yourself more resources? I made the decision in the early ’90s to shoot fewer days. Actually, I did a film in 2005 called “Infection,” which Lionsgate released as “Invasion,” shot all in one night, in, like, ten hours. The entire film was just one shot. Most of my films I shoot in eight to ten days.

After shooting a feature in a single night, are there any cinematic challenges left that you want to conquer?

I’d like to do something interesting in 3D, which I’m toying with now. “Invasion” screened at a lot of festivals. Even though they didn’t like it, I’d bring my own sound and projection system in. I’d control my own temperature in the theater.

I was able to give the audience a real experience in that one shot, to the point where people would hallucinate through the movie. It created a lot of different psychological effects and taught me that digital technology today really does allow a filmmaker to interact with an audience in a way that you just never could back when film was 35mm.

What’s taking so long to finish “Tales of an Ancient Empire” is that we want to try and present it using VOD in a way that’s not like anybody’s experienced before, where it feels like a live experience. It’s going to be a really different approach.

Last question, you were able to work with the late Dennis Hopper on “Ticker,” though only for a day. Do you have any recollections of him?

I first met Dennis on that shoot day because he was the last person we cast. He was in his trailer, just looking at the number of pages he was going to do. [laughs]

He told me he was flummoxed about it, but in good humor. Because he was a filmmaker, he approached his work not just as an actor, but as a collaborator and contributor to the overall whole. He understood the challenges of the day of shooting.

We shot 16 pages and nine scenes, which is a lot for anybody. At the end of the day, he was totally exhausted. We were sitting there and he kept going through the script, saying “Did you shoot this scene?” And I would say, “Yeah, remember, we shot that before lunch.” And he’d go, “Oh wow, man, that’s so trippy. I can’t believe we got that.” He had a neat childlike quality. I just feel honored and privileged I had the chance to work with him.

“Tales of an Ancient Empire” will be available on streaming VOD through Magic Rock Entertainment’s Backstage service beginning on July 21st.

[Additional photos: On previous page, "Tales of an Ancient Empire," Magic Rock, 2010; "The Sword and the Sorcerer" Group 1 International Distribution Organization, 1982; "Mean Guns," New City Releasing, 1997; this page, "Captain America," Columbia TriStar, 1990; "Cyborg," Cannon Group, 1989; "Invasion," Lionsgate, 2007; "Ticker," Artisan Entertainment, 2001]

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