What are the challenges with combining the monster genre and a period piece war movie?
For me, none whatsoever. They’re less challenges, than bonuses. With the exception of The Keep, I’m not sure anybody’s attempted to do what we’re attempting, at least not in terms of a quality production. When I found Aaron (Mason) and Jim (Cowan), and read their initial script, all kinds of bells went off. I already had a project I was plotting — which, co-incidentally [producer] Gary Kurtz also wanted — set in the same era, but Panzer was already some way further along. So, we just switched priorities and started developing this with the boys instead. Gary got excited about the project in exactly the same way, as did Richard Taylor at Weta Workshop. You make an interesting point about the distinction between the genres. For the WW2 armor nuts, they’re hopefully going to be very happy with this movie. We’re showcasing all kinds of esoteric German machinery, all real, never seen on the screen before. Military modelers are going to spend many happy hours recreating dioramas from this fi
