NEW YORK, Jan. 13 (UPI) — Hannibal and Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller says his feature film directorial debut, Dust Bunny, was heavily inspired by the scary, funny, magical movies of his Gen X youth.
“Stories that I would categorize as ‘gateway horror,’ but, also, had young protagonists that were becoming their own heroes and navigating circumstances that were possibly way beyond their control and, yet, they had to step up into adulthood in new ways,” the 56-year-old writer-director told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“Those movies always had such a fun alchemy of tones,” he said, listing Poltergeist, Gremlins and Goonies as examples. “Fantasy was always part of the recipe. This movie has deep ties to E.T. and what specific friendships are like and it has deep ties to movies like Labyrinth that have fantastical monsters and, once again, young people who are at the center of the story trying to find their own paths, declaring their heroism.”
Available on digital platforms Tuesday, the dark fable stars Mads Mikkelsen, Sigourney Weaver, David Dastmalchian and Sophie Sloan. It follows 10-year-old Aurora (Sophie), who hires her mysterious hit man neighbor (Mikkelsen) to catch the monster she believes killed her family.
Fuller said that after working with Mikkelsen on the cannibalistic serial killer drama, Hannibal, for three seasons, he was happy to cast him as a little girl’s protector — the man known only as Resident 5B — in Dust Bunny.
“It was so easy,” Fuller recalled.
“I can’t imagine another actor in the role who would have my back and champion me and, also, be able to vouch for me in the ways that Mads did, constantly stepping up with his support,” said the filmmaker, whose efforts earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature.
“One of my favorite things about working with Mads on this was being able to do fun things like we both love Bruce Lee, so, let’s give him a nunchuck fight in Chinatown and give him a Bruce Lee track suit,” he added.
Fuller said he also loved seeing how Mikkelsen looked out for acting newcomer Sophie.
“He wanted to make sure that she was having a great experience, which was important to all of us,” Fuller explained.
“Mads took that very seriously as the father of a daughter and a grandfather of a granddaughter. He loves kids, loves his family and brought that sense of protectiveness to the set.”
Both Mikkelsen and Fuller were also thrilled to work with Sigourney Weaver, who, at 76, plays a sexy assassin in the film.
“I’d never worked with her before and she was incredibly supportive,” Fuller said.
“That was glorious to feel from somebody of her experience and, also, her stature and how important she is to me as an audience member and the characters that she’s created, not just in the Alien films, but Working Girl and Gorillas in the Mist and Ghostbusters,” he added.
“There’s a legacy to her as a cinematic icon that goes above and beyond one role. Working with Mads, he was so smitten with Sigourney Weaver and they had such a mutual appreciation society.”
Fuller, who is known for his visually stunning storytelling style and meticulous attention to detail, described working in television as a marathon and creating for cinema a sprint.
“With the movie, it was written and locked in and there couldn’t be any additional changes because we were on a [writers] strike and there was no touching it. So, that was kind of a gift,” Fuller said.
“It also gave me the facility to be more present in a way that I am not afforded on a television schedule and being able to be in the trenches with the cast, with the craftspeople that are creating the film and being able to have a much more intimate relationship with the story, with the actors. And that is really much more satisfying. It’s much more lived in. It’s much more shared.”
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