In a few words, what’s the film about?
ROGUE WARRIOR: ROBOT FIGHTER, out August 15 on VOD, is a Science Fiction film set in the distant future depicting the overthrow of humanity by artificial intelligence on Earth and other worlds.
Always been a fan of the genre?
Most definitely.
Have you discovered any unlikely fans or segments that you didn’t count on?
It’s been surprising to me when people come out and tell me that they are fans of my work now, as there’s the likely and unlikely fan base. There’s an actor that I’m a huge fan of his work (an Oscar winner), whose wife came up to me at a local restaurant and told me that her husband is a huge fan. It’s kind of surreal. It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, but it was very unpredictable.
How important are reviews to you?
I think they’re important for the distributor marketing the film. This particular film, the reviews have been pretty awesome. There are a couple of them (major outlets) who dissed the film, but in their Vimeo stats they didn’t even watch the movie. They probably watched the trailer or something, but we were very tight on screener links so that we could judge the statistics – it was really quite interesting. I took screen grabs of their “lack of viewing” on Vimeo and sent them to the editors of the sites, who did nothing. That’s their bad karma. Now it’s all in the hands of the distributor – I’m too busy to police that stuff.
Besides what it’ll do for your career, are there any standouts involved in the film that you believe will see a real career boost from being involved in it?
Several of the actors are already talented names working in film and TV (Daz Crawford, Stephen Manley, William Kircher), but Sci-Fi shows a new side to already established actors – it can really open doors. I hope that the whole cast gets a boost from it, as they all really did an excellent job. Even Tony Gibbons, who voiced Hoagland, now he was a real find!
Have doors opened for you as a result of it?
It’s too early on to really judge the exact impact on my career, but I’ve been shooting on the next two Sci-Fi’s, so that’s a good sign! I’m not exactly trying to look around the corner or in the future… I’m focused on the now and just putting out the best work that I can.
Would you compare the storyline to anything we’ve seen in earlier films? Anything you can say is an intentional homage?
Other people have compared it to many other things, but it was intentionally made to stand on it’s own. Ironically, many of the films it’s been compared to are films neither of us has seen!
Has it all gone according to plan for you? Anything you’ll do differently next time around?
It’s actually all gone according to plan…!
What’s ahead for you?
It’s going to be a very exciting year, as The Time War – an epic time travel movie we’ve been working on for years – will be released in another 4-6 months (that’s a guess of course.) It’s really been an exciting journey, as we knew it had to be even bigger and more epic than Rogue Warrior… The Director (Neil Johnson) has really outdone himself on this one!