Every once in a while you hear the idea for a movie and just say “Holy crap yeah! I’d see that!”. Some of these movies work out… some don’t. But when you hear “A movie of Werewolves vs. Vampires” or “A movie about The Transformers” or “A movie based on that Frank Miller graphic Novel 300” you get at least a little excited initially. Well how about this one… “A movie with Vinnie Jones as a Subway Serial Killer… and it’s going to be called “Midnight Meat Train” based on the Clive Barker story”. Hell ya! Sign me up!
The movie is being directed by Ryuhei Kitamura (who also directed VERSUS) in his first North American film. The basic idea of the film reads like this:
Vinnie Jones, Brooke Shields, and Bradley Cooper in “The Midnight Meat Train”. Joining the cast will be Leslie Bibb. All of whom will be directed by a director everybody should know, Ryuhei Kitumara (Versus). Jones will play a serial killer who stalks the subways looking for victims. Cooper plays a struggling photographer who decides that tracking down and capturing “the subway butcher” on film will improve his fortunes. Shields plays an art gallery owner who befriends the photog, and Bibb will play his girlfriend.
(John with Midnight Meat Train Director Ryuhei Kitamura)
So off I went the other day to hang out on the set of Midnight Meat Train. Let me just say I got a LOT more than I bargained for. I spent a bunch of time just being shown around, watching them shoot some scenes on the Train itself, looking over some top secret stuff from the film (Stuff that surprised the FUCK out of me… I couldn’t believe they were showing me some of this stuff) and learning more about the film.
All I can tell you right now is 6 things:
1) I am legitimately crazy excited about seeing the finished product. It might suck total ass when it’s done… but right now the concept, the stuff I’ve seen, and the direction Kitamura seems to be taking the movie is nothing short of ass kicking goodness. The images I saw had my jaw on the floor. The first thing I saw when I walked onto the set were roughly 20 corpse bodies laying on the floor that look so fricking real i thought they were actors for a split second.
2) I met Leslie Bibb on set. At first I didn’t even recognize who she was when she introduced herself to me… because… and I’m not kidding… this woman is 3x more beautiful in person than in any movie she’s been in. You think she was hot in Talladega Nights? Screw that… nothing compared to how attractive she is in person. She was looking at the Time Magazine article with me when we met… she laughed and offered to tattoo something on my ass to commemorate the occasion. In retrospect it was a mistake to turn the offer down.
(Midnight Meat Train star Leslie Bibb)
3) I walked through the “Train” with Kitamura and he was telling me about how at first he turned down the offer to do Meat Train because he hates it when Hollywood screws with remakes of either movies or classic books. After reading the script he changed his mind. He also talked to me about how surprised he was at how similar making movies in Japan is to making them here. But he and I filmed an interview and I’ll just let him speak for himself when I put that up for you guys to see.
4) The Hammer of Thor has nothing on the hammer of Mahogany (Vinnie Jone’s character). It feels sweet to wield it (see pic).
5) The blood… oh my sweet goodness the blood.
6) The Train itself was amazing. They built it (if I understand this right) on this little sound stage and the attention to detail was fantastic. Walking through the train honestly felt kind of eerie. It’s almost as if the train is a character itself in the movie. Very cool stuff.
That’s all I’ll say for now. As I mentioned already… this film might end up sucking Vinnie Jones sized balls when it’s all said and done. But for right now, I think it looks amazing and can’t wait to see it. DAMN!!!!! I wish I could tell you guys more about some of the stuff they showed me… but I can’t!!! Just wait… trust me… this thing is going to be cool.
