A brutal leader employs men in masks to abduct people off the streets. A news media controlled by his government carefully manages the messages it puts out, lying more often than not. Millions are killed by a disease that could have been prevented by that government. No, we’re not talking about life in 2026; we’re talking about V for Vendetta, the James McTeigue-directed adaptation of the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, which was released on March 17, 2006, 20 years ago today.
Upon its release, V for Vendetta was a moderate success, grossing about $135 million against a production budget of around $50 million. But it was 2006, years before comic book adaptations would level up in a way few could have imagined, and well before anyone in the U.S. imagined our lives would come to so closely mirror the dystopia of the present. Starring Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving and adapted by the Wachowskis, the film was a little ahead of its time, and not always in a good way.
But, watching it now, it feels even more relevant than ever. It’s a cathartic, powerful work of cinema that we were fortunate enough to chat about with the film’s director. To celebrate the film’s anniversary, io9 talked with McTeigue via video chat to discuss the film’s current relevance, rumors of behind-the-scenes drama, some deep cut, nerdy production questions, and so much more. Check itout.
Germain Lussier, io9: I am old enough to have not only seen this film when it was released, I reviewed it favorably in a newspaper.
James McTeigue: Oh, good. Okay. I love that. I love that.
io9: So I’ve loved it from day one. I revisited it five years ago for the 15th anniversary, and it was crazy how it had become even more relevant and scary. Then I revisited it last week, and it’s even more relevant and scarier. So my first question is, when you made the film, did you ever imagine the world getting so bad that the movie could become so increasingly relevant?
McTeigue: Well, I didn’t future imagine that we’d end up where we’ve ended up. But what I did know is that we’d been in that political state before, right? Alan Moore and David Lloyd had written about the Thatcherite government. So all the things that we were discussing in the film, they were discussing in the graphic novel. And I knew that these sort of political systems that we have to go through had expressed themselves deep into history. Hitler, Mussolini, around the First World War, right? Like, all these systems keep coming back. And I’m not surprised that we’re in another one at the moment, right? I mean, I think they’re cyclical, right? And I think that probably in another 20 years’ time, this time will pass as all political times do, and we might be in another one. You know, we might be having this conversation in 20 years, and we’ll go, “Oh my God, what happened?”
io9: Right, right. The superhero genre and comic book adaptations have changed so much since this. This is like right before that 2008 boom. So I’m curious, what was it like to get this made? Was there an understanding of what this could be? Take me back to that time, as kind of you and the Wachowskis were pitching this around? Because I feel like five years later, maybe people would’ve understood it easier.
McTeigue: Yeah. I think like the thing that we did, which was probably missed… was that our ambition was to always treat the material seriously rather than a conventional comic book adaptation. And so we did, because the graphic novel talked about serious themes, had a serious narrative, had serious characters in it. And we wanted to get the essence and the authenticity of what the graphic novel was trying to achieve. And so when I went about shooting it, the Wachowskis did an amazing adaptation of it. And then it was about making this anti-superhero movie, which is sort of essentially what it is, right? And giving it this timeless feel, which is what I set about doing through the production design and the cinematography, and all those aspects.
io9: Which, as I said, clearly works as I watch it today, and it feels incredible. It’s one of those movies, though, in the 20 years now since its release, it’s kind of developed this great Hollywood myth, almost like Poltergeist, where it’s like, “Who directed this movie?” Obviously, you directed, but everybody’s like, “The Wachowskis must have done it.” So tell me a little about how much you feel this is your movie versus the Wachowskis’ movie, and maybe dispel some of those myths.
McTeigue: I mean, I don’t really care. I mean, people always make their own opinion of it. Did they write the script? Yes. Were they producers on the movie? Yes. Were they there? Yeah, sometimes. But no, I feel like it’s my movie. It’s my directorial debut. I love to discuss it. I feel like it’s lived on, and I’m super happy about that. So I don’t think I need to dispel many rumors. They’re like great friends. We’ve gone on and made a whole bunch of other stuff together, too, right? A couple of seasons of TV. We keep working together.
io9: Right. That’s the biggest thing. If it were actually an issue, you wouldn’t have worked on all these things with them since then. Okay, I have so many favorite parts of the movie. One is Inspector Finch’s speech near the end, kind of laying out everything that could happen. And I think what makes that is, obviously, the music and the editing of it. So can you take me back through that? Like, how many iterations did that take? Because it is just such a powerful building moment that crescendos at the end of the film.
McTeigue: Yeah. The premonition sequence was shot with the view to doing that, right? So the pieces fall in place. You hone in on that. I don’t know, it probably took like a week or more. Right. I had a good editor, Martin Walsh, at the time. We discussed it a lot, and the music was good. But it was that thing that you felt like Finch by that point knew what V would do, right? He knew if this happened and then that happened, and then that happened, then that would lead to this. So it was just him putting himself in that place, even down to putting himself in the same apartment as Evey at the end. There’s a little shot of her turning around with a vase of roses, and you see someone in the mirror. That’s Finch. He’s in the mirror. So, yeah, it took a while, but it was fun to do. It was a great sequence to do.
io9: Absolutely. I also always wondered about the Evey prison scenes. Is Hugo the guard? Is he the voice?
McTeigue: [Laughs]
io9: How did you strike this balance of keeping the secret for as long as you could, but also make it work when you watch it again?
McTeigue: Yeah. So I used a couple of different voices, actually. Like a little cinema, a cinema trick, right? So when she’s first being interviewed in the cell, that’s a mixture of two other English actors with a bit of Hugo in there. When he comes to the door and goes, “I’m going to take you out behind the chemical sheds, and I’m going to shoot you,” that’s Hugo lowering his voice. So I mixed it up so you couldn’t really tell, and editorially in sound design, I could interpolate the voices together. So that was a mixture in there.
io9: That’s cool. Is it him in the shadows all the time, or is it sort of like V, where that actor changes?
McTeigue: So when he’s at the door, and you see the guy in the suit, and you can’t see his face, that’s Hugo. But when she’s being interviewed, and it sort of looks a little bit like Creedy, that is the actor who was playing Creedy [Tim Pigott-Smith], but I put a different voice on it.
io9: Well, there you go. It worked. It makes it confusing and great. These days, I feel like filmmakers have a bunch of jobs and a one is protecting the spoilers of their movies. That sequence in the prison is the big reveal of the middle of the movie, and I was wondering, was there ever an issue of you guys protecting that it’s V keeping Evey in prison? Because it feels like if that happened today, that would be something that people would leak early, and it would be annoying.
McTeigue: Yeah, you’re right. Things didn’t used to get leaked as much as they do now. But we kept that pretty secret, because you have to keep it secret from Evey. That Potemkin prison, the fact that it’s attached to the Shadow Gallery and that he imprisoned her, I think that was important that you don’t go into the movie knowing that. In the same way that Evey doesn’t know it either.
io9: Yes. And I was rewatching some of the special features on the 4K and I was flabbergasted to learn that the reveal of that is the first scene Natalie and Hugo shot together.
McTeigue: Yeah.
io9: How does that happen? Is just a scheduling thing or how did you guys decide that pivotal crazy scene would be the first one that those two shot together?
McTeigue: Well, we didn’t actually.
io9: Okay.
McTeigue: What happened was James Purefoy was the actor to start behind the mask, and he wasn’t comfortable with the mask. And so we made the decision to change it up to Hugo, and that happened over the Easter break, and Hugo came in over the Easter break. And that was just where we were. We weren’t going to change the schedule. So he came in, and yeah, I had a lot riding on that sequence. But when she stepped out into the Shadow Gallery, and he came out from behind the pillar. And goes, “Hello, Evey,” and then he starts talking to her. “Yep, that was me. I felt hate in my veins,” all that stuff. I’m like, “This guy’s amazing. This guy has totally saved me here.” So, yeah, it was satisfying working with him because he really got it and really got the mask. And, you know, he and Natalie connected really quickly. So it was great.
io9: Yeah, that’s so cool. Another thing that stood out was Stephen Fry has a quick quote in there about how he was excited that Hollywood had the balls to make this movie at that time. Do you think they would still make this movie in this time? Because I’m going to say I don’t think they would.
McTeigue: I think that you might get to make the film, but I don’t know that you get to release the film. You know what I mean? I feel like sometimes that’s the stopgap. I had friends who made a film recently called Anniversary. I don’t know if you saw that.
io9: I’ve heard of it.
McTeigue: You should watch it. It’s good. It got made, but it got buried. And it had a lot of good actors in it. But it sort of got made and talks to the political environment, but unfortunately, it didn’t get a wide release.
io9: Right. I understand. This is getting a new release later this year for the anniversary and I’m very excited about that. And it was so cool that they released a trailer a year out, exactly like V does in the movie. Whose idea or how involved were you with that?
McTeigue: Yeah, I thought that was good. I didn’t have anything to do with that, to tell you the truth, but I’m happy it’s happening. And I’m glad that around this anniversary, we got released around spring break in 2006, I’m really happy to be talking with you guys because the film is so relevant, still has a timeless quality. I think people should go and see it in the cinema. I really think it’ll have good legs in the cinema again because it hasn’t aged. We’re right in the middle of what the film is talking about.
io9: Yes, unfortunately. In the movie, V says that his whole plan took 20 years to take place. So we’re now at that stage here where it’s been 20 years for you too. Obviously you talked a little bit about your feelings about it, but it wasn’t a huge hit upon release, so I’m curious about how your feelings changed from that opening weekend to now?
McTeigue: I felt like it did well at the time. It was number one at the box office, right? But you’re right. It didn’t come out like subsequent superhero movies and make a chunk of change. But it made enough, and it lasted. So I think that people now would catch on to it a little quicker just because of the way social media works. It’s definitely like a meme kind of, TikTok kind of film, right? And so I felt like probably it would have had more penetration in the market if we were in this kind of environment. But, I think it made like 150 mil, which was a decent amount of money for a film that is this political.
io9: And last quick thing is, again, I love V, I love the Wachowskis, and I love the work you and the Wachowskis did on the Matrix movies. I talked to Drew Goddard recently, and he says he’s still working on a new Matrix. I don’t know how much you know about that, and I don’t know if the Wachowskis are involved at all, but do you think the Matrix can exist without the Wachowskis?
McTeigue: [Laughs] I think that if you’ve got a good take, and it would have to be a pretty good take to step into the Matrix quadrology, I guess, you can have a go at it. I mean, in the way that Superman gets made, in the way that Batman gets made. There are always different interpretations. I think you just have to be smart about it. Drew’s a smart filmmaker and hopefully coming up with something that’s really great, which will, you know, speak to the legacy.
io9: Yeah. Well, this film has an incredible legacy, and I thank you so much for everything you’ve done with this film.
V for Vendetta is now streaming on HBO Max. It returns to theaters in November. Get more info here.
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Source: Gizmodo