“When you read the book, it’s such an emotional journey. At the same time, it’s a fantasy full of visual effects, and at the same time, it’s a story about telling the truth and finding the truth, which is basically what storytelling is about,” Bayona says. “I thought this is great because you rarely see fantasy material as strong or talks about childhood with this depth and how serious it talks about it. It feels like the perfect company for the other films I’ve done. I thought it was a way [of] closing the trilogy of films talking about the same themes.”
One of Bayona’s biggest concerns was how to integrate the necessary special effects without distracting from what is basically an intimate story about a mother and her son. That’s equally tough when one of your major characters is a giant creature that could completely take the audience out of the movie every time it appears on screen.
“I think we tried to make the creature as grounded as possible,” Bayona says. “And I would try to have as much real stuff as possible, so we re-created the Monster with a real life-size head. We recreated the head, the hands and the foot. When you see ‘King Kong,’ you see the hand of Kong and it’s the same image [with the Monster and] Conor. It was quite tricky you have a very emotional ending and in that ending you have the monster and you don’t want the visual effects to distract. It’s very tricky, you know?”
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Beyond the effects, the movie simply wouldn’t work unless the right actor was found to play Conor. It helps that Bayona has had success with young actors before. He discovered Tom Holland — the current big screen Spider-Man — who gave an awards-worthy turn in “The Impossible,” which was no small feat. The production actually cast Jones, Weaver and Neeson first while waiting till the last possible moment to find the right Conor. Bayona saw hundreds of young actors, but there was something very unique about MacDougall’s in-person audition that landed him the role.
“We were rehearsing one dramatic scene and all the kids, somehow they leave the scene in tears and Lewis was this kid that didn’t want to cry. He was all about rage and anger and not crying in front of me,” Bayona recalls. “And I thought, ‘Oh, this is very interesting. Here is this guy who doesn’t want to cry.’ This was very unique and so much truth in there that I knew he was something special.”
MacDougall is quite impressive in a scene with Weaver where Conor uses his anger to lash out against his grandmother in a very destructive way. Bayona says it’s one of the author’s favorite scenes in the movie and that it’s inherently about Conor destroying what he needs, somehow fighting against himself.
“That was quite a day because Sigourney didn’t want to see the set before we shot that scene so we had our camera waiting for her and we captured her real reaction to it,” Bayona says. “It was quite an experience. I think what is more impressive about that moment is that she doesn’t say anything to Conor. The kid is looking for limits. He is looking for someone to tell him [he] can’t do that, but no one is telling him that.”
Chances are Bayona will find more blockbuster opportunities sooner rather than later (hint to Warner Bros.: His favorite superhero is Superman), but he has another Spanish-language project on his agenda that he pushed back to take the “Jurassic World” sequel.
“I have another film, a smaller film. I cannot tell you about it,” Bayona says. “I’m kind of superstitious.”
With the “Jurassic World” sequel set for 2018, that’s likely a good three years down the road. If his track record is an indication, it will be worth the wait.
“A Monster Calls” opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday. It opens nationwide on Jan. 6.
