Movies Interview With Matthias Titus Paar!!

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Hi everyone,

I did an exclusive interview with the director of The Perfect Weapon, Matthias Titus Paar. Read the result below!!! Thank you Mr. Paar for willing to do this interview for us!!

1. Can you tell something about yourself? How did you become involved in the movie business?
Hey guys, I´m from Sweden, at a young age I started watching the cool 80´s movies with Arnold, Van Dame and Seagal and had a dream of one day doing that myself. At the age of 15 I made my first feature in 1999. Since then I have done about 7 features, 40 short film, probably 500 commercials and tons of music videos. I live and breath film.

2. First you made some movies in Sweden. How did you get involved in the making of The Perfect Weapon?
The short story was that I was involved with the guys Producing The Perfect Weapon a few year before and pushing my own projects. Then I made my Fantasy LEGEND OF DARK RIDER. That was enough for them to bring me to Hollywood and then asked if I wanted to do Seagals first Scifi. Sounded to crazy to say no.

3. Was Steven Seagal always your choice for the role of The Director and how did you get in touch with Steven?
He was attached before me, so yes he was. He wanted to be the lead for a while but we talked him out of it, I just don´t see him doing a 30 something athletic killing machine with sex scenes in a shower.
But I could defenetly see him as a complex dictator and think he´s great as The Director. Something new that suits his age and body type. This is the kind of role he should be doing and people need to get over the fat, the dude is over 65 let him be fat, I'm 32 and chubby

4. What was the budget for The Perfect Weapon and what was the most difficult aspect of making this movie?
I have seen many numbers of the budget from 3-8M. But the real budget was 1.8M.
Everything was hard about this film, too little money, too little time, 280 VFX shots, big action scenes and the whole Scifi aspect. That´s why I got the job, no-one in the US could make it. But I'm a machine that can do big things with little, nothing can stop me.

5. What was your experience on working with Steven and how many days was he on set? There are some rumours that he is not easy to work with.
I lived with Seagal in China for a week before shooting, he was shooting Chinese Salesman, but he didn´t know what the film was about. Mine he spent a week on the script because he liked the story and the message.
We only had him for 2 days.
He can be very hard to work with if you don´t treat him right. We got along fine and I got him to do his own fight that he choreographed with me and he even taught Japanese to the girl playing Kyoko who was Chinese. You got to know your shit when working with Seagal or he´ll eat you up and shit you out. Not saying it was´t hard but I worked with far worse actors than him. You are never bored when you hang out with Seagal, I like him. He's exactly the way you think he is.

6. Can you shine a light on the making of a dtv movie? What kind of problems are you up against when making these kind of movies (budget, shooting days)?
I never saw it as a dtv movie, I just wanted to make a cool B-action homage that had everything that I likes as a kid. And flirt with pop culture references in every scene. Cast Vernon Wells from Mad Max, Richard Tyson from Kindergarten cop and so on. I wanted it to be edgy and have a modern twist to it but feel like it was made in the 80-90s. DTV gives you limitations with only 19 days and 1.8M budget when you really would need 30 days and 5M but it frees you up in the way that you can do stuff for a smaller audience. I made it for the Seagal fans, and the fans of the 80-90s B-movie eara. They love it, other people wonders why it´s so B and they don't get it/hate it for not being as good as Spiderman. But fuck them, the goal was to make the ultimate B-movie homage. it's a fun popcorn ride nothing more.

7. Is there anything you would have done differently regarding to making The Perfect Weapon?
I would have wanted the marketing to reflect the B-move homage, now it dousen´t at all, hence the internet rage but it's a fun read

8. What were your experiences like in securing distribution for the movie? Did the fact that Seagal shot several movies around the same time hurt your distribution, since there were so many movies with him selling at AFM and Cannes at the same time?
It was sold before we made it and funded 50% by Eone so it didn´t affect us at all. The film has already made over 2M so we´re doing fine. But this is why no Seagal film has a budget over 4-5M and never will again. His value isn´t higher than that. So it´s up to us filmmakers to make cool shit with what we are given.

9. Would you like to work with Seagal again and what are your dream actors or stars you would like to work with in the future?
I was going to direct his film Cypher, but it was too expensive and no-one would fund it over 5M, so it didn´t happen at that time and I moved on to other things. I still want to work with Arnold at some point. Seagal, sure if it´s something different for him, like an old school samurai film set in Japan with him as a old master or something. I don´t like the typical American Action movies he´s been doing the last 20 years. But if it´s too crazy to say no too, I´m in.
I was going to make Perfect Weapon 2: The Uprising where it's full out war but I'll leave that to someone else. Dolph was actually attached first to be Condor, imagain that Seagal VS Lundgren and Rutger Hauer as Controler to complete the Blade Runner homage. But it fell trough.

10. What are your plans for the future and are their any new projects on the horizon?
I´m at Zero Gravity now, same manager as Kevin Costner, so I have 5 projects I´m looking at now, casting a 15M movie now with A-list stars and ready to take over the world.

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JoeDirt

Active Member
Thanks for the interview, DiDa!

That was very informative and candid. Thank you to Mr. Paar as well for his honest answers.

Really shows you the stage of the low-budget movie market and Seagal's career. The glory days of DTV are far gone.
 

DiDa

Super Moderator
Staff member
Thanks for the interview, DiDa!

That was very informative and candid. Thank you to Mr. Paar as well for his honest answers.

Really shows you the stage of the low-budget movie market and Seagal's career. The glory days of DTV are far gone.

Very honest indeed. He told me he was supposed to direct Cypher after The Perfect Weapon. Cypher was written by Seagal too, but was too expensive to get filmed. Paar thinks the movie won't happen. So now we also know what happened with that movie.

But this is why no Seagal film has a budget over 4-5M and never will again. His value isn´t higher than that. So it´s up to us filmmakers to make cool shit with what we are given.
This is why I am also not sure of Attrition getting financed.....

But Titus Paar did a VERY GOOD job if the budget was only 1.8 million. The Perfect Weapon looks better then a lot of recent Seagal movies....
 

bwana-beast

Active Member
Very good interview. Thanks to DiDa for initiating it, and to the various site members who submitted great questions. And, of course to Titus Paar for taking the time to respond. Good information all round, and it really seems as if Mr. Paar truly loves what he does, and does not let the limitations he works with keep him from turning out the best film he can.
 

JoeDirt

Active Member
good interview

Attrition looking less likely by the day

I think they could pull it off, but not if they're trying to produce it with a big budget.

The good thing they have going for it is that they're doing it in Thailand where it is cheaper to film compared to the US or Western Europe, and if Seagal is really passionate about it he could waiver his fee or do it for less money and put it back in the budget.

But judging from recent updates where it seems like they are still trying to raise money, it might be stuck in development hell.

I think Seagal waited for too long to do his passion project. Just 10 or even 5 years ago when the DVD market was still alive and his name value was higher he could have easily raised enough money to produce an action movie with an adequate budget. But now that the market is what it is, and since Seagal's name value has dropped, it's very hard.

I think it's very telling that a couple years ago he seemed to be opposed to doing The Expendables, and now he's practically campaigning on social media to do Expendables 4, Above The Law 2, Under Siege 3 etc. But I fear it's too late now.

I think the turning point in his "DTV career" came in 2010, after many years he appeared in a theatrically released movie Machete, and he followed up with a syndicated TV show that I'm not sure was even that widely syndicated, instead they released a bunch of double episodes edited together and flooded the market with new "Seagal movies" diluting his name value even more, and the actual movies he did after were IMO all very bad.

And just this year alone he has 7 movies out, most of which he only has a supporting role or a glorified cameo in, further angering his diminishing fanbase who pay good money to watch a movie starring Steven Seagal only to find out he's barely in the movie at all.
 

DiDa

Super Moderator
Staff member
I dont'know if everyone can see the pic that comes with the interview. Here it is.
 

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Administrator

Administrator
Staff member
Here is another Matthias Paar interview : http://theactionelite.com/2016/12/titus-paar-talks-the-perfect-weapon/

Here are a few parts:
Storyboards - http://www.kkoskelainen.se/The-Perfect-Weapon-2016-WMI

How long did it take to put the script together?

Fast, there was no time, so in 1 month. I also went down and worked on Seagal’s scenes with Seagal in China for a week as well. He and I wanted to do a lot of new things with him. So that he´s speaking Imperial Japanese in the film is his idea. It was very collaborative; I don´t think he does that on other films (he didn´t even know what the film he was shooting in China was about, only how much they paid him) but he liked the message of Perfect Weapon.
 
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