Piranha 3DD Scribes Talk Shop

In a recent interview with IGN, writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton discussed their unorthodox experience penning the script for last summer's horror/comedy sequel Piranha 3DD. From writing in D-list celebrities such as Carmen Electra and Snooki to searching for the perfect water park willing enough to let the crew run rampant with buckets of blood and fish guts, the process certainly wasn't an easy one for Dunstan and Melton -- although, as they put it, it's hard to complain when you've got the Hoff on your side.

IGN Movies: Obviously, this was a continuation of Alexandre Aja's first Piranha movie, which was more satiric in nature than just straight horror. What was your approach, tonally, for the sequel, and how did you go about infusing those comedic aspects into the story?

Marcus Dustan: Well, it kind of harkened back to the collaboration John Gulager, Patrick and I had in 2004 with Feast, where our first big break was blending humor, horror and the terror of an isolated community under siege. So this was an opportunity to expand upon the universe created way back in the earlier films, and it also brings some characters from the Alexandre Aja picture into this. This time, the setting of the water park was a wonderful brainstorm moment to come up with all the elements of mayhem that could destroy someone's day.

IGN: And where did that idea for the water park come from? How did that become the central location for this one?

Melton: You logically think, "Okay, where can this take place and be a little bit different than the first one?" So we eventually decided on the water park. I'm not sure exactly if it was us, Bob Weinstein or Gulager who first said it. I can't remember exactly who came up with that.

Dunstan: It was us!

Melton: It was us? Okay. In the very early conversations, we were like, "Okay, it takes place in a water park downstream, and it's the sleaziest one you've ever been to. They're trying to do this big kickoff, and they're going to have these D-list celebrity lifeguards there." We told that to Bob, and he goes, "That's great, you do that!" He gave us three notes, which were, "I want a piranha in someone's p**** to come out when they're f***ing; a piranha goes up someone's ass --" and what was the third one? It'll come back to me. But those two were very important.

IGN: You guys obviously had a ton of cameo appearances in this movie. When you were writing the script, were all of those actors already locked in for the sequel, or did you kind of have to work around that and hope for the best?

Melton: No, they weren't, and that was actually kind of tricky. We looked at the location, which was one of the first things we did, and it was like, "Okay, we're going to do it, and Gulager's going to do it. Here are the parameters and the budget, and we need to shoot pretty soon." So we all got on a plane and went down to Louisiana, initially, to look at water parks, and there are only two water parks in all of Louisiana. One is in Shreveport and the other's in Baton Rouge, and the one in Baton Rouge was fantastic -- it's one of the best in the south. We really wanted to shoot there, but it was just cost prohibitive and the ownership wasn't all that thrilled with our ideas of turning their water park red with blood. [Laughs]

Dunstan: It was actually a church organization, and they were funded with church cash. That became a "conflict of interest." The promotion of "liberty and the pursuit of happiness" was a bit undercut by vicious prehistoric fish invading people's nether regions.

Melton: It's actually kind of funny because the one in Shreveport was owned by a very religious group, and they wanted no swearing and no nudity. We were like, "Um, it's called Piranha 3-Double-Dee." But they were fine with the violence. Anyway, neither of those locations worked out, and we ended up going to North Carolina. When we were actually writing it, [David Hasselhoff] was always said to be the centerpiece, but we had a bunch of people that we were going to have in it because we had it with not one celebrity lifeguard, but six. It was this ragtag group of Dustin Diamond, Carmen Electra, Snooki -- and they all sort of die, one by one, leaving it up to the Hoff, who wasn't going to go down without a fight. Of course, the problem was... we had all these people written into the script, and when they got word that they were written in, they jacked up their prices.

Dunstan: At least mention Rick Astley.

Melton: Right, we wanted Rick Astley in there as well -- so during the heightened, chaos and mayhem, that's when he finally shows up and his song "Never Gonna Give You Up" starts playing, and the entire theater gets Rickrolled. [Laughs] Often times, though, something like that seems so relevant to people like me and Marcus -- especially two or three years ago when we were doing this -- then you try to mention it to the studio, and they're like, "Who?" And you're like, "You know, Rick Astley!" And they're like, "Why is that funny?" It's like, "Well, but, you know, 'cause, like, we play this song and it's Rick Astley!" [Laughs] We're like, "What about Keyboard Cat? You know? No?" So unfortunately, we didn't get Rick Astley, which would have been amazing. By the time you get into production, things have sort of been weened down to the essentials -- the essentials being the Hoff -- and he was game to be completely ridiculous and make fun of himself and all that.

Piranha 3DD is now available for purchase on Blu-ray and DVD. Additionally, Dunstan and Melton's next film The Collection hits theaters on November 30.

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love on Twitter and IGN.

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What's in Store for the God of War Movie?

Earlier today, I had the opportunity to speak with God of War writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton about their highly anticipated game-to-feature adaptation. Coming from a background in horror films such as Saw IV, the Feast trilogy and Piranha 3DD, Patrick and Melton only just recently took their first steps into the action genre after polishing the script for Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim. Since then, they've been hired to rewrite the long-gestating God of War movie, which was originally penned by David Self (Road to Perdition, Thirteen Days).

As Dunstan recalled, he and Melton were hired to rework Self's screenplay, which he mentioned was actually pretty good. "The only problem with that is it was written before Clash of the Titans, Wrath of the Titans, 300 and Immortals, and those movies borrowed quite a bit from the God of War stories. It was just a little bit outdated, so we wanted to differentiate it from those other movies."

Their first step, according to Dunstan, was to humanize the film's main character Kratos. "In the same way that Batman was grounded with Christopher Nolan's rendition, we were attempting to do that with Kratos so that when we meet him -- like they're doing in this newest game, which is sort of a prequel to the original -- we're seeing him before he became the Ghost of Sparta, when he was just a Spartan warrior and he had family and kids."

Explained Melton, "In the game... there's that attack from the barbarians and Kratos has to call upon Ares to help him. Really, that's going to be our first act break. Before then, he's going to be mortal, and he's going to have his family. We're going to learn about him and understand how he operates. So it's potentially 30 minutes -- give or take -- of building up this character so that, when he does turn and becomes the Ghost of Sparta, we understand him as a human and we understand the journey that he's going to take. We're emotionally invested, so that it could go beyond just this one movie."

In regards to switching gears from low-budget horror to larger-than-life action, Dunstan and Melton couldn't be happier. "There's almost an element of relief," continued Melton. "When it comes to God of War, we are first-time visitors, and we have a wealth of imagination that has built up from our appreciation for the sword-and-sandals films of our history... We know it doesn't have to be done for a million bucks in a garage. [Laughs] That helps, too. But also, with a bigger movie like God of War, you have to go quite a bit deeper into the character as opposed to a horror film, in which you generally need to get things going; people are concerned that the audience won't have patience, so it's go go go go go.

"With God of War, the studio's saying, 'We're going to spend $150 million to make this movie. We really need to understand this character and get behind him and feel his pain and feel his emotions so that, when he is in these giant set pieces, we're in there with him and we're feeling it.' That is a critique of some of these big action films is that they often get too big and just become noise; you're not invested in the character."

Added Dunstan, "There was a recent movie, which will remain nameless, that depicted the main character without any fear. When you do that, how are we supposed to be afraid through him? How are we supposed to gauge anything as a legitimate threat? It's become this dulling element. So with this, we take an intimidating presence such as Kratos, fighting and pursuing a bloodthirsty vengeance trail to the God of War. How do we make that genuinely scary? The man of action must prevail, but it's got to hurt to getting there."

Speaking of hurt, the writers also have big plans for Ares, who will become a more proactive villain in their adaptation. "In the game, you know, he's immortal, and he doesn't really do much besides raid Athens," noted Melton. "So we're trying to build him up a bit more, too, so that he can become a true villain."

As of right now, Dunstan and Melton are still working on the screenplay. While Brett Ratner was once attached to helm the project, God of War is currently without a director. In the meantime, consider this your first taste of what's to come.

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love on Twitter and IGN.

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DICE: Mirror's Edge and Bad Company Are "Too Good to Kill"

While EA and DICE remain coy about Mirror's Edge 2, a sequel seems all but inevitable.

In an interview with IGN, DICE executive producer Patrick Bach continued EA's (as well as DICE's) pro-Mirror's Edge 2 messaging, staring that Mirror's Edge is a property "we love, and of course we haven't killed it, because it's too good to kill." This also applies to Battlefield: Bad Company 3.

“The Bad Company IP is still something we love," Bach continued, "and it’s very dear to me because I worked on both titles. We have no information with where we are to a sequel to Bad Company, so I can’t tell you anything about that IP." When asked about the uncertain future of the Bad Company franchise, particularly with Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 taking center stage for the developer's foreseeable future, Bach emphasized that DICE will "never kill something that's great."

This reinforces an earlier DICE statement: "We haven't killed Bad Company 3." We may not see it now, but it sounds like its return is also inevitable.

"And then of course," Bach continued, "we have other projects in store for you." Is DICE working on an original new game? Another sequel? "You’ll just have to wait and see."

Mitch Dyer is an Associate Editor for IGN's Xbox 360 team. He’s also quite Canadian. Read his ramblings on Twitter and follow him on IGN.

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