THE BLACK DEMON: An Interview With Director Adrian Grünberg

Introduction

In The Black Demon, Josh Lucas (Ford v Ferrari, Yellowstone) stars in this edge-of-your-seat action thriller from the director of Rambo: Last Blood. Oilman Paul Sturges’ (Lucas) idyllic family vacation turns into a nightmare when they encounter a ferocious megalodon shark that will stop at nothing to protect its territory. Stranded and under constant attack, Paul and his family must somehow find a way to get his family back to shore alive before it strikes again in this epic battle between humans and nature.

Cinema Scholars’ Glen Dower recently got to chat with the director of The Black Demon, Adrian Grünberg, about the film, diving into the shark genre, working with the legendary Mel Gibson, and working with Josh Lucas, among other topics. 

Interview

Glen Dower:

Mr. Grünberg, how are you, Sir?

Adrian Grünberg:

Very well. Yourself?

Glen Dower:

I’m good and thank you for taking some time out of your weekend to talk to Cinema Scholars.

Adrian Grünberg:

It’s also your weekend.

Glen Dower:

No, it’s a privilege. We are here to talk about your new film, The Black Demon. How did you get involved with the project?

Adrian Grünberg:

I was offered, sent a script by Javier Chapa, the producer. I had never done a genre movie and I enjoyed watching them. I had never mentioned myself doing one. I was immediately attracted to the whole Latin universe in it. I don’t look the part, but I am. And I talked to Chapa and said, look, I’d love to dive more into the whole mythology and the whole Mexican of it. And he was all for it. And I said, great if we can move in that direction, bring it on. And here we are.

Glen Dower:

Two years later. I did have this fun idea, after your work on Apocalypto, Get the Gringo and Rambo: Last Blood, the producer was asked ‘Do you know any directors who have worked in Mexico?’ And his response was…’I know a guy…’

Adrian Grünberg:

Yeah, exactly! Yeah, I think I know somebody! And by the way, I haven’t only worked
there, I do live here as well!

Glen Dower:

Perfect. We’ll talk about the mythology in a moment. I just want to ask you why you think, we as an audience, still love a good shark movie. We have Jaws, 2, and 3D, The Revenge. We have had Deep Blue Sea, we’ve had the Sharknado saga, and we’ve had The Meg plus its sequel soon. And now we have your film. Why do we keep going back to a good old shark movie?

Adrian Grünberg:

I think it’s the eternal question. And ever since, I mean I grew up with Jaws. I was afraid to get in the water because of Jaws. So it’s one of those real fears that can happen to anybody. It’s not a ghost, it’s not the devil, it’s not other things. It’s, it’s not the serial killer. It’s something that anybody who goes into the scene can completely relate to the idea that something might happen and take it from there. Then the beauty of it is you can go full shark in many genres, you know, can make it funny. You can go Sharknado, you can go Jaws, you can go The Meg, you can go back and we’re all invited, whoever you are, we’re all invited to this extravaganza. It’s just one of those animals that fascinate us, like very few others.

Glen Dower:

Your shark, the Black Demon itself, or the Demonio Negro. I like your character design of having the shark look like he’s been in the wars. Sharks in movies often have a sheen and look sleek, but your shark has sustained a lot of damage.

Adrian Grünberg:

Absolutely. It’s twofold. There are two reasons for it. The Black Demon is a huge, massive shark who has been alive or come becomes alive when summoned. So it’s been meandering the seas for thousands of years. So, there are deeper scars that are less visible, that have been calcified from previous battles with whatever it was. And then there’s this thing of being a natural predator. The way they are, and their color is because they blend into their environment. That’s why they’re gray on top and white at the bottom. The way you look at the front below with the sun, there’s this whole thing about how they hide in their ambiance, and in this particular case, because also there’s this whole oil spill around, it sort of matches itself with its own surroundings to become even more invisible in the way.

Glen Dower:

Yes, as Richard Dreyfuss says in Jaws, ‘It’s a miracle of evolution.’

Adrian Grünberg:

Exactly. Yes, yes, yes. I’m glad you’ve brought Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws up. So good for you.

Glen Dower:

I also recently spoke to writer/director Scott Walker, about his new film, The Tank and he spoke about his creature came from an idea that it was Mother Nature taking a stand, righting a wrong. Then we got into the history of horror being at its best when it’s reflecting real life in some way. We have A Nightmare on Elm Street being about PTSD, The Thing is about transmittable diseases, and of course, Jaws just being about a force of nature. So again, your creature as well is also Mother Nature showing how to deal with these humans. Do you think also, we will keep going back to this creative well now, that Mother Nature is behind everything and that we are the monster that needs to be removed, which is also touched on in your film?

Adrian Grünberg:

You could go as far as saying that it’s sort of the easy way to go in the sense that everything is pushed by Mother Nature and if we push back on it, we get into trouble, which is all sorts of troubles that we’re getting into as a society and as a species because we’ve gone against Mother Nature. Mother Nature does what it does. For me, it was really important to have, yes, the whole idea of what we as a species are doing to our planet, but to bring in this ancestral thought process of these pre-Hispanic cultures who saw this coming and who lived through this as well. You mentioned Apocalypto before that. So, it’s also a clear indication of even back then, how we did this 3,000 years ago. We continued to do it to this day and it’s only going to get worse. So again, the whole idea of having this creature and this monster who is not bad, it’s brought on for good reasons. There’s this whole idea that the god itself might feel bad about killing children, and we hear the term collateral damage what are we willing to give for the future of our species or to keep our family safe? So then that’s what Paul deals with saving his family. But the Black Demon is trying to save all of us. So hopefully that comes out because that’s part of those threads that are in the movie as well.

Glen Dower:

How did you put the cast together? So we have Josh Lucas as the lead character, Paul. Was he your first choice? Because he’s had a great role with Yellowstone, for example, and sometimes he pops us to remind us that he is a quality actor, that we should give him some more attention maybe.

Adrian Grünberg:

I agree, and he is one of those actors. I mean I always liked him and I liked the small stuff he did, and I know him as an actor a lot. And you have a list of people, but the truth is his frame of mind where he is on a conscious level and an unconscious level is actually tremendously satisfying as a human being. Just talking to him, you get the sense of a real human being. And I’m sure many actors could play this role, but I think what’s important is that this is a guy who ends up doing the right thing, but is a bad person by choice maybe, and not by conscious actions at the moment, but he is not a good person. And he becomes that and he has lied again subconsciously, sometimes even to his family and it takes certain things to bring him back and to do the right thing. And he was a clear choice to place somebody like that and he’s done it before. So I loved him and the rest, I had worked with Julio before. I had worked with Fernando before. I had clear the sense that I knew what kind of actor I wanted and I knew what kind of character the beauty with Josh was, we found this character together, working together. We completely found it. And then the kids who just blew my mind. And you never knew the kids, but they were fantastic!

Glen Dower:

And you did worry for them when the idea of the sacrifice came up, they were in real peril. Also, we have a sort of Easter Egg; you had a dog there because, in every shark movie, there has to be a dog, right?

Adrian Grünberg:

Yeah, I have to say, look, we deal with cliches all the time, even in life, but particularly in art, in all sorts of art and film. It’s not any different. And there are certain lighter things that the original script had, a lighter sense to it. And I always thought that I would love, again, going back to why make this movie, I always liked the idea of trying to make it a little deeper, if that’s the right way of saying it, but how do you keep some of the lightness to it? And Toro was in the original script and I always liked it. I always liked the idea of having it there and the name and being this big guy’s little dog. And I think it’s another layer that attracts other people as well. I think it makes it endearing where it’s not just about the family, but there’s this other living element there other than the shark that we want to take care of. And if there are two characters that have zero faults in what’s going on in the movie, it’s Toro and the Black Demon, they act out of just pure instinct. So they’re the two saving characters in the movie.

Glen Dower:

Let’s talk about your career so far. We have Apocalypto, you are the assistant director, you were the director for Get the Gringo, then assistant director again for Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher, and then director of Last Blood, and now this film. How did it feel going between assistant to the director and then back to assistant again? Or was it the opportunity to work with the stars of those films, for example?

Adrian Grünberg:

Well, the world of Mel Gibson has its own world. I mean, we met in Apocalypto and immediately became fans of each other. I’m a big fan of Mel and he offered me my first directing gig and we co-wrote it together and he was amazing. And Get the Gringo had its own life when it came out. And then for one reason or another, you’re working on certain things. Ed Zwick knew I was a big fan of Tom Cruise, and as a director called me. I was available. And it’s a job that I always enjoyed because as an AD below the line, any below the line, you get to work with a bunch of different directors. And in a big part made me who I am. I see a lot of Mel in what I do. Tony Scott, I mean these are all people that I grew up with and that I really admire Oliver Stone. And I find myself saying, this is very corny, I’m sort of a combination hopefully with the main nucleus that is myself and then these other parts that from which I have learned. So no, it wasn’t a big change for me.

Glen Dower:

And you love what you do. One last question from me, on a personal note. I’m a huge Stallone fan; I’m a Sly Hard, Sly Guy. What was it like to work with the man?

Adrian Grünberg:

Well, look, I’ve worked with some pretty big people in my career and I’m thankful for that. If I still think if there’s any Hollywood Royalty left in this world, there’s only two and there’s Tom, and there’s Sly. That’s it. Royalty from those days back. That’s it. So for me, and I grew up with Sly, I grew up with that poster you have on your wall back there. So, for me, it was a dream come true to work with Sly. He’s a living legend and he’s a talented, multifaceted artist and he’s, he’s amazing. He’s an amazing person.