Saturday, May 06, 2006

Nacho Publicity Kicking Into High Gear

So much out there, and ever mounting, I will probably only blog on the more substantive Nacho Libre-related stuff in the future. But I kept finding such juicy tidbits in the media, I thought I'd just serve up a few. Here they are.


Frat Pack Back On Track This Summmer

Fans of the 2004 sleeper "Napoleon Dynamite" are breathlessly anticipating director Jared Hess' sophomore effort, "Nacho Libre" (June 16). With Black in the lead, plus a "Napoleon"-like cast of oddball unknowns, the film takes place in the world of Mexican wrestling, and gleefully stuffs Black into a cheap superhero costume and mask for his role as Ignacio, an aspiring wrestler.

Q: What was it like going from such a low budget movie to an actual Hollywood movie put out by Paramount?

A: I think just the scale of everything. At least, the scale that you're operating on. On "Dynamite" it was like, we're sleeping in neighbor's basements and stuff. It was a very small group of people that made that film, as well as the resources we had. On this movie, it's multiplied by 100, just how much bigger everything is, the crew and just the whole experience. But ultimately, you're making a movie and it's still a lot of fun. I had an amazing experience making "Nacho." Just the scale of it took me a while to get used to.

It has been two years since the release of Napoleon Dynamite and catch phrases from the movie are still constantly repeated, but that kind of popularity was not Hess' goal when he wrote the script. Hess says that he writes "whatever makes sense to the character." According to Hess there are no intentionally quotable lines in the Nacho Libre script, though whether audiences feel the same way remains to be seen. Gosh.

Elfman's take on the score changed from the beginning, when he first planned on doing small musical interludes to help the story along - but it was so much fun that he ended up writing a full score to the film.

After the unexpected success of "Napoleon Dynamite" Hess had to approach creating this film a little differently. Whereas there was no pressure or expectations in making the first film, the expectations of a big studio production have brought additional challenges.

"It's been kind of a baptism by fire for me," Hess said. "It's going from 20 friends from college to something that has money behind it."

Life on the Set of Nacho Libre: Jimenez said Jack Black didn't stay in character and contrary to what you might believe, Black also didn't spend his off-time just joking around. Jimenez says Black was very professional yet they had a great time filming Nacho Libre. "Every day we enjoyed it a lot. I think the whole crew enjoyed working in this film. On my first day when I saw the whole crew laughing and everything, I relaxed a lot because I saw they enjoyed it so we had a really good time every day."

posted by Rhapsidiomite @ 3:16 PM
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