James Gunn's Xbox Experience
Edited By Ryan
Staff
I was originally quite excited when, about a year ago, Microsoft first revealed that it was working with a number of horror directors, including James Wan (Saw), David Slade (30 Days of Night), Adam Green (Hatchet), Lucky McKee (May), and James Gunn (Slither) to produce original horror-comedy shorts, for free, to be released via Xbox Live. James Gunn had me excited in particular, as he has a terrific capacity for making the sight of a man being cleaved in half incredibly funny. I was also curious to see how Microsoft would handle original content.
The shorts ended up coming out around the turn of the year, and the few that I watched were pretty underwhelming. There were some fun ideas, but they looked cheap, and everything felt tame and restrained. It would seem that some of the blame for this falls on Microsoft, at least according to Gunn, who described the experience as "painful" on his blog over the weekend.
The bait, he says, was the promise of "complete creative freedom," which prompted Gunn to produce HUMANZEE!, which he describes as "the most balls-out, fucked up thing I’ve ever shot." Apparently Microsoft freaked out, and wanted so little to do with HUMANZEE! that it released the rights to Gunn and asked him to try something else. Their sole guideline was that it should be "PG-13, with no sex." His second effort, Sparky & Mikaela, ended up getting released, though not before Gunn and Microsoft both made significant cuts to it, despite Microsoft's earlier promises of creative freedom. While his original vision for Sparky & Mikaela was along the lines of "Sid & Marty Krofft gone rancid," the end result was "barely a half-step removed from something you’d see on the Disney Channel."
Gunn described Microsoft as "the most dreadful, non-talent friendly company I've ever worked for," which, as fan of the platform, he finds particularly disappointing. He saw a lot of potential in the Xbox Live distribution model for original content, and I tend to agree with him. Luckily for fans of Gunn and James Wan, it sounds like the uncensored, uncut versions of their shorts will make it out via the internet and "other media" before too long.
On a certain level I can understand Microsoft being a little fussy about the way the original content it bankrolls reflects on the company, but I'm baffled at what it expected from these guys. If you want to see what James Gunn can do when given a little legroom, check out the PG Porn shorts he's been producing for Spike, particularly Helpful Bus.
I was originally quite excited when, about a year ago, Microsoft first revealed that it was working with a number of horror directors, including James Wan (Saw), David Slade (30 Days of Night), Adam Green (Hatchet), Lucky McKee (May), and James Gunn (Slither) to produce original horror-comedy shorts, for free, to be released via Xbox Live. James Gunn had me excited in particular, as he has a terrific capacity for making the sight of a man being cleaved in half incredibly funny. I was also curious to see how Microsoft would handle original content.
The shorts ended up coming out around the turn of the year, and the few that I watched were pretty underwhelming. There were some fun ideas, but they looked cheap, and everything felt tame and restrained. It would seem that some of the blame for this falls on Microsoft, at least according to Gunn, who described the experience as "painful" on his blog over the weekend.
The bait, he says, was the promise of "complete creative freedom," which prompted Gunn to produce HUMANZEE!, which he describes as "the most balls-out, fucked up thing I’ve ever shot." Apparently Microsoft freaked out, and wanted so little to do with HUMANZEE! that it released the rights to Gunn and asked him to try something else. Their sole guideline was that it should be "PG-13, with no sex." His second effort, Sparky & Mikaela, ended up getting released, though not before Gunn and Microsoft both made significant cuts to it, despite Microsoft's earlier promises of creative freedom. While his original vision for Sparky & Mikaela was along the lines of "Sid & Marty Krofft gone rancid," the end result was "barely a half-step removed from something you’d see on the Disney Channel."
Gunn described Microsoft as "the most dreadful, non-talent friendly company I've ever worked for," which, as fan of the platform, he finds particularly disappointing. He saw a lot of potential in the Xbox Live distribution model for original content, and I tend to agree with him. Luckily for fans of Gunn and James Wan, it sounds like the uncensored, uncut versions of their shorts will make it out via the internet and "other media" before too long.
On a certain level I can understand Microsoft being a little fussy about the way the original content it bankrolls reflects on the company, but I'm baffled at what it expected from these guys. If you want to see what James Gunn can do when given a little legroom, check out the PG Porn shorts he's been producing for Spike, particularly Helpful Bus.
I understand that MS's gotta keep its produced content very wussy, but they also were distributing a free episode of Code Monkey's called Dave's got Boobs... I'm not sure why they freaked out so much about his content.
Poor (well, not so much financially these days) James Gunn, I'm sure he enjoys the cash he makes in Hollywood. But I'm sure a piece of him misses the low budget insanity, yet total freedom of working with Uncle Lloydie. (Lloyd Kaufman of Troma entertainment)
Still that's pretty creative within the confines of his Microsoft contract. Hehehe
You should all check out Blue Like You on Live. It's a comedy/horror short with one hell of an ending. You won't be short of winces and "oooohs."
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