Will Ferrell wants you to know that there will be no kitsch in his Land of the Lost. Armed with a $100 million-plus budget, they’re gonna be playing for keeps: real animals, photo-realistic dinosaurs, hyperreal violence, bowling, a rape scene twice as long as the one in Irreversible, and Sleestaks the likes of which even God has never seen. “This movie is going to rip your dick off,” promises Ferrell.
That’s not a direct quote. Sadly, even though I sat through all forty-five minutes of today’s Semi-Pro press conference at the W Hotel in Westwood, I have no direct quotes. That’s what happens when someone absconds with your recorder. Fortunately, Ferrell’s comments regarding Brad Silberling’s deluxe update of Sid and Marty Krofft’s Land of the Lost weren’t too involved. Basically, they boiled down to this: the production won’t mimic the cheap look of the series. In other words, you won’t see zippers on the Sleestaks (though Ferrell left open the possibility of CG-ing the zippers back in if the audience misses them). I’m pretty sure this is news.
If the kind folks at New Line recover my recorder today (or, more likely, one of my colleagues forwards me a copy of the press conference), I’ll give you the full transcript of Ferrell’s answer (replete with funky Woody Harrelson banter).
Land of the Lost is due from Universal on July 19th, 2009.