There’s a fairly lengthy interview with creature effects master Rick Baker over at the LA Times. Most of the article has to do with his work on the recent Wolfman. But, in an interesting nugget at the end of the piece, Baker confirms that he will be returning to Men In Black III: “I’m just starting up now Men in Black [III], which is another one I wanted to do because I worked on the first two.”
Baker also riffs on the state of practical effects vs. computer effects: “I embrace the technology and I’ve been doing my designs on the computer
for 22 years now. It’s another trick in your bag of tricks. There are
things you can do [with computers] we can’t do with rubber and
animatronics. But I hate when the computer stuff just makes for sloppy
filmmaking, and it has.”
Commenting on how The Wolfman did in theatres, Baker noted: “When you’re working on a movie you always hope that people will go for
it and enjoy what you’re doing. I don’t know what they were
expecting. Frankly, it seems to me that part of the problem was when it
was released. To put out a movie called “Wolfman” on Valentine’s Day
weekend against a movie called Valentine’s Day? I
didn’t really understand the logic of that. What do you expect? Release
it on Halloween and I’m sure it would have done a lot better.”
You can click over for the entire interview, including a video featurette on the makeup of The Wolfman featuring Baker.