I battled a lot with the cinematographer. That's a strange situation.Ī lot of times, Lloyd handled the camera and I took care of the actors. I was incredibly fortunate because most people have to go through other stages of filmmaking-admittedly, this was a lower budget project-and I came into this movie as a director. My girlfriend at the time she'd never seen me so excited about anything. I walked onto a movie set on the first day and I can't quite explain it. How did it feel directing your first movie? I knew what Troma movies were, but I also wanted to step outside of what a Troma movie had been up until that point. At the end of the day, he offered me $150 to rewrite Tromeo and Juliet, which was a fucking mess-basically just Romeo and Juliet transcribed with dirty words thrown in. He said, "Maybe you can write Tromeo and Juliet," or "Maybe you can do The Toxic Avenger," or "Maybe you could do some other film." I would have preferred to do some other film at the time The Toxic Avenger and Tromeo and Juliet both sounded so cheesy and terrible to me. I went into a meeting with Lloyd because I'd gone to Troma to get a job filing papers in the office or something-but he knew I went to Columbia and that I had a reputation for performing on the Lower East Side.
I was able to watch it with an audience and think about the parts that worked, as well as the parts that didn't. A lot of what I learned about filmmaking was in that film, especially the test screening.
I can't believe how much time has passed-but, really, I can, because everything in my career really started with Tromeo and Juliet. We spoke to him and Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman separately about the making of their cult film.Ĭan you believe it has been 20 years since the initial release of the film? The film was also a jumping off point for Gunn's career, cementing him as one of Troma's most successful alumni. Tromeo and Juliet stands apart from much of Troma's other work, in that it focuses less on supernatural fare and possesses more of a romantic core.
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