Ever since his first appearance in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's 1963 X-Men #1, Cyclops has been synonymous with the heroic team of mutants. As Professor X's right-hand man, Scott Summers has led the team on innumerable adventures in every era. His straight-laced persona and dedication to the X-Men's cause make him a great foil and occasional antagonist for rabble-rousers like Wolverine. Between his relationship with Jean Grey and his futuristic son Cable, even Cyclops's family life becomes great fodder for exciting stories.
Filmmaker and comics fan Keith Sutliff plans on exploring the depths of Cyclops' history in his upcoming unofficial fan series The Cyclops Chronicles, which will be available to stream for free on Vimeo and Youtube in mid-April. The series will be the first large-scale, live-action exploration of Scott Summers as a character. Sutliff recently spoke with CBR about his long-time love of the X-Men, his goals for the series, and his experience writing, directing, and starring in his first serialized show.
CBR: What appeals to you the most about Cyclops as a character?
Keith Sutliff: As a kid growing up in the '90s [with] the animated X-Men series... I grew up watching that series every Saturday morning. I had the cassette tapes of it afterward. I just loved it. The Cyclops character has been one of my favorites. I've had a few people tell me I look like Cyclops, and that led into this whole series.
Did you look primarily to the cartoon for inspiration, or were there any particular comics that influenced you?
The comics are what inspired me the most. I did tons and tons of research to make it accurate. I bought a lot of comics like Cyclops Origins, X-Factor, and Uncanny X-Men to research who this character is. If you watch the Fox movies, Wolverine is the big alpha-male of the group. He's almost running the show. I read a lot of people complaining that "Cyclops doesn't get enough love." So me and my producing partner thought, "You know what? They're right." There have been other Fox origin movies, like Wolverine, and there are fan-based projects about Wolverine and Gambit, but there aren't any about Cyclops at all. He's the leader of the X-Men. So, that's how this all came about -- just a ton of research. I'm drawing from that and putting my own twist on the character.
In the first episode, we see Cyclops taking medicine to subdue his powers. Can you talk a little about his relationship with his powers?
There's a drug called Banshee in the comic books. They take this drug called Banshee and it enhances their powers, but it also enables them to control their powers. Cyclops is able to control the optic blast from his eyes, so it enhances that and it also enables him to control that. In the episode, he's sick of taking it. In Cyclops: Origins, Scott Summers talks about his powers with Xavier. He talks about wanting to be cured of this disease of the optic blast. [Professor X] says, "No, Scott. You have a gift, a gift to lead." So in the episode, he talks about the Banshee drug having these powers. He throws the pill bottle over the cliff. I won't spoil too much of it, but there's a flash of the light beams in his eyes. That's what it's all about.
Obviously, the show is centered around Cyclops, but can fans look forward to seeing any other Marvel heroes as the series progresses?
Absolutely. They're going to be sprinkled throughout the series. We really want to focus on Scott's backstory and his story in general, and chronicle different events in his life. We just want to put entertainment out for people who wanted this -- X-Men fans and Cyclops fans -- as a treat for them.
What kind of creative freedom do you feel that you have, making an unofficial fan series rather than then being tethered to the official Marvel Universe?
A lot. I think it's our own spin on how the character should be portrayed. In the comic books, he's a tough warrior, and that's what we want to portray. We don't have somebody telling us what we have to do creatively. There's definitely a lot of freedom with it.
Prior to this series, it seems like the majority of your work has been stand-alone stories, either short films or feature films. How does working in a serialized format differ for you? Has it been a challenge to adjust to?
I like it a lot better. Doing a feature is so much time and work, it's just crazy. It's such a huge load to carry. I like this format a lot better because you can leave the end of episodes open-ended, but with a feature, you need a climax and an ending. So I like that this is open-ended. I'm doing another TV series for Video on Demand and Amazon Video in the summer called Suitcase City. For that pilot episode, I did more revisions than I ever have for any other feature script or anything, just because I'm new to it. It was different. It was a lot of different logistical things we had to adjust to. So, I like it better overall but I had to get used to the writing format.
What can you tell us about any potential villains coming up in these first episodes?
You might see Magneto, but I don't want to spoil too much. I want to throw a lot of Easter eggs in there and have it be surprising because we're trying to make this more of a modern take. We want to make it more like the Christopher Nolan Batman. People can relate to a more realistic view of how that character is in real life. Somebody can relate to how this normal person would react to his powers. I don't want to spoil too much, but you'll see some people throughout.
Finally, what are you most excited for audiences to encounter in the series?
This has never been done before. I'm more excited to see what people's reactions are and the excitement of people being surprised that this is being done. I want people to watch this and hopefully, they'll like it and that it's a surprise for them and X-Men fans and Cyclops fans.
The Cyclops Chronicles will be available to watch for free on Youtube and Vimeo in April.
Source: Trendz OH
No comments:
Post a Comment