Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton talk God of War, The Collected and Waterproof

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

SPOILERS AHEAD

THE COLLECTION is set to open this Friday and the team behind it, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, are already talking up their next screenplays– GOD OF WAR, the Amblin-styled horror flick WATERPROOF, and the proposed sequel to THE COLLECTION.

First, let’s tackle the obvious– GOD OF WAR is perhaps the most high-profile video game adaptation currently in the works. When compared to the recent slate of swords and sandals flicks, Dunstan is quick to deliniate it from THE IMMORTALS or CLASH OF THE TITANS:

“Those movies can inform the God of War to step in a more bold direction. Not to join those ranks, but to stand head and shoulders apart like other reinventions have done within that genre. The satisfying element is to look at those movies as a commentary on the genre and now say something different.”

Melton also chimed in, discussing the creative encouragement of the studio to push said boundaries:

“Sony games, you think they’d be sacred about the origin story and all of that, but they were encouraging us to make it different from those movies and if that means going in dramatic shifts, they were cool of it. And they’re involved.”

Though GOD OF WAR may be their most high-profile project to date, the third entry in THE COLLECTOR series is no slouch either. In a bold move, the Dunstan and Melton have reported they will be moving in a totally fresh direction with the sequel, aptly titled THE COLLECTED:

You end ‘The Collection’ on a little bit of a cliffhanger. The door is open for a sequel. If we do see ‘The Collected’ or–

Melton: “That’s the name of it!”

Are you gonna shake it up and have him out of the mask?

Dunstan: “Yes. If that film comes to pass, yes.”

So that’s a totally different type of movie then.

Dunstan: “That’s the answer to ‘why would you make another one?’ It has to be a different movie. The first two are their own experience, this [‘The Collected’] is what happens now.”

Finally, the duo also discussed the film they’re currently scripting, WATERPROOF, which they describe as “like The Goonies… imagined by Stephen King.” Though no plot details were revealed, the pair revealed the basic idea behind the flick:

“If we hit the mark it should feel like the first time you weren’t caught watching something scary. The innocence of that. This is not gonna be a hardcore-R experience, it’s something that can grab us all. If we hit the bullseye it’s about the joy and wonderment of seeing something dark.”

Keep in mind the team also performed recent rewrites on PACIFIC RIM for Guillermo Del Toro, a film that will likely be one of the biggest box office draws of next year. These two guys seem to be making good with the genre flicks, doling out their own unique cinematic cocktail sex, monsters, torture, humor and blood. What better reason is there to check out THE COLLECTION this weekend? In the meantime, talk back with your thoughts on GOD OF WAR, WATERPROOF, and THE COLLECTED below…