J.J. Abrams can go home again - at least, figuratively.
That's what the writer-director discovered putting together Super 8, his sci-fi homage to kids making movies.
Of course, Abrams admits it helped his cause to have former boy-wonder Steven Spielberg by his side as producer.
"When I pitched him the movie, he got it right away," says 44-year-old Abrams of Spielberg, 64. "We were a couple of decades apart, but we had the exact same experiences, in terms of making these types of films as kids."
Opening Friday, the Abrams celebration of his youth also references Spielberg's adult classics. E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and even Jaws, are hinted at, as Super 8 combines humour and horror in the backdrop of a middle-class environment.
"The goal was never to ape or rip off any of Steven's movies," says Abrams. "But there is a certain kind of comedy, fear factor, spectacle and emotional component that make up Steven's (production company)Amblin (Entertainment) films that we wanted to capture, so we could embrace his movie DNA."
Set in the summer of 1979, Super 8 is about a group of teens from a small Ohio town, who get together to make a zombie flick. While filming near a train station one night, they witness a catastrophic train crash.
As things begin to unravel in their community shortly afterward, the teens begin to suspect an alien has escaped from a sealed compartment aboard the train.
Newcomer Riley Griffiths plays the rookie director Charles. Joel Courtney plays his assistant Joe, and Dakota Fanning's sister, Elle, is Alice, the rebellious star of the movie within the movie. Ryan Lee, Gabriel Basso and Zach Mills round out the cast of teen crew members.
On the adult side, Friday Night Lights' Kyle Chandler co-stars as the local deputy sheriff dealing with his son Joe's aloofness - along with an an apparent monster on the loose - and Ron Eldard plays Alice's dysfunctional father.
However, the young actors in the cast drive the narrative.
"Working with kids can be unpredictable," Abrams says, "but the beauty of these actors was that they had not worked a lot, so they weren't jaded, and they were always hungry for scenes to work."
The filmmaker is also a father of three adolescents, two boys and a girl; he's had experience managing youthful exuberance.
"I am well-trained," he says. "You have to show kids respect and understand their rhythms, and they will pay attention."
It's not surprising that Abrams was making home movies at an early age. Raised in L.A., he's the son of TV executives.
After college, he paid his dues, working his way up the film-industry ladder with screenplays for 1990's Taking Care of Business, 1991's Regarding Henry with Harrison Ford, and 1992's Forever Young, featuring headliner Mel Gibson.
Abrams' Armageddon script in 1998 elevated his status, but he took his creative energy to TV soon after the release of the sci-fi epic.
He nurtured his Felicity series from 1998 to 2002, followed by Alias, starring Jennifer Garner, and then the acclaimed show Lost, which he co-created and helped shape until the series ended last year.
He received rave reviews for his 2006 directorial film debut, Mission: Impossible III with Tom Cruise, despite the fact that the movie under-performed at the box office. (He's also co-producing Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, set to hit theatres Dec. 16.)
As producer, he was the creative force behind the 2008 monster movie, Cloverfield. And his 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise managed the difficult task of impressing critics and fans while raking in $386 million US worldwide.
Multi-tasking in TV and film will continue for Abrams:He's executive-producing two highly anticipated shows. The vigilante crime drama, Person of Interest, will be out in the fall. Written by The Dark Knight screenwriter Jonathan Nolan, it features Lost's Michael Emerson. The mystery thriller Alcatraz, co-created by Lost writer Elizabeth Sarnoff, is headed for midseason.
"I have high hopes for both," Abrams says.
Besides those TV projects, Abrams is monitoring the Cloverfield sequel as producer, and watching over the much-anticipated followup to his Star Trek re-launch, tentatively set for a 2012 release.
"The writers are hard at work on it, and I am excited about getting back to it," he says of his second Star Trek movie.
"We are taking our time, though, because I really do want make sure we do something that is worthy of the first one."
How does Abrams oversee so many productions?
"There are days when I have four different things going on, and I get a little crazy," he says. "But when you are surrounded by really good people, it all seems to work out."
? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
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