We don’t think anyone really knows what we’re about to get from Frank Miller for Christmas. We might get a Sin City rip-off that is way too fictional to even take seriously, or we may get a superhero movie unlike anything we’ve seen yet. Or, as yet a third option, some weird melding of both.

/Film has some new stills from Frank Miller’s directorial debut (not counting a co-directing credit on Sin City), and Sam Jackson sheds some light on just how seriously we should be taking a Frank Miller adaptation of a Will Eisner property:

Crave Online: You did The Spirit with first-time solo director Frank Miller. How did he do?

Samuel L. Jackson: It’s cool. Frank was very ego-less in terms of what we were doing on The Spirit. [His] first film, I’ve done like 113 movies. So, occasionally I would say, “Hey Frank, do you mind if I do…?” “Sure, go ahead. Try it.” He was okay with that. The cinematographer was going, “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Mind if we do it this way rather than that way?” So he’s very open to things we wanted to do. Having a playwright be a director, I’ve only had that one other time. That was on Changing Lanes, because Roger Michell directed plays also. It’s great to have people who are more concerned about character and story than guys who are sitting there looking at a monitor worrying about the composition of the shot, because that’s what the majority of young directors are doing. How can we dazzle the people with our camerawork? To me the story is important so the things I bring to a film are my character development, a little backstory, honesty, some reality and somebody that’s willing to pay more attention to what we’re doing in terms of getting information to the audience and having them pay attention to us as the actors aside from looking at this really slick camera move. It’s very important to us as performers.

Crave Online: Do you see a more optimistic Frank Miller, because he was disillusioned after Robocop II?

Samuel L. Jackson: I’m sure he is until you guys finish with him. We’ll see what happens. Frank’s made the film that he wanted to make. Hopefully, it will be that. The film comes out and people will talk about it and either he’ll be thick-skinned or bruised by it. Even happens to seasoned directors. Happened to Quentin. You guys made Quentin go away and go, “Oh! Oh!”

Crave Online: At Comic Con it looked very far out there.

Samuel L. Jackson: It’s a cartoon. The movie is a cartoon to me. I don’t know what anybody else is gonna think it is, but to me it’s a cartoon. We do Wile E. Coyote kind of stuff. I hit him in the head with toilets. We’ve got wrenches that are as big as this room. Clang! I hit him with the wrench and he gets up. We’re both pretty much indestructible and I created him so I know he’s indestructible and I use the stuff on myself, made myself indestructible. We’re the only two people that are like that, so we do outrageous things to each other. Even when I get shot I kind of shake bullets out of my head. It’s a cartoon. It’s so kind of outrageous and crazy and over the top. I get to wear all these outrageous costumes. I mean, come on, I dress up like a Nazi in this movie. I have lightning bolt eyebrows. It’s fun!

[IMG: /Film]
[CraveOnline]