David Johnson Talks About 'Wrath of the Titans'.

David Johnson was recently attending an event for 'Red Riding Hood' which he was the screenwriter for, and while there he took some time to speak to the folks over at Collider, and he offers us some details on his latest project, the sequel to 'Clash of the Titans', 'Wrath of the Titans'.

The interview is quite a long one so I highlighted some of the more interesting parts but be sure to head over to Collider for the full interview.

There’s been a lot of talk about the film being more gritty and feeling more realistic, even though it’s a mythological story. Was that something that you wrote into the script?

JOHNSON: "When the director, Jonathan Liebesman, came on, he had a very clear vision of what he wanted that world to be like. That’s when we shifted into more of a feeling that this was a world that used to actually be. It’s not Middle Earth. It’s not another planet. It’s Ancient Greece, so it should feel like Ancient Greece, to the extent that that’s reasonable."

They decided to convert the first film into 3D, after the film was finished shooting, but with this one, you knew it would be in 3D ahead of time. Did that affect the writing at all?

JOHNSON: "No, it’s more the director who has to have that in mind. When you’re making a 3D movie, you’re directing it completely different than you would a 2D movie. There were some ideas that came up for things that would be good in 3D, but they were little moments. It wasn’t something we were really focused on. We were just focused on story, and Jonathan is all about bringing it to life and visualizing it."

How will the sequel compare to the first film? Did you re-watch the first film to see what worked and what didn’t?

JOHNSON: "We looked at the first film, but the whole idea of doing a sequel really was a blank slate because there is no sequel to the myth of Perseus. He became a king and had lots of kids, and that was it. It was good for a reference point for the character because we had to be faithful to the character as he was created there, but what next was just a blank canvas and we were free to play with it a little bit."

How do you approach writing action, and will there be a lot more action in the sequel?

JOHNSON: "Action is my first love. When I first started writing, my favorite movies were Raiders of the Lost Ark and Aliens, and that sort of thing. For me, it’s fun. It’s almost not like going to work. It’s playing with toys, really. The fact that it gets to be my job is still blowing me away. It’s a different way of writing. If you’re doing horror or suspense, you’re using fear to tell a story. When you’re doing an action movie, you’re using action to tell a story. It shouldn’t just be action for the sake of action. It should be action to illuminate character, in some way. With the truck chase in Raiders of the Lost Ark, you learn a lot about Indiana Jones from the way he handles the situation. You see humor and determination, and it’s like a little movie, in and of itself. That’s how Dan [Mazeau] and I wanted to approach this, and Dan is actually a little better than I am with it. We wanted every action scene to illuminate the character, in some way, or their relationship with the other characters."

Is there a good balance of character development with the action?

JOHNSON: "I hope we balanced it well. In a movie like that, there are beats where we stop and get to know the people, but you want to get to know them on the move, in a movie like that. It’s more trying to learn about them while they’re on the move."