Writer/director Issa López’s horror fantasy Tigers Are Not Afraid releases today on DVD and DVD/Blu-ray SteelBook. It comes packed with special features. If you snag the SteelBook, it contains an additional 63-minute interview with Issa López and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro following the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival screening of the film.
It’s through this informative and candid interview that the López details the evolution of her film, and its dramatic shift during the editing process and the addition of an actual tiger. Both of which steered the filmmaker away from what she described as a much more harrowing ending. When speaking with López in preparation for the upcoming SteelBook release, she revealed to Bloody-Disgusting what her original plans were for the feature.
In the film, the ending (spoilers ahead) sees Estrella (Paola Lara) find closure with her deceased mother before luring the villainous Chino to his demise at the hands of his ghostly victims. She encounters the ghost of Shine (Juan Ramón López) and an escaped tiger before exiting the building into an open field. It’s a bittersweet but hopeful ending, for both Estrella and the other children in Shine’s gang; save for Morro, who escaped before the climactic showdown. Initially, when writing the screenplay, Issa López envisioned a bleaker conclusion for the children.
“It was a darker ending. Intellectually I got to a place where they go through all of that, and [Estrella] comes out the other end, but the rest of the kids have joined Brayan’s (Benny Emmanuel) gang. They become gangsters themselves, and she walks away into the desert. From an intellectual point of view, it made all the sense in the world; however, as I was getting more involved in the story, I was becoming more and more involved emotionally. I realized I couldn’t go down that path. I wanted to give them some light at the end to convey the feeling that there is something you could do to change what’s going on. Otherwise, it’s just going to be upsetting. For myself, I needed that light.”
So what’s next for López? During the theatrical release of Tigers Are Not Afraid, it was revealed that the filmmaker’s next project would be a Werewolf-Western movie to be produced by Guillermo del Toro. While production has come to a grinding halt these days, we couldn’t help but ask if there were any updates on this project. She shared, “I delivered the second draft to Guillermo the day before production was halted. So, I’m waiting on notes on the second draft, but no one knows when we’re going to see a set or how we’re going to work on that set. But hopefully, eventually, we’ll raise some hell.”
When asked about any other teases she could provide, including bringing a female perspective to the Werewolf subgenre, López states, “Well, one of my favorites is Ginger Snaps, and you don’t get more female than that. But it is a very, very male universe. I love exploring the female universe, and I’ve done it many times in my work, but I also love the opportunity to inhabit the male mind and trying to figure it out from the male perspective. So, it’s a very male movie, from a female perspective.”
On the marriage of a Werewolf-Western, she adds, “It’s not an obvious choice, but I love both genres and putting them together is such an adventure. It’s so much fun.”
Here’s to hoping López does raise some major Werewolf-Western hell sooner, rather than much, much later. In the meantime, Tigers Are Not Afraid is now on DVD and DVD/Blu-ray SteelBook.
source https://bloody-disgusting.com/interviews/3614328/director-issa-lopez-reveals-grim-original-ending-tigers-not-afraid-teases-werewolf-western-movie-update-interview-post-5-5/
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