Fans of the Underworld series have reason to be excited these days, as the next installment, Underworld: Blood Wars, is coming to theaters next month. Even cooler than revisiting the world of vampires and lycans is the fact that the film is directed by Anna Foerster, who is not only making her feature film directing debut, but is the first woman to direct a film in the Underworld franchise. I had a chance to chat with her, and you can check it out in the video above!
We spent the first part of the conversation talking about how she came to Underworld as a feature film directing debut after a long career as a Director of Photography for VFX (Independence Day, Godzilla) and a director on television (Outlander, Criminal Minds), as well as what prompted her to choose Underworld: Blood Wars as opposed to other projects. She says, “It’s not necessarily the first movie that comes to mind for me to be my first movie. It’s not that I sought out that movie and said I need to do an Underworld movie!”
After a general meeting with a producer who liked her work on Outlander, she was introduced to the possibility of Underworld, a world with which she was not previously familiar, but as it just so happened was looking for a director. So, what made her say yes?
“It actually brought together a lot of the things that I can bring to the table,” Foerster says. “Like with my visual background, with my visual effects background, with my second-unit action background. And then, what was intriguing to me is that it’s a world, it’s a created world. It’s intriguing. There was the look of the first one I liked, and the way they dealt with the actors and the type of performances. So, doing another one like this…and really continuing the world could be great fun. And it was.”
Check out the rest of the interview to find out where she felt she excelled as a director on this film, and what she learned as a first-timer. She’s also an optimist about the climate for female directors and anticipates that very soon “we won’t have to have that discussion anymore” with regard to a lack of female directors.
Underworld: Blood Wars hits theaters January 6th.
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