,
 |
| Photo by Joe O'Connell |
Judge's latest film stars Jason Bateman as the owner of a flavor extract company who must deal with clueless employees and a listless marriage.
The look of the factory was inspired by the former Adam's Extract plant in Austin (the company is now in Gonzales), but the quirky characters came from Judge's imagination mixed with his own factory experiences.
“I worked in a place in Albuquerque that made honor snacks” (cardboard vending cartons stocked with candy and chips), he said. “A guy came up to me my first day and looked at me very seriously, like he was going to lay some wisdom on me, and said (Judge's voice deepens): ‘I started here too as Manpower, only I did 40 crates a day. I'm full-time now.'”
A version of that odd character who takes his job way too seriously makes it into the film, which Judge calls “the inverse of Office Space but still about the working place.”
“I'd always been the employee,” Judge said from a suite overlooking Lady Bird Lake at Austin's Four Seasons Hotel, where he was meeting with the media about the new film, which opens Friday. “When Beavis and Butt-head happened, I went from never having anyone work for me to having 50 to 90 people at any given time working for me. When that first happens, you want to be a nice boss. Then you get taken advantage of. You have to find a balance there.
“I thought it would be fun to see it from the point of view of the guy who runs the place.”
This is reflected in Extract when Bateman's character runs up against employees endlessly complaining or — in the case of a character Judge portrays — offering inane advice presented as wisdom.
Building a following
Judge conceived the story directly after Office Space came out in 1999, but Fox execs thought Idiocracy, which tells of a dumbed-down future where corporations rule, had more commercial potential.
Neither Office Space nor Idiocracy found big-screen audiences. Office Space instead built a following on video, selling 2.3 million copies between 1999 and 2003.
The video success “was really sweet for me because I had to fight so hard to get that movie the way I wanted it,” Judge said. “After all those battles, having it not do well at the box office was kind of hard to take. I could just hear (studio executives) all going, ‘You see? We told you so.'”
He co-wrote Idiocracy as his last obligation to Fox. “However many years it took for Idiocracy (which was barely released in 2006) to happen, Office Space just kept growing and growing and making more money.”
In his spare time, Judge rewrote Extract with Bateman (from TV's Arrested Development) in mind to star. Judge and his producing partners on the long-running animated sitcom King of the Hill, John Altschuler and David Krinsky, decided to make Extract with private financing out of major studio clutches. Miramax later signed on for domestic distribution.
Filmed in Los Angeles
Extract is the first of Judge's three live-action films not shot in the Austin area, but instead in Los Angeles, a decision he said was purely financial.
His next project, Brigadier Gerard, could well shoot in Central Texas. He will produce, not direct the movie, which is based on an Arthur Conan Doyle short story.
Judge, who grew up in Albuquerque, has called Austin home since the early '90s.
He said he enjoys fishing on his land in nearby Elgin and going out to support musician friends playing in Austin, a city he described as small enough to be comfortable but with everything he needs, including ample advice from filmmaking friends Robert Rodriguez and Richard Linklater.
Judge took a circuitous route to a filmmaking career. He has a physics degree from the University of California-San Diego and worked as an engineer at a string of companies — including one in San Diego that had him working on electronic systems for F-18 fighter jets.
He also was a bass player touring with Dallas-based blues artists Anson Funderburgh and Doyle Bramhall. While living in Dallas, he did the first crude animations that resulted in Beavis and Butt-head, characters he doesn't rule out reviving.
“Now with Facebook, I've reconnected with a lot of people I knew in high school,” he said.
“Everybody thinks I based Butt-head on them, or they're afraid that I did. It wasn't anybody in particular, but I get that all the time.”
Joe O'Connell is a freelance writer living in Austin.
No comments:
Post a Comment