Filmmaker Guy Ritchie is a fan of undercultures and subcultures, and explores these themes in his upcoming London crime film "RocknRolla"
07/24/2008 - Guy Ritchie - 2008 Comic Con International Day One - San Diego Convention Center - San Diego, CA. USA © Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos
Ritchie spoke on panel at Comic-Con in San Diego this last weekend and had a bit to say about his new film.
Comic-Con is the largest multigenre convention held annually in San Diego, California, that hosts networks, studios, publishers, artists and celebrities along with fans for four days. It began as a humble San Diego Comic Book Convention back in 1970.
Regarding the feel of his latest film: "Well, the thing is it’s in the same genre as Snatch and Lock Stock and I felt I wanted to do another one, partly because of the amount of enthusiasm I got from those movies, but also because England’s changed so much in the last 15-20 years.
still from "RocknRolla"
Ritchie continued. "The world of crime has consequently changed so much in the last 20 years so to a degree, part of the movie is about old school gangsters getting pushed out by the new school and an aspect of that is eastern European or Russian."
Despite these changes, Ritchie assured the assembled audience he was indeed a fan of London.
"That’s me home town, yeah," quipped Ritchie.
Any Londoner must have a favorite drinking establishment, Ritchie talked about pubs. "I do have a pub. It’s much harder to run a pub than it is to make a film by the way," he noted.
Guy was pressed to explain his love for London.
"I was born there and I’ve seen it change and I know a great deal about it, I’m invested. I live vicariously through my wife so I was once a spy and now I’ve become a tourist and it’s much more fun to live in London as a tourist than it is as a spy."
Ritchie elaborated, "Someone told me the definition was a spy always looks for the bad stuff and a tourist always looks for the good stuff. So that makes it easy, being married to an American."
Ritchie noted that being married to an American affected his outlook. "Sure. I mean, London’s big. I don’t really know how big it is but you think New York’s big. New York goes up. London just goes on and on and on."
Guy continued, "London’s been going on for 2000 years and it hasn’t stopped for 2000 years. New York’s been going for like 300 years."
Dancing around the 800 pound gorilla in the room, Ritchie skirted how things were doing on the domestic front. When asked if everything was "okay", Ritchie noted, "As far as I’m aware."
USA
Your Talkback on this Story