Furry Vengeance

The seed for Furry Vengeance was planted during a spate of wildfires in Southern California in 2004. Screenwriters Michael Carnes and Josh Gilbert started to wonder what would happen if the creatures whose habitats had been devastated decided to seek retribution against the humans who wreaked havoc on their lives. As the pair sketched out the storyline, it began to evolve into a hilarious revenge comedy about a real estate developer who messes with the wrong forest. “We always had the concept of animals going after a human who had wronged them,” says Carnes. “The idea of Mother Nature turning on people had so many comic possibilities.”

Producer Keith Goldberg, who had worked with the writing team on its first script, Mr. Woodcock, loved the environmental message at the film’s core. “We bought it right away,” he says. “The idea of animals attacking a real estate developer for taking away their homes struck us as a great movie idea. We’ve heard about it in horror movies, but this is the first time I’d seen it in a family comedy. It seemed like a really exciting story to tell.”

In the fertile imaginations of the writers, Furry Vengeance blossomed into the story of real estate developer Dan Sanders, dispatched by his employer to plow under a pristine forest to make way for a luxurious subdivision and shopping mall. “But he finds that the animals aren’t too keen on giving up their home,” explains producer Goldberg. “Dan senses pretty early on that he might be stepping into a gray area and he ultimately has to pay the price in a very comedic and fun way.”

Producer Bob Simonds recruited Roger Kumble, director of Cruel Intentions and Just Friends, to take the helm. “It was a great script and just the kind of project I was looking to do,” says Kumble. “I liked the combination of a broad physical comedy with an environmental message. Since I’ve had kids, I’ve been drawn to the family film genre, as well as the edgy material I worked with earlier on in my career. In a lot of ways, this combines both.”

Kumble, a writer as well as a director, worked with Carnes and Gilbert as they fine-tuned their script. One of his first major first decisions was to not have the animals talk. “We’ve already seen a hundred of these movies,” says Kumble. “At the end of the day, I just wanted to make something fresh, even if it meant going back to a time before Babe started the whole talking animal phenomenon. My hope is the animals gibberish, left it to the kid’s imagination, would be even funnier.”


Distributor: Golden Scene Company Limited

Release date: 22 July 2010

Category: I

Duration: 91 mins

Cinemas:
1/ AMC Pacific Place
2/ AMC Festival Walk
3/ BW Olympian City
4/ BW Kingswood
5/ The Grand
6/ UA Langham Place
7/ UA Cityplaza
8/ UA MegaBox
9/ GH Mongkok
10/ GH Hollywood
11/ GH Tsing Yi
12/ GH Citywalk
13/ GH Whampao
14/ Golden Gateway
15/ MCL Cinema Metro
16/ Alegria Theatre