Last time we checked, Jeff Renfroe hadn’t been hired to pick up where The Dark Knight’s Christopher Nolan left off.
You couldn’t blame the Victoria-raised filmmaker, however, if there were times he felt as if he was directing a Batman movie instead of The Colony, his post-apocalyptic thriller starring Laurence Fishburne, Bill Paxton and Kevin Zegers that opens today.
“It was like the Batcave, man,” said Renfroe, recalling a decommissioned NORAD army base 60 storeys below ground in North Bay, Ontario, that depicted the underground sanctuary for conflicted colonists struggling for survival in the next ice age.
“This huge door opens up to the side of the mountain, and there’s a 20-degree incline through the rock, a one-way tunnel that goes on for two kilometres. These huge glass doors lead into this amazing complex with its own water and power.”
The Colony was the first film to shoot in the underground complex, which was built in 1963 to withstand a four-megaton nuclear blast.
Although Renfroe, 42, was quick to praise the Canadian military — “they were amazing” — he joked that The Colony, set in the year 2045, might also be the last film to shoot there, given the amount of red tape involved.
Filming also took place at an old coal plant near Toronto, with some exteriors captured in an airplane hangar.
“It was logistically very tough,” recalled Renfroe, whose crew endured temperatures so cold, they froze camera lenses. “It was minus 30. We shovelled snow into the hangar, hung three walls of green screen and lit it through an open door.”
His live action was augmented by extensive computer-generated imagery to create an icy, desolate landscape.
The Colony has been in development for so long, some of his hair has gone grey, jokes the Seattle-born director, who moved to Victoria at age seven. His passion for filmmaking was ignited in the 1980s, when he enrolled in a radio and TV arts program at Spectrum Community School, where he began making small skateboard and ninja videos.
“I find one of the most challenging parts of my career is reining my patience in,” Renfroe confesses. “You want things to happen tomorrow. ‘Hey, I’ve got this great idea. Come on guys, let’s do it!’ ”
When Renfroe, whose parents live in Sooke, came home four years ago to shoot the supernatural thriller Stranger with My Face and the Lifetime miniseries Seven Deadly Sins, based on Robin Wasserman’s books about small-town California high schoolers, he was already doing rewrites for The Colony, assuming then it would be an $8-million thriller.
The budget for the sci-fi adventure he developed with producer Paul Barkin (The Tracey Fragments) has since doubled.
“It’s a particular challenge in Canada making a movie of this size,” he said, adding marquee value plays an important role.
Renfroe, a sci-fi fan who has lost count of how many times he watched The Blade Runner, says it helped that his stars shared his enthusiasm for sci-fi and comic books. He was surprised to learn Fishburne also loves post-apocalyptic action films.
“Who knew?” he said. “Laurence was the first man on the ship, and that gave us the juice to continue. And Laurence, having done The Matrix, is no stranger to green-screen shooting.”
While Fishburne, who plays Briggs, a former army captain leading a crucial expedition, often exudes intensity on screen, he’s different in person, he adds.
“He’s a big, soft teddy bear,” Renfroe said. “He’s very professional but just a kind man, very giving and respectful of my process.”
Paxton, who plays a harsh former comrade-in-arms who challenges Briggs’s leadership, said he signed on when he heard The Colony would be directed by Renfroe, whose 2004 sci-fi thriller and Sundance hit One Point Zero put him on the map.
“It all comes down to a phone call,” Renfroe says. “I think I just convinced him how passionate I was about the project.”
While colonists must contemplate cannibalism in their desperate bid to survive and save humanity when they run out of food and resources, Renfroe said he was determined to ensure The Colony didn’t become a zombie or vampire flick.
“I think it’s more frightening presenting them as people you like, and how they could change when they run out of food,” he said. “At some point, we’re all animals. To me, that’s scarier than if you’ve been afflicted by a virus or become a zombie.”
After six years working on his icy “big bad-ass genre movie,” the director — who relocated to Vancouver from L.A. two years ago — is “kicking in the door to TV, which is very cool now,” helming episodes of shows such as Haven and Being Human.
He’s also developing three more big sci-fi movies and “stepping out of my wheelhouse a bit” with a remake of The 39 Steps he’s attached to. Just don’t bet money that you’ll see him directing a fluffy Katherine Heigl comedy anytime soon.
“I don’t think I will ever do a rom-com,” he says, laughing.
