We were joined on the Popternative show by writer and director Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) to discuss his feature film directorial debut, Dust Bunny, now playing in theaters. Starring Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal, Another Round), Dust Bunny is modern day fairy tale thriller about a 10-year-old girl who joins forces with her hit man neighbor to confront each other’s monsters.
Ten-year-old Aurora has a mysterious neighbor who kills real-life monsters since he’s a hit man for hire. When Aurora needs help killing the monster she believes ate her entire family, she procures his services. Suspecting that her parents may have fallen victim to assassins gunning for him, Aurora’s neighbor guiltily takes the job. Now, to protect her, he’ll need to battle an onslaught of assassins ― and accept that some monsters are real.
Also starring Sophie Sloan (Annika, Chemistry of Death), Sigourney Weaver (Avatar, Alien), and David Dastmalchian (Murder Bot, Late Night with the Devil), Fuller was influenced by a specific era of movies.
“It really was a love letter to Amblin movies of the 80s, Gremlins, Poltergeist, Goonnies, ET, things that have horror elements in them, but also have a slight reconfiguration that make them a little bit more palpable,” Fuller says.
The original idea for Dust Bunny was thought out as an episode for Steven Spielberg’s 2020 reboot of his anthology series Amazing Stories.
“I had pitched him this story at the premiere of Rogue One as an Amazing Stories episode and he was like, ‘great, I’m in, let me know when you have a script.’ And then, you know, a couple of years go by and then I reach out to him and say I have a feature version of it now, ‘can I send you the script?’ So, I got notes from Steven Spielberg on this story and those notes are incorporated into the film. So, there is something magical about having that Steven Spielberg fairy dust sprinkled on this that really informed us on the kind of movie we wanted to make, and the kind of movie that we wanted to appeal to children of all ages and adults who still like seeing child protagonists in movies.”
Watch the full conversation with Bryan Fuller below.
Dust Bunny is now playing in theaters.
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