#38 – “I Started Becoming Very Irresponsible”: Director Enda McCallion Explains How He Got Fired from DOOM (and What He’s Up to Now)

Today’s guest is Irish filmmaker Enda McCallion, and our interview was prompted by his involvement in the 2005 horror film DOOM starring The Rock, an adaptation of the influential video game by id Software. Enda was attached to the project in its initial stages and during pre-production, but was then fired and replaced by Andzrej Bartkowiak as the new director. Here, for maybe for the first time, Enda talks about his experience developing DOOM and explains what happened during pre-production, and he also gives us a glimpse of what his version of DOOM would have looked like and what remains in the finished film.

Enda McCallion originally garnered attention as a director of very unusual, daring, funny and often subversive commercials. His best-known work is the Judderman commercial for the Metz alcopop drink, shot in a silent movie-inspired fashion and featuring a strange creature, the Judderman, luring a hapless wanderer deep into the woods with the Metz drink. Other notable commercials include two edgy spots for Gervais, featuring a lesbian couple with one girl torturing her lover by denying her access to the Gervais ice cream, or a McDonald’s spot depicting a group of aliens ready to attack humans coming out of a McDonald’s restaurant because, as they say, “they taste better afterwards”. Enda also made spots for companies like Nestea, Fanta, Citroen, Renault, Opel, Samsung, and he directed one of the most lavish commercials ever made, the “Ryder Cup 2006” for Allied Irish Bank, which was shot on over 20 locations with hundreds of extras. Enda also created a music video for Nine Inch Nails, “Deep”, and a few years after his DOOM experience, he directed a horror film called HIT AND RUN, an intense low-budget film which displays the same dark sense of humor and visual pizzaz that could be seen in his commercials. In our interview, Enda moves beyond DOOM to discuss his style and his approach to storytelling and directing, he shares anecdotes about several of his projects, and he talks in-depth about several projects which never came to be, and some which are currently in development.

My interview with Enda McCallion was conducted in connection with our German-language podcast Lichtspielplatz, so if you speak German, please visit lichtspielplatz.at and check out episode #71, which features an in-depth discussion of the two DOOM movies. Also, make sure to listen to my conversation with DOOM screenwriter Dave Callaham, and my interview with Tony Giglio, the writer/director of the second DOOM movie DOOM: ANNIHILATION, here on Talking Pictures.

If you enjoy my interviews, please consider heading over to Patreon and supporting the production of new episodes.

So without any further ado, here’s director Enda McCallion!

The mp3 file can be downloaded HERE.

Photos courtesy of Enda McCallion
Editing: Christoph Schwarz
Music: Clark Kent

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