The Mask of Zorro star Antonio Banderas recalls the grim prediction Steven Spielberg made about Hollywood while serving as an executive producer on the film. Released in 1998, The Mask of Zorro is directed by Martin Campbell and serves as Banderas' introduction as the masked swordsman. The film was a hit, and Banderas would reprise the role for the less successful The Legend of Zorro in 2005.
Now, speaking with The Mask of Zorro's 25th anniversary, Banderas reveals that Spielberg made a prescient prediction about the future of movies during work on the film in the late '90s. Spielberg, the actor recalls, saw a future in which CGI was very dominant. Check out Banderas' full comment below:
“Steven Spielberg said to me once when we were shooting, ‘This is probably going to be one of the last Westerns shot in the way the Westerns were shot in the old days, with real scenes with real horses, where everything is real, [real] sword fighting, no CGI.’ Everything was [practical].
“And he said, ‘But things are going to change. They’re going to change and they’re gonna change fast. And so you should be proud of this movie.’ And I am, probably even more now than at the time that I was doing it.
I don’t know if I was absolutely conscious when I was doing Zorro that it was going to have an impact. The impact that it’s had, and especially after 25 years. … It was a very beautiful adventure movie with a lot of ingredients that made it shine in a very beautiful way. I have nothing but good memories.”
Was Steven Spielberg Right About Zorro?
Even by the time The Mask of Zorro was released in 1998, the Western had been in decline for years. While the genre is no longer as popular as it once was, the odd Western is still released, including the likes of 3:10 to Yuma (2007), True Grit (2010), Django Unchained (2012), The Hateful Eight (2015), The Magnificent Seven (2016), Hostiles (2017), and The Harder They Fall (2021). Many of these movies did still rely on practical effects, even if VFX are used for things like muzzle flashes, blood spatters, and environmental adjustments or paint-outs.
While Spielberg's comment is partially true about The Mask of Zorro and the state of Westerns, it's also very applicable to action movies in general. In the decades that followed Campbell's take on Zorro, action/ adventure movies did start to rely more on visual effects over practical, including when it comes to stunts, big set pieces, and environments.
That being said, there is still a strong focus on practical filmmaking. Almost as an answer to the abundance of poor CGI in movies these days, franchises like John Wick and Mission: Impossible are committed to an old-school style of filmmaking that focuses on real stunts in real locations with real actors. Although Spielberg's comment about The Mask of Zorro being the last of its breed is accurate, in many ways, there are thankfully still a handful of filmmakers working today who are looking to recapture the glory of practical filmmaking (just not so much in the Western genre).
Source: Yahoo! Entertainment
