Tagline: Smaller Heroes. Just As Super.
Sometimes the most amazing superheroes are the ones inside your dreams. So discovers ten-year-old Max (Cayden Boyd), an outcast little boy who has become lost in his own fantasy world in an attempt to escape the everyday worries of dealing with parents (David Arquette and Kristin Davis), school bullies and no-fun summer vacations.
But when Max realizes the cool characters, high-flying adventures and incredible secret powers that dwell in his imagination might be far more real than anyone is willing to believe, his whole world changes.
From the wild imagination of a child and the digital vision of director Robert Rodriguez (creator of the hit “Spy Kids” series as well as the recently acclaimed “Sin City”) comes the magical, original, not to mention three-dimensional, family entertainment, The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D.
Sometimes the most amazing superheroes are the ones inside your dreams. So discovers ten-year-old Max (Cayden Boyd), an outcast little boy who has become lost in his own fantasy world in an attempt to escape the everyday worries of dealing with parents (David Arquette and Kristin Davis), school bullies and no-fun summer vacations. But when Max realizes the cool characters, high-flying adventures and incredible secret powers that dwell in his imagination might be far more real than anyone is willing to believe, his whole world changes.
Now, Max is blasting off on a mission to Planet Drool where Shark Boy (Taylor Lautner) — a kid once lost at sea and raised under the watchful fins of sharks only to become half-shark — and Lava Girl (Taylor Dooley) – a volcanic beauty who emits leaping flames and red-hot rocks – live in a realm of astonishing wonders, one in which the Train of Thought can whisk you off to the mouth-watering Land of Milk and Cookies.
Teeming with mountainous roller coasters and violet skies, Planet Drool looks like the perfect kid paradise until Max meets up with the shocking Mr. Electric (George Lopez) and his sidekick Minus (Jacob Davich) who are trying to do away with all dreams forever. With Shark Boy and Lava Girl in trouble, only Max can guide them – by imagining every clever move of their wily escape from Mr. Electric’s Lair. Speedily conjuring up an incredible array of gadgets, gizmos, contraptions and cool ideas…Max learns the power of turning his dreams into reality.
About the Production
The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D is an adventure for kids that was literally created in the mind of a child. All of the story’s comic book-style characters – from the underwater wonder known as Sharkboy to the fiery “flame fatale” of Lavagirl to the high-voltage villain that is Mr. Electric – were originally imagined by filmmaker Robert Rodriguez’s son, seven-year-old Racer Max.
Racer Max had been drawing up, dreaming about and spinning tales of Sharkboy and Lavagirl for quite some time before Rodriguez decided to transform them into a motion picture. Rodriguez had earlier made a pioneering splash in family films with his classic trilogy of mini-secret-agent action – “Spy Kids,” “Spy Kids 2” and “Spy Kids 3D” – and was renown for his kid-like sense of playful imagination and unlimited possibility in the film business. He had since turned his digital cameras back to more adult stories, but when Rodriguez pitched the tale of Sharkboy and Lavagirl to Dimension, even adults were hooked by the idea of entering the kind of enchanted, gadget-filled, heart-felt, nonstop action universe only kids can dream up.
So Rodriguez began to take Racer Max’s out-of-this-world characters and incorporate them into a traditional screenplay structure. In honor of his son’s contributions to the storyline, Rodriguez named the lead character Max, turning him a lonely outcast whose only escape into a world of fun and excitement is through his imagination. The story evolved to become about the magnificent power of dreams themselves – especially when combined with action.
Says Rodriguez: “In the world of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, dreams become a metaphor for creativity and the power to change the world around you. The idea of a kid lost in a dream-world – drawing pictures and writing stories when he’s supposed to be paying attention in class – was also drawn from my childhood experiences. That kid was me! But I didn’t want the story to only be about dreamers and dreams coming true. It is also about figuring out the dreams in your life that are worth making real.”
Racer Max remembers first thinking up Sharkboy, the long-lost marine biologist’s son who was raised by sharks in a sea cave only to sprout gills and a fin, while playing “shark” with his dad in the pool. “He kept swimming around saying ‘I’m Sharkboy, you should make a movie about a Sharkboy, and I’ll play Sharkboy.’ We decided to draw a children’s book from it so I could teach him how everything starts with a single idea, and that if you keep building upon that idea and adding to it, it’ll grow.” Rodriguez recalls. “I encouraged him to come up with a female character as well, and asked him what else he loved besides sharks. He thought for a moment then said “Lava.”
He also came up with the villain Mr. Electric and a planet so cool it makes you drool, called Planet Drool.” Planet Drool’s Land of Milk and Cookies was inspired by a dream Racer Max had of swimming through a river of milk, as well as the family’s favorite recipe for “Chocolate Volcano Chunk” cookies.
Recalls producer Elizabeth Avellan, who is also Robert Rodrigeuz’s wife and Racer Max’s mother: “The two of them would sit out by the pool all summer long and Robert would take a Sharpie pen and write down every idea they came up with. You just knew it was going to be a story that would thrill kids because it came right from that place deep in a kid’s imagination.”
Rodriguez continues the story: “By that point Spy Kids 3D was released and had become successful, so I got a call from Bob Weinstein at Dimension asking if I had any other ideas for a 3D family film. I didn’t, but was put on the spot. I looked over at Racer who was drawing his Sharkboy children’s book, and I asked Bob, ‘How about “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl… in 3D’? He said, ‘That sounds fantastic! What is it?” I told him I didn’t know, that my son came up with it, but that we’d work up a script and send it to him. From that point on I was excited about making a movie that truly came from a child’s imagination.”
Then the collaboration really kicked into high gear. “When making a movie like this you have to try and get back to that time when you were 8 years old. But my son was already there. So we decided to work on it together as a family making a movie for other families. Racer’s brothers came aboard as actors and helped draw up designs. We brainstormed every chance we could get, making endless drawings and coming up with different jokes and ideas. Somewhere during our brainstorm sessions we realized we even wanted to include a “brain storm“ in the movie, where at some point brains rain down from above due to imagination overload. That’s what made it so fun — every conceivable idea was up for grabs in this movie.”
Other joyful notions followed from Racer Max’s mind as the story was developed – including the Mt. Neverest roller coaster and the fudge-spewing motorbike ridden by Sharkboy. With each of these wildly uninhibited creative concepts, Robert Rodriguez found his own imagination sparked. He never worried about how to such otherworldly and unlikely creatures, characters and contraptions to life, because he already knew he could conjure absolutely anything inside the digital world. With the latest technology and most talented computer artists at his disposal, Rodriguez was ready to go anywhere his son’s imagination would travel – to the stars and beyond.
“I was really adamant that I wanted to keep all of Max’s original ideas and concepts intact and weave a story around them,” he says. “It was a revelation to see how all these ideas of his kept growing and really fitting into the theme of the power of dreams.”
As Rodriguez wrote, the screenplay became even more of a family project. His brother Marcel and sister Becca made contributions and of course his long-time partner and wife Elizabeth Avellan served as the film’s producer. Later, not only Racer Max, but Robert and Elizabeth’s sons Rebel and Rocket took also took roles in the film. It all seemed to make the film mean even more to the family.
“Sharkboy and Lavagirl was a real family affair right from the beginning – and we were inspired by the idea that we were a family making a film for other families,” says Rodriguez. “It’s been an interesting process to see the kids want to become more and a more involved, because with the first SPY KIDS movies, the kids just watched it.
On the second one, they wanted to be stunt kids and by the third one, they were coming up with design ideas. But now with Sharkboy and Lavagirl, they are becoming storytellers. I hope the passion that our family put into it comes through for the audience and inspires them to follow their dreams, too.”
How to Find A Sharkboy and A Lavagirl
Just as Max must find a way to make his dreams comes true in The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D, so too did Robert Rodriguez start to look for ways to bring his son’s most fantastic tales of superheroes to life on the big screen.
The first part of his mission was to cast Max and the host of cool, crazy and comical characters he dreams into existence. To play the dreamy-eyed outcast whose journey to Planet Drool reveals to him the power of his imagination, Rodriguez searched for a young actor who reminded him of his son, Racer Max. During extensive auditions, he found those qualities in ten year-old Cayden Boyd, whose previous film credits include “Mystic River” and “Freaky Friday.”
“Cayden resembles my son a lot in spirit and even in features,” notes Robert Rodriguez. “He’s soulful, even though he’s only ten, and has a strong sense of creativity. As soon as I met Cayden, I knew he was the one.”
Cayden says he read for the part because he had seen the “Spy Kids” movies and knew “it was going to be a very, very cool audition.” It was even cooler when he won the role. “I was really excited about getting to go to Planet Drool and I knew I would be working in front of this huge green-screen, flying on wires, doing all kinds of flips – and getting to be the boy dreamer who makes everything in the story happen,” he says.
At first Cayden hoped he would get to play Sharkboy, but he quickly began to relate to Max as the very heart of all the action. “I wanted to be a superhero, of course,” he admits. “But then I realized that Max the daydreamer is even better because he’s the one who creates the superheroes in the first place! I can be kind of a daydreamer sometimes, too, so I really understood Max.”
Cayden could also relate to the theme of the story. “To me, Sharkboy and Lavagirl is about how sometimes you need to dream and sometimes you need to focus – but you don’t ever want to just give up on your dreams! One of the best things that ever happens to Max happens because he dreamed about Sharkboy and Lavagirl. That’s the important part.”
As he began making the film, diving into thrilling stunt work and the complexities of acting on a green screen that might have tripped up far more experienced actors, Cayden found the role coming more and more naturally to him. “Some of the stunts were hard at first, but then it got easy,” he says, “because I learned how to really use my imagination.”
With Max cast, the quest went on – this time for two kids capable of transforming from ordinary human beings into the extraordinary superheroes Sharkboy and Lavagirl.
The search turned into a tale of two Taylors when Taylor Dooley and Taylor Lautner were cast, with assistance from Racer Max who was in on the entire casting process. “I saw Lavagirl first and she was Taylor and then I saw Sharkboy after that and he was Taylor, too!” laughs Racer Max.
Adds Robert Rodriguez: “After just the first day of casting, Taylor and Taylor were the first two kids to come in to read for Sharkboy and Lavagirl and there was something so fantastical about them that I asked Racer Max, ‘do you think it should be these two?’ and he agreed they were perfect. We had found his Sharkboy and Lavagirl. That was very exciting, to see your characters already coming to life.” Thirteen-year-old Taylor Lautner, an accomplished athlete whose skills range from competitive martial arts to hip-hop dancing to football, needed to hear no more than the title of the movie to get hyped-up about it.
“The minute I heard the words Sharkboy and Lavagirl, I knew it was about superheroes and I was interested,” he recalls. “Then I read the script and I really liked Sharkboy, because he wasn’t just a superhero but he had this really interesting life where he was searching for his long-lost father and I thought he was kind of funny and different. I liked that he was superathletic. Plus, I liked that you had Robert and Racer, a father and son, putting all their thoughts and ideas together to make this movie. I think it’s real fun how you’re in the real world one minute in the story and then you just – poof! – go into the dream world.”
Sharkboy’s sleek, ocean-going costume really helped Lautner to dive even further into his character’s personality. “He’s got gills on his side and a fin on his back and this awesome shark-mouth with ultra-sharp teeth, so it was pretty awesome to wear that and see what it is to be like a shark,” he says. “It gave me a really good feeling for who Sharkboy is – because the costume is cool and quirky and makes you think of someone moving in a really athletic, animal kind of way.”
Lautner’s advanced martial arts skills — he is a four-time Junior World Champion — also were challenged during filming. Lautner’s ability to perform back flips, high kicks and agile spins all became part of Sharkboy’s ocean-going powers. He even uses some of his sword-fighting skills in the battle against Mr. Electric’s Plug Hounds.
Though Lautner loved doing all the stunt-work, one of his favorite scenes takes place in the Land of Milk and Cookies – the kind of place any kid wouldn’t mind spending a lifetime or two. “The Land of Milk and Cookies was the best,” he sums up. “I got to stick my boot in a puddle of real chocolate and we got to slide down a pole and get whipped-cream in our faces and I think everyone will have a great time getting to visit there!”
For the filmmakers, Lautner was the perfect under-age hero. Says Elizabeth Avellan: “Taylor Lautner looks like a superhero. He’s such an accomplished athlete and he can strike these great poses and we were all really taken by him. By the end of the film, we all believed in Sharkboy just as much as Max.”
Meanwhile, Taylor Dooley, who makes her feature film debut in The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl, had an especially unusual challenge in taking on the role of Lavagirl, the volcanic young lady who has become distraught at not being able to control her super-heated powers. Dooley was immediately intrigued by the film’s script, which reminded her of other classic kid adventures. “It had action, a lot of excitement and it made me think about the importance of dreaming,” she says. “Plus the ‘Spy Kids’ are already my three favorite movies.”
When Dooley learned that the story came from the ideas of a seven-year-old boy that made her even more excited. “It’s hard to believe that a kid could come up with all this stuff,” she says. “That really made me believe in the power of imagination.”
She also was interested in the dilemma that Lavagirl faces in trying to get along in a world that’s all too easily scorched by her very presence. “Lavagirl is really having a hard time because she doesn’t know if she’s really evil or not because everything she touches she destroys with her molten lava,” she explains. “Max is the only one who can help her to figure out her life.”
Dooley’s total commitment to the role even meant dying her hair a bold purple! “It started with Robert showing me a digital picture where he had turned my hair from brown to pink and purple and he said ‘which way do you like it better?’ and I liked the purple because it’s one of my favorite colors,” the young actress recalls. “I was really nervous about having it dyed at first but then it became really fun. I did get some dirty looks from mothers though who would kind of pull their kids away from me!”
Of all of Lavagirl’s incredible adventures, Dooley, like Lautner, especially loved striking out into the Land of Milk and Cookies. “It was just so cool to jump around on top of cookies!” she exclaims.
Says Kristin Davis of Taylor Lautner: “She’s so beautiful and she has this quality of being both young and very wise at the same time. She has all the confusions and emotions of a young girl but it all comes out as hot lava! To me she has a really strong kind of feminine energy and power.”
Also joining The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl’s cast of kids is Jacob Davich in the dual role of earthbound school bully Linus and Planet’s Drool’s resident meany, Minus. Davich recently made his feature film debut playing the young Howard Hughes in Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator.”
When he first read about Linus/Minus, Davich immediately realized he knew just the type. “Everyone knows those bully kids who think they’re better than everyone else,” he explains. “And that is definitely Linus and Minus. Linus is a bully and Minus is just a much more extreme, super-villain version of the bully. Linus is kind of mean but Minus is completely sinister. He has this giant tower called the Dream Lair and he wants to destroy all dreams and make the world dark forever.”
He continues: “What makes Minus really interesting is that he is the complete opposite of Max. Max wants light, Minus wants dark. Max wants everything to be good and fun, Minus wants everything to be bad and nasty. And everything that Max dreams up, I mock it and distort it and throw it back in his face. Basically, I’m the guy who tries to ruin everything that makes people happy!”
Davich’s favorite adventure in the film was getting to work with the hilarious comedian George Lopez in the role of the Mr. Electricidad and the fiendish Mr. Electric. “He’s the funniest guy I’ve ever known,” says Davich. “He’s insanely funny. I’d have to bite my lip all the time to keep from laughing on camera. Just the way he looks, his voice, the whole vibe he put outs – he was really great to work with.”
Rounding out the kid cast is eight-year-old Sasha Pieterse in the role of Mr. Electricidad’s daughter Marissa, who on Planet Drool becomes the Ice Princess with her mystical Crystal Heart. Like others in the cast, Sasha was a huge fan of “Spy Kids.” “I saw all three of them and I thought they were so cool,” she says. “So I knew this was going to be a lot of fun.”
Sasha enjoyed both Marissa’s frosty predicament and the key part the Ice Princess plays in restoring the world’s belief in dreams. “Marissa is always really cold because her dad makes her sit in the front of the class. But her seat is right under the air conditioner so he thinks she has allergies, and won’t let her outside.” she explains. “So then it’s really kind of funny that in Max’s dreams of Planet Drool she becomes the Ice Princess and she’s colder than ever! But then, later on, she also helps to save the day, which was great for me.”
But for Sasha, the very best part of Sharkboy and Lavagirl was getting to make a movie in which all the story’s best characters – the villains, the action heroes and the ones who save the day – are all kids her own age. “I think it’s really amazing that Robert lets kids be the real stars of his movies,” she says. “When you see these characters on the screen, whether they’re real or in the dream world, you can really relate to everything they feel and do.”
Destination Planet Drool: About the 3D Design
From the beginning, Robert Rodriguez knew that The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl would come to life best in three dimensions. After all, what better way to shoot a movie about dreams than in the movie world’s most dreamlike mode: 3D? Furthermore, after the release of “Spy Kids 3D” Rodriguez realized that even though adults might think it’s simply a gimmick, kids adore whipping out their glasses and getting a chance to interact with what’s happening in a movie in an in-yourface and personal way.
“For kids, a 3D movie is a whole experience,” sums up Elizabeth Avellan. “It’s more than just a movie.”
Adds Robert Rodriguez: “We go to the movies to be transported to new worlds, but with 3D glasses you get the added feeling of being in that world along with Sharkboy and Lavagirl.”
Fresh off of the much grown up digital adventure “Sin City,” Rodriguez and Avellan had to switch gears – yet were ready to push their cutting-edge digital studio in Austin, Texas to new edges to bring to life the wild gadgetry, creatures, effects and kid smarts that populate The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D.
From the flames that flicker through Lavagirl’s hair to the towering heights of Mt. Never Rest to the chocolate rivers of the Land of Milk and Cookies to the flexible wires of Mr. Electric’s Plug Hounds, they had their work cut out for them.
“It was a lot of fun going from guns and handcuffs and noir city scenes to creating giant cookies made out of foam and shark-shaped rocket ships,” says Elizabeth Avellan. “ What’s really amazing is that you can use the same technology to create such different kinds of worlds.”
Always forward-looking, this time around Robert Rodriguez took his well-honed digital filmmaking and 3D process to the next level. Rather than pick up the same equipment used for “Spy Kids 3D,” Rodriguez moved on to the next-generation digital cameras to create a stereoscopic “twin-lens camera,” which offers even higher resolution to create a more eye-popping, kaleidoscopic visual experience. He also experimented with newly-created, plastic, red-cyan 3D glasses (available in theatres showing The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D) that further amp up the colors.
The digital artistry all began with the team at Troublemaker Studios turning Racer Max’s line drawings into sophisticated computer storyboards. The computer crew especially loved bringing to life the various Plugz, including Plug Houndz, T-REXplug and crocPlug — and merging the real-life head of George Lopez into the robotic body of Mr. Electric. Other favorite digital gadgets included several stylish superhero vehicles: the Shark Bike, the Lava Bike, the Shark Rocket and the Shark Sub.
The crux to bringing The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl to life was designing the look of the characters themselves, a process that involved creative collaboration between Robert Rodriguez, costume designer Nina Proctor, the skilled makeup and prosthetic artists at KNB EFX, the computer wizards at Troublemaker Studios and the digital design houses who worked on the film: Hybride, The Orphanage, Café Fx and Tippett Studios.
Troublemaker Digital’s Alex Toader created the original designs of Sharkboy and Lavagirl based on concept drawings by Robert Rodriguez and Racer Max. He built the suits in the computer, and then KNB EFX sculpted the suits out of clay. “Racer Max got to approve the suits at the sculpting stage, and even got to add some sculpting touches of his own using his sculpting tools,” remarks Racer Max’s proud father.
Proctor especially enjoyed working on the Ice Princess costume, which takes an original approach to the idea of royalty. “We stayed away from the flowing gown you usually associate with princesses and shaped her outfit like an icicle, then sprinkled glitter up and down her arms so that she sparkles and glows.”
The idea all along was to create the kind superheroes that a kid sees in his dreams. Sums up Proctor: “We were always careful to run our designs by Racer, as well as Robert, to make sure they worked with this incredible world they had dreamed up. Racer even helped pick out the colors. Especially on Planet Drool, all the costumes are really bright and full of fun little details that could only come from the mind of a kid.”
For the cast, the costumes were often the only entry into Planet Drool they had. Most of their scenes were shot against green screens, to be filled with three-dimensional CG worlds that the actors had to imagine. But for the kids, already fired up by the drawings and storyboards they had seen, that wasn’t too tough a challenge.
Explains Taylor Lautner: “A lot of times when we were doing a scene with the green screen, Robert would sit there and tell us all about what we’re supposed to be seeing. It was like he was telling us the coolest story – but mostly you had to really use your imagination!” Adds Cayden Boyd: “Sometimes Robert would draw stuff for us to help get a picture in our head. And he’s a great artist so that really helped too, because you would look at it until it became kind of real.”
But not all the thrills were virtual. All of the kids also got a chance to perform their own stunts – leaping, flipping and even swimming on wires. Stunt coordinator Jeffrey Dashnaw had a lot of fun working with such miniature action stars. “I loved it,” admits Dashnaw. “Kids just have a way of being so much more creative than adults.”
He especially enjoyed working with the two Taylors as Sharkboy and Lavagirl. “Taylor Lautner is an unbelievable aerialist and acrobat but he had to learn to do everything on wires, which is very different. Taylor Dooley really had no experience but she picked up on how to use the wires right away. They were both amazing.”
Still, it wasn’t all easy. “This movie was a big challenge because you’ve got flying and climbing kids all over the place – and really no sets because it’s all being added by computers later on,” explains Dashnaw. “We had to figure out ways to make it mesh with the scenery that didn’t exist!”
For the kids in the cast, the film’s mix of reality and fantasy, of human creativity and computer power, was all pretty normal – because that’s how they approach their world anyway! Sums up Taylor Lautner: “Sharkboy and Lavagirl is great for kids our age because you get to see both real life and a dream world that has a great look and is filled with cool stunts and fantastic adventures and is all about the fun of being a kid and imagining the lives of superheroes.”
These production notes provided by Dimension Films.
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl
Starring: Taylor Lautner, Taylor Dooley, Cayden Boyd, George Lopez, David Arquette, Kristin Davis
Directed by: Robert Rodriguez
Screenplay: Robert Rodriguez
Release Date: June 10th, 2005
MPAA Rating: PG for mild action and some rude humor.
Studio: Dimension Films
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $39,177,684 (56.4%)
Foreign: $30,248,282 (43.6%)
Total: $69,425,966 (Worldwide)