Bryan Fuller Reveals the Inspirations for His Dark Fairytale Feature Debut

He’s best known for his acclaimed genre TV shows, but Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) is making his feature film directorial debut with Dust Bunny, a coming-of-age storybook fantasy with his signature twist.

The film reunites the Hannibal series creator with star Mads Mikkelsen. He plays a hitman hired by a young girl named Aurora (Sophie Sloan), who wants his help to hunt the mysterious and monstrous Dust Bunny tormenting her apartment.

In a recent conversation with io9, Fuller talked about how the feature got the big screen treatment after previously being pitched as an episode of the Steven Spielberg-produced Amazing Stories series for Apple TV, and what it was like working on it with genre great Sigourney Weaver. The cult-fave creative mind also opened up about how he feels in regards to some of the projects he’s been attached to that have fallen through—as well as his excitement for a project yet to be announced. And yes, we even got a few details about his potential Silence of the Lambs limited series.

Read on to find out more about the world of Dust Bunny.

Sabina Graves, io9: How did you approach crafting a film that’s both coming-of-age adventure and monster-hunting horror?

Bryan Fuller: It’s very much like a love letter to Amblin movies of the ’80s and those fantastic high-concept children-in-danger gateway horror films that I loved: ET, Poltergeist, Goonies, Gremlins. In particular Gremlins is a big touchstone for us. This was developed as an Amazing Stories [episode], so this has got [Gremlins producer] Spielberg’s fairy dust on it.

He gave us notes on the story and it just felt like the right movie that was sort of a contained story that I could get my arms around as a first-time director, and also give me the ability to be aggressive cinematically. The story facilitates a certain style that was certainly fun for me to play with as a first-time director.

So there were a lot of reasons as to why Dust Bunny kind of ticked a lot of boxes in terms of a) what I enjoyed seeing as a kid and those kind of high-concept summer movies and b) being able to tell a story that may not seem on its surface really personal to me, but it’s actually very, very, very personal to me in terms of just growing up with a tricky childhood and how we navigate that and what that means for a child protagonist. Like, you know, the kids in the Goonies or Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, kids who have to take it upon themselves to save their own hides and be their own heroes.

io9: Definitely. What made Sophie Sloan the perfect choice to be Aurora? And what was it like working with her to find that core of the Amblin-esque story you wanted to tell?

Fuller: Working with Sophie—those days were my favorite days, when it was Sophie and I playing and finding the role together. We both had about the same amount of experience making movies, which was none. And so there was an ability to play and be playful that who wouldn’t want to do, and with Mads Mikkelsen and Sigourney Weaver. Sophie was a standout, not only because of her big expressive eyes and that kind of classic child heroine face, whether it’s Drew Barrymore or Fairuza Balk in Return to Oz that invite you into her story and how she’s going to tell it.

io9: Yes, and I feel like you can kind of see that happen with the scenes where she’s interacting with the giant dust bunny. Can you talk a bit about the set pieces with that? How much of it did you want to keep practical versus having CGI effects there as well?

Fuller: Well, we have a combo of a very elaborate puppet that was built by Legacy off of designs by Jon Wayshak, who’s an amazing comic book artist. And we could have gone just all CGI, but there’s something about having that physical presence, especially for a child actor to react to and know that’s what the creature looks like and how the creature is going to behave, that makes it a more authentic experience. And I also just loved the day that we introduced Sophie to Dusty. Her little face exploded with joy when she saw him, because she was like, ‘he’s so cute.’ And that’s kind of the effect that we want for what this child imagines, and for it to be horrible and adorable at the same time.

io9: Like a cute Jaws. I really loved how some of the shots felt framed like Jaws, especially early on. Did you show Sophie or other cast members some of the scenes that inspired you? It was so fun to watch you reunite with Mads and David [Dastmalchian], especially because they really leaned into that childlike wonder. 

Fuller: I mean, it was definitely a wonderful thing to be a part of, particularly, you know, Mads and David are close friends. We all know those references in such a way. So it wasn’t a matter of like having to show them any scenes, so there was a shorthand with those experiences. And there’s absolutely, I look at the movie, and I’m like, that’s the Jaws shot. That’s the Barry Sonnenfeld shot. That’s a David Fincher shot. That’s a John Carpenter shot. The wonderful thing about being able to make a movie for the first time as a director is that I’ve consumed so much storytelling by wonderful directors. Any sort of art is the digested goods of what we’ve consumed as audience members and being able to sort of pick and choose the moments that we want to honor our inspirations and also craft an original story. So it’s kind of the funnest part about being an artist.

io9: Yeah, and I think that it shines in such a wonderful way in this film. I want to touch on some of the projects that you’ve been a part of, obviously Hannibal, and I’m going to throw it back to Mockingbird Lane.

Fuller: Oh, I love Mockingbird Lane.

io9: I love Mockingbird Lane. As soon as they announced the Monster Mash movie, I was like, “Please, someone get Bryan Fuller on the phone.†I immediately thought of Mockingbird Lane, and I was like, “Ooh, Monster Mash with your sort of flavor would be incredible.â€

Fuller: Yeah, I agree.

io9: Yes. But I also sometimes feel like the studios hold your projects like Lucy with the football, and your fans get excited—then we all feel like Charlie Brown when the studios, you know… (Lucy ball swipe movement)

Fuller: Well, it’s an interesting industry. I’ve been part of the history of Fangoria magazine, not only as a reader since 1979, with the Godzilla on the cover, [but also] being a guest editor. And they had this section called the “Terror Teletype.†It was all these announcements of movies that were coming or in development, and most of them never came to fruition. John Carpenter’s Firestarter, you know, there were so many projects that were announced to look forward to that all dissipate. And I feel like that’s just part of how we tell stories, that people fall in love and out of love with a project. Also, there’s the musical chairs of executives. Somebody who might be championing your project may be furloughed, and then you don’t have a champion anymore. So it’s a miracle anything gets made.

io9: Definitely. And I know you’ve recently voiced you still have that Silence of the Lambs series goal with maybe Zendaya as Clarice and Mads being on the line. Is there any update on that possibility? 

Fuller: I think it’s going to be hard to beat Jonathan Demme and Jodie Foster, and Anthony Hopkins in a feature. Uh, so that’s why my instinct for Silence of the Lambs is a limited series. And if that spawns more, then great—but first, we’ve got to find somebody who wants it and wants to do it and wants to do it with me and Mads and whoever we’re lucky enough to get as Clarice. So it’s a dream project and has, right now, no foundation in reality.

io9: What is inspiring you right now as far as genre? Do you want to stay in film for a bit?

Fuller: Film and television are so drastically different from each other. There’s so much more ability and bandwidth to be present in a feature; in television, you’re always worried about the next episode that comes immediately after the one that you’re currently doing, and then the one after that, and then the one after that. So there’s no real way to be able to be as present as you are on a feature film set as a director. That being said, I am working on something right now with a very iconic storyteller in the genre in a collaboration that is not able to be announced yet, but deals are being done. And it’s very exciting. And I think it will make Hannibal look like a children’s show.

io9: Oh, is it original or IP? 

Fuller: No, no, it’s IP based on this amazing iconographic horror storyteller.

io9: Awesome.

Fuller: You’ll know the title. When this person reached out and asked me if I was interested in collaborating with him on a television show, I couldn’t say no. So that’s something that we’re cooking up for TV right now, and then I’m writing a new feature script that’s similar in tone to Dust Bunny but perhaps about more adult relationships.

io9: With Dust Bunny being an Amblin coming-of-age sort of story, what is your most core memory of a movie or book that really informed your career path?

Fuller: I would say my experience watching Alien was like a nine-year-old, it was pretty dramatic in that I was able to—because I didn’t see the movie, it was rated R, but I saw the photo novel. And that was always at the grocery store when my mom got groceries, and I would hide it in the magazine rack so nobody could buy it, so I could always look at it when my mom took me to the grocery store, which was like, you know, an hour-long ordeal. And through the process of looking at a movie frame by frame, it gave me an understanding of the power of production design and the psychology of cinematography in a way that I hadn’t really experienced before.

So Alien was something that I was ahead of the curve on because I had seen this photo novel, and a year before the movie was coming out, I had seen every frame, every bit of the chestburster, every bit of the penis-headed monster in the vagina doors and the fallopian tube-shaped spaceships. And the psychology of the biology of that movie that wants to make us feel uncomfortable under our skin was so effective. I feel like that’s the thing that got me the most excited about being a storyteller because there were all of these kinds of artsy-fartsy elements of design that went into it, in a way that kind of piqued my curiosity and interest as a young queer kid who likes interesting things to look at.

io9: Yes. And Sigourney, who you got in this. Okay? Oh my gosh! The heel glocks, come on!

Fuller: Yes, yes. I had seen those Karl Lagerfeld shoe guns; there was a picture of Madonna with a set of them. And we were discussing “What kind of gun does Sigourney Weaver deserve in this picture?†It has to be signature, and it has to be unique. And so I was like, put them in her shoes. And I was so excited that Sigourney loved the idea, and they looked so good.

io9: Yeah, they did. Definitely a great Sigourney badass moment for fans.

Dust Bunny opens in theaters December 12.

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