To direct the project, they brought in Karyn Kusama, director of the independent film Girlfight. She had to convince the studio that she was the right person for the job, but felt determined to do so, after reading the script. She "really loved it, thought it was just so provocative, and provocative as much for the story and the storytelling as it was for taking sci fi and doing something fresh with it and taking filmmaking potentially and doing something fresh with it."
The film retains the two principal characters from the animated series, includes a few of the minor characters, and adds a couple of completely new faces. Marton Csokas plays Trevor Goodchild, both the antagonist and love interest for Aeon Flux. The character rules the aforementioned futuristic city of Bregna, and keeps its secrets.
According to the press brief, Aeon Flux "is a 'what if' look into the future where science has shaped and permanently changed the world. A seemingly utopian paradise, organic, green, lush and beautiful. A world where science rules the government, but ultimately, a place where nothing is as it appears."
The film crew seems enthusiastic about Berlin, describing it as an unknown city that hasn't been filmed so often as Prague or a lot of other famous destinations for filmmakers. They set up in Studio Babelsberg, the same film studio where Fritz Lang once filmed Metropolis, while also scouting a number of scenic locations in the Berlin area.
Within the Marlene Dietrich studio, rehearsals occur on the set of Trevor Goodchild's library, a spacious, wood paneled room. Shelves lined with books stretch to the ceiling, and at one end of the room, a strange circular design hides the entrance to a secret tunnel. Charlize Theron's stand-in explores the room alone, examining books and other items she finds. This is a hint of things to come, when Aeon is close to finally learning the secrets of Trevor Goodchild, and the city of Bregna.
All around the studio, different set pieces still wait their turn to be either filmed or dismantled. They are the perfect glimpse into this science fiction world, providing a hint of what audiences can expect the film to look like. The cold, futuristic designs are tempered by the discreet intrusion of the natural world, and by vague oriental influences that help bring some life into the sets, making them seem as though they actually belong within a fully realized world.
Karyn Kusama puts a lot of effort into the film's appearance, stressing that "the film kind of demanded that every frame be sort of visually bracing and sort of beautiful. This is a movie that actually allows for and encourages and demands that we see something beautiful on the screen, and dark."
Trevor's library was visible only through a video monitor, but several other sets remain empty and unused for the moment. The crew enthusiastically point out Trevor's secret lab, where rows upon rows of test tubes glisten with their variously colored contents. Even here, the Asian motif is continued. A small bonsai tree sits upon a shelf near a collection of potted shrubs and grasses. Embedded in the walls at either end of the room, trees sprout their cherry blossoms within large, decorative glass seals. Interestingly, visible within one wall in the room, massive and vaguely bong-like machinery bubbles and smokes, in an obvious nod to the fans of MTV's Liquid Television, where the animated Aeon Flux first premiered.
Trevor's bedroom is nearby, its plush carpet so soft and immaculate that no one is even allowed to step on it. His bed sinks into the floor in the middle of the room, strewn with pillows. Small curios like teacups and a smattering of plant life reinforce the subtle Asian aesthetic.
But not every remaining set belongs to Trevor Goodchild. Aeon Flux's dark, cramped apartment is more like a monk's cell than anything else. Shafts of light filter down through bars in the darkened ceiling, and only a flimsy curtain walls off her bed from the rest of the one room suite. It's not exactly luxurious, but it certainly looks cool.
As the evening wears on, Charlize takes a few minutes to talk about her role in the film. The aspect of the film that really attracted her were the simple human elements of the characters at the core of such a large story. "I'm not interested in playing a robot," she said. "These are real people struggling with things I think a lot of people can relate to."
Although necessarily vague so as not to reveal too much about the film, Charlize spoke a little about the inner life of her character, of the challenges and rewards inherent in giving this performance. "As an actor I think it gives you a nice range. You get to go from one place and build quite a nice arc, and to have that already embedded in the character makes it easier for me. She is pretty self-destructive and I think sometimes thinks of herself as indestructible, so I can kind of get into that. I like that."
Shrugging off a back injury that led to a three week hiatus in filming, Charlize preferred to look on the incident's positive side. "We all just kind of took it and used it to our advantage to come back even more prepared and ready to make sure that there were no kinks anywhere." In her own case, she "spent that six weeks really thinking about where this woman had to go in the story, so I used it to my advantage."
Ultimately, she's excited about the project and happy to be a part of it. "I made my decisions based on something that was really satisfying to me, and that's I think the best gauge you can go with. I like to make something that I would want to go and see, so I'm hoping that that's what we're doing."
Everyone involved in Aeon Flux seems to be putting a lot of thought into its creation. They want a film that pushes the boundaries of the science fiction genre, something that looks beautiful and inventive while preserving the tone and spirit of its animated predecessor.
The film reaches theaters in 2005.