In 2006, Alex Bulkley’s first movie, The Zodiac, was released on DVD after a limited theatrical run. The movie, starring Justin Chambers (Alex from Grey’s Anatomy), William Mapother (Ethan from Lost), and Robin Tunney, was about the pursuit of the notorious serial killer of the same name that haunted the San Francisco Bay Area between 1968 and 1974. Unfortunately for Bulkley, his Zodiac was released in the shadow of another being filmed based on the same story, this one being directed by Seven auteur, David Fincher. Well no matter what, Bulkley will always have Robot Chicken, which his production company produces for Cartoon Network. Thanks to those series of tubes called the internets, I recently got a hold of Bulkley to discuss his Zodiac thriller, what he thinks of the case, and how he reacted when Fincher tried to horn in on his action.
Adam A. Donaldson: How did you become interested in the Zodiac Killer?
Alexander Bulkley: Having grown up in the Bay Area, I heard a lot about the Zodiac. Every young kid has a 'boogeyman'. This was mine.
What did you think when you heard that David Fincher was making his own Zodiac movie? I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was very excited because I'm a big fan of Fincher's work. On the other hand, I was frustrated because he was telling essentially the same story at the same time with $100 million more than I had to work with. I'm very proud of all the incredibly talented people who worked on The Zodiac with me and very proud of what we accomplished. I think the film stands on its own merit.
That's the great thing about independent films; you don't need a 'Hollywood' ending. Our approach from the very beginning was to maintain the integrity of the true life events. |
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As a filmmaker how do you reconcile the facts of the case with the need to tell a good story?
It was definitely a balancing act at times but, again, maintaining the integrity of the facts as much as possible was our goal from the start.
Your Zodiac movie makes a point of not naming a suspect, what was your reason for that?
I did not name a suspect in the film because there wasn't a single legitimate suspect in 1969 -1970 when the film takes place.
In the course of the film you show the case’s connections to The Most Dangerous Game and you play excerpts from the opera The Mikado in certain scenes; what do you make of the case’s various pop culture connections?
Clearly the Zodiac was paying attention to pop culture at the time. Whether he was dropping clues or creating a smokescreen is hard to say, but every Zodiac letter seemed to provide more questions than answers.
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Do you have any personal theories about the case and who the Zodiac might be, that you wouldn’t mind sharing?
Everyone who knows this case seems to have a theory about the ‘who’ and the ‘why’. I think that what makes the story about the Zodiac murders interesting is not the monster who committed these crimes or the mindset to do so, but the impact and resonance this had on the once quiet Bay Area community of Vallejo.
What about the production itself, how did you recreate 60s San Francisco on a tight budget and tighter schedule?
Painstakingly. When you can't throw time or money at a problem, you start getting creative. For our film, we had to get very, very creative.
Why do you think such great interest from the public has kept the case alive?
These unsolved murders have been a thorn in the side of Bay Area Police Departments for more than thirty years. The great and continuing public interest has been a knife.
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Generally, what are you looking at as your next project for you as a director and for your production company?
As a director, I'm just finishing up another screenplay. As a producer and owner of ShadowMachine, we are just finishing the animated series 'Moral Orel' season 2, starting season 3 of the animated hit 'Robot Chicken' and just starting an animated feature film with Dimension called Naughty or Nice.
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