TORONTO - Newfoundland-bred filmmaker Brad Peyton says his whirlwind journey from living on the Rock to directing The Rock — i.e. wrestling star-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson — in the 3D spectacle "Journey 2: the Mysterious Island" has been a wildly unpredictable ride.
"You grow up in Gander, N.L., and you never think you're ever going to go to Hollywood," Peyton says during a recent stop in Toronto to promote his second feature.
"I could never have pictured any of this but that's kind of the fun part of my life — I don't know what tomorrow's going to be like, I don't know what it's going to bring, I could never have predicted working with Sir Michael Caine. It's amazing because I try not to keep a ceiling on my creativity, I just want to wake up every day, challenge myself, try to get better and I love making stuff."
The 3D extravaganza put Peyton on a set with a cross-section of Hollywood heavyweights: Caine plays an adventure-seeking grandfather who discovers a hidden magical island, action star Johnson is a former navy vet who follows his headstrong stepson halfway around the world, screen veteran Luis Guzman is their happy-go-lucky tour guide and former teen sensation Vanessa Hudgens is his pragmatic daughter.
Josh Hutcherson returns as Sean, the intrepid explorer and Jules Verne fan from the first film, "Journey to the Center of the Earth." Now 17 and on the cusp of college, Sean is pulled into another adventure when he receives a coded message from his grandfather assuring him that the mythical island from Verne's 19th century tale "The Mysterious Island" is indeed real.
The action unfolds on a South Pacific paradise-turned-death trap — where miniature elephants the size of cats roam the underbrush, butterflies are massive winged creatures and volcanoes spew gold.
For Peyton, that involved a complex mix of jungle shoots, underwater battles, ambitious aerial sequences and a multitude of computer-generated effects. He says the 3D aspect pushed him to add an exhilarating sense of immersion, breadth and scope.
"I wanted to make a movie that would inspire me in the same way that maybe 'Indiana Jones' inspired me as a kid," says Peyton, whose first feature "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" was also a kid-focused sequel.
"It was about leaving a sound stage, trying to go to a location to get a bigger scope, a bigger scale, put the actors in the mud, make it as real as possible and then continue to evolve the 3D. So the movie was hopefully going to promise you a big fun ride with great 3D but also give you an experience that you can relate to the characters."
"Journey 2" uses the same state-of-the-art equipment employed by "A Journey to the Centre of the Earth," which broke ground as the first narrative feature to use a sophisticated digital 3D camera rig developed by James Cameron and used on "Avatar."
Peyton admits to qualms about directing screen veterans including Caine but says he used the opportunity to learn as much about filmmaking as possible.
"When you're working with stars of this calibre it's about collaborating with them. This is my second movie. Michael Caine's made lots and he won two Academy Awards on two of those," he notes.
"I think that's how you get to this spot, you know, is you just try to maximize everything."
Maximizing those precious moments is something Peyton says he did even as a kid growing up in Gander.
"When we rented a movie — and this is not an exaggeration at all — I'd watch it twice, back to back ... I'd go to bed, I'd wake up, I'd re-watch it and then my mom would take it back," he says.
"And it was because I really thought that movie was leaving my existence forever. Because I'll never see this movie again — we didn't have movies at home, you know, we didn't buy movies so renting movies, when we could actually rent movies, was like a huge thing for me."
Peyton left Newfoundland at age 17 to attend Halifax's Dalhousie University. From there, he headed to Toronto's Canadian Film Centre, where he won accolades for a quirky short film, "Evelyn: The Cutest Evil Dead Girl."
"I was dirt poor, I couldn't afford to go anywhere and suddenly I was being flown to France, sent everywhere because the short was playing so well," Peyton says of that time.
The twisted dark comedy caught the attention of Tom Hanks' company, Playtone, which hired Peyton to write and direct the animated feature "Spider and the Fly."
Peyton moved to Los Angeles about four years ago and says he landed "Cats & Dogs" within six months of arriving. He credits that breakthrough to a solid work ethic.
"A lot of that I think has to do with growing up in Newfoundland, growing up in Gander and being raised very humble and knowing what a dollar is worth and working really hard," says Peyton, who also created, produced and directed the stop-motion animated series "What It's Like Being Alone" for the CBC.
"('Journey 2') was a learning lesson for me. I put myself in this head space of like, 'I can't let Dwayne down, I can't let Josh down, I can't let Michael Caine down, I can't let the producer down.' "
Peyton is developing more projects to direct, including his own feature screenplay "Billy Grimm," and freely admits that other parts of his life "have failed entirely" because of his creative drive.
He says he dreams of one day becoming just like the filmmakers that inspire him.
"I, at the end of the day, want to be like a J.J. Abrams, at the end of the day I want to be like a Steven Spielberg," says Peyton, whose Canadian ventures include an animated movie-of-the-week he's developing with Donald Sutherland for the CBC.
"The only way to get great, I think, is to be inspired by the great people ahead of you, to learn from them, to be humble enough to be like, 'Yeah, I've got to earn that place and I've got a long way to go but why would I not try to be that? Why would I not try to be great?'"
"Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" opens Friday.