Matt Busch is well known to Star Wars fans as the illustrator of book covers, trading cards, posters, and more. He now enters the world of moviemaking with his feature film Aladdin 3477- I: The Jinn of Wisdom, the first of a planned trilogy. We spoke to him about making this epic sci-fi adventure on an indie budget…
STARBURST: I was going through my collection recently and found a wristband with Aladdin 3477 on it that I’m fairly confident you gave me 10 years ago, maybe longer – so how long has this project been gestating for?
Matt Busch: Ever since I was in college 30 years ago. It was 15 years ago that I put my foot down and said, you know what, it’s time I made my own sci-fi film, so I spent four years building maquettes and miniatures and props. Filming took almost five years to the day, and then it’s been another six years finishing the visual effects, editing, sound, and then finding a good distributor, marketing and putting everything in place for the first film.
When you started the project, did you know you’d have a hand in every aspect of it? Was that your expectation when you went in?
Pretty much, yeah. I think that stemmed from when I was young; I never thought any of this was attainable. I had this idea in my head that even if I did it with family and friends and whatever I had laying around, if I just did my very best, no matter how long it took, how would people not notice?
Another part of it was having lived in Los Angeles for eight years; when I started my career, it was easy for me to get into the movie business doing concept art and storyboarding. However, the suits and executives were only interested in me helping to make their projects look good. They were never interested in my ideas, they just wanted to keep me in my place, so I knew pretty early on that if I ever wanted to do this this epic trilogy, it would have to be off my own back, starting at ground zero and working my way up from there.
Why Aladdin? Where did this concept to develop the classic story come from?
I never set out to do a retelling. What happened was, I developed this huge saga when I was in college, and at the time it took place on another planet. It was about this intergalactic con artist who had a little floating robot named Fijit. I started drawing it as a graphic novel, and that was going to be my way to pitch it to Hollywood. I got 20 pages in when I realised, “Oh my gosh, my story really is the nuts and bolts of Aladdin.” There were a lot more characters, and it was larger in scope, but the basic thrust of everything was there. There was no genie or lamp, but there was a Princess and there was an oppressive ruler, and there was this inner circle city that was tough for this character to get into. It kept reminding me of Aladdin and I didn’t like that, so I kept trying to change up aspects of the story, but it didn’t have the flavour that I wanted. I was aware that Aladdin was public domain and that it would be possible to do, so slowly, over time, I started thinking “What if I do Aladdin?” I didn’t want to compete with Robin Williams and have a genie, so what if it was the opposite? What if it was more like an Obi-Wan Kenobi kind of wise sage. Over time, the idea of doing Aladdin became more and more interesting to me.
Because the filming took a chunk of time, were the cast happy and willing to be invested in a project for as long as it took to come to fruition?
About half of the people that you see are family and friends. Anyone who had a main part still had to audition, and for about half of the parts I put out a casting call, but I mostly worked with people that were local because I knew it was going to take time. I didn’t think it was going to take as long as it did, but I knew I couldn’t afford to fly people in from out of state or from out of the country, so it was mostly people local to Michigan. Thank goodness everyone was supportive and patient with how long everything took.
We rented a sound stage, and sometimes we could build a set in a couple of weeks, and sometimes a set would take almost a year, so people would have to wait patiently while we were building. We could film outdoor scenes in different places, but it was a really erratic schedule where we would shoot on weekends whenever people were available. It wasn’t easy scheduling everything, and I’m just so grateful we got through all three films.
Was the experience of pulling it all together anything like you expected?
One thing that I loved so much, but also was incredibly daunting, was the fact that this takes place on the other side of the world, throughout Asia and India, 1500 years in the future. We couldn’t film in someone’s living room or backyard without building sets, making the costumes and every single prop. Normally, independent films are either romantic comedies, mafia movies or horror films where if you need a vehicle – you can just say “Hey, does anyone have a pickup truck? Cool. We’ll use that.” “You just got home from a funeral, do you have black to wear?” “Yeah, I have black.” “Cool, wear that.” We could never do that. We had to make everything, I had so much fun kit bashing things together, but at the same time there was so much work to do that it really was daunting. I enjoyed every minute of it, but it was frantic because I didn’t want people to lose steam while waiting for everything to be done.
How did you fit in the rest of your career around pulling this together?
I’m a professor at a college here in Michigan and I have a pretty forgiving schedule, but because everyone else had day jobs, we could only film on weekends. That was the common denominator that we had for filming, but building sets was done whenever we could, and I was always the first person on set, even on days we were building things. I was the first there and the last to leave. Anything that I felt I could do myself, I did, because I didn’t want to wear people out. When I had favours, I wanted it to be something where I really needed people’s help before I asked.
It was interesting, because there were times where I had Star Wars gigs that I had to pass on because I needed the time, but then there were Star Wars gigs that I said yes to because I needed the money to pay for materials and costumes. Sometimes I would be building sets during the day and then burning the midnight oil illustrating Star Wars trading cards at night. Whatever it took to get things done.
What are your hopes for Aladdin? What release schedule are you looking at for the next two, and is there a future for the world that you’ve developed?
The first film has been released on what we call TVOD, so that’s Amazon Prime, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango, then it’ll be DVD and Blu-ray. After that it’ll be AVOD, which is where you can watch it for free, but it has commercials. There may also be a short theatrical run here in the Midwest, kind of a mini-tour where me and some of the actors might be travelling from state to state just to have one-off showings. The next two are filmed, but there’s more visual effects and editing and sound that needs to be done, so there isn’t a release schedule yet, but ideally it’ll be the same as the first.
I’ve also been developing toys and books. When I grew up, it was really neat because movies weren’t just a movie – there were the official collector’s edition books, trading cards and toys – so I’m trying my best and we’ll see what sticks and what doesn’t. I’ve been trying my best to make this a franchise.
My memories as a kid are of things like Star Wars. Back then, we couldn’t just watch the movie on demand at any time, so some of my greatest memories were playing with the action figures and swapping the trading cards with friends. I’m trying to create something based on the fun experiences I had growing up, trying to make something that’s a little bit more than just an independent film.
And finally, what else is going on with you at the moment?
Good question. I have two new Star Wars projects that I can’t talk about yet, and there’s a new Stranger Things art print that’s coming out soon. I’m just having a ball. I’m so grateful for this career that’s afforded me the ability to go after my dreams and make this cool, epic trilogy. At the same time, I’m not giving up my day job. I enjoy drawing Star Wars and all of these really cool properties. I’m just so grateful for all of it.
Aladdin 3477- I: The Jinn of Wisdom is now available to buy or rent on Amazon, Apple, and other digital platforms.
