For the rowing scenes in The Skulls, Dawson’s Creek star Joshua Jackson (above) trained extensively on the water and did his own rowing scenes. “That’s Josh rowing that winning race!” says Cohen.
Other strands in the plot involve Luke’s girlfriend, Chloe (newcomer Leslie Bibb), who comes from a far more privileged background than he does, and Caleb (Paul Walker from Varsity Blues and She’s All That), his Skulls mentor who is everything Luke isn’t - rich, sophisticated, enormously well-connected - but whose confident exterior conceals a tormented family life.
Pogue showed the completed script to producer Moritz, who immediately jumped at the project. “I loved the idea and really loved the script,” says the latter. “I’ve done a lot of teen films [the producer’s other credits include Juice, The Stoned Age and Cruel Intentions] and my feeling is, if we are going to make a film that is directed towards young audiences, we have to give them something different. Teenagers are very sophisticated and media savvy. They demand and expect movies with edge and excitement.”
| “I’ve done a lot of teen films and my feeling is, we have to give them something different. Teenagers are very sophisticated and media savvy. They demand and expect movies with edge and excitement”
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Here, the excitement factor is obvious: a young couple - Luke and Chloe - are pitted against a ruthless and all-powerful organisation that will stop at nothing to protect its interests and those of its members. But the edge comes from the film’s willingness to deal with some slightly more intricate problems relevant to a young audience. Or that, at any rate, is how Joshua Jackson sees it.
“The Skulls has all the layers of a first rate morality tale, but without sacrificing the thriller aspect,” says the young actor, who starred in both of producer Moritz’s previous movies, Urban Legend and Cruel Intentions. “You can go and watch it for pure entertainment or go deeper and access the film’s themes. The story is about having the personal strength to stand alone. That’s essentially the question that gets asked of my character. If you know something is wrong, can you stand up and do what’s right, even at a personal cost to you? At 21, I think this is one of the most serious questions that I and my friends are grappling with.”
The same mix appealed to director Rob Cohen, all of whose recent projects - features Dragonheart and Daylight, both of which were Preview cover stories; and HBO telemovie The Rat Pack, which Moritz produced - have combined action or entertainment formats with more complex thematic underpinnings. Plus Cohen, like Pogue, had been to an Ivy League college himself.
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