Catherine Hardwicke Talks Red Riding Hood with Movie Web

How is this Alternate Cut different from what we saw in the theatrical release?
Catherine Hardwicke: Its only twenty seconds longer. We have an alternate ending. When we were cutting the film...Actually, while we were shooting it, I said, "Hey, why don't you let me try this?" I tried this new ending. I liked it. Its fun. It's a bit more provocative. It's got a little bit more of a twist. It's a little bit sexier. It's a different choice. I think both endings are fun, but this one gives you a little something extra to talk about. But its only twenty seconds longer.

I love the way this movie looks, in terms of art direction and set design. How did you draw towards some of the visual ques we see in Red Riding Hood?
Catherine Hardwicke: From the start, I was intrigued by what David Johnson did as a screenwriter, and what Leonardo DiCaprio's company did. They went back to the original version of this story. Where the wolf was a werewolf. Back in the 1200s, people believed that idea. I liked that idea. It gave you this chance to reveal that the wolf is someone that lives in the village. There is a homegrown sense of paranoia. And the fact that the village had been tormented by this wolf, in this story, for over twenty years. That would mean that over twenty or thirty years, there would be a built-in paranoia when it came to the architecture of the village. That is what we tried to do. I started looking at Northern Russian architecture, where I found these big rustic log buildings that were built up on stilts, with ladders that were removable at night. They had these huge wooden shudders. Ad they had these scary totems that were carved into them, that would scare away the bad spirits. I thought it would be great if the whole town had embraced this spirit of paranoia. The psyche. It was in these pointed logs, and things. That was our inspiration for the town, for the design, and the woods. The primal fear of going into the dark woods alone. Our production designer enhanced that by having the twisted trees with the huge thorns on them. I thought it all added to the mythic quality, and the fear that you feel, in this fairy tale. Our cinematographer, Mandy Walker...A female cinematographer, yes! She did such a great job lighting it. She captured that mood, which you could see in the movie, of that fear and that paranoia.

Check out the entire interview here.