The Point Radio: LEPRECHAUN Creepy DOLPHIN Cutsey

We take a look at two new films from completely opposite ends of the spectrum. LEPRECHAUN:ORIGINS reboots the franchise with a terrifying lead character that offers neither luck or charm. DOLPHIN TALE 2 brings back all the original cast including Harry Connick Junior who talks about how honestly thrilled he was to revisit the role and how much fun he had on AMERICAN IDOL.

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Transcript

The Point Radio. It's Mike Rodd. We take a look at two movies that are definitely at opposite ends of the spectrum. The slightly chilling and certainly not so charming Leprechaun Origins has a whole new take on that little character.

Plus the family film Dolphin Tale II brings back all the original players, including actor Harry Connick Jr. who stops to talk a little bit about his experiences on American Idol this year. Ooh, let's get to The Point. This is The Point.

The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. Leprechaun Origins may be the seventh film of that franchise, but it certainly stands alone. It's been described as a dark, hard-r horror film, and it's definitely a reboot much different

than what's come before, as explained by director Zach Lefefsky. The original franchise is well-loved and is kind of a ton of a ton of cheek kind of style. And the challenge for this one that was put forward, and the thing that I was really excited to take on was how can we do something that's actually legitimately a horror film and grounded in kind of a modern day kind of take of that.

Rather than redoing what the original franchise did, what's a fresh, scary way of doing this? Which is really difficult with a character who a lot of people think of as kind of this guy in a little suit and, you know, with a silly accent and all this stuff. And so it was a really interesting challenge to come on board and be like, okay, what's the mythology that we can take and how can we ground this in a way that is going to shock

people. This film actually plays heavily on the true origins of the legend. This one that's really interesting is kind of looking back at, well, what if 3,000 years ago the Celtics met a creature that was terrifying and had really the pieces of the mythology that we're aware of today, but wasn't this kind of thing that it's transformed into many

years later. So what's the origin of that? And that gives us the ability to kind of not have magic wishes and silly accents and buckled shoes, but do something that is still identifiable to leprechaun, but kind of reinvent it for modern audiences in a way that is scary and disgusting and terrifying.

Starring in the film is Darrell Postel. You know him as WWE superstar Hornswoggle. And despite long hours in the makeup chair, he said he had a ball making the movie fun. Something's fun and you enjoy something. It doesn't make it work.

I love wrestling. It's fun to me. It doesn't make it work. When you love what you do and you make fun of and make what you do fun, it's not work then.

You're having fun. You know, I get paid to do this, really? I get paid to wrestle, do what I've always wanted to do. And now I get paid to make a horror film. And I thought I would do.

It's pretty cool to ask me. However, Darrell's first love is still the squared circle. I always wanted to do it. It's always my interest. My only interest.

I didn't like football. I didn't like baseball. I like wrestling. I'm about like six years old, like I said. Guy that's four foot, my stature in a six foot, 250 pound world, shouldn't have made

it. I made it. Never trained to make a movie. Never, never. Because I just care about wrestling.

Always thought that would be fun if it ever happened because there's always roles for people like me. There are. And so I thought that would be different. Then Muppets came up and then Leper came up and I was like, wow, that's great.

As far as acting goes, this was a little bit of a left turn considering his last movie was with the Muppets. I don't know about Muppets, but I got to do that one. And that was also me. I did that right before Lepercon.

And if you had asked for a closer realm, I guess it wouldn't be this one. It was a company going from singing and dancing to Kermit the Frog to slash Gorgill in Lepercon origin. But it was, they were both man. They were fun in their own way.

So to bring this film into such a dark place, was Zach a horror fan before? I have a mix of a horror fan as well as a huge kind of adventure fan. So the first film I ever saw that I remember, I know I watched Aladdin and that kind of stuff as a kid, but my mom took me to see Jurassic Park when I was 10 years old and scared the bejesus out.

I was literally crying during the T-Rex paddock scene with my hands over my eyes and my mom's hands over my eyes. And I was just legitimately just, it was the first time I'd ever seen a film that was that scary. But I do remember it was kind of a cool breakthrough moment of realizing, here's the third act

when they're coming off the fence and it seems like everything's okay, being like, I'm alive. Mom, I didn't die. And then being like, oh, I hope there's more dinosaurs. And then there's the Velociraptor scene in the kitchen. I remember loving that scene.

So it was kind of an amazing moment of going from pure terror to realizing the power of it. And then there's the original origins available right now on video on demand and on DVD and Blu-ray. Here we go again with the latest in pop culture.

George Perez is back in the superhero game with a new limited series coming from Boom. It's a female super team called the Sirens. It'll run for six issues and it's been George's first original series in over a decade. Perez signed an exclusive agreement with Boom last year. This is the first thing he's done for them so far.

Sirens is written and drawn by George, but there will be some extra incentive covers for comic book stores by a couple of other artists, including Cameron Stewart. Check with your retailer to get those. Sirens premieres in comic stores in the middle of September. The final season of Sons of Anarchy begins in just a couple of weeks on September the

9th. And now December the 9th has been set as the date for the series finale. There'll be a number of things coming though afterwards to help you remember the series, including a behind the scenes companion book called Sons of Anarchy, the official collector's edition.

That'll be released on December the 10th in time for the holidays. Not far after that will be Blu-ray and DVD collector's set with release dates and features to be announced sometime over the next couple of months. It's been a good week for a cable series. AMC's Haldan Catch Fire has been renewed for a second season.

Ray Donovan and Masters of Sex from Showtime will also get a third season from that network. And possibly the worst kept secret in comic book movie news, it looks like Dwayne The Rock Johnson will be in the Warner Bros. version of Shazam! At least according to yet another interview released over the past few days. Again, there's speculation on whether he'll be playing Shazam! or Black Anna, but more

than likely with the new comments. It looks like he's headed to be Billy Batson when that film finally gets into production sometime over the next few years. A couple of years ago she was Wonder Woman, now actress Adrienne Palicki, will be Bobby Morris, better known as Mockingbird in the new season of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

S.H.I.E.L.D. returns to ABC on Tuesday the 23rd of September with new episodes. IDW and Yo Books are getting together to show us yet another side of the art of Steve Ditko. This is called Ditko's Shorts and it contains Steve's one to three page stories he did for a number of different comic book publishers over the years. The stories cover a number of different genres from science fiction to western to humor and

they will be remastered in the book. It'll be available in stores in November. It runs about 112 pages and sells for just under $25. Dolphin Tale 2 reunites writer-director Charles Martin Smith and star Harry Connick Jr. in a follow-up to the 2011 film.

Harry told me that he'd come back for this one in any event, even if that first film hadn't been such a hit. You know, it didn't matter about the fan response with regard to doing it again. I mean, even if it had been poorly received or people didn't like it, if they had done well, if it had been poorly received, it probably would have been a reason behind it.

But if it were the movie that it was and people didn't like it, I would have come back and done it again anyway, just for lots of reasons. It was just a great filming experience, working with Charles, who's really a brilliant guy, and a pleasure to be around, working with the rest of the cast, being a CMA. All of those things really kind of contributed to this being, I'd probably say, the best

filming experience I've ever had. It was just great. And people, you know, they really like it. What's interesting to me is, you know, as you go through your career in the entertainment business, you know, people, new people are being born and grown up and becoming teenagers

and young adults. And a lot of the people that came to know me through Dolphin Tale, they have no idea that I do anything else. It's not a bad thing. So it's cool.

So right now, is there more acting than music in Harry's career? Not really. I mean, I'm still making records and touring and stuff. It's all about kind of if you happen to cross somebody's path in a certain way. You know, Dolphin Tale reached a lot of people, but maybe those people don't go see me on

a tour or by my records or watch TV or anything like that. So I'm not doing any more acting than I was doing 20 years ago, but it kind of ebbs and flows with regard to how people are introduced to you. Working on a new record, we haven't even gone in the studio yet, but just kind of putting the ideas together just recently.

And yeah, so it's kind of things kind of leapfrog. Like when I'm on a movie set, sometimes that's a good time. As you know, there's a lot of downtime on a film set and you know, you can get a lot of stuff done like in the trailer and the hotel. You can, I mean, I've written entire records on a movie set and when the movie is done,

you go in the studio, record it. And then when you finish that, it's time to promote the movie and then it's time to tour. So it all kind of works. Even though this film was a sequel to the original, Harry still prepared for the role. Well, I did, you know, a pretty considerable amount of research on the first time around,

just because I really wanted to know who this guy was. The second one was obviously much easier because I had done it before and it was, what was really strange is that it was almost the, it was the exact same set of circumstances as the first one. I mean, it was even the volunteers at CMA were pretty much the same, same set, same

city, same cast. So it was very easy to kind of remind myself who that was. But the first one, you know, I went and interviewed marine biologists and marine veterinarians, just anything I could to try to give myself, you know, I mean, I watched how they looked. I was talking to my wife.

She's like, so you really want to wear like those clothes and wear your hair like that? I said, no, I do because that's, that's who these people are. Like they're scientists and they, they're not really interested in anything but, you know, learning about these, these, these marine creatures. And so, you know, that's, that's what it was.

But the second time was a lot easier. This year, Harry was part of a controversial season, to say the least on American Idol and I asked him about what that experience was like. That was great. You know, I think no matter what genre of music you play, you know, when you rack up

a couple of years of experience and you have your own point of view when no matter who it is coming in front of you, whether it's a pop artist or country artists or whoever, it's not difficult to, to critique and help shape the young performers because, I mean, let's face it, I've been here for a while. I've done it for a while and I have a lot of experience.

And you know, it was, it's just, I like, I like the show. I've always been a huge fan of the show and it was just a great opportunity to, I mean, basically the job is sitting there, listening to music and telling people what you think about it. And that's, I mean, what's not to like?

You know, I love, I loved it. So it was, it was really fun. Harry Connick Jr. along with Ashley Judd and Chris Kristofferson in Dolphin Tale II in theaters on September 12th. That does it for right now.

Special thanks to media mogul Rick Myers for his help with Leprechaun Origins today and check out what Rick has to offer at his website, rickmyers.com. We're back in a few days on our favorite websites, ComicMix.com and michaeldavisworld.com and of course in the iTunes podcast directory. And keep up with what we have going on anytime on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram under the

Point Radio. See you in a few days.