Partners for almost twenty years, Wong and Morgan were the creators of the cult series "Space: Above and Beyond." They also co-executive produced two seasons on the Emmy nominated and Golden Globe Award-winning series "The X-Files", and served as executive producers on the drama "Millennium."

Glen Morgan and James Wong's partnership began when the two became friends at El Cajon High School in San Diego. The pair joined a comedy improv group in La Jolla, California, performing alongside comics like Whoopi Goldberg, before entering the communication arts department at Loyola Marymount University. After graduating from Loyola Marymount in 1983, their partnership was firmly established when they co-wrote the hard-hitting feature film The Boys Next Door.

Director/screenwriter Glen Morgan makes his feature directorial debut with Willard. Recently, Morgan produced The One, starring Jet Li, and Final Destination. Both films were directed by his writing/producing partner, James Wong.

It is almost impossible to imagine anyone but Crispin Glover in this movie. How did you come to cast him?

James Wong: When we started this project, we had three people we thought would be right for the role. One was an actor we had previously worked with, Doug Hutchinson, who was Percy in The Green Mile. The other was Crispin, and the third was Jeremy Davies. We thought that of those three, we started with Doug, but when things didn't work out that way, New Line started throwing in more of the leading man-type actors.

Who else did they mention?

JW: Mark Ruffalo. Joaquin Phoenix. Which would have been perfect. But much bigger names than would do this movie, I think. One of the executives (at New Line) actually called this agent, I don't remember who it was - not Crispin agent - about another actor, and he said, "Well, would you and Glen be interested in Crispin?" And he said, "Oh, my god, if Crispin was in this movie, I'd see it 75 times and still not be satisfied." And I think that is what put an idea in New Line's head, and they agreed to Crispin.

Glen Morgan: We had been told by other people, You'll never get this film done if you use Crispin. He's crazy. So, actually we went with Jeremy Davies first, just because of the unfortunate reputation he (Crispin) has. So Jeremy actually came to my house while he was reading for this (Charles) Manson movie, and he looked just like Charles Manson. And I couldn't get by it. Get out of my house! (laughter) And Doug Hutchinson is a friend of ours, and we talked to him about it, but - how do you term it? - we just lucked out. Because there was that point when I couldn't picture anyone else but Doug. But now I'm so thankful, because I can't picture anyone else but Crispin.

You've probably seen how the trailer plays? When the audience sees Crispin, they go nuts!

GM: We shot that subway stuff in New York, down in Queens. It was a very small unit. Yet there was still a crowd there with their George McFly things. (laughs)

With the homage to Bruce Davison in the film, was there ever any thought of also bringing Ernest Borgnine onto the project?

GM: Lee would have beat us up. (Laughs) For me, the original, it was the two of them. But (with Bruce) it's the title character, and I don't know, we just went with it. We called his agent, and I said, Look, out of respect for the first movie, could we use him? A friend of ours said He should be the dad! So we called the agent, and out of respect, can we use his image. And the agent said "Duh duh duh, is there any money for this?" And we said, "No, it's just a respect thing." And he said, "Okay, no, bye!" but the agent must have still gone to Bruce, because he was great. He sent all these family photos. And I've still never met him, and it's a big moment to have Bruce Davison say, Hey, you did a great job.

As a childhood favorite of mine, why didn't you recreate the party disruption scene and the mother's weird friends?

GM: I drew a lot from the novel. In the novel, he went to get the boss' tires. I thought that was more a guy... That one shot of the neighborhood that Willard appears in, I would like it if one day you looked out your window.... And I thought the party scene in the original was pretty funny, you have women jumping up on the tables and rats flying all over the place. I don't know how they learned to leap like that!

How did you come to differentiate the rat's personalities?

GM: I think a lot of that is editing. That just goes to the whole, that kind of, well, the dove can't put a bowl of soup in front of somebody, so if Willard's afraid of Ben, and you cut to just a rat, he looks a little scarier.

JW: We did some facial enhancements with CGI. The Ben rat is an African Gamby rat, which are twice as big as the rat we know and love. But they had a tendency to have round eyes and big ears, and when you shoot them up close, they looked kind of cute. So, in the close-ups of Ben, we went into the computer and made their ears more pointed and made their eyes more squinty, to make them look less cute.

What is the breakdown of real rats versus CGI versus animatronics?

GM: My hunch is that it is about 80 percent to 85 percent real rats, and the rest CGI or animatronic. When we started, we didn't know what would come through. Because all the CGI guys were saying, Oh, we'll take care of it. And the animal guys are saying, We can do that. And the puppet guys are saying, We'll do that. So we went through it figuring at least one of them was gonna work.

JW: We went totally three-prong. We spent the money and paved the way for whichever method would work. And with the exception of the massive amount - we had 550 rats Ü and when you put 550 rats in this room, they only take up this much space. (Indicates small area of about 5 feet with his hands) They really clump together quite a lot and crawl all over each other, because they don't like to spread out. Their instinct is to band together.

So in the mass shots where you see a lot of rats, that is where the CGI came in, to duplicate and multiple the rats. Because in the shots where you see lots of rats, that would really represent thousands and thousands of rats. That's maybe 2,,000 or 3,000 rats we would have needed. Aside from the massive rat scenes you see, there was maybe 15 or 20 seconds of animatronic rats, and the rest of the shots are the real actors.

What made you want to remake Willard?

GM: My dad always watched the Universal monster movies, and would say, The best monster doesn't want to be a monster! He also took me to all the Hammer movies, and then when we saw Willard.... You know how you kind of rooted for Willard, but then when he screws Ben over, you kinda of root for Ben? That as the first time in any movie as a kid....that was my first character arc. (Laughs) You're a dumb kid and you go, Oh that's interesting. And it always sort of stuck with me. The sort of lonely person or alienated person. And the theme of, Don't become what you hate.

JW: Don't become what you hate is pretty apropos for the times that we live in. I think that is a really important theme. And Crispin agreed.

GM: Neither the novel nor the first film - we had a little attempt at explaining where the rats came from - but Crispin said the rats just sort of appear. It is almost like they are a manifestation of this guys anger and frustration, and if you keep that in check, it literally eats you. And I thought that was really smart.

The film is very much like Psycho and The Birds. It is also very similar to Hitchcock in terms of the emphasis on humor, and it is very much like a black comedy.

GM: That was our X-Files always had. Starting out with my dad, like Bride of Frankenstein, which is probably the first horror comedy. Then I've read Hitchcock called Psycho a black comedy, and you watch those things again with that in mind and you go, Yeah, wow. It is just the kind of tone that we do well.