10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Return of Swamp Thing

I always found it strange that after the success of 1978’s Superman starring Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman and Christopher Reeve that the next comic book superhero to get the big screen treatment was not Batman, Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk or Wonder Woman… but instead it was Swamp Thing in the Wes Craven directed Swamp Thing in 1982.

The sequel to the 1982 original, The Return of Swamp Thing, was released on May 12, 1989… five weeks before Tim Burton, Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson would create box office magic with Batman.

If I needed an excuse to revisit The Return of Swamp Thing (and I really didn’t) the fact that The Return of Swamp Thing is the latest entry in the MVD Rewind Collection was the perfect excuse.

The Special Collector’s Edition Blu-ray is chock full of extras including two commentary tracks… one with Director Jim Wynorski flying solo (this was actually repurposed from the 2003 DVD release of the film). And one with Wynorski, composer Chuck Cirinio and Editor Leslie Rosenthal. There are also interviews with all three and they even included a PSA that was filmed on the set of the movie for Greenpeace.

Now courtesy of those extras, I will share with you…

10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Return of Swamp Thing

1. The Return of Swamp Thing was shot on location in Savannah, Georgia. When they were filming scenes in the actual swamp, there were marksmen on hand as a safety precaution to shoot any alligators who may have shown up looking for a snack.

2. Alligators weren’t the only creatures that the crew had to contend with while making The Return of Swamp Thing…the lights had to be taken down every couple of hours so all the dead mosquitoes and other bugs could be cleaned off of them.

3. Director Jim Wynorski hated working with Louis Jourdan. Jourdan was reprising his Dr. Anton Arcane role from the original film and it was actually a condition of those financing the film that the sequel have Jourdan in it. So Wynorski more or less inherited Jourdan, who he claimed was difficult to work with and egotistical. Wynorski did not pull any punches when it came to sharing his thoughts on Louis Jourdan, even stating he felt that Jourdan was the worst James Bond villain EVER! (Jourdan played Kamal in 1983’s Octopussy).

4. Wynorski was not the only one who had difficulties with a co-worker on the set of The Return of Swamp Thing… Heather Locklear, who played Abby Arcane (the damsel in distress in the film) was not a fan of the male model that had a brief scene with Heather as Abby was fantasizing about Swamp Thing in his human form. Apparently the model was full of himself and really rubbed Heather the wrong way. As soon as the model’s scene was done, he was asked to leave the set.

5. Dr. Arcane’s laboratory was a set built in a warehouse located on the outskirts of Savannah. Filming took place during the summer months and the warehouse had no air conditioning so the temperatures inside were consistently well over 100 degrees.

6. John Terlesky, who worked with Jim Wynorski in Deathstalker II and Chopping Mall, helped Wynorski with the script rewrites. Specifically, Wynorski and Terlesky beefed up the parts of Omar and Darryl, two local kids who thought they could get rich and famous if they snapped a picture of Swamp Thing and sold it to the newspapers/tabloids.

7. The editing of the film was actually done in a motel room in Savannah by Leslie Rosenthal. Meanwhile, the score for the film was composed by Chuck Cirino in his extra bedroom in Van Nuys, California.

8. The Swamp Thing suit from The Return of Swamp Thing was actually sold to the producers of the Swamp Thing TV series that aired on the USA Network from 1990 to 1993. The suit would be modified for the show.

9. Jim Wynorski had Swamp Thing use a baseball bat as a weapon as an homage to one of his favorite movies, 1973’s Walking Tall.

10. During the action packed finale there is a scene where Arkane’s head of security Gunn (Joey Sagal) is in a jeep racing towards Arkane’s mansion. But there was a problem… the jeep wouldn’t start! So Jim Wynorski and a member of the crew got behind the jeep and pushed it for the shot. You can actually see the white shirt of Wynorski briefly in the background of the scene as he was pushing the jeep.