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Irishman John Moore was making TV commercials when 20th Century Fox gave him $40m to direct Owen Wilson in the high-octane war flick Behind Enemy Lines. When it opened in 2001, critics launched their own assault on Moore for his bombastic treatment of the conflict in Bosnia. Now he faces opposition of a different kind as he tackles a remake of Robert Aldrich's beloved desert adventure Flight Of The Phoenix.

Did you refer to the Robert Aldrich's original film before remaking it?

I had seen it a long time ago although I didn't seek it out to watch it again. I think like most people I have a nascent memory of that film. It's just that kind of film that when you mention it, people are pretty sure they've seen it. But weird things have happened like I was sure the original was black and white! Anyway, when we started get serious about the remake, I didn't seek it out to watch or to study it. I didn't avoid it like the plague either, I just didn't think there would be an upside in watching it again. It's pretty much lose-lose because if you study the original, there will come a day on set when you're shooting when you go, "Oh f***. I'm screwing this up!" There's just no point in having that baggage in the back of your head. It took me three years to get this made and that's a long time to stay in love with something and you don't want anything to knock you off that course.

Were you worried that you might be judged unfairly simply for attempting to remake a classic film?

Well, it's that word 'classic', isn't it? I think some of the reviews of the original film were quite scathing and it did quite poorly at the box office and yet it felt like it found its audience on television and has since been dubbed a classic. In remaking a film like that, it's like I'm messing with someone's photo album. They just don't want you in there disturbing what they're happy with. A lot of critics in the States just shot us out of the gate because we had the audacity to remake a quote, unquote "classic". I saw it a little differently. I think there are some classics which shouldn't be tampered with, but we stayed so true to the original story and didn't try any sort of annoying 21st century upgrades. I thought this was a fair enough game. They say there are only seven basic stories anyway in film, so everything's a remake in those terms.

What about the day-to-day difficulties of filming in such an extreme environment? Apparently shifting sand dunes were a big problem...

It's true and believe me I'm not trying to sound like a smart-ass, but you just don't get it until you're there. You actually realise that these sand dunes are created by wind, which doesn't sound surprising, but people ordinarily think of the desert as a hot place and not necessarily a tumultuous, windy place. Of course you've got these 300ft dunes that are created by the wind and if you're going to shoot in one place for four months, you're going to have these massive changes in the landscape. Some of the dunes that you see in the film were like 120ft taller at the start of filming compared to when we finished, which was difficult - especially when you're shooting two scenes months apart that are supposed to follow into each other. Continuity was a big problem and the production designer spent a huge amount of time replacing what nature was eroding. It was like he was playing with the world's biggest sandbox.

And you conducted a worldwide search for the aeroplane?

Yeah, and we only found two flying examples in the world. But during the search I'd wake up in a cold sweat at night thinking, "If we don't find this aeroplane, we don't have a movie!" Other people only came to that thought late in the day because filmmaking is all about problem solving and they were like, "Don't worry. We can fix it in post production." I knew if it came down to a CG solution, I wasn't going to make the film. Luckily and very late in the day, we found one in Wyoming that was being used to fight fires. It was a bit like discovering a forgotten Renoir in an attic somewhere, because it was this beautiful aeroplane that was all beat up and covered in this old paint. So we sent it to finishing school and it came out like this gleaming bird.

You've made your name with big Hollywood action films. Are you comfortable with that and does part of you still feel like the new guy trying to make good?

I still very much feel like the new guy trying to make good, because I'm not American. I'm not one of them, as it were, so there's always that little pause that occurs when people realise that you're not. But I'm comfortable for people to describe me as an action director. I mean I don't make very important movies, I make movies that are quite entertaining, I hope, and I'm very respectful of my desire to some day make an important movie, but I'm still learning to make something that's efficient and entertaining and feels like a movie. If you hone those skills then I think it's just a matter of finding the material to which you can apply that skill set. Then you can, you know, move in another direction.

Which direction would you like to take?

Obviously Behind Enemy Lines, my first movie, was... well as some critics quite fairly described it, an awful Hollywood swing at a complex political situation in Bosnia. You know, there are subject matters that a lot of people in the world would be horrified to think that a director like me would be approaching, but I still have ambitions to make some movies that are entertaining and touch on some of the stuff we're dealing with now.

You're currently developing a thriller called The Last Mission. How's that going?

Ah, The Last Mission. You know, there were only four people in the room when that deal was made, but everyone seems to know about this movie! Well, it's still on the table. It's this story about a guy whose daughter is kidnapped by Abu Saif in the Philippines and, referring to what I was saying earlier, it's a movie I'd like to make - if people will hold their nerve - to make it realistic and not pretend that it's this fictional militant insurgent group. I say that because the idea is that this guy's daughter, a journalist, is kidnapped by a Muslim fundamentalist group and he realises that it suits the PR needs of the American government to have her beheaded and shown on Al Jazeera, because it makes their case for them in deploying their forces against terrorism. He realises his daughter is a victim of a PR situation so he has to go get her himself. It's about knowing that, despite your intention to do the right thing, taking justice into your own hands can have unwieldy consequences.

Who would you like to see starring?

When I go to sleep at night and start dreaming? I think Clint Eastwood would be great because this guy is a Vietnam-era Navy SEAL. He's very much an older guy and there are few guys who can pull of moral simplicity like Clint Eastwood can. He could do it with just one look and he's got that cinematic baggage that makes you sit up and pay attention.

Do you have any other projects in mind?

I want to make a movie about Fallujah, the Marine siege on Fallujah.

Harrison Ford has already signed up for one of those...

Ah, not quite. I think you'll find that's a little bit of a fluff piece. I'm quite pally with Harrison's agent so I have it on pretty good authority. Mine isn't that project: it's another one. I'm working with an ABC reporter who was there so we're trying to put his story together. It'll probably take eight years to develop and then never get made. I'll probably get stymied though because people will say it's too much like Black Hawk Down and because Sam Mendes is making Jarhead, which I actually wanted to make!