Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, the filmmakers responsible for Independence Day, The Patriot and Godzilla, are going to unleash another giant creature on the big screen.

"We're heading down to Australia to produce Arac Attack. It's about a giant spider attack on a small town in Nevada.

"It's kind of inspired by the 1955 sci-fi classic Tarantula. It's going to be a small-budget, big-bug movie," says Devlin.

The giant spider will be an obvious special effect. What's not obvious is how much of The Patriot was created or enhanced by computer effects.

Devlin reveals that in The Patriot's impressive battle sequences, "there were never more than 600 extras at any given time. The extra soldiers on both sides were added digitally. Rather than escalating our budget, it kept the cost down.

"Factoring in the cost of creating the costumes, we were paying $12,000 US per extra per day. The fewer we used, the easier we breathed."


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