Caffeinated Clint
Most of today’s films suck worse than Eartha Kitt in a disco car park. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you guys that – you’re the guys wasting ten bucks every weekend on whatever piece of crap the marketers have fooled you into rushing to see. But you know what I hate most? Of course you do (I talk about it enough)…. It’s those incessant horror remakes – remakes of absolute classics, mind you! – that they’re flooding the market with. Tell me, do we really need a new Freddy Krueger? Does Camp Crystal Lake really need to be renovated? Did anyone ever actually care for the first ”Prom Night”, let alone a shittier remake? Fuck no!
But I tell ya, studio bean counters aren’t stopping at butt-fucking our horror heroes with the pointy end of a lollipop, they’re also guilty of putting next to no effort into what they call the Summer blockbuster. Are they not getting worse!? Most of the blockbusters released today – sans maybe ‘’Transformers”, which passed muster – aren’t a shade on what we grew up on. Remember how grand ‘’Ghostbusters” was? Or ‘’Gremlins”? Or ‘’The Goonies”? Or ‘’The Princess Bride”? Or ‘’Lethal Weapon”?
How many times in the past year have you walked out of an uber-expensive fantasy epic feeling like a feather duster had just met with your underoos? I tell ya, I don’t think I’ve felt that way since ”Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”.
Did you not want to wallop the usher walking out “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”? Did you not spew a little in your mouth watching “Rush Hour 3”? Were you not more intrigued by Nicolas Cage’s hair-plugs than anything in “National Treasure 2”? Did you wonder whether Katzenberg was smoking the green when he approved the current cut of “Shrek the Third”? And did anyone really – honestly, now c’mon – enjoy those bloated “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequels? I mean, seriously, they were as distended as John Goodman post-buffet… and was that actually Johnny Depp or was he a computer effect? (I’m sure the guy in the first film was better than the facsimile in the second and third films).
Leigh Whannell knows exactly what I’m talking about. The writer of the never-ending “Saw” series donated some time today to talk about how depressing most of today’s blockbusters, and also horror films, are. Now this is a smart guy – he got out of the “Saw” series before he got sick of it (his last contribution to the series was “Saw 3″) and has a reputation for turning down hundreds of well-paying re-write jobs because he simply doesn’t believe in the material he’s been asked to fix.
His ‘’Dying Breed” co-star Nathan Phillips also joined in on the conversation – having felt so burnt by the return of Indiana Jones this year.  Let quite a few of us singed, didn’t he?
Clint : Before we get into this, have you seen “Saw V”, Leigh?
Leigh : No, I haven’t, because I went away to South Africa before it came out, so I was out in the middle of nowhere on a 2-week trek…
Nathan : How is your missus going anyway? Spoken to her since the Black Rhino?
Leigh : Ok.. but for all I know the phone was being held to her ear, a machete to her throat.
Nathan : Have you seen Saw IV?
Leigh : Yeah, I’ve seen IV, but not V.
Clint : Well, I didn’t see four. Man, they’re just coming out so damn fast now. One a year.
Leigh : Yep, one a year.
Nathan : There’s been one a year since Saw 1?
Leigh : Yeah. Every Halloween.
Nathan : It’s amazing, I was looking at the figures for Saw 5 the other day and it’d already made $2.5 million or something. It shows you there’s still a big market for the genre film.
Leigh : Because one comes out each year kids can keep up with it. A lot of times with films there’s a three year gap. This one’s almost like a serial from the 30s. Audiences can keep a handle on what’s going on in them and connect this one to the last one because there’s such a short gap between each film.
Clint : And there really isn’t any other horror franchise out at the moment. Freddy’s, well, dead…
Nathan : Scream is dead.
Leigh : Halloween – though they’re still cranking them out when they can.
Clint : They’re essentially restarting all those franchises now. And there’s nothing I hate more than a fucking reboot.
Leigh : I know! now they’re remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street. They’re starting again!
Clint : I bloody hate it! When did the original flavour go out of style?
Leigh : It’s not creative in any way, shape or form. If you’re remaking a film from say the 40s with really old creaky special effects, that you can really update, that you can really bring into the modern world…. But as far as remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street, C’Mon! It’s just so cynical… it’s just about money… that’s all it is… and they try and convince you it’s all about the excitement. Some of them aren’t bad – The Dawn of the Dead remake was a good film, and even the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre was OK – but the idea behind them, that you can take this old horror film that has a built-in audience, remake it with a few sexy people and that’s it… it’s just so not creative.
Clint : The idea well has totally run dry… I mean, they’re not even using Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, they’re going to get a ‘nice young, fresh Fred Krueger’. Bullshit!
Leigh : Didn’t they have a rumour of who was going to play Freddy Krueger? Ed Norton, maybe?
Clint : Billy Bob Thornton at one stage.
Leigh : Oh OK [Laughs]
Nathan : I think the Bond franchise is the only franchise that’s done well thanks to the reboot.
Leigh : I think that’s worked because those films aren’t so much sequels. It’s also because it’s about this one guy, who can have a new adventure every time, but also because they do keep reinventing him. Just when it starts to get tired with one guy, they replace him. ‘OK, we’re done with Pierce Brosnan now’. They’re very skilful at reinvention. Let’s face it, pretty much all the Bond films since the Connery films have been crap. None of the Roger Moore films have been great – they were tolerable, they weren’t great. None of the Timothy Dalton ones were great – but I think he’s the most underrated Bond.
Clint : I kinda agree with that… I’ve recently revisited the series and realized what an unfair wrap he got at the time.
Leigh : Yeah. To me, it’s a bookend – you’ve got Connery, and then you’ve got this huge period of crap, and then BAM! Daniel Craig. Took them 30 years to get it right – again.
Nathan : The one that shitted me was Indiana Jones [and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]. I was really shattered.
Leigh : I was really shattered too.
Clint : I know, me too, Indiana Jones and the Castle of Spider Veins just blew – and what I loathe is when people come up to me and say ‘Why did you hate on it so much? It was great!’ Did they not fucking see the same movie!?
Leigh : Yeah, they’re the same people who came up to you after the Star Wars prequel and said ‘wasn’t it great!!?’. What that is is its people who are so obsessed with nostalgic icons in those films…it’s Boogie Nights for Sci-Fi Nerds. You go into a movie and you’re like ‘Ooooh, we use to dress like that’. [You and I are] not above it. I mean, we’ll go to see a movie in twenty years about the 90s and be like ‘Oh, Nirvana!’
Nathan : Yeah, we’ll elbow our grandkids and say ‘Look, there’s Dave Grohl’
Leigh : Yeah, ‘that was real music!’. I mean, we’re going to become victims of nostalgia too. I’m the most nostalgic person in the history of the world – I can get sentimental about last Tuesday – so I can understand that warm, fuzzy feeling when you see Yoda on the big screen again, or you see Indy on the big screen. But the cold hard fact is its crap! Those three Star Wars prequels were three of the worst films ever made.
Nathan : I wouldn’t even watch them again.
Leigh : They’re unwatchable.
Nathan : It really was a ‘big fuck’ you to the audience!
Leigh : Raiders of the Lost Ark was a classy film, it wasn’t silly, it had you in the palm of it’s hand whereas Crystal Skull…
Clint : … was bullshit. I mean, that whole scene in the snake-pit… it looked fake! And believe it or not, the snake was real. The same snake wrangler that was on Snakes on a Plane did Indy 4!
Nathan : Jules Sylvester?
Clint : Yeah. Thing is, the scene looked so bad, and so fake, I just assumed it was a CGI snake…
Nathan : And Shia being set-up to take over the franchise… oh man. It was just the wrong period, the wrong way to go about things…
Leigh : It stinks of desperation. Even Harrison Ford wasn’t good! He seemed desperate.
Clint : Probably because he was!
Leigh : That should be the easiest role in the world for him! He’s got this great iconic charm [as Indy in the previous movies] but in this he just seemed desperate. But, as everyone in this room knows, it’s hard enough to make a film, let alone a good film. I believe Steven Spielberg had the best intention of wanting to make a really good film – that’s obvious, he always does – but I don’t think the film is bad because he was lazy.
Nathan : I didn’t like the lighting, I thought it was undeveloped, I thought it was poorly cast…As soon as I saw Alan Dale, it lost me. It just had a lot of problems.
Clint : It kinda takes you out of the picture doesn’t it!? If even just because he’s everywhere.
Nathan : I just don’t think he has the range.
Leigh : I love Alan Dale [Laughs]
Clint : It just didn’t have the same….
Leigh : I remember going to the Drive-In with my parents, in Clayton, and seeing a double bill of Superman and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Memories…
Clint : And speaking of blockbuster sequels, what have you thought of the “Saw” sequels?
Leigh : Well…. [Laughs]
Nathan : I can tell you…
Clint : Yeah, I can tell you too…
Leigh : Well, the ego part of my brain would obviously like to think that the films have gone down in quality. I will say this – I don’t think you can keep making sequels – keep photocopying it – without diluting it. The more films they make, the worst it’s gonna get. That’s nothing to do with the producers – it’s the law of sequels. It’s just the way it happens. But I am friends with the producers so it’d probably be remiss of me to give my personal opinion… you get me with a few beers in private and I’ll tell you my personal opinion. Better you give me your opinion, and me listen to it, than me you give you my opinion.
Clint : I loved the first “Saw” sequel – I’m even quoted on the cover of the DVD sleeve….
Leigh : I think Saw 2 is a good sequel. It goes Saw 1, Saw 2 then Saw 3 with me – in order of favourites.
Clint : “Saw 3” was my least favourite. That’s when I said to myself I could probably do without seeing the next one. And I didn’t.
Leigh : Yeah, it wasn’t entirely successful but it had some good moments. I thought it wrapped up the trilogy in an OK way.
Clint : True. When “Saw 4” came around then, quite honestly, I had no interest – and it’s simply because I’d had my share… I was full. I needed something else. They come too often. I’ll even say the same about the “Harry Potter” series – I skipped the last couple of those too.
Leigh : How many Harry Potters have they done now?
Clint : Shit, about 25!?
Nathan : [Laughs] Four. But there’s like eight books.
Clint : And the last book isn’t being split into two movies.
Nathan : Another series that that reinvention hasn’t hurt is Batman. You go back to Keaton. I actually really enjoyed Clooney.
Clint : You were the guy!
Leigh : The film was bad, but Clooney was given a bad wrap.
Clint : He was a good Bruce Wayne – not so much Batman.
Leigh : Yeah, he was. He really looked the part. But yeah, that’s the way to reinvent something – you interpret it another way. New actor, New look, New director.
Nathan : Which is all OK. That’s just attention to detail. It’s a compromise in collaboration.
Clint : There would have to be films in your back catalogue that you’re not especially proud of, right? Anything from a big studio?
Leigh : Dead Silence, that’s a film I wrote. It’s not that I’m ashamed of it but I’m a little embarrassed by the finished product. I’m like ‘well, we made it with a studio so…’ I feel like I always have to justify it to people. I’m a lot more comfortable with it now than what I was when it first came out. I remember a friend emailing me ‘I just saw Dead Silence. I really liked it! Congratulations!’ and I just responded ‘You don’t have to lie to me’. It’s interesting how, if something is quality, everyone gets behind it – with Saw we had a huge push, every one of my friends saw it, we had a premiere here in Melbourne, and it was a big deal – but with say, Dead Silence… nobody I know has seen it. There was nothing. None of my friends here in Melbourne have seen it. It went straight to DVD in Australia but even if it had have come out in the cinemas I still don’t think anyone would have went to see it. People won’t even go to see bombs like that even if their best friends are in it.
Clint : [Laughs] I have it on DVD, but yeah, not a lot of people know of it.
There are still some scenes in dead silence that I’m proud of, and I feel like I needed to have that experience, but if you asked me to show you a film I’ve written I probably wouldn’t hand you that straight away. Universal, I believe – and it sounds like I’m assigning blame here- or people with good intentions killed that film. They ripped the good stuff out of it, they re-wrote it, they re-shot it and then, after all that, they didn’t like the finished product – so I was thinking ‘If you don’t like the finished product, why put us through all that!?’ Fuck, if only they’d just left us alone. I guess, during that whole time, they thought they were going to get to a place where they thought they’d like it but when they didn’t they just threw up their hands and dumped it.
Nathan : It sucks. I’ve seen first time producers get bullied by bean counters who try and tell these people what makes a good film. I’ve seen good films totally get chopped up because someone thinks it needs to be of a certain running time.
Leigh : There’s too many cooks
Clint : Have you seen the trailer for “My Bloody Valentine 3D”?
Leigh : No. Heard of it. A remake – but it’s in 3D, right?
Clint : Yeah. Patrick Lussier directed it. And I tell ya, if you’re going to remake something – you do it like that, you bring something new to it. Lussier is so passionate and so imaginative – but more so, just loves a good horror film – and has apparently done wonders with this one. It looks great. Real great. And he’s had nothing but good stuff to say about Lionsgate too. What was your experience of working with them?
Leigh : They ARE great. We had the best experience with them – it was fantastic. I think each individual person has their own individual experience with each company – you could ask another guy and they might say they’re the worst people to deal with ever – but for me, they were really good with the Saw films. They just market them really well, they understood what the film was… look, they definitely treat it like a business, as they should I guess, and as the sequels went on I could see that they were starting to treat it more like a product, a shoe to be sold as such, but I don’t blame them.
Clint : Yeah. Understandable.
Leigh : They are good though. They definitely understand horror. They’re the only studio, in the states at least, that knows what horror fans want. Other studios treat [horror] like the retarded stepchild that they have to deal with because they make money. Those companies are god awful to deal with.
Those we were dealing with at Universal on Dead Silence had no idea – they’d just apply the same notes to our film as they would say Dude Where’s My Car. I really wanted to say ‘Look, I don’t mean to sound egotistical but I understand horror, you don’t, why don’t you let me do it!?’
I remember a guy at Universal saying to me ‘A story is a story’. It went like this, I said to him ‘With all due respect, I understand horror better than you do’. ‘A story is a story, it doesn’t matter what genre it’s in’ he says. ‘And I know story’. And I’m like ‘I’m telling you. The points you’re bringing up, they’re not important in a horror film’.
Clint : The worst example… the “Prom Night” remake. They cut it down to PG-13.
Leigh : Yeah, because it makes money. No integrity.
Clint : Oh, speaking of big money movies, I hear your film “Redline” has been picked up by Warner in Australia (Side note : Nathan loathes the movie)
Nathan : What?! Oh god. I’ll never forget that one… all the way through it I was thinking ‘What am I doing wrong?, Why am I here?’
Clint : The good thing is Brian Austin Green is on the cover. It’s actually you, but it looks like the dude from 90210…
Nathan : What?! [Laughs] That’s crazy… really? Is there a release date on that thing?
Clint : Yeah, I believe it’s March next year. It’s not theatrical, it’s home video.
Nathan : Oh, so it’s not theatrical. Phew.
Leigh :What would you do if it was theatrical?
Nathan : I wouldn’t answer my phone. I wouldn’t be in the country.
IN CONCLUSION
So there you have it, those working in the industry are as aware as we are, the cinemagoer, that the film industry needs a good kick in the touché.
The industry has always been about making money, and of course, but when did studios decide to abandon the notion of making a quality movie at the same time as a potentially successful one?
I think it’s quite clear, what with the dismal reception pricey popcorn-flicks like “Crystal Skull”, “Aliens Vs. Predator”, “Max Payne” and “The Mummy : Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” (please wrap that bitch up for good this time!) got this year, that a lot of the studios don’t care so much about their audience as they do about making enough mint to bankroll the forthcoming studio Christmas party. And it’s sad. I know there’s a compromise, and I know there’s a lot of people that get a say when making a movie, but surely there’s enough people on any given film that can recognize when a film is going south? And surely even some of the execs involved want to be involved in a ‘great movie’ that makes lots of money, rather than just ‘a bloated turd that made a mint’? Or do they really not care? I find it hard to believe.
One studio exec, who shall remain anonymous, told me today that “We can care as much as we want that a big film isn’t turning out well but that doesn’t mean your opinion will always count – not when there’s someone higher up that’s already decided what they want the film to be and doesn’t necessarily care if it’s without direction, so long as it looks hot!“.
The exec, who has worked for a large studio for a few years now, says that unfortunately most studio heads, and those just below them, are only interested in making a movie that ‘looks great’.
“If it’s hollow inside, it’s not our problem, I guess. That’s the way some see it anyway. I’d love to see less horror remakes and more genuinely grand family blockbusters too Clint but they’re not as easy to sell – you know that, with the western – as opposed to some flashy horror movie with babes in it or something that has name recognition. Indiana Jones could’ve been even an worse film than it was, and it still would’ve sold. And the next one probably will too. And unfortunately audiences are as much to blame for this – they come in their droves to see all the horror remakes, for starters, so why aren’t studios going to keep making those? They make money. There won’t be any risks, nor any extra time spent on making movies good, while we can slap films together in a month and consequently make a boatload of money from those. It’s the nature of the business“.
Another employee of a studio, though not as high up, tells us “it’s simple : why spent extra time and effort on making something good when it’ll sell anyway? Don’t you know that most studio bosses don’t give two hoots whether a film turns out good or not – it’s only if it loses money that they’ll blame the film itself.”
Now don’t get me wrong, there are a few studios out there that are making good summer releases – a couple that have even done some half worthwhile horror remakes; I personally didn’t mind Rob Zombie’s stab at “Halloween” for instance – and I believe Warner Bros are probably leading the pack at the moment. By cancelling ‘’Justice League” at the 11th hour, a film that apparently had a terrible script, not to mention a bunch of rather so-so actors attached to it, and would’ve no doubt turned out to be a terrible movie, it was an indication that they weren’t prepared to just make some lousy superhero movie for the sake of making a few bucks. After ‘’The Dark Knight”, which played as good as it looked, the WB obviously came to the conclusion that there’s a potential to make ‘even more’ money by spending a little bit more time and effort on the big movies (which near voids comments made by the exec above that ‘shit sells’ – because sometimes, as such is the case here, there’s potential for something to do even better if it’s of a higher quality. I mean, how many people ‘went back’ and saw “Dark Knight” because of how good it was? Did anyone go back and see “Die Hard 4″? Of course they fuckin’ didn’t!). In the case of ‘’The Dark Knight”, word started to spread that it was not only a great ‘Superhero Movie’ but a great movie in it’s own right – and suddenly people that wouldn’t normally go to a movie like that found themselves rushing off to see it (my mother wouldn’t know her Batman’s from her Robin’s but went to see it based on all the good things she’d bee hearing about it – and she loved it! She was boasting about it for weeks!). I salute Warner for taking their time, and putting a little bit more effort, into their tent pole flicks. Not only have they decided not to make another “Superman” movie until they find the best script they can for it, but they’re not rushing another “Batman” movie into development just yet – nope, again, they’ll wait until they have a great script but also,
Warner have learnt from their mistakes – they bankrolled “Batman & Robin”, easily the worst superhero film ever made, shortly after the release of “Batman Forever”, and it lost a shit load of money (which I believe bad reviews can be partly attributed to). They also made a boo-boo with “Catwoman”.
“The Dark Knight” might not have been as flashy a film as Joel Schumacher’s “Batman” movies but it was a ‘better’ film – and people knew that; they could tell it was quality. And just compare how much better it’s down to the 90s “Bat” flicks.
An extra year or so spent on a film – whether it be getting the script right, waiting for the right director to find a gap in his schedule, or casting the film perfectly – could make the biggest difference.
If “Watchmen”, a film that’s taken many years to get up, and looks absolutely wonderful, makes a mint next year I believe Paramount will also pull back on rushing their sure-thing blockbusters into production. Heck, they might even make sure George Lucas comes up with a solid script for “Indiana Jones 5” before bankrolling it. Is that wishful thinking?
But in fact, Paramount do seem to have recognized the need to put a bit more effort into their tent-pole flicks – early word on “Star Trek” and “Transformers 2” is that they’re absolutely amazing! – so they might be learning from Warner’s example.
But still, they don’t make ‘em like they used too. And two or three good Summer releases among the 30 released each year isn’t going to change that. Remember that before you hand over your hard-earned ten bucks this weekend to see “The Haunting of Molly Hartley”.
You might just be doing us all a favour in the long-run.
