Latest / MUBI Podcast / BABE: PIG IN THE CITY — George Miller makes one for the grownups

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BABE: PIG IN THE CITY — George Miller makes one for the grownups · MUBI Podcast

• 0:00
  This episode includes adult language and spoilers.
• 0:10
  Let me take you back to summer 1995, when a future film critic named Tim Robey was just a movie obsessed teenager on vacation from his native London, and about to sit down to watch a movie at a mall multiplex in Los Angeles.
• 0:26
  That summer was at the movies was the summer of Apollo 13, Braveheart.
• 0:32
  While You Were Sleeping, all these...
• 0:33
  these were big hits.
• 0:35
  This is when Babe came out.
• 0:37
  Babe was the one that no one saw coming.
• 0:39
  Based on a kid's book,Babe was the story of a sweet little talking piglet, who charms a simple rural farmer, along with every animal in his barnyard, and then blows the locals' minds by becoming a prize-winning sheep herder.
• 0:54
  It was the debut movie from a little known Australian director named Chris Noonan.
• 0:57
  It seemed like it was just for kids and yet...
• 1:00
  Already, there was buzz around it.
• 1:01
  The reviews had been so good, and I remember going to see it in...
• 1:05
  L.A., in Century City with my brothers, and we kind of just rocked up.
• 1:09
  You know, five minutes before it was starting, it was almost completely sold out already, and the only seats we could get were at the very end of the front row.
• 1:17
  And it was quite a cramped screen where the sightlines were pretty terrible there.
• 1:22
  So I, essentially we had this tiny sliver of a view of Babe.
• 1:28
  Still completely delighted with it.
• 1:30
  I mean, just a film that almost nobody had a bad word for.
• 1:34
  Baa-ram-ewe!Baa-ram-ewe, to your breed, your fleece, your clan,be true.
• 1:40
  Sheep be true.- Baa-ram-ewe!- "Ewe", what did you say? You could understand why it was already becoming such, a kind of, word of mouth hit, even just a week or two into its run. But it did.
• 1:54
  It kind of caught Hollywood off guard.
• 1:56
  It became this phenomenon and ended up becoming a Best Picture nominee, which is almost unheard of for a family film.
• 2:03
  That'll do, Pig.That'll do. But then the contrast, three years later to when I saw Babe: Pig in the City, the sequel, was very extreme.
• 2:21
  Yeah, in 1998, a way more celebrated director made the much anticipated follow up to this gigantic, crowd pleasing hit, and it wound up literally driving audiences out of theaters.
• 2:34
  Which led Tim to wonder,"how the hell did that happen?" I am Rico Gagliano.
• 2:49
  Welcome back to the MUBI Podcast.
• 2:52
  MUBI's the streaming service that champions great cinema.
• 2:55
  On this show, we tell you the stories behind great cinema.
• 2:58
  This is season seven.
• 2:59
  We're calling it Box Office Poison, and it is based on the new book of the same name from Tim Robey, who grew up to be a film critic for London's Daily Telegraph.
• 3:08
  Every episode, we're telling the tortured tale of a very good movie that did very bad box office.
• 3:13
  And today is a perfect example, George Miller's big budget spectacular -Babe: Pig in the City.
• 3:19
  Last year, Variety magazine named it one of the best sequels of all time.
• 3:24
  But back in '98, that was definitely not the audience consensus.
• 3:28
  So they did a screening for these executives and their children, and the children were traumatized.
• 3:34
  That's the great actor James Cromwell.
• 3:36
  He was in HBO's Succession and played Babe's owner, Farmer Hoggett, in both the original and the sequel.
• 3:42
  And he's one of a bunch of folks I spoke to about how Miller took a family franchise, about a good hearted pig and roasted it on a spit.
• 3:49
  I couldn't really comprehend how dark it was going to be.
• 3:52
  I don't even think I really got it until I watched the movie.
• 3:55
  To me, this is the tale of an artist who never tells the same story twice, and an industry that just figured he would.
• 4:01
  So get ready for a trot on the wild side down the mean streets
• 4:05
  of <i: Babe>Pig in the City.
• 4:13
  of <i: Babe>To understand how this sequel went bust, first, I think you got to understand how the original blew up.
• 4:20
  of <i: Babe>So I'm going to start the story back in the mid-1980s, several thousand feet above India.
• 4:26
  of <i: Babe>George Miller had just wrapped up Beyond Thunderdome, the third installment of his post-apocalyptic Mad Max franchise, and on a long flight to London, I guess he felt like taking in some lighter fare.
• 4:37
  of <i: Babe>And in the middle of the night.
• 4:39
  of <i: Babe>I turned on the audio and was listening to a children's program in which a womanwas reviewing children's books. That's him from an interview he did years later.
• 4:48
  of <i: Babe>And she started to review this book about a pig that became world champion sheepdog,and she started to laugh during the review and she laughed in such a wayI thought this must be very special. The book was called 'The Sheep-Pig' by British kids author Dick King-Smith.
• 5:04
  of <i: Babe>Miller bought a copy the second he landed and, according to James Cromwell, instantly wanted to make it a movie.
• 5:09
  of <i: Babe>George had read this one of Dick King-Smith's books and read it to his daughter, and really loved it, but didn't have the expertise to do the CGI as expressively as he wanted it to be.
• 5:25
  of <i: Babe>Yeah, to get across the book's droll vibe, Miller imagined a movie where the animals seemed like they were really talking to each other, expressing subtle emotions.
• 5:32
  of <i: Babe>But he learned that to pull that off with 1980s technology would cost like 100 million bucks.
• 5:38
  of <i: Babe>So he waited for, I don't know, I think 10 or 11 years, actually.
• 5:43
  of <i: Babe>And the wait paid off.
• 5:44
  of <i: Babe>By the time cameras finally started rolling circa 1994, in Miller's homeland of Australia, farmer Hoggett's barnyard came to life.
• 5:56
  of <i: Babe>In the movie, now titled just Babe after its hero, deployed every effects trick available trained live animals, life-like animatronics, stand ins and CGI to make the creature's lips move.
• 6:07
  of <i: Babe>It was so good that we would all go to dailies, the crews and everybody else would go to dailies.
• 6:12
  of <i: Babe>The Australians who loved to bet on anything would bet on which of the animals were real, and which ones were animatronic, because you literally could not tell.
• 6:25
  of <i: Babe>Only at the end of the take when they yelled "Cut!" the ones that were mechanized, of course their heads just drooped.
• 6:32
  of <i: Babe>And that way you knew that you won.
• 6:35
  of <i: Babe>This still didn't come cheap at a budget of over 30 million bucks.
• 6:39
  of <i: Babe>Babe was one of the most expensive Australian movies ever.
• 6:42
  of <i: Babe>But between the effects and the charming tale, everyone figured they had a hit on their hands.
• 6:46
  of <i: Babe>Except, apparently the film's distributor, Universal Pictures.
• 6:50
  of <i: Babe>The studio...
• 6:51
  of <i: Babe>Oh man, the studio so did not want this picture to succeed.
• 6:56
  of <i: Babe>It was unbelievable.
• 6:58
  of <i: Babe>There was a press junket to Houston, to the Space Center for a screening of Apollo or whatever the--- Apollo 13.
• 7:06
  of <i: Babe>- Apollo 13. And they loved it all.
• 7:10
  of <i: Babe>You know, they're feted, they're taken to the best restaurants.
• 7:13
  of <i: Babe>And when they got in the bus to go to the airport,
• 7:19
  the representative from Universal said: "Listen, we we got this little, oh, it's this kid's film about a pig." And I heard that they all went,"Oh, no, oh, we have to watch this?" Except guess what?
• 7:31
  the representative from Universal said: The critics loved it.
• 7:34
  the representative from Universal said: Despite which Cromwell says the studio couldn't imagine giving the movie a big prime time red carpet premiere.
• 7:40
  the representative from Universal said: So they opened it in a little theater, in Santa Monica, in the middle of the day.
• 7:45
  the representative from Universal said: I think it was Sunday with an invited audience of normal people, and they're watching the story.
• 7:51
  the representative from Universal said: And then all of a sudden the pig makes a joke, and I heard adults start to laugh, and then recognized they were now entranced by this little pig.
• 8:02
  the representative from Universal said: And I thought,"Oh, Jesus, I got something here." The movie made over 120 million bucks, and ended up on dozens of best of the year lists, won the Golden Globe for Best Comedy, and made such a case for animal dignity, it literally turned people vegetarian.
• 8:18
  the representative from Universal said: Cromwell went from vegetarian to vegan.
• 8:20
  the representative from Universal said: People loved the film, loved it, loved it.
• 8:23
  the representative from Universal said: One person said,"I'll never forgive you for that picture." I said, "Oh really? Why?" She said, "Because my daughter, who I love dearly, came to me and said,"I'm not eating any animals ever again and I hold you responsible for this." I said, "Well, give your daughter a big kiss from me." It seemed like the beginning of another obvious George Miller franchise.
• 8:44
  the representative from Universal said: Babe had caught universal by surprise, but now the studio vowed to happily put all its firepower behind a sequel with the same happy formula.
• 8:55
  the representative from Universal said: Except, Tim Robey says, what many didn't know at the time was behind the scenes, that formula hadn't made everyone so happy.
• 9:02
  the representative from Universal said: George Miller obviously was heavily involved in the first Babe as the writer and producer of the film, but he did not direct it.
• 9:09
  the representative from Universal said: He gave the direction to Chris Noonan and a lot of tension arose from that.
• 9:14
  the representative from Universal said: Yeah, before Babe, Chris Noonan was best known for helming a bunch of celebrated Australian TV shows, giving him a tender, empathetic touch, which made him an obvious choice for Babe, given the source material.
• 9:25
  the representative from Universal said: I would say, if you were to try and adapt the book faithfully, you would probably wind up with something in spirit like the first Babe.
• 9:33
  the representative from Universal said: They're lovely, pastoral, extremely sort of kind hearted books.
• 9:37
  the representative from Universal said: Chris Noonan wanted to do it that way.
• 9:39
  the representative from Universal said: But turns out that was only part of the vibe his producer was hoping for.
• 9:45
  the representative from Universal said: Essentially, Chris Noonan's vision for the film was much cuddlier cozier, kind of safer than what George Miller had intended it to be.
• 9:52
  the representative from Universal said: Miller really wanted it to be really quite dark, and he kept comparing it to It's a Wonderful Life, which is really a very dark movie for 90% of its running time before the kind of redemption at the end.
• 10:03
  the representative from Universal said: Why do we have to live here in the first placeand stay around this measly, crummy old town?George, what's wrong?Wrong? Everything's wrong.You call this a happy family?
• 10:11
  the representative from Universal said: Why do we have to have all these kids? This is what he envisaged Babe to be like.
• 10:17
  the representative from Universal said: And on set, he and Chris Noonan clashed really quite a bit.
• 10:21
  the representative from Universal said: It got so bad, not for me, I had the best time in my life doing that picture.
• 10:26
  the representative from Universal said: But for Chris-- poor, poor Chris.
• 10:29
  the representative from Universal said: Every time George saw dailies that didn't match his vision, he would either call up Chris, or he would come in and say, you know, "Why are you doing that?
• 10:39
  the representative from Universal said: "That doesn't work.
• 10:39
  the representative from Universal said: It would work better if you did this." Finally, there was a confrontation that came while we were shooting out in the middle of the field, and they excused themselves and went down about 100 yards away.
• 10:50
  the representative from Universal said: And I saw George just tearing Chris a new asshole.
• 10:56
  the representative from Universal said: Cromwell says Miller respected Noonan enough to ultimately let his sunnier vision win the day, but...
• 11:02
  the representative from Universal said: It so hurt Chris, that Chris said,"I'll never work with him again, ever." I will never put myself through this.
• 11:09
  the representative from Universal said: So when the chance came around to do a sequel, which Chris Noonan didn't want to do, George Miller decided this time I'm going to do it my way.
• 11:17
  the representative from Universal said: And that is very much what we get in,Babe: Pig in the City.
• 11:20
  the representative from Universal said: It is the George Miller Babe film, which is fully him from top to bottom, and it is essentially a kind of a Mad Max film with a talking pig.
• 11:29
  The script to <i: Babe>Pig in the City, written by Miller along with Judy Morris and Mark Lamprell, doesn't waste any time alerting the reader that they're in for a very different kind of ride.
• 11:39
  The script to <i: Babe>Fate turns on a moment, dear ones, and the pig was about to learn the meaningof those two cruel words of regret.If only. It's about three minutes in, I think?
• 11:51
  The script to <i: Babe>Farmer Hogget falls down the well and breaks nearly every bone in his body.
• 11:55
  The script to <i: Babe>Not only that, it's kind of Babe's fault.
• 11:58
  The script to <i: Babe>If only he hadn't been so careless. And the scene is harrowing.
• 12:02
  The script to <i: Babe>It has this kind of Rube Goldberg business going on with the bucket and the ropes.
• 12:06
  The script to <i: Babe>If only the farmer did not connect with the platform on the way upor jam his fingers at the top. Farmer Hoggett is completely in distress.
• 12:15
  The script to <i: Babe>In the original script, he was supposed to die...
• 12:19
  The script to <i: Babe>Boss?Boss? But ultimately that idea was nixed.
• 12:24
  The script to <i: Babe>But there are plenty more pitfalls to befall poor Babe as the disabled Farmer Hoggett's farm goes untended.
• 12:30
  The script to <i: Babe>The two sinister bankers come down the path, threatening the farm with foreclosure and all that Esme, Farmer Hoggett's wife, can think to do is to go to the big city with Babe.
• 12:41
  The script to <i: Babe>In the hopes of winning a sheep herding contest at a state fair.
• 12:46
  The script to <i: Babe>But you know that that is never very much explored because their entire plan is scuppered almost the moment they arrive.
• 12:52
  The script to <i: Babe>I mean, even when they're at the airport, there's the strip searching of Esme.
• 12:56
  The script to <i: Babe>Esme Cordelia Hoggett.We have reason to believe you may be carryingillegal substances on your person.And being an officer of the Drug Enforcement AgencyI am authorized by law to conduct certain procedures.Please step into the cubicle and remove your clothes. All of which causes Esme and Babe to miss their connecting flight, and leads to the little piglet getting forced to fend for himself in a back alley boarding house straight out of a David Lynch movie.
• 13:20
  The script to <i: Babe>And there were a lot of animals there who he actually does not know, doesn't understand, and some of them are threatening predators who come after him on the streets.
• 13:30
  The script to <i: Babe>The poor pig is running along these canals, and these vicious dogs who are loose in the city are attacking him, chasing him.
• 13:36
  The script to <i: Babe>The chimps inside the boarding house have kind of a scheme as well.
• 13:41
  The script to <i: Babe>They're not on Babe's side...
• 13:42
  The script to <i: Babe>I can't kind of can't believe how dark it's going when they go to a cancer ward.
• 13:47
  The script to <i: Babe>And Mickey Rooney-- we haven't even mentioned Mickey Rooney as the most terrifying clown you'll ever meet in any film, is trying to entertain the kids in the cancer ward with his chimps, and something is knocked over and everything is set on fire.
• 14:01
  The script to <i: Babe>Animals are screaming and kids are screaming.
• 14:03
  The script to <i: Babe>I mean, it is bleak.
• 14:03
  The script to <i: Babe>It's bleak.
• 14:09
  The script to <i: Babe>It all kind of begs two questions.
• 14:09
  The script to <i: Babe>First one being why?
• 14:14
  The script to <i: Babe>Why would Miller, even in the first movie, want to impose this kind of darkness on Dick King-Smith's bucolic barnyard world?
• 14:22
  The script to <i: Babe>And if you ask me, you can maybe find the answer in Miller's early career as an E.R. doctor.
• 14:29
  The script to <i: Babe>Well, growing up in remote, rural Australia, there was a lot of death byauto-side, just people dying on the road. That's him talking to me on my old radio show back in 2016 about how he'd come up with his first vengeful cop-on-wheels Mad Max movie.
• 14:44
  The script to <i: Babe>And then working as a doctor years later in a large city hospital,I saw that even more, and somehow that got got to me.- Being around road injuries?
• 14:52
  The script to <i: Babe>- Yeah.And I thought someone working with that a lot,I just wondered what that would do to somebody.I thought, what would it be like for a cop? It seems to me, and I think to James Cromwell that being exposed to all that senseless death did something to Miller.
• 15:09
  The script to <i: Babe>A guy trained to save lives, watching people risk their own and others on the regular.
• 15:14
  The script to <i: Babe>George is a doctor and George--Road Warrior is his vision of the relationship of one human being to another human being, and to groups of other human beings, and how we behave mostly like animals and we are necessarily violent.
• 15:31
  The script to <i: Babe>And he'd read no-- he didn't give a shit what happened in the first Babe.
• 15:36
  The script to <i: Babe>The first film was to get them engaged in this world.
• 15:40
  The script to <i: Babe>The second film was-- Yes, but what are the what happens when these creatures with an unprejudiced heart go out into the world?
• 15:47
  The script to <i: Babe>The world eats them.
• 15:49
  The script to <i: Babe>And so, dear ones, the pig and the farmer's wifeventured into the larger world. Yeah, just like It's a Wonderful Life,Pig in the City has faith in its heroes, but not always in society.
• 16:00
  The script to <i: Babe>What follows is an account of their calamitous adventures,and how a kind and steady heart can mend a sorry world.Save the farm, Babe.
• 16:09
  The script to <i: Babe>Save the farm, save the farm. It's a grown up fable that Cromwell says was meant by design for a grown up audience.
• 16:26
  Which brings me to question number two: How did Universal greenlight this script, as a follow up to its cuddly, kid friendly mega-hit?
• 16:32
  Which brings me to question number two: It was a case of them not having read through it properly and seen how dark he was going to push it.
• 16:37
  Which brings me to question number two: I think they always assumed that he was just going to wind up somehow converting it into a really heartwarming fable, much like the first one.
• 16:45
  Which brings me to question number two: He didn't do that.
• 16:48
  Which brings me to question number two: And you have to remember that this film was being shot on the other side of the world at Fox Studios Australia, as it was then called, you know, thousands of miles away from the corporate HQ.
• 16:58
  Which brings me to question number two: And so that was another way in which George Miller managed to kind of get away with doing whatever he wanted to do.
• 17:07
  Which brings me to question number two: And he did.
• 17:08
  Which brings me to question number two: How George Miller spent close to$100 million on a Babe movie, after all, and how it all went up in smoke.
• 17:15
  Which brings me to question number two: Coming up in just a minute.
• 17:15
  Which brings me to question number two: Stay with us.
• 17:20
  Which brings me to question number two: MUBI is the global film company that champions great cinema, bringing it to you wherever you are in as many ways as we possibly can.
• 17:28
  Which brings me to question number two: We stream movies, we produce them, we release them in theaters, movies from any country, from legendary auteurs or brilliant first timers.
• 17:35
  Which brings me to question number two: We have always got something new for you to discover.
• 17:38
  Which brings me to question number two: And since we're talking about a movie starring a small but mighty cinematic hero...
• 17:43
  Which brings me to question number two: Oh, Babe, I would like to direct you to a collection of small but mighty pieces of cinema that you can watch on MUBI.
• 17:50
  Which brings me to question number two: We are calling the collection'Short Films, Big Names' and you can probably guess what the theme is.
• 17:55
  Which brings me to question number two: It's a slew of shorts from some of the world's greatest directors.
• 17:59
  Which brings me to question number two: We're talking Sofia Coppola, David Cronenberg, Julie Dash, David Lynch and one of my favorites, Andrea Arnold.
• 18:06
  Which brings me to question number two: We've got her Oscar winning short Wasp, which is about an impoverished single mom just trying to have a date.
• 18:13
  Which brings me to question number two: It is both way more suspenseful and ultimately way more hopeful than you would expect.
• 18:19
  Which brings me to question number two: These little movies are a great window into the formation and evolution of these filmmakers.
• 18:24
  Which brings me to question number two: They'll fit nicely into your busy schedule, and they're proof that size doesn't matter.
• 18:30
  Which brings me to question number two: I didn't come up with that logline, but I do love that our programing team did.
• 18:34
  Which brings me to question number two: You can start watching just by subscribing to MUBI at mubi.com.
• 18:38
  Which brings me to question number two: You will find all the info you need in the show notes of this episode.
• 18:42
  Which brings me to question number two: Speaking of which, back to it.
• 18:48
  Which brings me to question number two: All right, so like I said earlier,Babe wasn't a cheap movie to make, thanks mainly to all the animals involved.
• 18:53
  Which brings me to question number two: Each had to be trained.
• 18:53
  Which brings me to question number two: Some needed trained doubles.
• 18:56
  Which brings me to question number two: Actually, Babe himself was played by many thespian pigs.
• 19:00
  Which brings me to question number two: They feed the pig as a reward for doing the things that it does, and by three weeks it's put on so much weight that it would to an audience, we know immediately it can't be the same pig.
• 19:12
  Which brings me to question number two: So what they did was they would use the litter and they would train them all.
• 19:16
  Which brings me to question number two: They would use one for three weeks, then they would bring in the next one, then they would bring in the next one.
• 19:20
  Which brings me to question number two: And of course, there were all the animatronic doubles for a barnyard full of animals.
• 19:25
  Which brings me to question number two: So you can imagine what happened to the budget of the sequel, when Miller called for a city full of animals.
• 19:32
  Which brings me to question number two: According to the L.A. Times, there were over 700 animals on this movie.
• 19:37
  Which brings me to question number two: There's cats, there's dogs, there's pigeons, there's mice.
• 19:41
  Which brings me to question number two: They're all brought to the set with all of their handlers and their trainers and so forth.
• 19:45
  Which brings me to question number two: This is a huge cluster of people and creatures.
• 19:48
  Which brings me to question number two: Chimpanzees as well.
• 19:49
  Which brings me to question number two: Chimpanzees.
• 19:49
  Which brings me to question number two: There's the incredible orangutan as well.
• 19:52
  Which brings me to question number two: Thelonious voiced by James Cosmo, who I think is great.
• 19:55
  Which brings me to question number two: You drooling imbeciles.As lowly handlers,deeply unattractive mud lover is a pig. We actually spent about two years on this project.
• 20:06
  Which brings me to question number two: This incredibly laid back guy is Steve Martin, not the comedian.
• 20:10
  Which brings me to question number two: He is one of Hollywood's top animal trainers.
• 20:12
  Which brings me to question number two: I have an animal compound that we've done animal work for, I hate to admit it, the last 50 years.
• 20:18
  Which brings me to question number two: For Pig in the City, Martin trained all the primates, including Thelonious the orangutan.
• 20:23
  Which brings me to question number two: He says he warned Miller it wouldn't be easy, especially shooting in Australia.
• 20:27
  Which brings me to question number two: He had a lot of questions and I said, well, you know, all these animals take permits and permits these days can be difficult.
• 20:35
  Which brings me to question number two: I mean, I ended up having to fly our vet down there and meet with the government.
• 20:38
  Which brings me to question number two: And the orangs I had here, for instance, they would not let me take them out of the United States.
• 20:44
  Which brings me to question number two: So we had to look around the world for orangs.
• 20:47
  Which brings me to question number two: A search financed by a budget that seemed endless.
• 20:50
  Which brings me to question number two: You know, they gave us an advancement on money to go see if we could find some orangs.
• 20:55
  Which brings me to question number two: So I heard about some down in South America.
• 20:59
  Which brings me to question number two: And so I called Doug Mitchell, he was one of the producers.
• 21:03
  Which brings me to question number two: I said, "Doug, I heard about these." He says, "Steve, I gave you money.
• 21:07
  Which brings me to question number two: "You see something?
• 21:07
  Which brings me to question number two: I don't care where it is.
• 21:09
  Which brings me to question number two: "Go look at it." I went, "Oay, but I just want to double check with you"before I go and spend your money on flying down to South America." Eventually, they found the winners in Indonesia.
• 21:19
  Which brings me to question number two: Other animals got flown into Sydney from all over the planet, each of which had to be carefully introduced to new surroundings, a new time zone, their human costars and each other.
• 21:29
  Which brings me to question number two: No one knew, for example, whether chimps and pigs were going to be able to get on well which is kind of key to the story, because Babe is trying to befriend this family of chimps in it, and the mice were breeding like mad, on-set.
• 21:42
  Which brings me to question number two: they brought, you know, a dozen or so, and there were more than a hundred within weeks, and they had to somehow stop the mice breeding while this was all going on.
• 21:50
  Which brings me to question number two: Like dealing with actors is never simple, but hundreds of animal actors presented a special set of problems, is what I'm saying.
• 21:57
  Which brings me to question number two: Miller, though, was super willing to roll with it.
• 21:59
  Which brings me to question number two: George would, you know, we had like five different sets going at a time sometimes, and he would come on and he says,"I, you know, I'd like to do this and this"and this with the chimps and the 'rangs." And I'd say, "Well, that's going to take us a few days"because we have to prep them for that." He says, "Well, you just take as long as you need.
• 22:16
  Which brings me to question number two: "When you're ready, you tell me." And which I thought was extremely different because, you know, usually it's,"Well, we're going to shoot on Tuesday, so you can have it ready by then?" You know, it's it was never that way, it was always, you know, time was on your side.
• 22:28
  Which brings me to question number two: And if you needed it, you got it.
• 22:32
  Which brings me to question number two: But time, as we know, is money.
• 22:32
  Which brings me to question number two: And there were plenty more expenses.
• 22:37
  Which brings me to question number two: You know, you had so many hundreds of animals being rounded up and brought to these beautifully designed city sets that Universal had paid for.
• 22:44
  Which brings me to question number two: It's it's a kind of set that's very stylized.
• 22:46
  Which brings me to question number two: It's all cities at once, really.
• 22:46
  Which brings me to question number two: In the background you can see Big Ben.
• 22:50
  Which brings me to question number two: You can see the Eiffel Tower, you can see Sydney Opera House...
• 22:54
  Which brings me to question number two: Christ the Redeemer, all crammed into the same skyline, which is a really fun mash up.
• 23:00
  Which brings me to question number two: You can see the influences of films likeBlade Runner and Brazil in there as well.
• 23:04
  Which brings me to question number two: There's a kind of dystopian aspect to it and Universal sort of, I think they knew that the film was going to be a lot more expensive than Babe, but I don't think they realized it was going to climb to $90 million three times as expensive.
• 23:18
  Which brings me to question number two: I mean, that is a lot of money for 1998, a lot of money.
• 23:22
  Which brings me to question number two: And as the picture came together, some started realizing the vision it was all paying for, probably wasn't what folks were expecting.
• 23:36
  Which brings me to question number two: Like take the actually pretty incredible scene Tim Robey mentioned earlier, Babe getting chased along, over and sometimes, into a canal by a pack of street dogs led by a fearsome bull terrier.
• 23:49
  Which brings me to question number two: This is one of the best sequences in the film, one of the most well edited and dynamically crafted scenes, with these animals all careening around the canal.
• 23:58
  Which brings me to question number two: It is beautifully and fluidly put together all of that stuff.
• 24:02
  Which brings me to question number two: I mean, it sort of as an action movie, it works remarkably well.
• 24:08
  Which brings me to question number two: But as a kids movie, maybe not.
• 24:14
  Which brings me to question number two: Especially when that terrier ends up dangling from its own leash face down in the canal.
• 24:19
  Which brings me to question number two: It culminated in, of course, the dog almost drowning, the junkyard dog chasing them.
• 24:25
  Which brings me to question number two: James Cromwell saw an early cut of this thanks to a personal source on the visual effects team.
• 24:31
  Which brings me to question number two: My son, he was working on it, so I saw as they were doing the CGI on that sequence, I saw the sequence and I said,"Kids can't see this because it was so realistic." And they said,"Well, that's what they're doing."This is what happens Alan, on the outside.It's the times, Nigel. But other players on Pig in the City, told me the movie's extremes weren't always so obvious.
• 24:56
  Which brings me to question number two: Hey, guys. So I'm E. G. Daily.
• 24:57
  Which brings me to question number two: I do voices, I do on-camera acting.
• 25:00
  Which brings me to question number two: And I was the voice of Babe in Babe: Pig in the City. Yeah.
• 25:03
  Which brings me to question number two: E. G. Daily is known for adorable roles like Dottie, Pee-Wee Herman's girlfriend, in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. She also voiced Tommy Pickles on the cartoon Rugrats, but she was no stranger to George Miller's darker work.
• 25:17
  Which brings me to question number two: I heard...I'm sorry.
• 25:20
  Which brings me to question number two: So let's let's try that again. In his medical drama Lorenzo's Oil, she dubbed the wrecked voice of the title character a little boy with a degenerative disease.
• 25:33
  Which brings me to question number two: This morning, I could still understand him. But Pig in the City didn't feel that grim to her.
• 25:38
  Which brings me to question number two: Maybe because she spent a lot of her studio time with Miller, sweating the details.
• 25:42
  Which brings me to question number two: He's very particular, like he really wants to...
• 25:45
  Which brings me to question number two: Every line, it's like, you probably could do it 70 times, 80 times.
• 25:50
  Which brings me to question number two: And he's he's looking for very, very delicate little tiny essences in the line or feeling in the line.
• 25:56
  Which brings me to question number two: So he'll literally have you do it so many different times that sometimes the line, you don't even know what you're saying, it becomes like "Wah wah wah" you know, "Blah blah, blah".
• 26:05
  Which brings me to question number two: And then finally you get a performance that George kind of lures you to.
• 26:10
  Which brings me to question number two: That is really magical.
• 26:11
  Which brings me to question number two: It made for an incredibly subtle performance, but sounds like it didn't make it easy for her to see the big picture.
• 26:17
  Which brings me to question number two: He's so deeply connected to his work that I didn't, I couldn't really comprehend what how dark it was going to be.
• 26:24
  Which brings me to question number two: I don't even think I really got it until I watched the movie.
• 26:27
  Which brings me to question number two: And the same went for the studio.
• 26:30
  Which brings me to question number two: George didn't allow anybody in Hollywood to see his pictures before they opened, but somebody in the upper echelons of Universal came to him and said,"Listen, George, there are a lot of executives who have children"and really would like to watch it.
• 26:45
  Which brings me to question number two: "Could you do a special screening?" So they did a screening for these executives and their children, and the children were traumatized.
• 26:56
  Which brings me to question number two: They ran literally ran past me screaming out of the theater.
• 27:01
  Which brings me to question number two: As dark as the version we know today is, that original cut went way darker.
• 27:06
  Which brings me to question number two: For example, the murder of a neighbor in the city scenes.
• 27:09
  Which brings me to question number two: There's an opera loving neighbor across the street from the canal who wants to get all the animals round up and taken away.
• 27:16
  Which brings me to question number two: That character is, was murdered in the original script by the characters were meant to like, the landlady and Esme.
• 27:23
  Which brings me to question number two: Farmer Hoggett's wife killed that character and they shot that.
• 27:26
  Which brings me to question number two: I saw the whole movie, and then I was like: Oh, wow, that's like, it's almost like Felliniesque.
• 27:31
  Which brings me to question number two: Or yeah, that was heavier than the first one by far.
• 27:34
  Which brings me to question number two: So they said to George, you got to cut this film.
• 27:39
  Which brings me to question number two: This is just we're I think it's a week before we open at Grauman's or wherever the hell they were going to do this thing.
• 27:45
  Which brings me to question number two: All the invitations were out.
• 27:45
  Which brings me to question number two: Everybody was expecting it.
• 27:49
  Which brings me to question number two: And George said, I can't cut 20 minutes out of the film without rebalancing the-- I have to rebalance the entire film.
• 27:57
  Which brings me to question number two: And they said, well, we must postpone.
• 27:57
  Which brings me to question number two: We can't we can't show this film.
• 28:02
  Which brings me to question number two: And essentially the story from then until the moment it's released is one of them trying to deny all of this panic. And the cover story, I feel it was probably a cover story that they come up with, is that an overly loud sound mix has been made and they have to go back and rework the entire sound mix.
• 28:19
  Which brings me to question number two: No doubt they also reworked the sound mix, but they were also cutting out all kinds of stuff no one wanted to see, except perhaps big fans of Babe: Pig in the City, such as myself.
• 28:31
  Which brings me to question number two: I would love to see the initial cut of this film.
• 28:35
  Which brings me to question number two: And for sure, when the film finally hit theaters, it had its fans.
• 28:39
  Which brings me to question number two: In fact, at the time, I thought it must have been a hit, because its biggest boosters were the highest profile critics in the US: Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.
• 28:48
  Babe: Pig in the Citywas directed, co-written and co-producedby George Miller, who has made an even better film than the original.I was startled how much I liked it.This is a magnificent, towering achievement.We're dazzled by it. Siskel named it his top film of the year, and it sounds like a young Tim Robey might have too.
• 29:06
  Babe: So I used to do film reviews as a student when I was at university,
• 29:10
  and I went to see <i: Babe>Pig in the City on my own to review it, and I couldn't believe how strange and weird and dark the film was.
• 29:19
  and I went to see <i: Babe>It just kind of bowled me over.
• 29:20
  and I went to see <i: Babe>And then I made a very odd decision, which was I decided to drag friends along and I went again.
• 29:26
  and I went to see <i: Babe>I went about two days later to watch it again.
• 29:28
  and I went to see <i: Babe>I was like, "Guys, you have to come and see this film.
• 29:29
  and I went to see <i: Babe>"It is insane." But alas, a lot of folks didn't make it through their first watch.
• 29:35
  and I went to see <i: Babe>Especially the second time.
• 29:36
  and I went to see <i: Babe>I do remember there were like families there who'd come along expecting, you know, the first Babe film.
• 29:42
  and I went to see <i: Babe>And as dark sequence followed dark sequence, the noises of child distress coming from like around us further down and children just kind of basically running away from their seats, families, families just abandoning the film that was very apparent.
• 29:59
  and I went to see <i: Babe>And I still admire every, every flex that he made in this film.
• 30:03
  and I went to see <i: Babe>Every perverse choice, I think is quite interesting and admirable, but certainly not crowd pleasing.
• 30:10
  <i: Babe>Pig in the City made just $69 million worldwide.
• 30:15
  <i: Babe>Heads quickly rolled.
• 30:21
  <i: Babe>It cost so much money.
• 30:22
  <i: Babe>$90 million.
• 30:23
  <i: Babe>That also, by the way, was the budget of another Universal film that came out right at the same time, which was also a huge flop.
• 30:32
  <i: Babe>The other film is Meet Joe Black.
• 30:33
  <i: Babe>The overall head of Universal's entertainment division was fired the weekMeet Joe Black came out, then the week that Babe came out, Casey Silver, who was the chairman of Universal Pictures, was also sacked.
• 30:46
  <i: Babe>Universal had to completely rethink its entire film division.
• 30:49
  <i: Babe>Meanwhile, George Miller, who I want to say here is one of my favorite filmmakers ever, didn't direct another movie for eight years.
• 30:58
  <i: Babe>And since then, it's been kind of a roller coaster for him.
• 31:02
  <i: Babe>Ladies and gentlemen.
• 31:02
  <i: Babe>Start your engines. His rebound was Happy Feet in 2006, which was him going back into the realm of children's entertainment again, probably a little chastened, a little bit like, don't worry, I will make it nice this time.
• 31:18
  <i: Babe>That film did very well.
• 31:21
  <i: Babe>But then, curiously, the secondHappy Feet was a big flop again.
• 31:25
  <i: Babe>And that's just happened again, of course, with Furiosa, which has done so much less well than Fury Road did.
• 31:31
  <i: Babe>- I'm Furiosa!- The darkest of angels. He's got this kind of bipolar career where, commercially, he swings up and down, even though the quality of the filmmaking is often extremely good, in both cases, he suffers these flops.
• 31:46
  <i: Babe>Do you have it in you to make it epic? Although I think you may have actually hit on something here, which is that in all those flops, he doesn't want to settle for whatever winning formula he's created.
• 31:58
  <i: Babe>In some sense, he almost like resets the mythology, every time he makes a Mad Max movie.
• 32:03
  <i: Babe>He, like, moves it forward and changes the rules a little bit.
• 32:05
  <i: Babe>And just like he's not content to do what he did last time.
• 32:09
  <i: Babe>In almost any situation, to the point that with Furiosa, it's like I'm going to do aMad Max movie without Mad Max in it.
• 32:15
  <i: Babe>I could actually, one thing I could add is that the character inBabe: Pig in the City, that actually reminds me a lot of George Miller in terms of his approach to making films, his whole sensibility, is actually the bull terrier.
• 32:28
  <i: Babe>That is sort of one of the scariest characters, because it spends half of its timetime chasing Babe with its studded collar, trying to grab Babe and presumably eat Babe before nearly drowning in the river, being rescued and then becoming Babe's essentially bodyguard.
• 32:42
  <i: Babe>And this dog at one point says"A murderous shadow lies hard across my soul." That is pure George Miller.
• 32:50
  <i: Babe>That is absolutely everything that George Miller stands for, this murderous shadow.
• 32:55
  <i: Babe>He can't really direct a film without being, there being a murderous shadow somewhere.
• 32:59
  <i: Babe>Whether it's penguins, whether it's pigs, there's got to be a murderous shadow.
• 33:02
  <i: Babe>And yeah, he certainly stamps one on this film.
• 33:17
  <i: Babe>And that's the MUBI podcast for this week.
• 33:19
  <i: Babe>Follow us this season for more stories about great films with bad box office.
• 33:23
  <i: Babe>Next time, the gender bending movie that tanked the career of one of the greatest actors in film history and gave our season its title.
• 33:30
  <i: Babe>When I became interested in Katharine Hepburn, I remember my mum being like,"Oh, box office poison.
• 33:34
  <i: Babe>Box office poison." She kept saying this, you know,"You know, she became box office poison." The story of Katharine Hepburn in Sylvia Scarlett, with guests including movie star and Hepburn devotee Rebecca Hall.
• 33:47
  <i: Babe>Follow us so you don't miss it.
• 33:48
  <i: Babe>Meanwhile, if you love this show, tell the world by leaving a five star review wherever you listen.
• 33:53
  <i: Babe>Won't you? Let them know we're something special.
• 33:55
  <i: Babe>Also, if you've got questions, comments, or you just want to unload any Pig in the City related trauma, email us at podcast@mubi.com.
• 34:02
  <i: Babe>Now let's roll credits.
• 34:03
  <i: Babe>This episode of the MUBI Podcast was written, hosted, and edited by me, Rico Gagliano, based on the new book
• 34:09
  <i: Box Office Poison>A Hollywood Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey that's published by Faber & Faber in the UK and Hanover Square in the US.
• 34:15
  <i: Box Office Poison>Go get it.
• 34:18
  <i: Box Office Poison>Ciara McEniff is our Producer.
• 34:18
  <i: Box Office Poison>Jackson Musker is our Booking Producer.
• 34:21
  <i: Box Office Poison>Steven Colon does our Sound Mastering.
• 34:23
  <i: Box Office Poison>Our original music was composed by Martin Austwick, except the track Hot Smoke by the band People with Bodies.
• 34:29
  <i: Box Office Poison>Extra thanks this week to Timothy Maher, Christopher Olan, David Harper for recording Tim, and especially Carina Lesser.
• 34:37
  <i: Box Office Poison>This show is executive produced by me along with Jon Barrenechea, Efe Çakarel, Daniel Kasman and Michael Tacca.
• 34:42
  <i: Box Office Poison>And finally to stream the best in cinema, including some of the films we talk about on this very podcast, just head over to MUBI.com to start watching.
• 34:50
  <i: Box Office Poison>Thanks for listening, go watch some movies and remember failure is okay.