Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 876: The Screenwriting Secret Behind ALIEN & TOTAL RECALL with Matt R. Lohr

Transcript

IFH 876: The Screenwriting Secret Behind ALIEN & TOTAL RECALL with Matt R. Lohr · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFH Podcast Network.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork.com.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, episode number 876.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: You try to do it, and you do it honestly.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: You can't control people's responses, really.
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: Edgar Wright.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood, it's the Indie
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: the film biz.
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Welcome, welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: sponsored by Rise of the Filmtrepreneur, how to turn your
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: independent film into a profitable business. It's harder today than
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with their films.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: From predatory film distributors ripping them off to huckster film
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: aggregators who prey upon them, the odds are stacked against
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: the indie filmmaker. The old distribution model of making money
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: with your film is broken and there needs to be
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: a change. The future of independent filmmaking is the entrepreneurial
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: filmmaker or the filmtrepreneur. In Rise of the Filmtrepreneur, I
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: break down how to actually make money with your film
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: projects and show you how to turn your indie film
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: into a profitable business. With case studies examining successes and failures,
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: this book shows you the step-by-step method to turn your
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: passion into a profitable career. If you're making a feature film, series,
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: or any other kind of video content, the Filmtrepreneur Method
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: will set you up for success. The book is available
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: in paperback, e-book, and of course, audiobook. If you want
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: to order it, just head over to www.FilmBizBook.com. That's FilmBizBook.com.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Enjoy today's episode with guest host, Dave Bullis.
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: Joining me today is Matt Arlor. Matt is an award-winning screenwriter, essayist,
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: and critic. He holds an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: University and is a co-author of the book, The Dan
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: O'Bannon Guide to Screenplay Structure. Matt, thank you very much
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: for joining us.
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: Thank you, Dave. It's a pleasure to be here.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: You know, Matt, what I was saying to you before
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: the podcast started, I am a huge fan of Dan O'Bannon. And,
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: you know, it was so great to be able to
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: get you to come on to the show. Because you
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: can sort of give us a look into the book
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: that others wouldn't be able to have. And I didn't
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: mean to make that rhyme, by the way. So could
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: you sort of take us through how you actually met
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: Dan and how you ended up sort of writing a
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: book with him?
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: Absolutely. Well, you mentioned in my introduction that I attended
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: Chapman University, which is in Orange County, California. If you
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: follow the Hollywood Reporter rankings every year, it's consistently ranked
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: as one of the top 10 film schools in the world.
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: And I was there as a master student studying screenwriting
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: at the beginning of the century. God, that makes me
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: sound old. And one of the things that the school
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: does every year is they have a filmmaker in residence
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: every year. And they have a filmmaker come in and
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: teach master classes. And they do sort of retrospective screenings
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: of his films, his or her films. The year, my
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: second year in the two-year program, our filmmaker in residence
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: was Dan O'Bannon. Oddly enough, I wasn't actually taking his class.
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: I was deeply immersed at the time in my thesis
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: writing for my thesis screenplay. And, uh, my instructor for
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: that was Leonard Schrader. Uh, some of you might know
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: him as the brother of Paul Schrader, who was the
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: writer of taxi driver and raging bull. And Leonard's a pretty,
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: was a pretty impressive screenwriter in his own right. Probably
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: best known for kiss of the spider woman, uh, which
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: he was nominated for an Academy award for in 1985. Uh,
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: Leonard was my thesis advisor. And, um, one day about
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: two weeks into our first year or second year of
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: the school, he came to our class and said, uh,
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: Some of you might know Dan O'Bannon. He's our filmmaker
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: in residence. He's writing a book on screenwriting and he's
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: hoping to maybe talk to a graduate student about possibly
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: helping him out with the book. And my entire class
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: came to me basically one at a time and said, Matt,
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: this is a perfect fit for you. You got to
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: do this. So Leonard worked on putting me in touch
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: and I talked to Dan. And at the time, it
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: was difficult because I was living in Orange County. Dan
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: lived in a fairly well-off suburb up in north of L.A.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: called Pacific Palisades. And I had no car at the time.
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: So whenever I went to see him, I actually had
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: to rent a car for the day to drive up
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: to Pacific Palisades to work with him. And we got together.
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: The first time I got to his house, he was
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: just finishing up lunch. And we talked for about three minutes.
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: And Dan kind of looked at me and said, Matt,
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: let me ask you something. have you ever taken any
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: psychedelic drugs? And I said, no, I can't say that
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: I have. And he kind of eyeballed me and he said,
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: I didn't think so. You look like Clark Kent. And
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: that was my introduction to the world, Dan O'Bannon. But
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: it was a good fit, believe it or not, after that.
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: And we worked together on the book, intimately together for
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: about two years. And unfortunately after that, those of you
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: who know Dan's personal history and know his past, No,
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: he's sort of suffered from some chronic health issues throughout
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: his life. He had Crohn's disease, which is a digestive
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: and intestinal disorder, and battled it intermittently on and off
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: throughout a large period of his life. The last few years,
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: he had taken a turn for the worse. The last
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: time I actually saw him, I think it was in 2007,
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: and he was not looking really very well at that point.
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: He passed away two years after that in late 2009.
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: The book still hadn't been published yet at that point.
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: It was still, as far as I knew, a work
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: in progress. And about a year and a half later,
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: Dan's wife, Diane, who I'd become friendly with during the
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: course of working on the book, approached me and said,
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: Michael Wiese Productions, who published Save the Cat and The
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: Writer's Journey and tons of really well-known screenwriting books, are
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: interested in publishing Dan's book. But the manuscript is not
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: 100% ready to go, and they need somebody to take
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: it on, do some polishing, tighten up some sections, and
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: sort of finish things up. You knew Dan better than
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: anybody on this book. You worked with him for two years.
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: Can you do this? So I spent about another year
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: sort of finalizing the manuscript, and that's the book that
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: came out and is in stores now.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: The book is absolutely phenomenal.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: Because one of the reasons is it's so great, Matt,
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: is it hits a sweet spot that other screenwriting books don't.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: And what I mean by that is, is that Dan
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: not only was an accomplished screenwriter who actually went out
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: and did what he was talking about, but he also
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: knows how to actually teach it, if you know what
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: I mean. And it's such a rare ability to get
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: into that sort of middle ground where you're not so
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: advanced that you can't really help anybody out. And then
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: the other end of that spectrum is You've never done anything,
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: so you teach a lot about it, if you know
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: what I mean.
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. Well, Dan, that was one of the things
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: that helped our book is that a lot of screenwriting
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: gurus say, this works. Dan was able to say, this works,
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: and here are the mega hit classic movies that prove
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: it that I wrote with this system. At the time,
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: there wasn't really a lot of people that had really
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: done big scripts. I'd say only two that I can
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: think of. There was William Goldman with Adventures in the
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: Screen Trade. And then after the publication of Dan's book,
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: or shortly before, you had Writing Movies for Fun and Profit,
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: which was Robert Ben-Gurant and Thomas Lennon's book, which is
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: also available. But I think that Dan's, you know, I'd
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: say Goldman also, you know, obviously has a great reputation,
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: and Dan is lucky enough to have some movies that
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: are classics. I actually thought about that this week when
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: the Oscar nominations came out, and Ridley Scott had a
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: movie that's in the running for Best Picture, and I thought,
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: you know, Ridley might not be there if it wasn't
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: for Alienworking. And one of the reasons that alien worked
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: as well as it is because Dan ripped that character
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: out of his subconscious and help bring it to life.
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: And I think that it's interesting to me, you know,
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: one of the things that I've experienced just working on
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: the book and promoting it and going to appearances and
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: events and things like that, just the people that really
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: love writing and really love film, no Dan and know
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: his work and know what a contribution he made. It's, it's,
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: It's interesting because a lot of times I can tell
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: who the real writers are and who the real film
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: people are when I tell them that I worked with
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: Dan O'Bannon and I don't have to explain to them
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: who that is. And his reputation sort of precedes him.
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: That's one of the reasons why we kept the title
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: of the book as simple as we did because the
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: selling point is this is screenplay structure according to Dan O'Bannon.
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: And the subtitle mentions Alien and Total Recall and The
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: Return of the Living Dead, which of course he also directed.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: You know, one of the things about Dan was he
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: was able to just to go to all these different genres. And,
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: you know, I was actually watching the Canon Films documentary
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: about about a week ago, and they actually brought up
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: Life Force, which Dan Dan wrote. And because people were
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: actually the one knock on the film that that some
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: people were in, even a documentary saying.
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: Was not enough nudity. Exactly.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: That's one. No, they were saying that. it was, it
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: was so many different things. Some people said, well, you know,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: they didn't really, they couldn't get a grasp on it,
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: you know, because, you know, it starts off in space,
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: then it becomes sort of a vampire movie and then
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: it becomes something totally different by the end. But you
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: know what? I actually think it works because, you know,
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: with the way alien, you know, I actually listened to
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: alien with, with, uh, uh, Dan's commentary on it. And
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: he actually went through all the different things. And, you know,
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: he said, for instance, uh, you know, when they were
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: landing on that, on the, uh, to find that distressed beacon,
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: and they went out and they started to land.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: And now, back to the show.
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: And it wasn't a smooth landing. You know, there was
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: a fire broke out and he said, you know, I've
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: always wanted to see that one, you know, that, that
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: time where nothing goes as smoothly as it's supposed to,
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: you know, even the landing gets screwed up. Yeah. And
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: it's just like details like that. But, but the reason
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: I bring up life force is to be honest, I
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: think that was even released today or if even a
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: movie goer, you know, found that today, uh, cause I
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: do have it. I do have it in my stash here,
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: but you know, if a person who's never even maybe
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: heard of Dan, uh, like a film student or a
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: high school senior, that movie I think would work better
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: today than it even did then. Because I find that
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: sometimes it actually works is that some people, some of
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: their works, like Court McCarthy's Blood Meridian, when it got released,
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: it didn't really find an audience, but it's gained this
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: cult following over the years. And even like Revenge of
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: the Living Dead, because when I was a kid watching that,
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: I was so used to Romero. So when I saw
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: that as a kid, I was like, wait, zombies talk now?
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: Did I miss something?
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Zombies talk. And the brain thing specifically is from Dan.
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: I mean, zombies always ate human flesh. But Dan specifically,
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: because remember at one point, one of the talking zombies,
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: somebody asked him, why do you eat people? And she says,
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: not people, brains. And that comes to whenever you see
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: a zombie going brains, you can thank Dan O'Bannon for that.
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: It's interesting that you bring up Lifeforce. I remember reading
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: an interview with Dan years ago, before I even met him,
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: where he talked about Lifeforce, and he said that book
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: that that was based on was called Space Vampires. That
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: movie should have been called Space Vampires. He always felt
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: that that was more in... The comment that he made was,
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: you know, we had this kind of crazy, wild science
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: fiction movie, and the studio tried to sell it as 2001.
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: And it really... That was one of the reasons why
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: it somewhat didn't connect commercially. And you still see this
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: a lot of times in movies now where they're selling
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: the film as something the film is not. They're selling
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: the movie they wanted you to have made rather than
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: the movie you actually made. And I think that if
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: they had gone a little more outrageous with some of
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: the marketing, I think the movie might have found the
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: audience that it enjoys now is sort of a cult audience.
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: I think it was Scream Factory that put out the
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: Blu-ray of that recently. They did a really great job.
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: It's got great extras. The movie looks great. I think
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: it's I've talked to Diane, Dan's wife, about that movie.
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: We're both fans. We both think it's among Dan's maybe
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: unfairly underrated works. We're life force boosters in Camp Dan O'Bannon.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: Matt, speaking of that, what is your favorite Dan O'Bannon movie?
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: When I was getting ready to start promoting the book,
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: I said, I got to revisit all of these because
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: who knows what I'm going to get asked about. And,
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: you know, I sat down and I had a chance
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: to watch all of them again. And, you know, there's
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: just something, I know it's probably an answer a lot
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: of people give and it's sort of a cliche answer.
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: There is just something about Alien. I always admire a
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: film that's trying to scare you and that's trying to
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: show you spectacular things that stands the test of time.
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: And Alien was made in 1979. I was a year
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: old when Alien came out. And you watch it now
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: and the scares still work. It's got visual effects that
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: even in 2016, I don't feel like you have to
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: make apologies for or allowances for. I think it's just really,
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: it's so efficiently effective in terms of what it does.
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: And you talked about the idea of sort of mixing genres.
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: The thing I love about Alien that it does so
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: beautifully is that it basically sort of splits down the
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: middle in terms of what a genre it is. You
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: have this first hour that is a science fiction movie
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: and science fiction is about curiosity about the unknown. And
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: they're trying to find out what this thing is and
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: find out where it comes from and what it means
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: for them in terms of good or ill. But as
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: soon as that thing bursts out of John Hurt's chest,
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: all of a sudden, we're not in a science fiction
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: movie anymore. We're in a horror movie, which is about
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: fear of the unknown. They don't care what it is
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: or where it came from or what its government is like.
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: They just want to get away from it or kill it.
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: And it just, it's so... it transitions so dramatically. It
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: almost could split the movie down the middle as much
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: as it splits John Hurt down the middle. But I
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: feel like there's so beautifully.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Of a piece.
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: I think that actually, I think a lot of credit
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: for that does go to Ridley. I think he does
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: a really beautiful job sort of sustaining the feel of
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: it throughout. It's got a great vibe and a great mood.
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: And that's, that's his credit. I think in the hands
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: of a lesser director, the movie, the split might've been
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: too drastic and the movie might not have survived it.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: I concur. Uh, you know, and especially with, you know, uh,
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: Ridley now when he revisited the engineer, because the engineer,
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: what we saw an alien, it was pretty big, you know, uh,
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: I remember them going on, uh, you know, right by it. And,
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: you know, the engineers and Prometheus were, although they were
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: still big, they were a tad bit smaller. Yeah. And, and,
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: you know, uh, you know, again, I was, you know, when,
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: when I, when I saw the commercial for Prometheus and
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: I actually saw that, that mask I was like, oh
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: my God, if they just connect those two, that would
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: be amazing because being able to see what happens. But
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: then I actually enjoyed Prometheus. I know I'm in the
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: minority with that because I kind of had a feeling
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: going in. I said, you know what? What if they
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: just stretch this out into its own trilogy? And then,
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean? And then, you know, and
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: then at the end, spoiler alert, everybody, you know, I'm
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: pretty much sure everyone's seen it by now, but they
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: end up, you know, it's a cliffhanger ending and they're
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: going to, you know, now, now Prometheus 2 is coming
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: out soon. It's 10 years later. So, But yeah, but
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: you know, that, that was, uh, uh, actually, you know what, Matt,
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: I want to ask you, what did you, did you
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: get the chance to see Prometheus?
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: I did. If you go to the Michael Weesey Productions website,
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: which is the, the website of the production company, uh,
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: or the, the published the book, uh, Diane and I
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: actually do a video presentation where we talk in fairly
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: extensive detail about sort of comparing and contrasting alien with Prometheus. Uh,
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: I think, For me, the failures of Prometheus, I think
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: there's great things in it, but I don't think it's
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: an entirely successful film. I think the failure for me
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: are more failures of character than of story. I feel
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: like one of the things I love about Alien is
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: you're with a crew of people that have been with
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: each other for a while. And I think Ridley establishes
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: that really well, and Dan establishes that really well in
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: the writing and the direction. I always like that first
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: scene where we see them eating together right after they've
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: gotten out of their hypersleep chambers. And there's just such
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: a natural, easy, unforced camaraderie between them. Ridley kind of
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: just shoots it sort of hanging back on the wall, watching.
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: It almost feels like something out of a Robert Altman movie.
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: And I just feel like you invest in them so
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: thoroughly because they bring you into that atmosphere and into
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: that camaraderie. With Prometheus, we're dealing with a lot of
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: people that have never met each other, that don't really
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: know each other. They don't know what their intentions are.
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: And I feel like that lack of sort of connection
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: between the people in the crew sort of hampers the
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: ability for the movie to maybe have the emotional impact
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: it might otherwise have had.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: You know, and one other thing, too, in Prometheus was,
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: you know, they had a scene similar to that where
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: the crew was all sort of hanging out. Now, in Prometheus...
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: you know, they showed us that the crew really didn't
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: know each other too well. Right, exactly. And the one
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: character who always gets beat over the head is that
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: character Fifeld. And because, you know, he's sort of the
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: Irish stoner who's also, I think he's a PhD in
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: something with animal studies. But, you know, basically he said,
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: I'm just in this for the money. And a lot
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: of criticism was basically they tried to take that same
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: conversation from alien and make it into Prometheus because, but the, the,
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: the reason why it doesn't work. And I, and even
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: I agree, even though I like Prometheus, as I said, I,
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: you know, the one reason it doesn't work is, is
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: because one, you figure these people would meet each other
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: before this. Cause they, this is a, a very expensive trip. Yeah.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: Like that, that, that, that's made clear from the start. Uh, and,
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: and you know, an alien, they're a bunch of minors,
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean? Like, you know, the, the
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: blue collar, you know, men and women. And they're just like, look,
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: we're just getting home with this hall of, uh, I
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: think ore is what they had or some kind of minerals.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Dan described them as truckers in space was the
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: kind of atmosphere he wanted.
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it feels that way. Because like you just said,
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: they feel like they were a team. But with Prometheus,
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: you know, you just sort of feel like it was
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: almost like they just threw everyone together at the last
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: minute and said, hey, we're going to space now.
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. And whether or not you actually have chemistry
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: and connect as a crew is of secondary concern to us.
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: You know, that's something you want to throw that kind
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: of money behind, obviously.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: You know, Matt, one of the other things in the book,
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: in the prefix, which you actually did an intro for,
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: I have to ask, you know, you got a private
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: showing of Revenge of the Living Dead with Dan, Return
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: of the Living Dead, I'm sorry, Return of the Living
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: Dead with Dan, and you actually get to sit down
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: with him and watch it. You know, you know, what
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: was that like to actually sit down there and, you know,
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: watch a movie like that with him?
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: Well, I didn't know that that was going to happen.
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: I went over there, you know, it was we were
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: going to be working on the book. I think they
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: were living in Culver City at that point or Mar Vista. And,
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: you know, I dropped by the house. We were planning
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: to get together for a regular work session. And at
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: the time, I believe it was MGM was getting ready
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: to put out. It was an anniversary edition. I can't
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: remember what anniversary might have been 25th. And they were
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: getting ready to put out a 25th anniversary edition of
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: Return of the Living Dead on DVD. And I don't
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: think Blu-ray was even a thing yet at that point.
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: It shows you how old I am once again. And
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: they sent over a VHS copy of the movie to
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: show you how old we all are now. Basically for
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: Dan to check the color correction, to make sure the
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: color looked right. And he just said to me, let's
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: look at some of this. Let me know if the
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: color looks alright. And we basically sat and watched the
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: whole movie.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And now, back to the show.
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: And Dan more or less did sort of an ongoing,
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: it was like getting basically a live director's commentary. And
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: Dan told me about, you know, how they did some
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: of the special effects and about different problems they have
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: with locations and this and that. And it was just
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: a really, it was one of the most hands-on sort
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: of direct learning experiences I had. And it was such
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: a great insight into Dan's mind. Because one of the
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: things I always tell people is people always ask me, well, what,
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: you know, what did Dan, what's the main thing that
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: Dan taught you about screenwriting? And I would say, well,
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: Dan didn't really teach me anything because I wasn't there
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: to be taught by him. I was there to enable
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: his book to help him to teach others. But I
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: always feel like I learned so much just being in
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: Dan's presence and talking story with Dan and breaking down
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: scripts with Dan. I always say I almost learned like
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: it was like osmosis. I almost just absorbed these things
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: through the natural interaction of putting the book together. And
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: it was, you know, sort of a sitting at the
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: feet of the master kind of experience for me. And
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: I've always, it's something I'll never be able to replicate
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: in my life. And it's something really, it means a lot.
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: It just means a lot that there was, you know,
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: I thought about it one day and I thought about
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: people like Ron Chassette, with whom Dan wrote Total Recall.
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: They share credit on Total Recall. And I thought about
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: Don Jacoby, who he wrote Blue Thunder with. And I'm
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: part of that group now. I'm part of the group
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: of Dan O'Bannon writing collaborators. And it's very humbling to
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: be in that kind of company.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it definitely is. And, you know, Total Recall is
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: a movie.
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: I don't know why.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: I enjoy it a lot. And I always forget that
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: Dan wrote it. And I don't, you know, I know
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: with Alien, I know Life Force. But, you know, every
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: time I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right. Dan O'Bannon wrote that. But,
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: you know, once I go back to it, you know, Matt,
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: I always come back. I'm like, you know what? This
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: feels like a Dan O'Bannon movie. Yeah. Because, you know,
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: it starts off a certain way and it goes off
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: another way. And, you know, personally, by the way, just
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: to know about that writing style, I think that I
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: actually find that to be fascinating. But it also I
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: think it does well for stories, too. I'm sorry. I
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: didn't mean to interrupt you.
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: Oh, no problem. One of the things I do think
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: that people can find in Total Recall, and I think
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: this is probably why he may have sort of connected
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: with Paul Verhoeven in some respects, is Dan had a
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: real wicked sense of humor. Anybody that's seen Return of
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: the Living Dead knows that. And I do think that
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: that wicked sense of humor from Dan comes through in
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: Total Recall. There's one moment in the movie, because I
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: read Dan's original draft of Total Recall from 1982. Diane
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: gave me a copy of it that I read. And
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: I can tell you very specifically one line that I
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: absolutely know originates with Dan, because it's not in the
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: original story and it's in Dan's script, is the scene
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: when the Schwarzenegger character, Quaid, confronts his wife, who's actually
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: the spy character, And he asks her something and she says,
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: I don't know. I just work here. That's that's dead.
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: And I had a chance a couple of years ago,
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: shortly before the book came out, the Egyptian theater, which
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: is a great repertory theater on Hollywood Boulevard here in L.A.,
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: showed Total Recall. They had a 70 millimeter archive print
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: of it from from the Sony archives. And they showed
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: the film and Paul Verhoeven and the two surviving screenwriters,
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: Ron Chassette and Gary Goldman, were there and did a
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: Q & A after the film. And it was wonderful
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: to be in a packed house of people and see
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: that movie, which at that point was over, you know,
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: now it's going on. I think it's 25 years old,
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: almost 26 years old. And that movie still plays with
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: an audience. The laughs still land. The thrills are still there.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: And it was just really exciting to be in that group.
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: And I will say that once they open it up
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: to the crowd for questions, I was very happy that
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: one of the first questions that got asked was somebody
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: in the audience asked for them to expound a little
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: on Dan's contributions to the script. Cause he was of
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: course the only writer who wasn't there, unfortunately to speak
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: for himself.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: And it is good. Someone actually, you know, brought that up. Um,
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: you know, one, one thing about, you know, total recall was, uh, well,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: not about that particular, but total recall, but they, they
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: actually remade it a few years ago. And I was completely,
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: I was kind of, you know, cure, uh, I mean,
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: I know right now there's a certain model that Hollywood
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: works with. If it's not a comic book movie, it
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: already has to be an established property, like a remake
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: of a TV show or, in this case, a previous movie.
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: So when the Total Recall remake came out, I was curious.
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: I did check it out, and it is in no
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: way as good as the original. I don't know if
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: you had a chance to check out the remake.
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: I did see it. I think it's not bad for
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: what it is. To expound a little bit on what
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: you were just talking about, there's a term that you
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: and your audience, when you dig sort of into the
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: industry side of things, are going to come across being
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: used a lot. It's a very common term now. And
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: that term in the industry is pre-sale value. A lot
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: of times you'll hear about people having their scripts rejected
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: by producers or studios because they're told this is a
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: very good piece of work, but it has no pre-sale value.
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: What that essentially means is this is not a property
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: that we can easily sell because it's not based on
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: something that people already know. That's why you're seeing so
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: many films based on comic books, based on video games,
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: based on board games, based on toys. And part of
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: that I think has to do with the fact that
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: unlike the 70s when Dan kind of came up, studios
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: are no longer being run by creatives. They're being run
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: by business people. You have people that are not coming
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: out of, USC or UCLA film school or NYU film
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: school running things. You have people instead who are coming
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: out of Wharton. You have people that are coming out
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: of the Harvard Business School who are running these kinds
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: of organizations. And because of that, their instincts a lot
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: of times are not to create, but to repackage something
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: that already worked and try to resell it to you
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: as something new. And I think Dan mentions in the book,
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: I want to say the comparison he makes, if I
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: remember correctly, is, you know, you might have a great,
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: fantastic original script and with something fresh and innovative and
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: new that nobody's ever seen before. And then this other
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: guy over here wrote a movie based on Chips Ahoy Cookies.
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: And people have heard of Chips Ahoy Cookies. So that's
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: very going to have a lot easier time to try
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: to get made. I remember reading stories in the trades
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: for a few years that one of the studios was
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: trying to get a Stretch Armstrong movie made. I don't
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: know if you remember Stretch Armstrong.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I remember Stretch Armstrong.
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: His arms stretch out. The end. That's the whole story.
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: And they were like fighting for three years to try
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: to get a Stretch Armstrong movie off the ground because
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: people have heard of Stretch Armstrong. So, you know, it's
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: not as if the world needed a fresh take on
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: Total Recall. It's not as if there was a burning desire.
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: And I'll say this, watching the movie again a few
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: years ago, the special effects again still hold up. Those
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: are two Dan movies, Alien and Total Recall, both of
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: which won Academy Awards for special effects. And in both cases,
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: I think the effects in both of those films hold up.
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: So it's not like you need to update the technology
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: to make it work. It's simply a question of there
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: are a lot of people out there who won't watch
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: a movie that's set in 1990 or that was made
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: in 1990. That's an old movie to them. So if
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: you can give them the same, I mean, that's why
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: we're seeing remakes of Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: Horror is also, you know, doing a lot of that
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: as well. And it's because a lot of those audiences
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: for those movies skew young, but they won't watch movies
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: that they perceive to be old, which would be a
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: movie from 1990. And Friday the 13th is even older
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: than that. So I do think that that has a
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: lot to do with it as well. I don't know
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: if it's necessarily a dearth of creativity. It's just, it's
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: easier to sell something that audiences are already familiar with.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah. You know, and you know, one of the things
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: I always see now is superhero movies, the graphic novels,
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: you know, and I can understand too, you know, because I,
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: I remember reading an article a couple of years ago when, um, uh,
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: Edgar writes, uh, Oh, I can't believe I'm blank on
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: this movie. Um, uh, let me, let me just play
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: a quick look at whatever this movie is called.
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: Was this Ant-Man?
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: No, it was, um, it was, uh, Scott.
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: Oh, Scott Pilgrim versus the world.
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: Yes. Scott Pilgrim versus the world. Thank you. Uh, you know,
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: a couple of years ago when I, when I read
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: an article about, you know, uh, Edgar Wright, Scott Pilgrim
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: versus the world, And it didn't do so well in
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: the box office. And the writer said, this is why
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: whenever something like this happens, the president of the studio
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: can point at and say, aha, you see, this is
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: why everything has to be a preexisting property. This is
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: why we go with the superhero movies. This is why
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: we go with the comic book movies. This is why
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: we do remakes. And, you know, just going through that
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: sort of point of view, I did understand it a
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: little bit better as to why certain things the way
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: they are. I mean, and now as we, you know,
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: sit here, you know, Star Wars is just crossing, what,
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: I think it's right near 2 billion worldwide.
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: Something like that, yeah.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: And I mean, you know, it's sort of like those
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: are the, you know, those are the ones that are
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: becoming the blockbusters, you know? I mean, Hateful Eight made, what,
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: 50 million at the box office, and now that's, you know,
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: some people are saying it bombed already.
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: You know, it's just, it's an interesting... time in the
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: Hollywood system, to say the least, if you know what
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: I mean. And I know in the independent circuit, there's
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: a lot of, and mainly I talk to people in
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: the independent circle on this podcast but you know things
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: are a little different yeah what i mean like things
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: things can you we can take a lot more chances
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: because i mean granted obviously we're working with a lot
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: less money but also because most people are are crowdfunding
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: or just taking out their own pocket so they have
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: nobody to answer to i haven't i have.
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: Actually an interesting theory about scott pilgrim versus the world
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: i think i'm the only person i've heard really advances
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: but i really think this might be the.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Case We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: And now, back to the show.
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: Because Scott Pilgrim vs. the World actually was based on
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: a pre-existing property. It was based on a pretty popular
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: American-published manga series by a guy named Brian Leo Malley.
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: And it's a series that does have a pretty substantial
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: cult following. My theory is this. I know tons of
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: people who have seen Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: don't know a lot of people that paid to watch it.
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: I think it might be... the most demonstrable case we
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: have of a movie that might have been killed at
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: the American box office by illegal downloading and internet piracy.
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: Because I think it was a case of a lot
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: of people who think of entertainment as their right and
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: not their privilege, who decided to download the movie illegally
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: because them seeing it was more important than them rewarding
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: the people who made it for them to see. It's
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: something that I... That's a topic that I really... get
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: on people about pretty hard. A lot of people are
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: surprised that I don't illegally download movies. And I always
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: tell them, when my movies are out there, I don't
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: want people illegally downloading mine. So I'm not going to
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: do the same thing to somebody else. I've lost friends
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: over this topic. I remember lacing into a guy about
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: The Avengers because he'd watched it online. And I said,
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: you're the reason that Hollywood struggles at the box office
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: is because you're doing this. And I basically told him,
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: it's not your right to see The Avengers. It's your
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: privilege to see it if you go and buy a ticket.
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: I'm getting a little fired up.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: It's a topic that I'm passionate about.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: Oh, no. I completely understand, Matt.
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and it just, you know, it's... I don't like
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: the idea that... And it's interesting that we're talking about
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: Star Wars because if there's ever, you know, a group
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: of fans out there who felt like they were owed something,
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: it might be the Star Wars. I actually... A couple
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: days ago, you know, the Academy Award nominations came out.
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: And I put a joke headline up on Facebook. It
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: was supposed to be breaking news. And it was something
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: like Los Angeles burns as fanboy mobs protesting star Wars,
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: best picture snub class with fanboy mobs celebrating star Wars,
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: best picture snub. And, um, It's just, fanboy culture is
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: a very weird thing. I would say, as far as
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: what I call fanboy movies, which are comic book movies,
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: things like Star Wars, there's basically two fundamental rules of
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: those movies. The fanboys will go, and the fanboys will bitch.
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: Those are the only things you can count on with
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: any of those movies. And Star Wars, because I assume
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: you've seen The Force Awakens.
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: You know, Matt, I actually have not.
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: I will say this. I don't think it's the best
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: movie of the year, but it might be the best
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: time I had in a movie. in 2015. I thought
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: it was just, just a heck of a lot of fun.
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: I can't think of a better way to describe it.
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: And when you get a movie that does the things
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: you want the franchise to do, and it isn't just
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: spat out of a computer, which you didn't want it
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: to be, and isn't, you know, just, you know, midichlorians
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: and Yippee and Jar Jar Binks, you have to latch
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: onto whatever. So now it's Carrie Fisher looks too old.
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: That's what we're getting. And I hear, I understand that
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: there's now an online petition to get George Lucas back
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: to direct episode nine. And it's like, you want to
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: pull people's hands and say, it was 10 years.
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: Ago that he did this.
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: Don't you remember what happened the last time? You know,
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: and it's just, I don't know. Fanboys are hard to please.
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: God bless Dan for being willing to write genre material
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: because genre audiences are very tough. They can be very
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: tough to be. And I will say, I'm not knocking
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: genre audiences because one thing I've had the pleasure of
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: experiencing in the process of promoting this book is I've
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: gotten to go to a lot of horror events. I've
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: spoken at Monsterpalooza in Burbank. I've done a couple of
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: signs at Dark Delicacies, which is a fantastic horror store
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: here in L.A. And just from talking to fans, I
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: don't know if there's anybody in the world I like
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: more than horror fans. They are so passionate and they
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: are so informed and they love the genre so much.
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: It is just they've really embraced me, you know, because
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: I'm kind of, you know, I started this whole thing out.
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: It took me a while to. get used to the
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: fact that I wasn't just a barnacle on the SS
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: Dan O'Bannon, that I wasn't just the thing you had
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: to put up with because Dan's not here to talk
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: about his own book. And the horror community has so
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: embraced this book and so embraced me as an element
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: of this book. And it's just, I'll be eternally grateful
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: and I will defend horror and its fans to my
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: last breath for that.
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: I concur. The horror fans are always the ones that
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: come out in droves And the horror fans also, you know,
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: I was talking with this to a producer because we
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: were talking about, you know, what genre would actually, you know,
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: give the best ROI. And I always say it would
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: be horror.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, sure.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: Because, you know, horror fans will go see a B-horror movie.
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: Comedy fans won't go see a B-comedy, if you know
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: what I mean.
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, horror is one of the only genres out
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: there where the genre is the star of the film
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: in a lot of respects. You know, it's not like, oh,
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: I'm going to see this because Brad Pitt's in it,
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: or I'm going to see this because, you know, Leonardo
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: DiCaprio's in it. They go see it because it's a
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: horror movie. I'd say maybe the only genre like that
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: right now, that's a genre that has had its ups
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: and downs over the years, but I think is starting
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: to reach a little bit of a new renaissance is westerns.
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: I see a lot of interesting westerns, mostly independent westerns
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: coming out. Like, you know, we have The Hateful Eight,
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: which I thought was interesting. Not perfect, but interesting. Bone Tomahawk,
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: which I thought was a terrific movie from last year
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: with Kurt Russell and Richard Jenkins. You know, we had
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: Slow West. There's Jane Got a Gun, which comes out
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: in a few weeks. So it's an interesting time for
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: the genre. But I think there are a lot of
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: people who see them simply because they're Westerns. They like
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: Western movies. And I think the tricky part of that becomes...
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: because people will go just because it's horror, you get
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: a lot of really bad horror movies out there because
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: people just think, oh, well, they'll just go if we
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: throw some gore and some tits at them. But when
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: you have one that's really great, I write a blog
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: called The Movie Zombie, and I write about all kinds
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: of movies. And last year for 2014, my number one
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: film of the year was The Babadook, which is the
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: Australian horror film by Jennifer Kent. And I just think
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: that's a movie that's so... working with a small budget
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: and is so inventive and comes up with really powerful
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: and profound things to say. And, and it, I will
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: say this, it doesn't always connect. Even ones that connect
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: with a lot of people don't always connect with me.
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: If you look at my blog for 2015, my pick
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: for the, my least favorite movie of the year was
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: it follows, which is a movie that I know people really,
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: really loved. And it just, it did not work for
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: me at all. And So if you know the genre
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: well enough, you can pick up the nuances of what
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: people are really doing beyond just this is a horror movie.
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: But yeah, horror. But you do make a very great
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: point about the ROI. I think that's very, very true
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: because the genre itself has a built-in following. And if
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: you're in a star-driven thing, you struggle if you have
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: a star that doesn't have a built-in following. Horror always does.
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: I actually had on an independent director and his producer
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: on the podcast about a couple... about maybe 10 or
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: so episodes ago. And when they were done shooting their comedy,
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: he actually took it around to a lot of these
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: distributors and they actually said, who's in it? And when
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: he told them, they said, we can't sell this. And
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: he said, that's the one thing he learned is if
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: you're going to make a comedy, it has to have
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: a name in it, in one of the principal roles.
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: Or you could do what the sort of bait and switch,
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: what some people have done, which is like, There was
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: a movie a couple of years ago, Elijah Wood was
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: in it for like five minutes, but they put him
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: on the cover and people would buy it and go,
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: what the hell is this? He's barely even in the movie.
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that does happen too. I mean, you see a
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: lot of films. We have a theater near where I
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: live here in LA that basically shows a lot of
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: these films that come out direct to video, more or
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: less direct to video, will have a situation in their
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: contracts when they contract with the distributor that they have
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: to get at least one week of theatrical play in
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: New York or Los Angeles. And I live near a
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: theater that shows a lot of these sort of contractual
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: obligation screenings. Like if any of you have heard of
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: a horror film called Wolves from a couple years ago,
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: there was a werewolf movie with Jason Momoa in it
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: from Game of Thrones. That was a movie I got
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: to see on the big screen because we got sort
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: of the contractual obligation screening of it.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: It was... I saw.
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: a movie from last year called super fast, which was
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: basically the guys that did meet the Spartans taking on
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: the fast and furious franchise, which played for a week.
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: And I went and saw that it's not good. I
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: don't recommend you seek out super fast, but it is
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: an opportunity to get to see some of these things,
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: but that's an excellent point about not being able to
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: sell without a star comedy is, a fairly star-driven genre.
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: I mean, there's not a lot of people even that
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: can really open a comedy. One of the people that
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: seems to be able to do it just had a
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: movie come out this weekend, which is Kevin Hart, who
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: has Ride Along 2 that just came out. I'd say
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: Melissa McCarthy seems to be somebody right now that maybe
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: has the power to open a comedy. And, you know,
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: we'll see. And I mean, every now and then you
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: get a comedy franchise that really connects. Like, obviously, the
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: Hangover movies did very well.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: And really connected.
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: And I think the second movie outgrossed the first one
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: even by a substantial margin. But yeah, it is tricky.
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: And comedy also is also a tricky investment for studios
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: because comedy doesn't travel overseas. Humor is very subjective and
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: it's very cultural. So it's easier to take something like
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: the Avengers, which is all action driven and that play
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: overseas than it is to take something that's humor-driven, which
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: might not land with a Chinese audience or an Indian
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: audience or an Italian audience.
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it's interesting you say that, too, because
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: I remember a couple years ago, the number one movie
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: in China was an independent Chinese movie called Lost in Thailand. Yep.
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: And it was literally about three Chinese businessmen who get
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: lost in Thailand. The title may have given that away.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: And now back to the show.
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: But they get lost in Thailand. And honestly, there was
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: talk of actually showing it here in America. And they actually,
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: I don't think they ever did it because I think
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: one of the reasons was they were afraid that American
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: audiences weren't going to get it because it was a
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: Chinese comedy.
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's very understandable. I mean, a lot of
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: times you look at box office figures for different nations
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: around the world, you'll see films showing up in their
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: top tens of the year that do not even play
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: in the United States. And I think people do forget that.
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: A lot of times we get foreign films because people say, well,
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: why are foreign films so much better? than what we
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: get in America. That's because we're only getting the best
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: foreign films. They're not bringing over the popcorn movies and
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: the studio comedies and things like that because they figure
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: there's no audience for them. And every country has its
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: own infrastructure of stars and directors. India has, which also
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: this theater near me that shows these contractual obligations, shows
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: a lot of Indian films as well. They show a
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: lot of Bollywood movies. And they have one of the
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: biggest and most intricate star systems in the world. Their
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: movies are very star-driven. in India. And actually, every now
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: and then, we do see an Indian star show up
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: in an American movie. There's a film showing at that
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: theater right now starring an Indian actor named Abitabh Bachchan,
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: who some people might remember from the Leonardo DiCaprio Great
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: Gatsby that came out a few years ago. He played
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: Meyer Wolfstein in that movie. And you have people like
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: Aishwarya Rai and Irrfan Khan, who was in Jurassic World
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: last year. He's one of the biggest movie stars in India.
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: And it is interesting to see We sort of think
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: those things are unique to America, but they're really not.
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: Our movies that travel overseas are these movies that are,
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: I have a friend who's a film journalist, as he
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: puts it, big gunfights and stuff going to explode. Obviously,
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: one of the biggest movies in China of all time
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: now is Transformers Age of Extinction. which is a movie
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: that was perceived to have somewhat underperformed here in the States.
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: But the perception is it's going to get a sequel
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: because it grossed something like a billion dollars in China.
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: So they made crazy money overseas.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: I do remember, uh, that, that transformers movie when it
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: came out and I actually didn't see it. I just
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: remember there's a, there was an image where it was
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: like a giant, uh, transformer samurai. And, uh, I was like,
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: I wonder if they know that's Japanese. I'm not going
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: to say... I was like, you know what? Maybe somebody
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: will tell them. Who knows? But I do remember they
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: actually shot scenes specifically in China for Chinese audiences. And
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: I remember that was the big hook that they were
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: using for this. And also, I think they were trying
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: to finagle... getting that Chinese film tax credit.
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: Because you have to shoot 60% or so of the
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: movie over there, and it also has to show China
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: in a good light. But if you do those two things,
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: that's what gives you the pass for that film tax credit.
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: I don't know if they actually made it or not,
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: but yeah, I do remember Transformers. What was that, four?
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Transformers 4. Yeah, and the whole thing is, movies
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: have been doing that sort of thing for years. If
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: you remember a film... from 1995 called Johnny Mnemonic with
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: Keanu Reeves, which is a terrible movie. But if you remember,
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: if you see the American version of that movie, there's
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: real brief little bits with Dolph Lundgren playing a character
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: and also real little bits with Takeshi Kitano, the Yakuza
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: film star. Those films, if you saw them in Europe,
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: you would have seen a lot more Dolph Lundgren because
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: they shot special scenes for the European market with more
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: of him because he's a bigger name in Europe. Same
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: thing with Takeshi Kitano. There's a lot more scenes of
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: him in the Asian version, specifically in the Japanese version,
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: because he's a huge movie star in Japan. So they
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: shot extra scenes, including his character. So there are these
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: senses where they do tailor films to sort of cater
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: to different parts of the world. Which, I mean, to
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: be fair, considering how much movies cost, that's not the
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: least sensible thing they could possibly be doing.
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah. One thing from Johnny Mnemonic that I always remember
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: is the cyborg Jesus.
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: That's the Dolph Lundgren character, unless I'm mistaken.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: Maybe I'm wrong. But I barely remember anything about that.
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: I remember wanting to walk out of it. That's all
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: I remember about Johnny Mnemonic is sitting there going, Jesus, what,
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: it's 45 minutes into this? How much longer is this?
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: I will say, though, I'm very proud. I've never walked
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: out of a movie in the theater in my life.
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: I've come very close a couple of times. But every
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: movie I've seen in the theater, I've stayed through to
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: the sometimes frightfully bitter end.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I concur. Even when there's been some movies where
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: I've just wanted to walk out, but I said, you
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: know what? I'm just going to power through it. And
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: that way, at least I can say, okay, I stayed
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: through the whole thing. I know it was a bad movie.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: And it's maybe a lesson learned, right?
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: Well, here's the whole thing. If you don't stay through
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: the whole thing, You can't say it's a bad movie.
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: You can say it has a bad first hour. You
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: don't know. You know what I mean? Although sometimes you do.
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: Because a couple of years ago, I remember going to see,
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: believe it or not, I remember going to see Battlefield Earth.
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: And it's one of only two films I've ever seen
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: in the theater because I wanted to see if it
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: was as bad as people were saying it was. And
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: two minutes in, I kind of relaxed because I was like, oh,
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: this is going to be terrible. I can absolutely tell.
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: It's Battlefield Earth is bad almost from the very first shot.
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: And I, in a weird way, I appreciate that kind
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: of integrity because it's, there's nothing worse than a movie
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: that starts out and has a good first 20 minutes
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: or a good half hour and then slowly but surely
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: flies off of the rails and stops working. And Battlefield
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: Earth had the respect for its audience to give them
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: a consistently terrible time the entire way through.
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: You know, I actually had the screenwriter Corey Mandel on
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: the podcast.
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: Oh, very good.
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: And I actually, I mean, I had to bring it up.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, and I just wanted to ask him, you know,
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: because he actually is a very good screenwriting teacher.
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: And he said, Dave, basically this is what happened. He said,
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: I swear to God... The draft that I turned in
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: to John Travolta was completely different than what you see
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: on the screen.
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the least surprising thing I've ever heard. Just
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: the fact that he even got a movie through to
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: a studio, anybody that does that is a talented person.
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: I really do believe that. Just knowing, having been in
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: the trenches myself and slugged it out, and I'm a
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: talented writer, and I know how tough it is. So
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: the very fact that Corey Mandel even has his name
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: on a studio movie, even if it's Battlefield Earth, is
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: a testament to what he can do.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: He goes into length about just going through the writing process.
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: And you're absolutely right, Matt, because he is a talented writer.
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: He certainly knows the whole process of screenwriting, not in
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: a very simple way, but in depth. You know what
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: I mean? Just going through the atoms, as I like
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: to call it, the atoms of screenwriting. where you get really,
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: really down deep into it. And that's one of the
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: things he always says, though, is he actually sold a
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: project to Ridley Scott, but yet this is the one
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: that gets made after Battlefield Earth.
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, sometimes you never know. It's good that you bring
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: up the point about sort of really getting down deep.
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: Because one of the things that is interesting, I think,
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: about Dan's book, and you've read it, so you know
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: some of this, is Dan is very willing to admit
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: that there's certain things he's basically not going to address
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: in the book. For one thing, he does not cover
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: dialogue writing really at all. There's a general school of
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: thought that Dan subscribes to, which is the idea that
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: dialogue is not really something that he feels can be taught.
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: It's something that has to come out sort of more innately.
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: It's a question of being a good listener and having
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: generally strong language skills. Because I know when I do
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: my own dialogue, and if I may toot my own
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: horn slightly, I do think in my own work, dialogue
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: is a strength of mine. A lot of it comes
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: from just being a good listener. And also when I write,
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: if there are people listening who are screenwriters, if you're
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: not already doing this, you need to be reading your
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: dialogue out loud to yourself when you're writing it. Because
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: you're not writing words that have to live on a page.
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: You're writing lines that actors have to be able to say.
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: And if it's garbled or the message is unclear or
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: you trip over it saying it, chances are an actor
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: is going to do the same thing. And also sometimes
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: you can surprise yourself with certain phrasings and ways of
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: putting things that will come out. Sometimes I get to
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: the point where I'm just literally transcribing as I'm talking
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: and just writing down things that are basically extemporizing out
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: of my mind when I'm writing my dialogue. And Dan
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: even basically says in the book, if you remember, he says,
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: I'm not here to teach you how to write well.
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: What I'm here to do is to teach you how
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: to put together a screenplay with a structure that holds up.
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: He always says, you know, I wasn't, The great example
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: he uses is he talks about helping Ron Chassette on
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: a movie he was producing called Phobia, which was a
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: movie that ended up being directed by John Houston in
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: the early 80s. And he thought it was a script
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: that was not very good, but he basically sort of
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: reworked the structure of it. And the way Dan described
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: it is he said, I was able to use this
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: structural system I designed to transform the movie from a
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: Sal's ear that I didn't want to watch into a
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: Sal's ear I did.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: Want to watch.
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: And that's simply by making the structure of the story
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: hold up so there was a solid through line from
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: beginning to end. So that's something that Dan's book can.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: Help you do.
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: At least if your script is still problematic after working
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: with Dan's system, the structure is not going to be
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: one of the things you'll need to worry about.
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, the book does cover just, I mean,
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: it does cover every structure you can think of.
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: You know, because, you know, it goes, it starts off,
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, we're starting, for those of you who haven't
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: read the book yet, I mean, it starts off with
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: Aristotle's Poetics.
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: And, I mean, that's as far back as, I mean,
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: we can go, right, Matt?
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: I mean, not when you're talking story, that's as far
• 49:51
  Speaker 5: back as it goes, basically, as far as dramatic storytelling.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: And now, back to the show.
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we addressed Lajos Agri, we addressed Sid Field, Robert McKee.
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: We didn't get too much into Blake Snyder, who's kind
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: of like the big, hot screenwriter, now the author of
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: Save the Cat, late author of Save the Cat. The
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: main reason we didn't delve into that was simply this.
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: Save the Cat is a Michael Weesey Productions book, as
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: is Dan O'Bannon's Guide to Screenplay Structure. And then we
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: didn't want to risk, you know, frankly, we didn't want
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: to risk cutting into another, a fellow author in the
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: imprint's readership. We thought that would be somewhat unfair. I
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: guess we didn't have the same reservations about cutting into St.
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: Field or Robert McKee's readership. God bless both their souls. But,
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: you know, fortunately, I do think that Dan, I think
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: that the reason that Dan included some of that background
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: is he wanted to give you a sense that this
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: storytelling system is fresh, but it also exists on a
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: continuity with the way stories have sort of been set
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: up and structured since the beginning of time. And I
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: think that it's an interesting thing. You know, we talk
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: about movies that are sort of done in real time,
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: like we touch on High Noon. We touch on the setup,
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: which is a boxing film for the 40s that Dan
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: and I watched together. You don't see that done as
• 51:08
  Speaker 5: much nowadays, but I notice you see a lot more
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: of these sort of one-take scenes and things like that
• 51:12
  Speaker 5: that are playing around with that idea in a small way.
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: And for example, last night I just saw 13 Hours,
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: which is the new, speaking of Michael Bay, it's the
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: new Michael Bay movie about the Benghazi attack. And that
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: movie deals with a very compressed frame of time. It's
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: right there in the title. And I think that they
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: work actually within that time frame perfectly. pretty well and
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: give you a sense of kind of how things are
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: going to play out within that time frame. That's Aristotle's
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: unity of time, place and action actually comes off fairly well,
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: believe it or not, in the new Michael Bay movie.
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: I saw my Twitter timeline. Somebody actually said Michael Bay
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: has exceeded in making a better Middle Eastern war movie
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: than Clint Eastwood.
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah. That was me. I said that was you. All right.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: I wasn't. I'm not going to get into it a
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: lot because it's a relatively new movie. But I do
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: think that the movie's got some nuances to it and
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: some thoughtfulness and some complexity that I really was not
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: expecting to see in a movie that ends with the
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: words directed by Michael Bay. And in his defense, I
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: think he helps to shepherd some of that along. I
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: think he gets good, effective, low-key performances out of his cast.
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: I think John Krasinski finally shakes off the mantle of
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: Jim Halpert firmly with his performance and does a really
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: great job. He's working with a two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer, Dion Beebe,
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: shooting digitally, fully digital for the first time in a
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: Michael Bay movie. And I think that it works. I
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: think it's going to be tough going for people because
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: it's not an easy story. It's not a story with
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: a happy ending. but I think that if people are
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: willing to give it a chance, I think they'll, they'll
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: get something out of it.
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: I'll definitely check that out. And, um, I, you know,
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: a lot of the war movies that were coming out,
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, uh, some people started to get
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: kind of burned out by them. Cause I know I
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: was getting burned out. I still saw American sniper.
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: Uh, I still saw lone survivor, but you know, some
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: of the other movies that came out, um, Eventually, I
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: think people just got a little too burned out by them.
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: So maybe, you know, but I will check out the
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: Michael Bay. It's 13. Was it 13 hours? Right.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: 13 hours.
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: Just came out yesterday.
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I will. I will make sure to check that out.
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: And but, you know, I wonder, too, you know, if
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: there ever will be a stop of all these Iraq
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: war movies. And, you know, I mean, most of them
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: are about Iraq. I mean, I don't think there's any
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: that have been about Afghanistan.
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: Well, Benghazi technically was in Libya. So this is actually
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: a different area of the world. But, you know, it
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: kind of all falls under that sort of quote-unquote conflict
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: in the Middle East. And I guess one of the
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: things that's tricky is that we live in a world
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: where people don't know the nuances of the differences between Iraq,
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: between Libya, between Afghanistan. that they look over there and
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: they just see it as one thing. They see, oh,
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: that's A-Rabs. Get them. Get the A-Rabs. And I think
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: the movie addresses the fact, one of the characters actually
• 53:55
  Speaker 5: says at one point, it drives us crazy. We can't
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: tell who's good and who's bad. And it's this idea
• 54:00
  Speaker 5: of this sort of, I mean, I'm getting into political
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: stuff that probably is beyond the purview of this show,
• 54:05
  Speaker 5: but it's this idea of this sort of toxic mutual
• 54:07
  Speaker 5: mistrust on both sides in that region of the world
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: that sort of affects what's going on. I think that's
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: something that the movie gets out of, very elegantly and
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: without a whole lot of fuss and muss about it.
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: I think it's just, it's inherent to the material and
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: I think it carries across pretty well.
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I, I, you know, I didn't even realize that
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: that was, yeah, I made a complete gaffe there. Uh,
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: but you and.
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: Probably most of the people that want to be president
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: later this year. So that's fine.
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: Well, Matt, I'm actually announcing my candidacy right now for
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: president United States. I'm not old enough, but be damned,
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: I'm going to run.
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: Listen, if the evidence is any indication I've seen so far,
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: we could certainly do a lot worse.
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: Well, thank you very much, man.
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: I appreciate that. No problem.
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: You know, Matt, we're starting to run out of time,
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: and there's more questions I want to ask you, but
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: I'll have to have you back sometime for whatever and
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: coming back. So one of the final questions I want
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: to ask you is, You know, what is the one thing,
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: I know this is going to be a trick question,
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: but what is the one thing, the biggest thing, that
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: you took away from working with Dan O'Bannon?
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: That's a great question, and I know exactly what the
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: answer is. You sort of alluded to it earlier with
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: something that you said. When you talked about one of
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: the things that was great about Dan is that he
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: was able to cover a lot of different types of genres.
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: He did action films, he did humorous films, he did horror,
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: he did science fiction. And I think the reason for
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: that is because Dan... And this is something I took
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: away from him. Dan never thought of himself as a
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: genre writer. He thought of himself, he always said, I'm
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: a storyteller. A lot of my stories just happen to
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: involve monsters and things from outer space. And he always
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: privileged the story over the genre in which the story
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: was being told. And the thing that I took from
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: that and the message he gave me was regardless of
• 55:56
  Speaker 5: what type of film you're trying to create, you owe
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: it to yourself, to your muse, and to your audience
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: to create the best whatever that is that you can.
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: If you're making a $ 10, 000 camcorder shot creature feature that
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: you're shooting in a basement on the weekends, you owe
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: it to your audience and you to make the best $ 10, 000
• 56:17
  Speaker 5: camcorder shot movie that you're shooting on weekends creature feature
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: in your basement that you possibly can muster out of
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: your spirit. And I've always... tried to keep that in mind,
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: and I've always tried to give my all and my
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: best to whatever I'm writing. And I've written a lot
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: of different genre stuff as well. I mean, I'm looking
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: right now at a wall that's got some screenplay awards
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: I've won at festivals, and I've got an award for
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: a science fiction movie, an award for a horror movie,
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: and an award for an action thriller. And one of
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: the bigger projects I worked on a couple years ago
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: was an adaptation of a comic strip, sort of in
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: the mold of an Alvin and the Chipmunks kind of
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: a movie. And I gave my best to that too.
• 56:54
  Speaker 5: And that was a job I got based on a
• 56:56
  Speaker 5: comedy script that I'd written and submitted to them as
• 56:59
  Speaker 5: a writing sample that they liked. So whatever you're writing,
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: you just owe it to yourself to not talk down
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: to your audience, to give it your all, to give
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: it your best and to put your best self forward
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: all the time because nobody else is going to do
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: that for you. That's the main thing that I took
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: from Dan. And one of the main things I hope
• 57:15
  Speaker 5: people take if they read this book.
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: You know, that is an excellent, excellent thing to take
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: away from, from Dan. You know, Dan loved movies. It
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: was evident in his writing. It was, you know, evident,
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, even in your story about him having the
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: broadswords on the wall.
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: Because I'm sure that was an ode towards, you know,
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: the Chinese martial arts. Because, you know, just everything about
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: Dan was fun. And from the interviews I've seen with him,
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: it was all, you know, he just loved life and
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: he loved telling these stories. And, you know, that is,
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: even in the book, even when you're reading that book,
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: you can just tell that it comes from a place
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: where This is what he was put on earth to do,
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: and there's no other question about that.
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: When I read parts of the book, I hear it
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: in my mind in Dan's voice. And I think that
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: if you read that book, you're getting Dan. And I
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: think that's a very important thing to keep that voice
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: alive as well.
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: And the one thing that I'm glad his wife actually
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: agreed to be put in there was the one chapter
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: that Dan was going to leave out.
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: And then she insisted. Then she actually said, you know what?
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: Dan is no longer with us. I'm just going to
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: put the chapter in.
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we could have done a whole other hour just
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: on that issue. It's a section on a subject called
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: hedonic adaptation. If you read the book, it's a psychological
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: understanding that was developed in the 1970s by a group
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: of psychologists. And it applies very strongly to the way
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: effective on-screen stories are told. So it's a section that's
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: definitely going to teach you a lot in terms of
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: what your movies can do to your audience. And it's really,
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: really interesting to consider.
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, again, Matt, anytime you want to come back on,
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: I'd love to have you, because I can tell you,
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: you're the type of guy I could talk to for
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: hours about movies and stuff like that.
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: This was a pleasure. I'd be happy to come back.
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: Have you ever seen the movie Killdozer?
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: I have not, but I'll get on that. That'll be
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: my homework for next time.
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: What I like to do is I like to get
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: three movies that are similar and put them together, and
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: I always have like a killer vehicle trio. And it's
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: usually Killdozer, The Car, and Maximum Overdrive. Nice.
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: Very good.
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: The Car is actually my favorite haunted car movie ever.
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: Oh, interesting.
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: It's even more than Christine. I don't know if you've
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: ever seen The Car, but.
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I have. Yeah, definitely.
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: Okay, excellent. But yeah, you know, again, Matt, you know,
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: it's a pleasure having you on. And Matt, where can
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: people find you at online?
• 59:32
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm on Facebook. You can find me as Matt R.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Lohr.
• 59:35
  Speaker 5: I'm also, there's a page for Dan O'Bannon's Guide to
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: Screenplay Structure. Just search for the title of the book.
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: I'm also on Twitter. I have two Twitter feeds. I'm
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: at The Movie Zombie and at Dan O'Bannon Book. And
• 59:47
  Speaker 5: the Movie Zombie handle is my blog, which is themoviezombie.blogspot.com,
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: where I comment on contemporary and classic cinema of all types.
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: Excellent. And everyone, I will link to all that in
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: the show notes as well. Matt Lohr, Matt Arlor, I
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: want to say thank you. I have to say thank
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: you very much for coming on.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 5: It was a real treat, Dave. Thanks for having me.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: Oh, my pleasure. And again, we'll be in touch soon
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: for you to come back on. And I look forward
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: to hearing what you think about Killdozer.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: Sounds good.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: Take care, bud.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: Take care.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: Bye-bye.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: head over to the show notes at IndieFilmHustle.com. forward slash 876.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: If you haven't already, please head over to filmmakingpodcast.com. Subscribe
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: and leave a good review.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: For the show. It really helps us out a lot, guys.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: Thank you again so much for listening, guys. As always,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: keep that hustle going. Keep that dream alive. Stay safe
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast at indiefilmhustle.com.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: That's I-N-D-I-E-F-I-L-M-H-U-S-T-L-E.com.