Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 762: Billion-Dollar Comedy Screenwriting with Herschel Weingrod

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IFH 762: Billion-Dollar Comedy Screenwriting with Herschel Weingrod · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFH podcast Network.
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  Speaker 2: For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Indie Film Huscle Podcast, Episode number seven
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: sixty two, Looking Good, Billy Ray, Feeling Good, Lewis, Trading.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Places, Broadcasting from the back Alley and Hollywood. It's the
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: of the film biz.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise
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  Speaker 1: of the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film
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  Speaker 1: into a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before
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  Speaker 1: for independent filmmakers to make money with their films from
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  Speaker 1: predatory film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators
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  Speaker 1: who prey upon them. The odds are stacked against the
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  Speaker 1: The future of independent filmmaking is the entrepreneurial filmmaker or
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  Speaker 1: www dot filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Now, guys,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: today we have a special Austin Film Festival episode of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the podcast we have. We have on the show legendary
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: screenwriter and producer Herschel Winingrod Now. Herschel basically wrote some
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: of the best and biggest hits of the eighties and nineties,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: including Trading Places with Eddie Murphy, Kindergarten, Cop Rooster's Millions
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: with Richard Pryor one of my personal favorites, My Stepmother
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: is an Alien with Kim Basinger and Dan Ackroyd, Twins,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Falling Down, and Space Jam, just to name a few. Now,
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  Speaker 1: Herschel and I go into his filmography, amazing stories about
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: how these movies were made, some behind the scenes stuff
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: that I didn't even know about, and so much more.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: And of course Herschel and I will both be at
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: this year's Austin Film Festival, so check it out and
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: see where we're going to be speaking, where we're going
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: to be at and so on. So, without any further ado,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: please enjoy my conversation with Herschel Wingrod. I like to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: welcome to the show, Herschel Winingrad. How you doing, Herschel,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: thank you very much.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: I'm doing well for a Friday.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: For for exactly. I appreciate you coming on the show.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: My friend I was telling you before, you single handedly
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: covered a lot of my childhood favorites in films as
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: a screenwriter and as a producer all through the eighties
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: and nineties. So I first of all, thank you, and
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about those films as we continue our conversation.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: But man, you were hitting them out of the park
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: pretty heavily.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: My writing partner Tim Harris and I we had a
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: really nice long run.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Without without questions. So my first for my first question
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: to you is how did you get started in this business?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: And why in god screen eth did you want to
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: get into this business?
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  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, actually it's kind of a negative goal because
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: wanting to be a screenwriter is like wanting to be
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: a co pilot.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Because you don't really get to fly the plane.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: But it's really great. And now I've never heard that
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: analogy many many conversations, I've never heard. That's a beautiful analogy.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: You can use it whenever you want.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: So as an undergraduate, I actually majored in European history,
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: and then around my senior year I realized, oh.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: What am I going to do with this degree?
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  Speaker 4: Roam the stacks of some historical library and write some
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: historical books and teach.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I could be a professor. Great, really exciting.
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: So actually around my junior year I began to take
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: as many film courses as I could. This was at
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: University of Wisconsin, Madison, and then they didn't offer a lot,
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: but they offered me some. And then I started to
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: apply to film schools for after postgraduate work, and I
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: it's a long story, but I was accepted at.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: The London film school.
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  Speaker 4: So I didn't know anybody there, of course, so I
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: go there and my instructors are.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: Mike Lee.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: You have read my mind. I was, like I said,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Mike Lee.
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  Speaker 4: Mike Lee, Charles Crichton who did Fish Called Wanda and
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: all those great dealing comedies. Clive Donner who did What's
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: New pussy Cat, Guy Hamilton who did two of the
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: first three Bond films with Sean Connery, and I had.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: I had all these great instructors.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: So that's that was a great school because it's basically
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: a trade school. You had to learn how to do everything.
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: It's not an academic school where you where you where
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: you had to write exams. You had to actually perform.
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: You had to learn how to operate the camera, load
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: the camera, be a producer, cut sound, cut film, do everything.
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: So then what you do is then you you try
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: to focus on whatever makes you happiest, whatever you think
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: you're really good at.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: So I actually wanted to be a DP. But there's
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: no apprenticeship program for becoming a cinematographer in Los Angeles.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: The ASC doesn't have like a oh well.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: It's not a standard one. It's an unofficial one that
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: you have to eat a lot of prole along the way.
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: Right So after I So I was in London for
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: about three three and a half years, and then I
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: came to I came to UH Los Angeles, and I
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: realized that the only way I could get in was
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: to write my way in to the film industry. So
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: I was writing. I was trying to write mysteries, thrillers,
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: film noir, all the movies.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: That I like to see.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: Okay, you know, Chinatown Ish, Three Days of the condor
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: Ish stories like that. So I was really fortunate because
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: I had a neighbor who worked at British Lion EMI,
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: and they were making The Deer Hunter, The Driver and
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: Convoy and all those movies while I was working there.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: So what I would go on a Monday morning to
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: their office and I'd pick up a stack of scripts
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: and manuscripts and novels and plays, and by the following
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: Monday I would have to write complete coverage on all
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: of them.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: Now, of course, I'm twenty four years old.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: All I want to do is get through the week
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: so I could go enjoy the weekend. But every once
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: in a while, I'm reading something that, regardless of what
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: the subject matter was, the writer got me to want
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: to turn the page and see what happens next. So
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking, ah, if I can learn how to do that,
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: because you see, that's called the craft of screenwriting, Because
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: if you're an aspiring writer, a first time writer, you
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: have to get your script by a reader like me
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: and a well educated twenty four to twenty five year
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: old who just wants to get through the bachelors scripts
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: and get to the freaking weekend. So learning how to
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: do transitions, learning how to set things up with that.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: I mean, this is before all those rules and all
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: those books before before sid Field and certainly all those other.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Guys save the Cat and all that stuff, right, well.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: All those guys with the the inciting incident in the
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: mid second act climax, and this has to happen on
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: page X, Y and C.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: No.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: No, I actually learned that that every story needs to
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: find its own way to be told, Otherwise otherwise we
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: wouldn't have a We never have a Charlie Coffin.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you're you're talking about someone on the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: outside outskirts of.
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: Structurally, right, But I mean all of those, all those
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: all those rules are rules how to write the next blockbuster,
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: which as a first time writer, you're not going to
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: get to write any of the mission impossibles.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: No time herschell, stop it. You mean to tell me
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: you're not going to get the next Marvel movie coming
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: right out of school or no, go to school. We'll
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: be right back after a word from our sponsor. And
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: now back to the show.
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: I've never even gotten a hint of a Marvel movie
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: assignment exactly because not.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Even a short. It's not even an episode of one
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: of the.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: Shows, because because those aren't written, they're actually manufactured. Nobody
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: comes out of that said, damn, what a great script
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: that was.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Uh, the only one, if I may, If I may,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: is a Winter Soldier, which was as close to if
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: you remember Winter Soldier Captain America's Winter, So that was
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: like an espionage film. It was like it was probably
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: one of the best written out of all Yeah, but
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: you but you're right, like you don't go like, holy cow,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: that should get an oscar this year, Like it's not,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: it's not you know, it's what it is.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: The subtext was so strong I could tell, I could
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: tell right away.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: But look, but that's but they don't but they but
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: that's popcorn movies, and that's what they're supposed to do
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: in their fun and all that those.
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: Are all, those are all guilty pleasures which actually make
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: the industry a lot of money and keep it going
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: so that more interesting films might eventually get made. So
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: I and listen, I mean I was, I was basically
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: working in the studio system, and nobody would make those
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: movies today.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I mean look, oh no, and the thing in the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: seventies would get made today. The Godfather would get financed
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: by no, nothing, nothing in the seventies, eighties and nineties
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: other than Batman.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: Right, okay, so look look, no Hall Ashby movie would
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: ever get made.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: No, no Being There, no Noose Corsees, no Sidney Loomett,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: no Want Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest amadis. You can
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: forget all those all and those were Those were brilliant
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: studio films, five five easy pieces.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Can forget it, forget it. But that was the time.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: But that was those were the times that those movies
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: were made. And I yeah, and we're still and they're
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: still going back and minding those old eyeps to remake them,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: offering them back up, because that's when they were created,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: when you were free to be creative. But now it's
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: just such a corporate machine that I mean, look right now,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: you pull Marvel movies out of the theaters in twenty
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: twenty two. Other than Top Gun, right and possibly Avatar
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: were more unlikely Avatar when it comes out later this year.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: There's no theatrical there's just nothing like I agree, there's
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: just no No one's going to the theaters to go
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: see a romantic comedy anymore. It's just it's just very,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: very like Pretty Woman today would not be a theatrical release,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: it'd be a Netflix flow.
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: Well, actually, what do you think you would have to? Okay,
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: so they tried to do a Broadway adaptation. The problem is,
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: you see, you can't. You can't have a hooker with
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: a heart of gold at the center of a movie
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: or a play because women won't stand.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: For it anymore. Today Today, today they won't know they won't.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, in ninety one, I think something
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: like that. In ninety one it was a Disney movie.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Well that's true, Gary Marshall.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: It was a touchdown film. Yeah, but Gary just handled
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: that so absolutely beautifully. It was just remarkable. But you
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: look go back and you look at it and go, hmm,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: that's not going to fly today. But no, a lot
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: of things wouldn't fly today. Most things in the eighties
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and nineties wouldn't fly it today.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: I agree, I agree, you know.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: But that's where great great cinema. You know, a lot
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: of the great cinema the seventies, eighties and nineties was
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: because we still had filmmakers running the studios and they
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: were and they were making small movies. You know, they
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: were making twenty million dollar movies. They're making thirty million
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: dollar movies. Now. That's craft services.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Now, that's the dedicated COVID supervisor.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Pretty much, pretty much. Yeah, that's exactly what that is.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's the world has changed so much, which
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: brings me to your to your your filmography, which is
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: is is such a wonderful just so much love in
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: those films that you made and you wrote, starting with
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Trading Places, which was a little young young guy, a
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: little little comedian. How old was he, like twenty two
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: or twenty three? He was, like say, as a kid,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and Trading Places would never get made today. You could
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: still try to throw Kevin Hart and the Rock in there.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: It's still not.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: It's just because listen.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, we actually had a note from Paramount then
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: which would be the note today, which is, wait a minute,
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: why is he pretending to be a Vietnam to be.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: A crippled legless Vietnam?
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, is he, you know, like that Adam Sandler
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: guy who's trying to get money so his grandma can
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: be put in the home or his sister can get
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: an iron lung. So they asked us, and we said no, nobody. See,
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: the audience doesn't care what happened before the movie started.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: They only care about what happens next. So it doesn't
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: matter why he's doing it. That's not what his characters
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: about the thing.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: So the thing I find so beautiful about Trading Places,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: and for all the young'ins look at listening right now,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Google trading places. Google Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd and
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: John Google that please and you'll have a reference point.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: But what I love about Trading Places was it was
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: not only it was I don't know if it was Eddie's.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Was that his first? It was one thing? Something else right?
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Was that was.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: The one he did with Nick Nolsey for Walter for
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: forty eight hours. Excuse forty eight Hours came out first.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: First, right, but then Trading Places came out, and then
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: that was where Eddie just and the number one, number
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: one and all those number one, number one, number one,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: number one for like, I think nine movies straight. He
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: was number one every time he came out. But what
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: I love about Trading Places is that, and this is
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: something that was so so much more done then than
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: it is now in writing films, is that there's such
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: a social commentary that's right in Trading Places. That is,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: it's subtle but yet slightly heavy handed in certain places,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: which I love, and but at the end and it's
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: hidden behind all the comedy of the genius of Dan
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Akrod and Eddie Murphy and Jamie Lee Curtis and and.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean the casting was fantastic.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, the casting was fantastic.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: That ol Franken, Oh God Jesus, this is such a
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Jim Belushi.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: It was amazing. What I mean, what an amazing cast.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: But I alwayn't wanted to ask you, since you worked
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: and you have worked with a lot of amazing improvisers
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: over the years, how much of that script was Eddie
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: just being Eddie and how much it was it you
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: guys writing. Okay, the dialog, I.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: Would say that of what's on the screen at least
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: was on the page now. But what was but what
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: was great was you see this is unheard of. They
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: had a week of rehearsal, just one week of rehearsal, like.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: I said, play oh oh like oh they I mean,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: I mean actual separate from pre production. I mean they
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: had a week of rehearsals. Oh Jesus, Eddie, Eddie and
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Danny and Jamie Lee and all those characters. They're like.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Running lines and then they're riffing and and they came
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: up with stuff that just made me and my partner.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Look better, right, and you just running.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: I mean, we didn't write the line where he says,
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: uh when they when the Duke brothers bail him out
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: and he gets in the in the limo and they're
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: doing the intros and he says, Billy Ray Valentine Capricorn.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: But we but but we did write man brus On inside.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Karate Man. I mean it's I mean, there's so many
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: quotable things, you know, looking good, feeling good, like it
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: was all that. There's a T shirts like I've seen
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: T shirts with that this to this day, I still
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: see sirs saying that.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: Well, okay, so here's this, here's this early woke thing.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: So we wrote the line about when he when he
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: brings all of his all of his friends back to
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: have a party and they're dancing, and all of a
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: sudden he realizes he's becoming middle class and very possessive
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: of his new possessions, and he's saying.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Who put the kool out on my Persian carpet?
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: So okay, So so one people don't understand this kind
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: of cultural context that that cool mental cigarettes were marketed
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: primarily at black people. In fact, most of the people
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: who smoke cools were black people, and so black people
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: get that joke and white people of a certain age
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: get the joke as well. But Paramount said, no, you
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: can't put that thing in about the cools. That's no,
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: that's that's stereotype.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Blah blah blah blah blah. Well seriously, so that's the
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: way that took it.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Over the top. We'll be right back after a word
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: When we shot that scene, Eddie put it right back
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: in anyway, and it was funny and stayed in and
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: stayed in of course.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, god, And I mean when you when you did
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you go on set with with John and Eddie and everybody. Wee,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: So what was it like being on the set watching Eddie?
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: You could just see a superstar being born? Literally? How
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: did how did you? How does what was that like?
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: I could tell? Okay, let me do a little backtrack on.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: We had pitched Trading Places. We had completely worked out
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: scene the scene basically with the lines we could. We
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: could pitch it in fifteen to eighteen minutes. And we
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: went to the head of production at Warner Brothers at
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: the time because we had something else that was brewing
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: over there. Baby been option, maybe it was going to
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: get made. They liked us. So we go into the
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: head of production and we pitch trading Places and he says,
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: it's funny, but if I can't get Richard Pryor, who
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: can I cast? And we said, Eddie Murphy and trading
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: on Saturday night. Why this kid's a genius. And he said,
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: I don't think it's going to be a movie star.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Of course, of course you always hear that, You always like.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Who's We went to Paramount to have a meeting with
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: these producers about they were pitching us the worst idea
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: for a TV series ever, a white bigot moves into
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: a house that's haunted by a black ghost.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's horrible.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: I turned to look at my partner and we said,
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: should we pitch the trading place if they want to
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: white black story? So we pitched them trading Places in me.
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: They ran upstairs, they got us a deal to write it.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Well, oh, this was on the pitch still, this was yeah,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: this was.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: On okay, And then what happened was we were on
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: the set of forty eight Hours. We actually saw that
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: famous scene where in that bar where Eddie says, I'm
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: your white I'm your worst.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Nightmare a new sheriff of down.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: Right yeah, and the end word with a badge, I'm
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: your worst. Might hear that one, and then we've met
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: him briefly and then we hear this laughter in his
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: trailer because he's reading trading Places.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't want to. Everyone's got an impressive
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: of the gold end.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: So he got it right away. He loved it.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: And you know, dan Ackroyd was great because because he's
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: such a generous actor that he didn't mind being an
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: a hole. For the first the first two thirds of
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: the movie, he's very he's very smug, he's very unsympathetic,
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: and only later he kind of turns and has a heart.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Right, I mean, and he played it beautifully, just so
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: so beautifully. So the Trading Places comes out, it's a
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: mega hit, you know, and basically and it's a huge
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: hit for the time. How does the town treat you?
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: After that? I always love asking that question. What was it?
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: How did the town treat you? You're like the bell
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: of the ball all of a sudden, Well.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: We suddenly got a lot more offers in the before phone.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Calls coming in. It's what you're saying.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: We had a lot of we had a lot of meetings.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, you did the water bottle tool back then, they
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: didn't have water bottle to about water bottle to as
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: much back then. But you know what I mean. But
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: then you made then afterwards another I mean a classic
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: film that I watched when as a kid, s Brewster's Millions.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we did that next right with Richard.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: With Richard Pryor. Yes, exactly, what a beautifully high concept
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: film like It's just so you get it in one sentence,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: correct that you sold a sentence essentially, guy, they have
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to spend it all in thirty like it's just you
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: have to win. See you win, you win a million dollars,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: but in order to get one hundred million dollars you
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: got to spend a million dollar or something along those lives.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: It was so brilliant. And then Richard Pryor and Jackie
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: is Jackie Gleeson, right? Who was was Jackie Gleason? Was
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: his coastar? Who was his coastar?
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: John Candy?
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: John? No, not no, not not his partner? Who was
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the Wasn't there a bad guy? Who's the bad I
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: haven't seen that movie in years? Who was the bad guy?
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Because I know John Candy was like his buddy. Wasn't
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: it Gleason? I swear to god, I thought it was
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: maybe in an other universe.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: The bad guys were, oh what's his name was trying
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: to kind of was trying to sabotage him because he
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: kind of because he kind of was.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: It was John but John Candy. So you have John
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Candy Richard Pryor, and then that becomes a huge because
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: now Richard is taking off as well, and.
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: You know, you see what what was what was really
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: great about that was Richard said, Look, I don't want
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: you guys, I don't want I don't want this to
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: be like Stir Crazy or Silver Streak or my stand up.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: I don't want.
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: I don't want anything about race in it at all.
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: I don't want it to be racial in this light.
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: I don't want anyone to mention race and I don't.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: So don't feel like you have to like getto ghetto
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: up my dialogue or make me street or all I
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: am is a guy who just wanted to pitch in
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: the big leagues against the Yankees.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: It's just it.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: You know. The thing about that movie is it is
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the dream. You are tapping into the dream of so
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: many people who doesn't want to win the lottery, you know,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: or a version of the lot an inheritance of some sort.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: They and then and then you're forced to like spend
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: it all. Yes, it's such an amazing It's kind of
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: like we all wish we could eat anything we want
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: to eat and not gain any weight, Like it's a
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: dream of right, but not many people get the opportunity,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Like I really have to eat all the all the pizza.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: What was really really Fun was doing a bit of
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: research to find ways creatively where he could spend a
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: fortune and have nothing to show for it, like mailing
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: mailing billion dollars.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Stamp, such a brilliant Okay.
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: Now that was that's actually a real stamp, the inverted
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: Jenny and you can look it up.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: It's a real stamp.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: And then the guy who comes in and says, I'm
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: going to tow an iceberg from the north Pole, and
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: he has this great and then there's then when he
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: runs for mayor as none of the above, vote for
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: none of the above.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: Well that was inspired.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: I was reading about these nuns in San Francisco banded,
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: you know, together, and they ran for you know, political office.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: They said vote none of the above, and you.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: N oh wow, oh my god, oh god, that's that's.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: Even that scene where there's train tracks running through the outfield.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: I found that there was there was a minor league
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: baseball field in Mexico where that actually happened every single day.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Some of this stuff in that movie I remember, like
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: it's all coming back, like I saw it when I
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: was fun, so much fun, and it was on cable
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: a thousand times movies. Then you just kept watching again
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and again and again and again. I'll ask you the
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: same question. What's it like working with Richard Pryor being
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: on set with a legend a genius?
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: Oh great, I mean, I mean he was kind of
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: he was kind of in the middle of all of
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: all kinds of other stuff.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: So but he was very kind, he's very professional, he's
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: very funny.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: He was on time. He didn't have a he didn't
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: have this huge entourage. He didn't act like a big
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: shot in storm Off to his trailer, and.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. Now, another film in the eighties that you
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: worked on, which is again as high concept as you get,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: is Twins. Yes, of course, which is I mean, did
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: you come up with that idea? Did you get brought
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: into it?
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: So you get brought into it?
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a rewrite.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: It was a rewrite. It was a rewrite deal because
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: that I mean Arnold Smuzenegger, Dana Divido or Twins go well.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Well, Ivan, rightman, right, Okay.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: I have this script written by these two English guys
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: that it's a really good premise. I really wanted, I
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: really want to get it to Arnold and Danny, but
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: I only have one shot, so I needed to be
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: executed better and tailored for them better so that I
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: could send it to them and try to get them
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: on board. And I only have one shot, So do
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: you guys have any ideas?
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: So we're reading it was called The Experiment.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: It was written by these two English guys who actually
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: became really good friends of my writing partner.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: Anyway, so.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: We're reading it, and we come back and we say, yeah,
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: you know, we can do X, Y and C, but
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: basically we can solve the one big problem.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: He said, what's that? He said, they have to be
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: looking for their mommy. If they're not looking for their mommy,
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: you don't have a story. That's the heart. That's the
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: heart of the story.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: Okay, they're separated at birth, they don't know anything about anything.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: And then they find out about this experiment and and
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: you know, one's a genius and one's the you know,
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: the bottom of the gene.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Pool allegedly, and.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: This light bulb goes, I mean, okay, and then they
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: they have all these things in common and they bond.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: They find this thing.
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: But then but then after that, it's not about it's
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: not about that mcguffin that's in Danny DeVito's trunk. That
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: has to do with some crime that I never figured
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: out with that was what it's about.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: Is it's about Bomby. We have to find our mother.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: It is you're absolutely You're absolutely right. It is about
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: it's about Bomby. Uh. And again, I mean that's that
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: was a massive hit. I remember that in the video store.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: We had like twenty copies of it. It was massive
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: and massive.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: The poster, the poster, well it's you know, but you're.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Talking about the biggest movie star in the world at
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: the time, Arnold where yeah, with Danny DeVito, who was
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: a star in his own right, with Ivan Rightman as
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: the director who writes no slouch on his own But
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: from what I also heard the story, and you tell
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: me if it's true, I'm sure it is, but that
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the studio really didn't have a lot of confidence in
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the movie, and that Arnold, Ivan and Danny cut a
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: deal for a percentage of the back end, which brought
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: in an like the studio lost hundreds of something like that.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: They worked for scale plus ten.
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: Arnold, yes, because the studio didn't think that people would
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: see Arnold him in a comedy, and they weren't really
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: confident and so and actually when we heard that Ivan,
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: Arnold and Danny were gonna work for scale and just
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: take a nice pieces of gross, we said we'll do that.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: And the city said.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, no no.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: Writing. No, we can't wri writer.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: That's that's precedence. We can't do something like that.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: We can't do that.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: By the way, from what I understand, the studio head
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: after everything, I mean, I forgot what the I mean
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the numbers were the astronomical as far as what the
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: what they got the three of them got, it was
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: pretty astronomical, and uh, the studio had afterwards basically almost
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: lost a job. I think he's like because it was like,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: it's what it's like, you know, signing over the the
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: sequel rights and merchandising for Star Wars, like it's, well,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: it's one of those things. But then they opened that
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: door and they slammed it shut and it never happened again,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: not at all, because it was a massive cut. It
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: wasn't like a little bit of the back, and it
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: wasn't like Tom Cruise back in or Jack Nicholson on
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Batman back in. It's a massive chunk with FI.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: It was basically it was basically first dollar gross.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: On top of that, it wasn't even it was gross
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: and a lot of money. That was gross. So much
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: money they made off that, but I'm good for them.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: And then of course you follow that up with another
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: classic Mister Kindergarten Cop, which is another sale eye concept.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Arnold's a kindergarten teacher. Go, yeah, yes, he's an undercover
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: cop kindergarten teacher.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: That was a rewrite too. That was a rewrite too.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: And I haven't brought you guys in for that rewrite.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I have to ask what did it like working with
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Ivan Man? You know, you know, God rest his soul.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: He was just this amazing talent over the years. I mean,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: let's time to talk about Ghostbusters and everything else he's done. Yeah,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: but I mean, but what was it like becaulse You
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: collaborated with multiple films. What was it like collaborating with him?
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I haven't had.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: A very sentimental streak, which you kind of see in
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: his films, and he and he also had a tendency
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: to have you know, multiple unearned endings, so.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: So or multi earned multiple endings.
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: So, so what was nice about him was you could
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: talk him out of something interesting, you know.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: If you know so.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: So he was willing to listen and you know, collaborate,
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: and if you could convince him that your idea would
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: play a little better than what he had in mind,
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: he'd say, okay, go ahead, try it.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: So we did. That's a good collaborator, yeah, oh yeah,
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: he was great about that.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: That's a very good collaborator. And then, of course, I mean.
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, actually, I think he was a much better
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: producer than he was a director. I think his son's
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: a better director, pure and simple. But but Ivan knew
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: where the jokes were. He did Ivan, and Ivan knew
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: how to how to how to make a movie that
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: would that would be very successful and very accessible at
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: the same time. And all of his movies have heart
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: if you will, they're all they're all ultimately very heartwarming.
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: They're not they're not cynical right now, They're not. I
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: mean even I mean, Dave is a wonderful.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Self by the way, Oh Dave, that's it really is
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: the matter probably on his on his filmography. One of
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: the masterpieces that he created.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: Dave is a wonderful self.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: It is, it really really is. Junior was another fun one.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: We actually we passed on.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: You said, I can't write a pregnant Arnold.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: No, I mean we said, if people didn't think an
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: audience would accept Arnold in a comedy, how do you
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: think men and women will think of if Arnold is
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: a pregnant guy, his male fans will hate it and
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: women fans will just be horrified.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: So we said, no.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: That that movie gets financed today by the studio. You
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: think what you think that movie gets financed today by
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: the studios?
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: Of course not no, but you know Netflix release.
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: Curiously, when when Arnold was making true true lies for Cameron,
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: he demanded that Cameron bring us in to do a
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: dialogue polish for him. Get those guys who wrote Twins,
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: that kind agotten, cop, I want them to write my lines,
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: rewrite my lines?
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Now, how how did that work out? Did you do that?
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Did you do at It was fun?
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, I mean it was.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: It was uncredited, but we got to work with Cameron
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: and all those people.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Again, how do you work with Cameron as a writer,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: because he's he's one of the greatest screenwriters of his day.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: No, I mean he was fine. He was fine. He was.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, he had he had that plane. He had
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: mock ups to that plane in his office, and he's
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: showing us all all the great technical stuff and.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: You're there for jokes, and you're there for jokes.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we're just we're just there to do a polish
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: And he used a lot of it.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: He didn't use, you know, some of it. And we
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: just you know, we were on it for like a
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: few weeks. It was fun. Oh my god, that was fun,
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: really good movie. Oh and of course we knew Jamie
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: Lee and and I knew I knew Jim a little
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: bit because I knew Linda Hamilton because I because, okay,
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: this this is six degrees from Trading Places, so that gout.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: One of the guys who was a location scout on
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: Trading Places was in Philadelphia, and he became Linda Hamilton's
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: assistant on Beauty and the Beast.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: So it's so all town.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: He and I became friends, and then I and then
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: I met Linda, and then I have been friends with
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: ron Pearlman ever since.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Too small, small, small business.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: I'd love to work with Ronnie. Ronnie Ron Perlman is great.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: Ol boys. El Boy is one of my favorites, and.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: What Gambo did with Hell Boys is just I mean,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: it's it's a Those are masterpiece films. On a side note,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: with Kindergarten cop I did get to direct when I
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: was directing a film, mister Richard Tyson. Richard is amazing
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: and he still tells me to this day. He goes,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: I still have I still have adults your age come
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: up to me and go or not your age, maybe
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: younger than you, who come up to me and like
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: you ruined my childhood because he was harry. He was
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: because it's it's not a monster, that's just a dad
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: who's wants this kid and the mother and was much worse.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: He was really scary.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Oh she said like like oh god, I feel like
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: she had like was giving that kid much else syndrome.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Like I mean it was like you could tell there's
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: just such a We'll be right back after a word
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: from our sponsor and now back to the show. But yeah,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Richard played that part so well.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: Rich is from either Alabama or Louisiana, right.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's out there and he he did. I think
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: before that was three o'clock high. Yeah, those days of
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: the of those movies and then but he's like, no
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Kindergarten Cops. To this day, I walk around and people go,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: you because every Kindergarten Cops one of those movies that
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: everybody's seen or has been. You know, my kids saw
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: it the other day for the first time, and they
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: and they were terrified by I'm like, no, I work
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: with Richard. He's a nice guy, I know, but he's
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: doing the way is he taking the baby? Why is
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: he taking the kid like it was an actor? An actor?
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Oh God, don't even get me started. When I had
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: to explain to them it and that penny Wise was
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: actually an actor and we had to like show him
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: like how he's getting made up. But oh, they were
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: terrified there. So there was I wanted to ask you, says,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: You've worked with so many amazing collaborators. Is there any
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: lesson that sticks out over the years that you learned
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: from any of the collaborators you've worked with, whether director, actor,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: or other writers. Lessons about writing, lessons about storytelling, lessons
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: about the business.
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: Well, I had a really long and happy collaboration with
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: my writing partner, and one of the reasons for that
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: was we were friends and close friends long before we
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: ever started working together.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: And actually we saw the world the same way, which
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: is to say, the same things made us laugh, the
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: same things made us sad, the same things made us angry.
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: Okay, we have the exact same worldview. We like the
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: same books, we like the same music, we like the
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: same girls, we like the same everything. We met by accident.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: I was in film school in London. He was at
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: Cambridge University. He was a published novelist while at Cambridge.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: Obviously not bad and we met. We met by accident
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: in a little village in the south of Crete, where
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: I had gone for a week or two with my
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: English girlfriend just to get away from the bad weather
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: in England. We wanted to go to the furthest southern
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: furthest point in Europe in September, where it might be
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: still warm. So we go to this village of the
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: south of Crete called Myrtos, on the Libyan Sea, right
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: across from North Africa.
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, and there's no hotels. There's no motels.
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: You walk into a post office or some taverna when
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: you get off the bus and you try to have
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: your Greek handbook and you say in Greek, does anyone
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: have a room for let? And then suddenly somebody will
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: come around and rent you a room in there in
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: a house for fifty dollars a week. And she threw
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: in breakfast. She said, I'll through in breakfast. You speak
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: to me in English, I'll speak to you and Greek.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: Will both learn each other's languages. So I'm wandering around
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: there and I walk into this little little bar and
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: there's some long haired looking hippie there.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: It's Tim Harris. He's there with his English girlfriend.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: We're both Americans living in England, in London basically, and
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: then we became friends, and then and then we wound
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: up back in Los Angeles because he was actually born here.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: And then.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: His novels were all mysteries and thrillers, just like all
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: of the scripts that I was writing, exactly the same.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: So how did this happen?
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: So one of his books got option, and we're waiting
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: around to see if we can get a deal to
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: write the script.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: And he said, I have this girlfriend. She works for this.
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: Law firm near the airport. All the lawyers are female.
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: They only represent female clients who are getting divorced and
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: suspect that their husbands are hiding their essence.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: So he says.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: I got this great idea. You take that concept and
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: then you have them hire a male private eye to
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: rat out his own gender by finding the hidden assets
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: of other guys.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: Now that's that's a funny idea. And they made it.
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: It's a really bad movie, is it really? It was
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: a really okay that That was actually our first film.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: It's called Keeper to Keeper. So the producer was this
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: guy who did one of those early Gabe Kaplan movies.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Oh God, Jesus, while you're going back, Gabe cap Yeah, yeah.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: So.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Jesus.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: He was this He was this clothing guy from some
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: you know, Dallas or something, and he was sending the
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: scripture around to agencies and we he was offered George
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: Siegel and Candice.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Burden that would have been interesting for our.
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: Scripts, and he said, no, Mac Davis and Tova Felcher.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: So he became huge in the business of this guy,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: and he became huge in the business is running Hollywood.
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: Mac Davis and Tovah Felcher anyway, so the good news. Oh,
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: and he hired a British director named Ken Anakin who
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: did World War two movies. He had a tenere for
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: reach Us Dialogue American Dialogue.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: So it was just a win win win all around.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So, anyway, before this movie comes out, of course,
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: it's in the trades. It's been announced. These guys wrote
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: this comedy script. It's really funny. It's going around, it's
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: getting made, and all of a sudden, we're getting meetings
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: and getting offered. Because now we're comedy guys.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: They have to put you in a box exactly, which
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: brings me to my next question. You produced another film
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: in the nineties that I absolutely love, which is so
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: off your filmography.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: I'm so proud of them.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: It's falling down with Michael Douglas. I remember being so
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: that trailer was so brilliant. I remember going to the
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: theater opening night and watching that and I was just
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: blown away. Here's a Joel Schumacher film. And can you
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: imagine that film today getting released by its studio.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: And you imagine it's actually precious. It's it's it's angry.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: It's angry white guy.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: It's the angry white guy.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: He's but he's like angry, he's a trumpist.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: He's angry. It is such a it's such a brilliant film. Uh.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: And Michael Douglas played it. It's like why can't I
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: have breakfast? Yeah, it's it's ten oh five. We stopped breakfast.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: It's right there. Just put some eggs on. What's wrong
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: with you people?
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: I don't want to be your friend, Rick, I just
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: want some breakfast.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: So how did you get involved with the film like that?
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Being you know the comedy guys?
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: Okay, So we had this, We had an office at Universal,
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: We had a deal at Universal. We had a we
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: had we had to write a certain number of films
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: a year for a couple of years.
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: So we would bring them ideas, they bring us ideas,
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: and we can go to work, we choose to.
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: We'll find things that we want to do or that
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: they want to do, and we'll do it. So they
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: also gave us a little you know, housekeeping producer thing
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: first look, you know, production deal, which also entailed they
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: they hired and assisted for us. Who's going around town
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: reading scripts that you know, from the smaller agencies, right,
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: so you know, every weekend, he he finds a couple
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: of scripts and we go home, take them home to
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: read them. And he gave us falling down and I'm
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: reading it and I said, God, damn.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: It, I wish I would have written this.
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: This is so good. Now I have to get it made.
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: And Tim agreed with me, and we went into Universal
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: and they said no, and then we said okay. We
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: went to Warner Brothers and they told us that Warner Brothers,
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: that Arnold Copelssen had been trying.
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: To get it made. He had optioned it originally.
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: Currently the option had expired, but he was going to
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: renew it because he couldn't get it made as a feature.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: He's check this out.
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: He was trying to set it up at HBO, which
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: was a Warner company with Brian Denny.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: The Michael Douglas, I mean not bad.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm not angry at it. I mean it's
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: it's it's a different film.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: But Brian Denny, he could have pulled off a version
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: of that film.
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: Not exactly Peter Boyle, no, no, but Joe and Joe.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Right of course. But I think he would have done
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: something with it. Yeah, it would have been. It would
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: have been. But it's not. Michael Douglas.
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: No, Okay, So so we go and talk.
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: We meet a couple of younger producers up and coming
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: people at Warners, Lisa Henson and Lorenzo Bonaventura, who both
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: became gigantic producers I was going to say, and they
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: were really they really loved Falling Down, and they they
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: began to send it out to all these A list directors,
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: Peter Weir and guys like that, and nobody wanted to
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: do it. Nobody wanted to do Finally they got it
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: to c AA and CIA represented Michael Douglas and Joel
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: Schumacher and some other people in the cast, not Robert Duvall,
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: but you know, they basically packaged it. So Joel, I think,
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: was the godfather of Bruce Burman's, one of Bruce Bruce
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: Burman's children, and Bruce was head of production at Warners.
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: So he brings Joel in and Joel wants to do it.
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: And Joel had never done anything like this.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: I remember, I remember the flat liners. I like flats,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: I love flight, I love DC cab. Okay, I have
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: just a small cab.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: And then you know that he did Younger.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: What was the Empire when he did?
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: God, it wasn't very young vampire thing he did. I mean,
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: but you see, Joel's films.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: Were Lost Boys. What am y?
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, another classic lost Yeah.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: Lost boy.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: I mean Joe Joel's very stylish surfaces. He had a
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: really really good I mean, Joel was a window dresser
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: at Henry Bendelz in New York, I know, before before
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: you got into movies, right anyways.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: But Falling Down, that was the one thing I remember
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: from Falling Down is the color grating on that The
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: color timing on that film was gorgeous. That that red
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: orange e l a. You can smell the the the
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: air toxic and that la.
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: That first scene on the Harbor Freeway was the honking
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: and the that's all It's like right out of you know, Fellini, it.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Is, it is. You're right, You're absolutely right, it was.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: It was. It's a brilliant. Well now I know the
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: story because I was going through philmographer. I'm like, get
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: the help. How did these guys?
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: Okay?
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: So, but unfortunately Warner said, but you see, okay, look,
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: you guys could produce it. But Arnold Cobolson still has
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: to be on board because you see, he had it first.
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: But more importantly, he's just finished the film for us
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: that we're releasing next year that we think is going
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: to be really successful, so we don't want to offend him.
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: It's called the Fugitive.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: I knew it. I knew it. No, I right right,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: I knew where you're going.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: So okay, So they so they partner us up with Arnold,
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: the late Arnold Copleson, Yes, and we're in charge of okay.
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: There are some notes from the studio and friend from
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: Joel about.
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: Revisions, which which we then give to the writer who's
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: who's a really smart guy, Effie bro Smith. He was
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: an actor for that and a playwright, and he actually
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: executed them even better than what we could have imagined.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: But then we give that version to Arnold.
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: Arnold sends it out a title page only his name
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: is on it as the producer, which he continued to
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: do all the way through the production. All the way
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: through the credits. He had the credits shot produced by
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: Arnold Cobelson. And then there's the next car. It says
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: hershel Wine Guarden to me, it doesn't stay produced.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: By do you just have your names on it but
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: no credit?
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: Okay, So then.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: This is so Hollywood.
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: All all the way through he's trying to cut us out. See,
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: I mean, we were on that set. I mean he
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: was on the set every day, but I mean anyway,
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: so he so, so I get on the Okay, we
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: get a big time lawyer who deals with who has
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: deals with Warner Brothers. Name will go unnamed our law
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: firm at the time, and we get we get we
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: get Warner Brothers on the phone about I'm going to
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: have to reshoot the credits because contractually it says we
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: have a separate card that says produced by Well. They say, look,
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: we have a policy. We don't have separate producer cards
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: for every single producer. And I said, well, Mark, you
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: should look at your film Glen Gary, Glenn Ross sometimes right,
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: because there are separate cards for every single producer on that.
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: I love the movie, by the way, I love it.
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: So if you did it not too long ago, you
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: can do it again. So they had to reshoot the credits.
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: But once again, now it says produced by Arnold Copposen.
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: The next card says and person, why.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: But you still didn't get a produced die well and.
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: But but listen to this. So but Joel was so
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: upset that that he had to go back in and
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: reshoot the credits. He said, I don't understand you guys,
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: your credit is right before mine. I said, yeah, Joel,
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: but yours is directed by What if your card just
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: came up and said Joel Schumacher, Ye, what craft services?
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: Maybe it's craft services. I'm written, I'm written by, produced
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: by and then Joel s Marker. Well what did that
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: guy do? Doesn't say he was pissed? Oh my, another blake, Blake,
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: Joel Maker. I've worked for a lot of people who
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: are no longer here.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: But so you could talk, you could talk all tars
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: to smack. It's great.
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: No uh, Paul Paul Gleason from trading places and a
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: breakfast club.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Oh good lord. Now I have a very serious question
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: for you about one of your other projects. How could
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: you write dialogue for Bugs, Bunny, Porky Pig, and Michael
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: Jordan all in one script? That's a skill set, sir.
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: Okay, So.
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: I had to watch about twenty years of Looney Tune cartoons,
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: because well, I'm just to get the ear right about
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: about how each of these characters speak and and and
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: how they behaved, right, you know, I mean you, I
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: mean I have.
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: A pretty good year. I mean I thought I thought
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: a putty tat and all that kind of stuff. I
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: can do that.
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: I can I can do Daffy, and I can do bugs,
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: porky pig.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: By the way, before you continue, we're talking about space Jam,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: the original. That's what for anybody listening, like, what.
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: Are you talking about?
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: It's the movie space Jam, very big hit with a
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: little known basketball player named Michael Jordan.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: Yes, so Warner Brothers.
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: They actually have a Looney Tune police department where if
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: if you're gonna two of any if you're going to
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: use any Looney Tunes characters, they're going to read and
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: they'll say, Nope, Nope, he'd never say that. Bugs would
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: never say that. Bugs would never do that. And I
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: had I had a point out. Well actually in this
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: in this cartoon, he did he did see that.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: Could you do the research?
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I had to do. So it was a lot
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: of fun.
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: That was also a rewrite and we didn't have an
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: ending until Michael Jordan decided to retire from minor league
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: baseball and go back to the NBA, and all of
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: a sudden, all our problems were solved.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Right because see exactly so he helped you with the ending.
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: Of course he wrote it for us.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: And that was another massive I mean, that was a
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: pretty massive hit for Warner Brothers, very very massive hit,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: and I argue it is a little bit better than
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: the remake. That's just my personal opinion. I was forced
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: to watch the remake with my children. I came. I
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: was during the pandemic when it came out, so to
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: be fair, but the thing about you also with that
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: movie was directed by another legendary director, mister Joe Pittka.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Now before we continue, yes, we'll be right back after
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: I have one hundred Joe pick the stories that I
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: love it.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: I love it. I love him.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: If you can say any of any Joe Pitka story publicly.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: Oh that well, that's we could stay.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: We could talk about it offline or over a drink
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: at the Argypal Festival. But is there anything you can
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: say publicly? Because Joe is an infamous director who is
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: one of the most talented commercial directors arguably in history,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: up there with Ridley Scott and I mean and David
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: Fincher and those kind of I mean he is.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: He had he had a reputation when he worked on
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: commercials of having a temper and a little bit verbally
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: abusing people.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: And he's and he's like six ' eight Polish guy
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: from Pittsburgh.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: That it was a very large, imposing.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: Large imposing man. That's right.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: And he was I mean, I I mean, I was
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: working in the when I got started in the business
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: as a director, actually came up as a director as
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: a commercial director in the commercial business. Oh so I
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: just heard in the we're talking about the mid nineties
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: to late nineties, early two thousands, Joe Pitkaz.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: I mean he was great to us.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: Oh so did he work? Was it a little bit
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: different in the in the feature film world. I didn't
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: hear anything about how he worked in the future.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: Nothing, I mean, nothing bad happened at all. I mean
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: he was he was a ponal teddy bear, is he really?
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: It was just he was a commercial and it's just
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: the clients he didn't like that.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: He was great. Well, I mean, okay, I can say
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: something nice. Later on.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: He and his wife there like they opened this this
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: incredible I think French restaurant.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: It's like a gourmet chef. His wife is right, and
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: he says, huge gourmet of French food, I mean, high
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: end Michelin star stuff.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Back in the day, and he was brought on because
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: he did the I think he did the commercial versions
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: of it. Wasn't there the commercials? Well, you see Bugs
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Bunny and that it came.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: Out of some McDonald's commercials I think with Bugs Bunny
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: and Michael.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: Jordan, right, and then maybe it was Coca Cola. It
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: was something like that, and those were so popular that
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, look, Warners had not made a
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: feature with the Looney Tunes and I don't know forty
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: years right, there's World War two probably one of those
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: propaganda features.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: And they brought Joe and that's and that's such a
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: classic studio thing, like who did the commercials, Let's get
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: him to do the feature because he had never done
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: a feature before. He never directed a future before.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: So it's just but he did like every Super Bowl commercial,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: like he was the biggest commercial director in the world.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, Okay, So here's a really good story.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: So when they brought us on, Okay, So Michael Michael
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: Jordan's agent, David Fawkes, was was one of the big
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: movers of this project, and he represented a lot of
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: other great NBA players. So anyway, they come to us
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: and they say okay, So we love your script, we
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: love your rewrite.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: Okay. So casting, So who do you want to be
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: the mon stars? What's your wish list? He said, Well,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: Charles Barkley, he said done. How about Patrick Ewing done?
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: Mugsy Bowes, He's short, funny done.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: Sean Bradley seven to six called the stick, the big
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: skinny white guy from b YU.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you can have him. Okay.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: So who's Michael playing? Yeah, who's who's Michael playing golf
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: with that? You know when he like falls down the hall,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: I said, Bill.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: Murray and uh, Larry Bird done? What?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: By the way, it's so funny. I'm literally in the
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: middle of watching Last Dance again because I just love
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: that documentary. It's amazing and watching those guys as we're talking,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: all those guys are fresh in my mind because they
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: see them on the Dream Team and oh yeah, and
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: I just saw that new documentary The Redeemed Team on Netflix,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: which is all about when we lost the Olympics and
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: then the year after Kobe went back with the other
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: ones and wanted again and what they had to do.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: But it's yeah, those guys were just it was a
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: different time. It was just such a different time back
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: I was.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: We actually went to that golf course. It was in
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: Lake Arrowhead when they shot that scene. It was really fun.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: Oh so you're there, well improvising.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: Bill Murray was a great improviser. He is a great improviser,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: se because because he actually wrote the line. Okay, so
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: when you know he's trying to hit up Michael and saying, look,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: you think I could You know, I can dribble and
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: I don't. I can't jump that great, but I could.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: I could shoot. I mean, do you think there's any
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: chance I can make it in the NBA? And Michael
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: sutan says no. Bill says, it's because I'm white, Right,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: Larry's white. Larry's not white, but Larry's clear. Bill Murray
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: made that up. It was great.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: What a great line.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: Larry's not white, Mike, Larry's clearly.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Here translucent herschel. I could keep talking to you for
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: hours before I'm going to ask you a few questions.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Ask all of my guests. What advice would you give
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: a screenwriter trying to break into the business today.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: I keep a little posted on my desk, go something
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: like this. Inspirationists for amateurs, sit down, shut up, and
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: get to work.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Good piece. It's a good piece of advice.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: You know. Well. The other one is a lot of
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: people say, write what you know wrong?
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: What does Shakespeare know about Verona? Or something's rotten in Denmark?
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: You think he spent a lot of time in Denmark
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: or the Merchant of Venice? Was he like, did some research?
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: I don't think so. No, don't write what you know about,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: write what you care about. Yeah, i'd say that.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: That's a great piece of advice. Now, what is the
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether in
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: the film industry or in life.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: Wow, the longest to learn? M and I have to
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: think about that.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, come, we'll come back to it and be like,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: I'm still learning.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: Now. And three of your favorite films of all time?
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: What's that?
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: Three of your favorite films of all time?
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: Three of my favorite films of all time? Furdigo, mm hmm,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: Cuckoo's and ask oh so good Dog Day Afternoon.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can't go wrong with any of those,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: my friend. Those are all those are all good ones
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: to have on the list without questions. I mean, I mean,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: I mean hundreds of hundreds, but yeah, those are the
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: three that come up today and you and so one
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: other thing. You and I are both going to be
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: at the little little film festival that could the Austin
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Film Festival. Uh, you're in Austin coming up in the month.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: I love your story. You told me off Eric. Can
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: you tell me how you got involved with the Austin
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: Film Festival all those years ago.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: Well, I was reading about how there's this film festival
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: in Austin. It's the only one that's devoted to screenwriting.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: So I thought, well, I'd like to go and be
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: a part of that, at least watch it. So I
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: found the name of the founder. She's actually still running it,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: Barbara Morgan. She's fantastic and I wrote her and I
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: introduced myself and I said, look, your festival sounds fantastic.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: I'm very supportive. I'd like to volunteer my services.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: I'll find myself out and put myself up and if
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: you want to put me on some panels or something,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: I'd like to be involved and see what it's like.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: And she said okay.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: And that was about two thousand and three and I've
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: been going ever since.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: They can't get rid of you when they cover.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: Our little breaks. They keep asking me back.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: They can't get rid of you.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: Oh they have good Listen, there's a barbecue pit in
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: the airport, so I'll beat you.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: Right there. And that's not even Austin's best, but it's
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: pretty good.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: It's from what I hear, is one of the best
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: barbecues out here. Yeah, question, so yeah, I mean there's
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: worse places to go, is what you're saying. Well, I
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: mean the.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: Other thing that's great about Austin is it's like nowhere
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: in Texas.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: Nowhere in Texas.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: It's like you're in Berkeley exactly.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: People are like, oh, you moved to Texas. I go no, no, no, no,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: I moved to Austin. Austin, completely different world.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: It's like, I mean, yeah, I mean you're there, so,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: but I mean other people don't know. I mean, you
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: walk into a local gift store even in the airport.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: That and as the T shirts say, keep Austin weird.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: Absolutely and bat and something about the bats and yeah something.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's a hippie. It's like we're all the
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: crazy creative artists of the last fifty years, sixty years,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: and Texas all gravitated to that. It is Berkeley. It is,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: it is the San Franciscofexas.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's it's It's ann Arbor back in the day,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: I suppose, once upon a time.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, for anybody who's ever been to Miami, it's
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: a little bit different than Gainesville or the rest or
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: the rest of Florida. Is a general statement in Miami
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: slightly different.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean you don't see a lot of
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: rednecks in Austin.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: That much.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: No, it's you gotta go. You have to go out
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: to the hill country. I suppose you go out.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: To no farther further, further, further, farther further. But listen, heel,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure talking to you. I look forward
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: to catching up with you here in Austin when you
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: come through the awesome film festival. And thank you from
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: the bottom of my heart for being a part of
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: so many amazing films that have helped shape my my youth,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: my friends. So I appreciate you so so much.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: Man, thank you, my friend. I enjoyed it.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: I want to thank Herschel so much for coming on
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: the show and dropping his knowledge bombs on the tribe today.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Herschel If you want to get
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: over to the show notes at any film aussole dot
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: com Forward slash seven sixty two, and if you have
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: so much for listening. Guys, As always, keep that hustle going,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: talk to you soon.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: Indie film Hustle dot com.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: That's I N D I E F I L M
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: h U S T l E dot com.