Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 694: Screenwriting for Schwarzenegger & Stallone with Miles Chapman

Transcript

IFH 694: Screenwriting for Schwarzenegger & Stallone with Miles Chapman · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

0:03
You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
0:08
podcasts, just go to IFH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Indie
0:13
Film Houstle Podcast, Episode number six ninety four. Be ruthless about protecting your
0:18
writing days. I e. Do not cave into the endless request to have
0:23
in quotes essential and long overdue meetings on those days. End quote. JK.
0:30
Rowling Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie Film Hustle
0:36
Podcast, where we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker
0:40
in the jungles of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
0:46
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I
0:49
am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
0:53
the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into a profitable business. It's
0:58
harder today than ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with their films from
1:02
predatory film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators who prey upon them.
1:06
The odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker. The old distribution model of making
1:11
money with your film is broken and there needs to be a change. The
1:15
future of independent filmmaking is the entrepreneurial filmmaker or the film entrepreneur. In Rise
1:21
of the Film Entrepreneur, I break down how to actually make money with your
1:25
film projects and show you how to turn your indie film into a profitable business.
1:30
With case studies examining successes and failures. This book shows you the step
1:34
by step method to turn your passion into a profitable career. If you're making
1:38
a feature film, series, or any other kind of video content, the
1:42
Film Entrepreneur method will set you up for success. The book is available in
1:48
paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook. If you want to order it,
1:52
just head over to www dot film bizbook dot com. That's film Bizbook
1:59
dot com. Well, guys, today on the show we have screenwriter Miles
2:05
Chapman. Miles wrote Escape Plan, starring the legendary Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger,
2:13
and spawned a trilogy of franchise around the concept of Escape Plan for Sly
2:20
and his cohorts, and I wanted to kind of dig into how he got
2:24
into the business how he was able to land Escape Plan, which was originally
2:29
a spec script that he wrote, and how it went from the original script
2:34
to what it came to be in the final movie. And we also talk
2:38
about some of his early successes, early failures, things that which could have
2:43
been different. But we really get a great idea not only about how to
2:46
write a great action movie, but also the business and the behind the scenes
2:52
politics of what goes on when working on a franchise film with very large,
3:00
larger than life figures like Sly and Arnold, and some of the stories are
3:07
entertaining as hell. So, without any further ado, please enjoy my conversation
3:13
with Miles Chapman. I'd like to welcome to the show, Miles Chapman Man.
3:16
How you doing, Miles, I'm good man. Thanks for having me.
3:20
Oh, thank you for coming on the show. Man, I'm I'm
3:22
excited to talk to you about all sorts of things that've happened in your career.
3:27
But before we get into all of that, how did you get into
3:30
the business in the first place? All right, Well, I was I
3:34
came by way to the theater. Okay, I had gone to grad school
3:37
as an actor of all things, and met my wife there and moved to
3:42
New York afterwards. Was kicking around and had always I had been an English
3:47
major in college before getting into acting, and it had always been interested in
3:51
stories. Long story short. We had theater company in New York. That
3:57
was good. I wrote a play and realized that the writing of it was
4:00
so much more fun to me than the acting of it. I realized I
4:01
wasn't writing parts for myself. Um. And then my wife, who was
4:06
still an actor, she started testing for pilots out here. I was writing
4:13
more plays than anything else. Thought I would transition into being a trying to
4:15
be a TV writer, and then got a got hooked up with a manager
4:18
on the film side. Now this is a while ago, so back then
4:21
you could still do movies or TV. Nowadays managers, you know, kind
4:26
of have to do both. Um. And that was kind of how it
4:28
got started. Just who I wanted to tell stories, who I wanted to
4:31
write, and after having written a couple of plays, just felt like,
4:36
um, I wanted to be a little more. UM, I don't know,
4:41
expand my horizons a little bit. Now. When how well, first
4:46
of all, when did you when you got your manager? How many a
4:48
screenplays had you had written prior to getting that manager? Right? So the
4:54
first manager I had, Who's Who's not hoo? I'm with now? Um.
4:58
I was through a connection. It's a funny story. My wife who
5:01
had been testing for pilots out here in LA and flew home one time with
5:04
a fella in a wheelchair. She got to talking to him. He was
5:09
a writer, he had some connections in LA. So when I flew out
5:13
to try to meet some people, he had very kindly taken a few i'd
5:16
written. I think I had written a West Wing and a Buffy the Vampire
5:20
Slayer spects. So it tells you what time are you? Yes, and
5:24
there's back when you wrote TV spects. I hear now that it kind of
5:28
fluctuates sometimes sometimes spects are in, sometimes original scripts are in. So he
5:32
had passed those along. Also, you know a friend of a friend my
5:38
wife had taught acting in Georgia with Tony Schalube's sister, Tony Schalube, the
5:43
Wonderful Monk. Yes, and so my wife shot a little movie in New
5:47
York that Tony was the star of. Tony found her in her dressing room
5:51
chair instead. Are you Eric Erica Yoder and anyway, Tony had passed a
5:57
few of my things along too, so that kind of all happened one week
6:00
out here in LA I was still living in New York, and I ended
6:05
up meeting the fella in the wheelchairs. Um, manager, and that became
6:10
my first manager experience. Um, that is such an l a story.
6:15
It's uh, you know my wife, My wife is the most social person
6:19
of the world. She saw him zipping around the gate and then ended up
6:23
sitting right next to him on the airplane. They got to talking. He's
6:26
a lovely guy, um, and was nice enough to pass along my material.
6:30
So, um, you know it, Uh, it worked out.
6:33
I wasn't I was with the manager of just a couple of years, and
6:36
I had to answer your question. I had never I had never finished a
6:40
film script before really had written these two TV pilots or space, and I
6:46
had written a couple of plays, um, none of which had gone to
6:48
Broadway, obviously, and it was so not Hamilton. It wasn't the not
6:53
so much, it wasn't anything like that. So but also but for the
6:58
audience to understand that that would not happen more likely today in today's marketplace,
7:04
that you would just pick up with two pilots unless the pilots were written,
7:08
like you know it was Tarantino and Aaron Sorkin had a kid. Yeah,
7:12
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I think so much of that
7:15
You're a two thousand or so was about potential. I think I think managers
7:21
back then were still looking for agents as well, potential who who seems like
7:27
they can write, who seems like they have a commercial sensibility. Whatever they're
7:30
looking for that appears to happen less so today that if today it seems more
7:34
like and again I should preface this by saying, like, you know,
7:39
we all have our own experiences. What I say, I'm sure you've had
7:42
you know, you've had thousands of screenwriters come on and talk. But in
7:45
my experience, you know, if you don't have a piece that somebody feels
7:48
like they can do something with actively, they're probably not going to sign you.
7:55
I don't know what your experience has been, but that, you know,
7:58
it's my reading of the market today. Yeah, and it's and it
8:01
could be. Yeah, I've seen people look at like a UM sign based
8:03
off of potential. There is still a little bit of potential, not as
8:07
much just a couple of pilots, but like if they have a screenplay or
8:13
a pilot that's really powerful, or more like a screenplay that has a it's
8:16
a good writing sample, and just go all right, this guy has or
8:20
this girl has potential, they might sign it or they might I've heard I've
8:24
heard of managers and agents also just like putting them on the shelf, and
8:28
like stewing them is a term like let's let's let's nurture them, let's see
8:35
where they come, let's keep writing. Hippocketing. Yeah, it was kind
8:41
of like a hip pocketing. Yeah, like I'm hip pocketed at a heard
8:43
I've heard eight I've heard filmmakers and screenwriters say I'm hip pocketed by an agent
8:48
in CIA. I'm like, that means nothing, right. It was one
8:54
of the and I think, really, in thinking back, Alex uh,
8:58
those guys probably were a hip hop getting me the guys I first got with
9:01
because we worked on him. I had an original idea for a script and
9:05
we worked on it together and you know, it didn't really get any better,
9:07
and so we agreed to kind of part ways after about a year a
9:11
year and a half. And it was right after that I went off,
9:15
and as I say, I went off and kind of learned how to write
9:18
a movie. I think I had some arrogance, like a lot of people
9:20
coming out to LA. I've seen a lot of movies. I must know
9:22
how to write one's. It's the only business I know of. You never
9:28
go and go look at that cake in the bakery. I could do that.
9:31
Oh I just heard a symphony. I can't write that like no other
9:35
I look at that building, I can build that noe. But screenwriting specifically
9:39
even worse than it's worse than filmmaking. It's tricky. Now. My wife
9:43
who acted for a while, she doesn't anymore, but you know, she
9:46
did a pretty high budget short film where they fell in directing it. You
9:52
know who was awesome. He was a former editor, he had a great
9:56
crew, he had everything. We'll be right back after a word from our
10:00
sponsor, and now back to the show. You know, the one thing
10:07
they hadn't hammered out as well as everything else was the script. And you
10:11
know, uh, it sounds like you're to your point like that that that
10:16
that sometimes is like oh if I can see it, I've got these great
10:20
visuals in my mind. And that doesn't always lead to great filmmaking. Um,
10:26
A lot of times, in my experience, filmmakers a lot of times
10:30
get so caught up in the the romantis, the romantic image of Kubrick or
10:37
Nolan or Fincher or Spielberg or Scorsese and the and the shots. But the
10:41
thing that they don't understand is those are all masters of the craft and understand
10:46
story first and foremost before they got all these cool technical aspects of it.
10:52
I mean, Kubrick is an amazing example of that, you know, in
10:58
a weird way, Like I left that manager and then kind of learned how
11:01
to write a movie. I kind of said, Okay, maybe I should
11:03
take this little more seriously. Uh not that I thought that I wasn't.
11:07
I moved out here and everything, but sure, and then and then I
11:11
wrote a script or two and then actually that got read by the manager who's
11:16
still my manager today. And so this is back in two thousand and four
11:20
maybe and that one. But they were cool. They wanted to work with
11:26
me on it and see where we landed. Rather than it is amazing at
11:28
least back then, there was a lot of this, oh, sign with
11:31
us, and we'll give you our notes, you know, that does not
11:35
happen today. That does not happen. And I think the manager thing was
11:39
a lot newer back then. There were a lot of people trying to kind
11:43
of carve their niches managers, and therefore they wanted they wanted volume, I
11:48
guess, and potential potential because they wanted to get as many kernels of corn
11:54
in the in the pan to see which one pops. Yeah, fair enough,
11:58
fair enough, but that it's kind of how And then through working with
12:01
them, we worked well together. They then submitted that script to some agencies
12:07
and that's how I got my first agent. And and I always just want
12:11
you to I always anytime someone comes on who has uh, you know,
12:16
credits and experience and are obviously professional writers, I want you to just please
12:20
play this myth out. An agent is only interested in people that they can
12:26
make money with. And an agent is not a guaranteed check. It's not
12:31
a guarantee that they're gonna get work there. Yeah, yeah, that first
12:33
thing you said, Yeah, I have this conversation all the time when people
12:39
are like, do you like your agent? Well, the end there's a
12:43
second question that are you making your agent money? Like that that that you
12:46
know you probably don't like your agent if you're not making and they're not really
12:50
calling you a lot, if you're not making them money. That's that's the
12:54
the business transaction. Yeah, everyone who loves their agent, it's because things
12:58
have worked out. Yeah, either they've made a tremendous amount of money for
13:01
them in the past, and that kind of good will carries you over.
13:05
But that does wear out too. Even these big movie stars that were once
13:09
making ten or fifteen million, when their star starts to dim, you see
13:13
them change to new agencies. I've been with through four or three or four
13:18
agents over my career. I have liked as people liked them all. And
13:24
you know something, the relationship is based on what's happening in the workplace.
13:28
You know, if they usually when you sign you, if you're fortunate,
13:33
you get a kind of a honeymoon period, kind of an active period,
13:39
and if you don't convert for whatever reason, um, that kind of dissipates
13:43
because you know, especially at the bigger agencies, they just got way too
13:48
many other clients to try to serve. It's whichever horse is making the money.
13:52
It's it's as brutal as that it's what horses making the money. But
13:56
you're so good to point that out, though, because the romanticized notion of
14:00
the agent. I think creating. I'm a big one on not wasting energy
14:05
and emotional energy is specifically what we do. Takes a lot of time,
14:09
takes a lot of bang in your head against the wall. Um. And
14:11
I'm not good when I'm in chaos. Some writers are some creative people are.
14:16
I'm good when I'm locked in and spending energy worrying about why my agent
14:20
hasn't called me in fourteen hours. You know, I'm watching the clock called
14:24
him yesterday at noon. Why haven't I heard about it. It's just not
14:28
something that I do anymore. And and some of it is having enough experience
14:33
to recognize that if I do my thing right, hopefully they will be calling
14:39
me. Okay, man, you never know. But but and I can't
14:43
expect them. If I'm not getting calls, I need to write a new
14:46
thing, you know, Like I sit around and badger them over the over
14:50
escape plan, which came out now seven years ago, is useless. Like
14:54
there's no there's no you know, unless you want to just get frustrated and
15:00
say bad things about the industry, which is what that leads to well yeah,
15:03
and also too for writers, you know, we we look for any
15:07
excuse not to write. So we're like, well, you know what,
15:13
I'm not gonna write today because I'm gonna be pissed off at my age and
15:16
I'm gonna like and that's an excuse, am I am? I right?
15:20
We look for reasons like tomorrow, Oh, but I'm gonna I have something
15:24
else to focus myself on. And it's if you're doing your job just right,
15:28
just right, you shouldn't be waiting for someone to call you. You
15:31
should be writing and constantly creating product or potential product that can get you to
15:35
the next level. And they if you, like you said it was such
15:37
a great comment, If you're doing your job right, they will call you.
15:43
I think so, I think so like and and you know we I
15:46
think we've all had friends. I've probably done it myself. Who you know,
15:52
you say, oh, someone's loved my script. Okay, that's all
15:54
great. That in a free bowl of suit gets you a free bawl suit.
16:00
So if your script is being loved ten times, but you've not gotten
16:03
a job, you've not sold it, you're not you start. It's a
16:07
look in the mirror moment. I'm a big, big one on those two,
16:10
Like how can I I can't fix somebody at CIA or somebody at you
16:15
know, imagine, or I can only take care of myself. And if
16:18
I'm not getting the results I want, maybe that script that I thought was
16:22
so great, maybe it's a lot easier to say we love it. Then
16:26
they sit down and give notes that are really helpful. Um. That's another
16:30
thing I've found to be true that I do think people have the best intentions
16:33
in terms of saying stuff. But if you say you're lukewarm on something,
16:37
you have to explain why. And it takes time, especially to give giving
16:40
good notes to think is one of the hardest, most time consuming things to
16:42
do. And you know, some people just don't want to spend that time
16:48
on a script. Script they thought was a so they say it was great,
16:51
It was great, but you know, we'll see what we can do
16:52
with it. So do you do you? Also? I mean in La
16:56
specifically, you can be loved to death like you. There's so much love.
17:02
Everyone's loving your script. Everyone's You're the next hot thing. I'm like,
17:06
yeah, but the checks aren't coming in, the jobs aren't coming in.
17:08
I've never and I've said this a thousand times, this is the town
17:11
that gives you the best f us I have ever seen anywhere in the world.
17:18
There's it's an art form here. They will never straight up tell you
17:22
this story sucks, your writing sucks, you shouldn't be in the business.
17:27
I will never hear that from a major agency here. I mean, just
17:30
because you just don't. The reason why they don't do is because you don't
17:33
know. You know, I think that's right. You know, you never
17:37
know if that thing with the right tweak or the right twist, or the
17:40
right rewrite, or five years down the line, he writes Titanic, you
17:45
don't want to be the guy who said or the woman who said, man,
17:48
you suck. You should leave, to go back to Iowa, or
17:51
go back to Philly, or go back to you know, Massachusetts, wherever
17:53
you came from. Like, yeah, no, I agree, I agree,
17:56
and I do think it's um it's it's so hard to figure out the
18:03
other thing. Another great I'm gonna give your audience a lot of ways to
18:07
waste your time and energy. Fantastic the ways I used to energy. I'm
18:11
like, well, wait a minute, I saw that movie and that movie
18:15
was written by person X, and that movie wasn't that good. But then
18:18
person X got to write another movie and that movie wasn't that good either.
18:22
Why has person X so much further long than I am? Couldn't be a
18:26
bigger, more natural, but bigger waste of time, Like because as you
18:32
know, the things that go on behind the scenes and what it ends up
18:36
on the movie screen sometimes has very little to do with what that writer actually
18:41
wrote in that first draft that got everybody excited and got every attachments popping and
18:45
got the studio buzzing. By the time that thing ends up being filmed,
18:51
it can be sometimes it can be a lot better, but sometimes it can
18:55
be a lot worse. Like it's such a the things that I always call
18:59
it the castle wall, Like the writer starts out outside the castle wall.
19:03
The studio and the green light is on the other side of the castle wall,
19:06
and everything we're doing is to try to get through that, over that
19:10
castle wall, and it feels like it is the hardest thing that's ever,
19:15
you know, been done in the writing world. Right now, if you
19:18
ever get over it, whether with the studio executive they attach a big star,
19:22
then it's like it seems like everything speeds up. It's all about just
19:26
getting that movie made now, and the care and the time that maybe happened
19:30
outside the castle wall. Now you've got to go movie. It gets a
19:34
little crazy, it gets a little so many moving parts, so much money.
19:38
Yeah, especially when you get you know, director egos involved, producer
19:42
egos involved, actors egos involved. I mean, if you read, if
19:45
you read Shane Blacks's Last Boy Scout and you watch Last Boy Scouts, they're
19:51
just you know, it's completely different. They're just completely different. The script,
19:56
his script is amazing, and the movie's not bad. I enjoyed it
19:59
because it was Tony Scott and all that good stuff. We'll be right back
20:03
after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. But it
20:11
was so much better on the page. And on the opposite side, you
20:15
read the original Pretty in Woman and you read the film version of it,
20:22
which then Gary Marshall, Gary Marshall, did you know. I knew a
20:26
producer who worked on that, and he told me the whole story and it
20:30
was just brilliant because this is such a screenwriter thing to do. He wrote
20:33
this gritty ending to Pretty Woman and was I think the movie was called A
20:37
thousand Bucks or three thousand bucks or something like that if you remember right.
20:42
And then at the end, Richard Gear's character literally throws Julia Roberts out into
20:48
the street and just throws the money at her and drives off in the limo.
20:52
And that was pretty woman. And Gary Marshall came in and did the
20:57
master work that he did. And then after the first screening, the screen
21:02
writers like, that's not my vision. That's not what I wrote. When
21:06
it made two hundred million dollars, he's like, I did that. That
21:07
was me, all right, And that's you know, it's funny. I
21:11
think I can't right. You know, you sit, you sit in your
21:15
bunker. If you write by yourself and don't have a writing partner, sit
21:18
in your bunker by yourself. Uh, it's a kind of insanity while you're
21:22
doing it. And and so sometimes you have very legitimate things that people screw
21:30
up or change. Screw up means that's that's a that's an interpretation word.
21:34
It's changed, and you feel in your soul as an artist that that was
21:38
the wrong choice. But other times I call it scar tissue. We have
21:42
banged our heads against it for so long that any sort of change on it
21:47
feels wrong to us. But it's not like it's better or worse. It's
21:51
just different, and different feels very weird when you've spent six months to a
21:55
year, you know, wrestling with something. And so I always try to
21:59
be let's try to remember the film at the end of the day. It's
22:02
a collaborative thing. It's a collaborative art form. And you know, uh,
22:06
and if you take the money to shut up that that's that's my other
22:11
unless you're giving it back. I don't think anybody wants to hear about it.
22:15
I may have to take that quote from you. Um, if you
22:18
take the money, shut up unless you're giving it back. Unless you're ready
22:23
to give it back, I don't think anybody really wants to hear about what
22:26
studio did what to your script? And isn't that the other thing? I
22:30
mean, you could pull up James Cameron and just not get paid for Titanic
22:33
and just give all his money back and just so you have creative control and
22:34
then it works out at the end. Yeah, And you know what,
22:40
I know, let's be clear, if you've written your opus, your film,
22:44
that it but just don't sell it. You know, like if you
22:47
if if you want to control it, don't sell it like it seems very
22:51
I don't know. Um yeah, that's that's words to live by, right,
22:56
Yes, absolutely. Now your first gig, sir, if I maybe,
23:02
if I maybe correct, your first gig was Roadhouse Too? Is that
23:04
correct? That is? That was my first job? So I have to
23:07
ask, because Roadhouse is it's a masterpiece. It's a masterpiece of eighties action.
23:15
I mean, there's just no question about it. Is on my probably
23:18
the top ten, if not top fifteen of eighties action movies. And that's
23:22
high praise because eighties action is pretty pretty high competition in the eighties for action
23:27
Toms and and Patrick and everything. So they come to you and go,
23:33
do you want to write Roadhouse Too? And I'm sure you go is Patrick
23:36
in it? And He's like, no, Well, first, so tell
23:40
me the story. I'll tell you. Yeah. Um. So Roadhouse somehow
23:47
had gotten locked up. I guess it was MGM, the original Roadhouse I
23:49
can't remember it was. Yeah, it was it was this Silver Yeah,
23:52
Silver produced it. Yeah. Yeah. But and somehow Sony had gotten control
23:56
of it. And Sony was very hot back then in the mid two thousands
24:00
on doing direct to videos sequels, Finding, Finding, And here's the thing
24:06
that I'm sure you understand and that I will, I will crow to the
24:10
cows come home. Okay, It's happened to me a number of times now.
24:14
Everybody had in these processes. I do believe everybody had good intentions to
24:18
try to make a decent movie, Okay, But when budget is not made
24:25
clear to the writer and shooting schedule, it's pivot. It's pivotal. People
24:30
like this disconnect between producer and studio saying we're gonna we're not gonna be a
24:37
huge budget. That means one thing as that's but that's not a seventeen day
24:41
shoot, like you know seventeen No action movie should really be shot in seventeen
24:45
days unless it's like one location, right, you know anything that. And
24:52
so they came to me, and I was trying to get the job.
24:56
So I love my early d I don't know where it if I even still
25:00
have in my own original draft of Roadhouse too. Um, it was supposed
25:04
to be swayzy in it, doing kind of an Obi wan Kenobi in the
25:08
bouncer world kind of thing, like teaching a younger character to sort of take
25:12
the Mantle. Now, if I was a little more savvy back then,
25:17
I would have known that there was no way he was going to do this
25:18
thing like it wasn't the budget wasn't there, you know, the budget wasn't
25:22
there. Any any established movie start like him would see how long you shooting
25:26
this for and be like, no, it's not a theatrical Yeah yeah,
25:29
yeah, yeah. I mean but they always say if if it's good,
25:32
we'll go theatrical. But that in a couple of soup gets you a cup
25:37
of soup. Yeah yeah, maybe maybe maybe they don't say it anymore,
25:40
but uh um so, But but I still I wrote what I thought was
25:45
a great and I had loved the first one. I'd seen the first one
25:47
twenty times. I mean, I really you know, Uh? And can
25:51
I can I drop obscenities on this? Uh? If you we we allow
25:55
one per episode, So go for it. And I'll go ahead. Well,
25:57
if I'm quoting maybe the greatest line in Roadhouse, can I say it,
26:02
go for it? You know, Jimmy across the river to Swayze,
26:06
I used to fuck guys like you in prison. It's one of the great
26:10
moments I remember the first time I saw it just that like it is so
26:17
anyway. So I had tried to write a real worthy uh sequel to move
26:23
and through the production process, like with a lot of things where the budget
26:29
isn't you know, the first budget of the first one was huge, Like
26:32
it was a big budget. It was you know Joel Silver production, right,
26:36
Yeah, and the corners get knocked off. I think that's a fair
26:40
way to say it, like, yeah, they're just certain things that happened.
26:42
And so I was happy to have had the job. It was amazing
26:45
while I was working on it to be able to tell people in parties that
26:48
I was actually writing the uh you know, the sequel to Roadhouse. I
26:52
had a guy at a one party tell him that movie is when he realized
26:53
he was gay. You know those things like, you know, awesome watching
26:57
Patrick Swayzy do tai Chi in his sweatpants. Uh you know, um that
27:03
turned got it right, right? Um? Uh, So it was a
27:08
cool first experience. Um, you know the finished product is well, it
27:15
was a it was a little bit of a miss, but again that's a
27:18
that's that's the hazard of all screenwriters, even the biggest screenwriters on the planet.
27:23
They unless they are producers or unless they're directing, or unless they have
27:27
you know, there there's Sorkin scripts that wasn't what Sorkin wanted. There's you
27:33
know, Tarantino's privately different because he directs everything, but Shane Black, all
27:37
these guys. If I can say anything to producers out there listening or want
27:41
to be producers or is it is I don't understand this. This is something
27:45
we're stuid After my fifteen years in the business, I still don't get it.
27:48
That step where they could have come to me and said, our budget
27:52
is exactly this, we have three action scenes in thems we have let's go
27:57
through it. I could have written that movie would have been twenty times better
28:03
and same budget, same because we would have problem solved based on what they
28:07
had. Instead, they tried to take what I had written and in pre
28:11
production, which was not very long, kind of just Gemino. And and
28:15
that's a really that's a really hard thing to do for a dedicated writer who's
28:21
there to only do that, let alone the line producer and the director who
28:23
were trying to, you know, figure out five thousand other things every day.
28:27
So yeah, and also I remember that time period in Hollywood when DVD
28:32
market was just exploding that they were just trying to shove as much product into
28:37
the marketplace. And honestly, they were just using the Roadhouse as Roadhouse was
28:42
to start. Roadhouse was to start. I think they could they could have
28:47
carried on a few more Roadhouses if there wasn't a lot of you know,
28:52
I think when you do something like that, you need to have somebody who's
28:55
at least looking out for the fans of the original a little bit throwings like
28:57
you know, we wanted to bring back Jeff Healey the Blind Singer, but
29:02
they wanted to use a band from Sony Record, you know, like they
29:04
they weren't, you know. And I get the commercial crossover, but you
29:08
know, when the fans of that first one, if you throw them little
29:11
bones, they appreciate it. Fans are great. The fans of these movies
29:15
know them by heart, and they appreciate when you said, hey, the
29:19
fan base is rabid about Swayze's car that he drove in that or these you
29:25
know. I had a guy from from Direct TV in my house work and
29:27
asked me what I did. I was working on it, and he's like,
29:30
oh, you gotta put that car, and I don't I forget what
29:33
kind of was. But he's like, oh, yeah, that car has
29:34
to be in the sequel, Like, you know, it wouldn't have killed
29:37
anybody to put you know, I have because it turned out to be.
29:40
It was like Swayze's nephew, that's who the character was in the sequel.
29:44
Right to have his nephew sort of driving. We'll be right back after a
29:48
word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. You know,
29:56
anyway, there were subtle things that have been done to so improved that film,
30:02
and it wouldn't have cost much more. And oh took though was somebody
30:06
because who knows? Who knows that there are any executives on it? Who
30:07
even knew the first one? You know, there's a lot of turnover.
30:11
There's the game plan was, like you said, to get a lot of
30:14
product out there, recognizable quick hitter, Oh, roadhouse too, I'll give
30:18
that a truck, right. You know, they're not trying to build word
30:21
of mouth. They're trying to take advantage of the RPS and in a marketplace
30:26
really exists back then. But you know got it, I mean it did,
30:32
but not like it does now. I mean it's part of every you
30:34
know, pitch conversation or you know movie come is there? IP, So
30:37
let's talk about Escape Plan now. When I first saw Escape Plan the trailer,
30:42
I was like, oh my god, finally this is happening. Why
30:48
did it take so long? And I first I did to know how it
30:53
came into being. They have so many questions. But my first the one
30:57
thing I don't know if you wrote this or not, but which I think
31:02
funny. Now you hit like a vegetarian. I did write that I am
31:06
a vegan, sir. I took a tremendous offenser to the line. Every
31:11
time someone is talking to me about being a vegan, they'll use that meme.
31:18
Arnold, but you hit like a van to Daddy and um with Arnold,
31:23
but now he's a vegan. So that's all that. That line actually
31:30
came out a really lovely momentum. That fight scene wasn't originally. The script
31:34
went through so many incarnations as you can imagine. Um uh, that line
31:41
Arnold and sly, but I thought there should be a fight scene between the
31:44
two characters. Yeah, and I happened to be I was on set for
31:47
a little while, um and I was Arnold was not there that day and
31:52
I actually had the chance to kind of block the fight scene standing in for
31:56
Arnold with Sly and the director. It's a great, great honor. I'm
32:00
actually from Philly. Hockey was one, so the whole thing was really cool
32:06
for me. Um uh and and they there had been a scene that actually
32:10
ended up getting cut out of the movie of them in the dining hall.
32:15
Arnold tries to give I think he tried to give some steak or something to
32:20
Stallone and Stallone and Breslyn's Stolen's character says, I'm a vegetarian now, whether
32:23
he really was or not, he didn't want that steak. And so in
32:27
the fight it was when Sly hits Arnold in the stomach, we're marketing it
32:30
out. He says, what what would you say here? And I was
32:34
like, maybe, you know, because they had come up with a scene,
32:37
maybe you hit like a vegetarian. So that was kind of how such
32:39
a great, great, great life, all right? So how did it?
32:44
How did you get the gig? As it original? Was it an
32:46
original idea? It was a speck I wrote called the tomb Um back in
32:52
the late two thousands, and it went through UM. It got picked up
32:55
by Summit after a crazy um uh. You know, you go out with
33:00
us Back then, there was a pretty specific way you went wide with a
33:04
spec. You know, you went out to like, you know, tons
33:07
of producers on Monday or on Tuesday, hopefully every you know, you're trying
33:12
to get a good producer who has a deal with a big studio. You
33:15
want to go into all the studios with good producers. And we had a
33:19
pretty good producer day and we went into everywhere and there was lots of excitement
33:23
and we didn't we didn't get bought in that first week, and it was
33:28
you know, it was one of those learning experiences. Really don't get too
33:30
high, don't get too low, because it really looked like we were going
33:34
to and we didn't. Um anyway, Summit, I'm gonna do a shout
33:37
out to a producer named Robbie Brenner who became a real champion of that script
33:42
and wouldn't let it go away, which, as you know, after a
33:45
spec kind of goes out and has its it can it's like it never happened
33:50
if you don't get a bite. And she did not let it go away,
33:54
got it. Summit eventually picked it up. Um and I think I
34:00
can't remember it was before Twilight, after twel you know, because obviously some
34:05
afore Twilight and some after Twilight were too totally different companies. Uh and and
34:10
and so there were always two role, two roles like the Arnold and the
34:15
Sly role in it. There was always Breslin was always kind of that character,
34:20
but the Arnold character went through all sorts of changes. And uh,
34:23
you know when when I think when Arnold signed on, the character was a
34:28
like a Portuguese poet philosopher inmate who like Dante and Shakespeare and um and uh
34:37
so that you know, but Arnold really liked the idea, that challenge,
34:42
and and so it almost happened once with Um, a director named Jeff Wadlow,
34:49
It almost happened with Antoine Fuquan Bruce Willis, and then it finally landed
34:53
with Sly and he liked it. And the m and Furla guys came on
34:58
board and they were great U and UM and then Michael Hofstrom came on as
35:04
a director. And then at that point they were trying to get the other
35:07
character. And I think, if I remember right, there had been a
35:12
flirtation with Arnold when Antoine Food and Bruce Willis were going to do it.
35:16
I feel like we had a big meeting at summit was Scones in the middle
35:19
of the table, you know, it's an important meeting if Scones And they
35:23
were like nineteen people at the table, and I remember doing the good writer
35:28
thing. I said no, I sat there and um. But then Arnold
35:31
didn't do it then. But then like a year later, Antoine had moved
35:36
on, Bruce had moved on. Um uh, he did decide to come
35:42
on. We had a lovely meeting with him in his house, me and
35:45
the director. Um, and hold on, So stop for a second,
35:52
because I love these stories. I love these I love these Hollywood stories because
35:54
I've I've been involved with some of them and their epic You you go to
36:00
a movie stars house, Well, so let me say, let me set
36:05
it up a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I remember, we weren't
36:07
sure. I remember emailing the one of the producers and saying, okay,
36:09
so this is is this a Arnold's is in and we're talking about how we're
36:13
going to rewrite his character meeting or is this a we need to convince Arnold
36:16
to be in the movie meeting? And I got a one word answer both
36:21
exclamation point. Fantastic, fantastic. I think I still have that email because
36:27
I've ordered it to the director and you know, he's a I don't know
36:30
if you know, Michael Houstrom. He directed um uh fourteen Oh, I
36:35
just forget the name of it. It's a great um. It was a
36:37
Joel Silver based on a Stephen King book with John Cusack. Um. Oh
36:42
yeah, yeah, yeah, I know to talked about. Yeah, that's
36:44
a great movie. Yeah. Yeah, he's a super guy, really really
36:46
great. Um. So we go over there and so anyway that that was
36:50
sort of the preface to it. We don't really know exactly why we're going
36:52
over there. So you're going so you're going over to Arnold's house. So
36:55
you drive up to this match. You know, you gotta get it check
37:00
and and and you roll up now also and it was you know, doubly
37:02
amazing because not only had he been the biggest movie store in the world,
37:07
but he's the former governor of California. So there's there's a secret service,
37:10
there's security, there's there's uh and you know, uh he was married to
37:15
a Kennedy, so that's also in that, you know, So it was
37:20
really incredible, like honestly when you think about and he was great, like
37:23
super down to earth. We had a lovely chat and I you know,
37:25
I think I guess it helped getting him to do it because he he signed
37:30
on and and and uh so like do you geek, do you like when
37:35
you walk in you see him for the first time. I mean, you
37:37
you're you're, you're fifteen year old self, it's probably going yeah, yeah,
37:40
of course, oh my god. The only thing, the only thing
37:43
that always strikes me is that in reality, it's funny. They're never as
37:49
big as you think they're gonna because you used to sing them on a movie
37:52
screen, right, I mean there's a human um uh big hands um,
37:57
you know. Uh, but very quickly put us at Eddie's, you know,
38:02
uh and and and you know, and then we were chatting. He
38:05
liked the script. It probably couldn't play it the way it was written,
38:07
you know what what what some ideas we might have about what we would tweak
38:12
it and his ideas and you know, it was a good back and forth.
38:15
And Michael assroom Show showed him his look book about you know, how
38:17
he saw the movie and how he imagined it and blah, blah blah.
38:21
So um, but it did go through a lot of a lot of rewrites
38:25
all through this, all through that like um and and you know it's funny.
38:29
This is another thing for the listener out there. Um. My wife
38:31
got bless It was very protective of me, would always get outrage whenever I
38:36
would tell her about changes that were being done or being man and and I
38:39
kept saying, you know what, I want to be a part of this
38:44
movie one and two. Um. You know a lot of people involved here
38:47
have made an awful lot of money at the box office. I have made
38:51
zero dollars at the box office. So used to listen you try, you
38:58
know, you just want to mitigate. Like I said before, some of
39:00
these need I'm not knee jerk, but some of these things that you think
39:04
you're certain of because maybe they're not the bet man. You know, I
39:09
had a reason for why I did everything, but that doesn't necessarily mean it
39:13
can't be done another way, or it can't be done you know. And
39:16
then of course when it got to physically shooting in where the locations where they
39:20
shot it in New Orleans, and you know we have to we have to
39:22
do some tweaking on the script for just the locations they had, and I
39:27
was happy that I could be a part of that. It was it was
39:29
actually the whole thing was a really interesting, incredible learning experience. And so
39:34
you're working with Sly, which obviously is a hero of yours as well,
39:37
coming from Philly and such a huge fan. Arguably Slies one of the best
39:44
in my opinion, and people could crap on him all he wants because he
39:46
was popular, but he's he created two of the most major characters en franchises
39:52
in movie history, himself, Rocky and Rambo. We'll be right back after
40:00
a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And he's
40:07
also done the Expendables, and he's also done these other like and and continues
40:12
to keep building these things. So when you have an Oscar, he's an
40:15
Oscar and even the Oscar for the Scotla screenplay Rocky. All right. So
40:21
so you have an Oscar winning screen writer and a legend. How is it
40:24
working with him as a screen because he obviously no story, obviously knows characters.
40:29
You'd be fair he you know, I don't know how he works with
40:32
you know, writers of a of a higher level than myself. Um,
40:37
because let's not be silly, you know, like that that matters. Um.
40:43
But it's pretty much his show. Like he he'll he'll rewrite, he'll
40:47
he'll rewrite scenes through the dialogue, he'll change stuff. Um. I think
40:52
he brought a writer in to help at some point, you know, like
40:54
that polish things up. Sure. Yeah, that happens everything that happens with
40:58
it almost anybody. So it really wasn't a conversation for most of it.
41:02
You know. It's like the things that he wanted to get done. You
41:06
know, I could always shoot my uh suggestions ideas, you know, not
41:10
directly to him, but through through the studio, through the you know,
41:15
um, through the I was in great terms of the director. So that
41:17
was there. Um Um. But yeah, you know, he is going
41:22
to trust his gun and he's gonna go with what's worked for him and fair
41:24
enough. But so but you've also now worked on the last the next two
41:30
as well. So yeah, so obviously he liked you enough. Yeah,
41:36
and it was there was a world. Um. It was always an interesting
41:42
tension in the original escape plan for me, and I don't know if he
41:45
liked it or not. Um, but I always thought the fact that the
41:49
character was such an you know, in a lot of ways, an intellectual
41:52
character. You know, he's an engineer, he's a security guy. He
41:55
sees the angles of everything inside the prison with Stallone's energy and Stallone's persona,
42:04
which is a little bit opposite that that he is this primal emotional force.
42:09
Um that I really loved and I think I think one of the reasons the
42:13
movie's interesting is because of that. That that it's an interesting because the other
42:16
thing about Slide is an unbelievably smart, bright, acute, incredibly successful businessman
42:22
and like you know, um um so that element of him. I think
42:28
really liked the engineer the um and uh so I think in terms of world
42:34
building, they thought I'd be a good way to go in the sequels.
42:37
The sequels suffered a great deal Alex from what I was talking about before budget
42:40
versus scriptum. That was another thing. And again why I have it's one
42:45
of my big pet peeves. Now like all three, Roadhouse two and the
42:49
two sequels to Escape Plan would have been um I can't give a percentage,
42:54
but noticeably improved. If they just told you the budget. Yeah, if
42:59
i'd told and what within that budget? What does that mean? Like,
43:02
what do we allow? What can we do? I love I love when
43:05
producers say, don't limit yourself. Okay, fine, but I've got I've
43:08
got three weeks to write this draft, which is what I had on the
43:12
sequels. Um, not exactly an ideal situation there either. You mean you
43:16
wrote the full script in three weeks. Yeah, we did some rewrites after
43:21
that, but they needed the first drafts. Um, it's really and and
43:25
again I would let anybody read my original drafts on those two scripts. Um,
43:30
they were they were thought out there, and probably the first one went
43:34
through such a banking period that it's it's stronger than the other two. But
43:39
I certainly, but the shooting schedule, the budget, all these things really
43:45
really made it hard on on the final movie. Um, so you know,
43:50
and to slide credit again, he appreciates writers. That doesn't mean he's
43:55
going to just keep everything you write. But he understands that writing's hard.
43:59
You understand ends that he's done a lot of it himself, and so you
44:01
know, but it's pretty much though, you know, I do my thing,
44:05
give it to them, and then they do what they need to do
44:07
with it. Because he's he's the eight hundred pound Gorilla. Yeah, on
44:10
the first one, I did come down to the set while they were shooting
44:14
to solve some problems. But on the sequels, no, it was you
44:16
know, it was that was often running and um, you know, they
44:21
had to make a lot of decisions based on practical boots on the ground.
44:27
Um. Fair enough, Now, what's the biggest lesson you learned working on
44:30
the Escape Plan franchise? It was that one of of trying to find out
44:37
as much as you can about what their capabilities are to really shoot what you're
44:42
writing. Um, action movies are expensive, I like to do. There's
44:45
a reason why so many of those, which I'm sure you saw a lot
44:50
of them back at the video store. So many of the great video action
44:52
movies have shootouts in a warehouse at night. There's a lot of reasons for
44:57
it. One of them is that they're cheat. You got a big space,
45:00
you got cap guns. Everybody shoots at each other in roadhouse too.
45:05
Two or three action scenes that were really carved out that I really carved him,
45:09
I really worked him. Got turned into just flat you know, people
45:14
standing there shooting at each other's scenes because again, you know, like I
45:17
would like to talk about Casino Royale, the first Day your Pie, Yeah,
45:21
so good. The opening action scene and the action scene at the airport
45:24
with the truck probably took one to shoot. As the entire movie of Roadhouse
45:29
too, oh easily. Yeah. Those scenes are so scripted, and they're
45:32
so written, and there's character in them, and there's so many pieces to
45:37
them, and you know, and so as a screenwriter, you want to
45:39
write those. You want to really show off. You want to But if
45:43
your budget it couldn't afford to do one of those scenes, let alone a
45:45
whole movie, You've got to try to figure that out. Otherwise things are
45:51
just gonna suffer. So that let me ask you a question, then,
45:54
would you recommend a screenwriter writing a script today, if it's a spec script,
46:00
should you let your imagination roll wild? Or should you work with in
46:04
a budget? I think I think if you're writing a spec it's your original
46:07
idea, go for it. And to be clear, I'm not a I'm
46:10
not a believer in kirk tailing with a writer's imagination. I mean that's where
46:15
all the good stuff comes from. What I'm talking about is very specifically,
46:17
when you've got to go movie and you know the money is going to be
46:22
there for it and back into it. Yeah, and you're and and and
46:28
and so they know they know it's not You know, when you write a
46:30
spec if you write a big globe hopping spy movie, you don't know that.
46:35
You know, Will Smith and Brad Pitt aren't going to sign on.
46:37
And if you're gonna get and you could very well get a two hundred million
46:39
dollar budget, you don't know that. If that's a kind of movie you
46:42
want to write, man, go for it. I love those movies.
46:45
But if you're if you're being hired to write the sequel to Escape Plan and
46:49
you know it's getting released, and you know it's Greenland, you know it's
46:51
gonna be shooting in April and it's December, try to get as much information
46:55
as you can on what are the resources, what are they really have to
47:00
shoot with, because otherwise you're going to write a script that it's not going
47:04
to fit in the box. And and and they'll suffer suffers have to be
47:08
Frankenstein at the last minute, and very few good things come about when that
47:13
happens, right, because you can write it as a hundred million dollars movie,
47:15
but if you only got twenty exactly but you know, if your's back,
47:20
you know, you can always Hey, if somebody wants to do it
47:22
for less money and you can rewrite it, and that's great, and you
47:24
know, that's awesome. These are there's a good problem to have, right.
47:28
But but so that's definitely one. Um, every movie is so different
47:35
that I've worked on. Um. The other thing is to try not to
47:37
get um, try to be open in the notes process. I know it's
47:44
hard. How do you deal with how do you deal with those? Because
47:46
that is something that professionals understand it, yeah, but newbies get so precious
47:52
about it. It's it's first thing you got to remember is that unless you've
47:58
written a really really unique um, Charlie Kaufman in my mind, um,
48:07
where where the tone and the voice of this thing is so particular to the
48:10
thing? You know, if you wrote the Tomb, which is what I
48:14
wrote, which is a you know, hopefully a high end thriller. Um,
48:20
but it's still a prison break movie at the end of the day.
48:22
Right, So everybody reading it is going to bring their history with prison break
48:25
movies. You know, what actor did they see playing bres Land? What?
48:30
You know? How do we should it go? This way? Should
48:31
it be a little grittier like you know, um Papion, or should it
48:36
be a little more tango in cash? Like should it? You know,
48:37
like they're so you as a writer. You could think, Okay, my
48:44
script's perfect, or I know, or I can defend every decision I've made.
48:46
Let's put it that way. But let's suppose you know, universe being
48:52
being John Malkovic, right, I mean, or you know the Eternal spot
48:58
Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind, just one favorite movies of all time. You
49:02
kind of get what that movie is when you read it, and you're not
49:06
thinking, oh man, maybe we have a few more. Maybe we heightened
49:08
the you know, we heightened the character. You know, like however,
49:12
a genre movie romantic comedy, action adventure. I mean a perfect example alex
49:16
Is the Born versus Bond dynamic correct and Matt Damon rolled along in that first
49:23
Born movie. You know, the Bond movies still felt a certain way.
49:28
They were a little heightened, almost like the way that Fast and Furious has
49:31
gone from gritty point break at the beginning to you know, Circus start,
49:38
like it's James Bond meets Circus La. Right. But if let's say you
49:43
wrote a movie about an you know, international global group of car thieves avoiding
49:47
the police. Well, you could go in the direction of the first one
49:51
totally, or you could go in the direction of assuming you don't have a
49:54
car turning into a rocket ship, we'll be right back after a word from
50:00
our sponsor, and now back to the show in the script. But so
50:09
my point is is that going back to the idea of notes, a lot
50:13
of people are gonna have a lot of things to say. It's a good
50:15
thing if like Universal comes to you and says, hey, we loved your
50:19
script, but we see it as being like Hobbs at Shaw, not that
50:24
you know, or rather, they don't give you the option. They buy
50:28
it, and you're thinking, I'm amazing. Universally just spent you know whatever
50:32
six seven figures out my script and then you're like, a notes call.
50:36
What do you mean a notes call? I'm perfect. I can't even tell
50:39
you the amount of friends I have known who have sold movies for lots of
50:45
money, only to then get me ready pummeled by the notes calls, like
50:51
and then the movie floats off into oblivion. So a studio pays a ridiculous
50:55
amount of money for it, and wants to change it and you know,
51:00
um, but but as the writer, you've got to try to figure out
51:04
how to make that work like that that you know, you can't tell universal,
51:07
you know, unless again you don't want to take their money or get
51:12
taken off the project. There are your two options, because you can say,
51:15
after you've taken the sale, hey, I don't want to know,
51:19
I'm not doing that, and they can say, good for you, that's
51:22
not how that works out for you, but by yeah, you know,
51:23
we respect your integrity, and then they'll move on and you'll never call you
51:28
again. I can't you know, I don't. I can't speak to that.
51:30
But my notion is, you know, and again, like I said,
51:35
I'm sure there are plenty of writers out there who've stuck to their guns
51:37
on some notes and it's worked out and they you know, like I don't,
51:40
don't misunderstand me. I just feel like, however you work with the
51:44
notes, figuring out a way for yourself to work with the notes is important
51:47
like that, that that that they're a process. And for every you know,
51:51
I've been maybe I've been lucky too. I feel like in general I've
51:54
worked with UH on things where there were going to be two and three drafts.
52:00
I've had good notes calls, and I feel people people coming from a
52:04
place of trying to make the movie better. We may not agree, but
52:07
it's not a kind of callous Oh there was a character like this in this
52:12
other movie, So let's put a character like this in your movie, you
52:15
know. And that's the thing. I just want to kind of spotlight this
52:20
for a second. Screenwriters don't understand a lot of times because they're just they're
52:23
just focused on the writing that there's so many politics that go on after a
52:29
film is screenlit. There's so many moving parts. As you said, something
52:32
as simple as oh, the executive or the EP of the executive producer,
52:38
his girlfriend's in the movie, and we need to add that character. As
52:42
cliche as that is. I have done that, Alex, I mean,
52:47
and you have to write that character in and I'm like, oh, you
52:51
know. And then the best is when that actress or actor depending on the
52:54
situation, comes to you and goes and they they're like, you know,
52:59
a kid and on anything, and they go, I saw this movie the
53:02
other day on Cinemax, and I love this character, and can we do
53:07
something like that? And you're just going, oh my god, yeah,
53:10
sure, and like but that's that's the reality of being a screenwriter. I
53:15
mean, we all again, it's the same kind of romanticism as Kubrick.
53:21
In the screenwriting world, there's a romanticism in Sorkin or Shane Black or Tarantino
53:27
that you know that they just have complete control and they could do whatever they
53:30
want. Like even even guys like Shane Black still have you know. You
53:37
know, it's an incredible point. And I think the thing always remind everybody's
53:42
how much money it takes two makes a movie. I mean, think about
53:45
this. Low budget movies are like five to ten million dollars million, Like
53:52
that's become chump change in the movie business. Think about that. Like,
53:54
so when you've got when you start getting into you know, millions, all
54:00
forget it. There are a lot of people with a lot writing on it
54:04
and so that and that's going to create things. That's going to create personalities,
54:09
it's going to create tension, it's going to create needs, it's going
54:13
to create a lot, and you know, just be kind of ready for
54:16
that. Try to have fun with it. I mean, if we're lucky,
54:19
if you're if you're lucky enough to get there. Yeah, you know,
54:22
I gotta. I love popcorn movies, the James Cameron Aliens to the
54:29
Original Terminator. They were the movies I grew up on. Those are the
54:31
movies I wanted to write. UM, and so I always try to have
54:35
fun, Like the point of the movie is to be fun. We're not
54:39
healing. Sadly, we're not healing the coronavirus here, you know, We're
54:44
not We're not curing cancer. Um, we are delivering hopefully smart, cool,
54:51
fun entertainment. You know. The smart sometimes waivers um depending on the
54:57
day, and so you know, and you know and so, but it
55:01
is, it's to your point, it's a dream job. I've never stopped
55:06
loving it. As a kid from the suburbs of Philadelphia, UM, who
55:08
had no connection to this business and no, like it's just been you know,
55:14
and it's you know, and it's super fun. I mean, how
55:16
many people out of a job where they can tell these fun stories or talking
55:20
about these ridiculous things that you know, I make I make a living now
55:25
with that. It's great. It's it's you know, as as as you
55:30
know, you know, all of my all of my podcasts, all my
55:34
shows. I try to be as realistic as humanly possible, and try to
55:37
be brutally honest, because I would much rather you hear it on a show
55:42
of mine than when you're sitting across from a producer or a director or an
55:47
actor and you get sideswiped by many of the things that we've just discussed right
55:52
now that they would have never ever thought of, if they're ever blessed to
55:55
be in that scenario. Yeah, I mean, perfect example. It's like
56:00
you know, with you know, for years I tried to get the tomb
56:02
going, like it was so close, it was so close, and then
56:07
stallone came aboard and it really started happening and there was a director. But
56:10
then, you know, instead of instead of you had this amazing thing feeling,
56:15
which is deserved and true, but then right after it is the well,
56:22
now you've got one of the major superstars in the world on it,
56:24
and it's gonna be his movie, you know, And and however that goes
56:29
is how it's going to go. And you may be a part of it,
56:31
you may not be a room. Just be grateful. Just be grateful
56:36
you're on the ride right and and and again. Every sixth search of the
56:38
sixth circum sorry, every circumstances different. But you know, one of the
56:43
fun things and tough things about the movie business is it's very personality driven.
56:46
How people interact. Is you know, there aren't you know, in big
56:50
corporations, you know, there's hr and there's a way of behaving and some
56:54
people gop up. But in the movies, you know, companies are you
56:59
know very much. They take on the form of like the principle who who's
57:02
the who's the person? And so you know, you get a lot of
57:06
different personalities. Obviously, you get a lot of different visions, different ideas,
57:12
different paces, different so um uh it just you know it. But
57:17
who's a writer to stay you know, be thankful for getting to that place
57:22
and just stay open. Try to stay open, try to have fun with
57:23
it, try to do the best work you can under circumstances sometimes that are
57:29
moving in a different direction, like and your story reminds me of um Quentin's
57:35
Quentin when he when he sold Natural Born Killers to Oliver Stone. If you've
57:39
ever read Tarantino's version of Natural Born Killers, it's it's it's not even it's
57:44
not even the same Wallpark other than the character names Stone, who's arguably the
57:49
one hundred pound gorilla in that situation at that time. Completely we wrote it
57:53
and had a different vision for his script, but you know, he had
57:58
no control at the time. You know, it happens. It happens to
58:01
every every every major screenwriter it has had, has had, It has happened
58:07
to everyone, and and and you know, I don't know what why that
58:09
story made me think of just it's a little bit like the classic William Goldman
58:16
quote, like the nobody really knows anything which has been around so long because
58:21
it is so true. I mean, whether it's you know, the common
58:23
joke is like if the script of Chinatown got submitted today as a speck,
58:27
it would get ripped to shred. You know, yeah, you know,
58:31
the opening of Inglorious Bastards, which is one of my favorite movies, is
58:37
like twenty five minutes, no bastard show up yet no, you know it
58:39
doesn't. But it's incredible movie incredible, So you know this there, there's
58:45
so there, there's such the road is so unpredictable, and just when you
58:52
think everything we're saying is true, the exact opposite will happen, and you
58:58
just you just can't And that's why I feel like another thing I've learned all
59:01
these years is like when I was young and I out here and I was
59:05
like, and because I had been an actor for a while too, and
59:07
I so I knew what it took to not make it as an actor,
59:09
I already had had, so you had trappanol. I had this somewhat naive
59:15
idea that while people when they give up acting or writing or directing or their
59:21
dreams, you know, it's because they don't have what it takes. That
59:22
was my young person and that's got older. I've realized that that was that's
59:29
partially true. But the thing that thing that they don't have isn't isn't wasn't
59:31
the thing I thought it was. I was thinking back then it was the
59:35
talent. What it really is is the personality type to survive the absolutely Like
59:45
after when I heard, you know, escape Plan was going to get made,
59:50
I'm like, oh, I will never had I will never have a
59:52
down year again as a writer. The very next year I had a down
59:55
year as a writer. I mean, uh, you know, like this
1:00:00
notion, Like I remember an actor friend of mine, he's like, you
1:00:02
got cast in a Broadway play, and he's like I've arrived and you know,
1:00:07
did the play for eight months and then you didn't get work for another
1:00:09
year, like you know, like so the personality type, and I get
1:00:15
him. My brother is a fantastic writer. Would never in a thousand years
1:00:19
be able to live check to check like I used to before you know,
1:00:22
I got lucky. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and
1:00:31
now back to the show. Um yeah, you know. Uh. And
1:00:36
so that that's the thing that when you don't have what it takes, if
1:00:40
you don't have the personality that can sort of live with the ebbs and flows
1:00:46
of the and arrows, the craziness, the the the unpredictability, the the
1:00:52
you know, you're up one down, you're up, You're up one day,
1:00:54
you're hot one day and yeah not yeah, nothing the next kid again,
1:01:01
So maybe you don't. That's another thing I've learned. Try not to
1:01:05
buy into that, um that that idea, although there is truth to it.
1:01:10
I mean, honestly, when I've been busiest, it's been right after.
1:01:14
Like I did a rewrite of a script years ago that Denzel get this
1:01:16
because I watched it, never attached to but he was circling it. He
1:01:20
was Oh god, the circling two or three jobs from that, But that
1:01:27
my manager being I think that's what it was because my writing samples didn't change,
1:01:30
you know, I didn't. It's not like I just popped off a
1:01:34
couple new scripts overnight because you were attached to that potential. It's just insane.
1:01:40
Our business is ridiculous. It's insane, it's ludicrous, but we're in
1:01:46
love with it. And what are you gonna do. I can't quit.
1:01:49
I can't quit the crazy. And if if it suits your you know,
1:01:51
and if it suits your personality, if you're okay with the ride as it
1:01:54
were, um, it's great, you know, And that's a long ride.
1:01:59
There's nothing line. It's you know, every day a phone call can
1:02:04
change your whole perspective, but also every day you cannot get a phone call.
1:02:09
But sometimes more likely, much more likely. And the thing is that
1:02:13
sometimes people wait twenty years for that phone call and it never comes completely.
1:02:17
Yeahs as brutal as that statement is, unfortunately it's the truth. And look,
1:02:24
I'm still waiting for Kevin Fahey to give me a call. And if
1:02:27
Kevin, if you're listening, I'll take the meeting. Um, I'm I'm
1:02:30
a fan, sir, and I can do something for you. So I've
1:02:34
said that a thousand times on my show. One day Kevin will call me,
1:02:37
But until then, I'm working on other things and not waiting by the
1:02:40
phone for him to call me. Yeah. So I'm gonna ask you a
1:02:45
few questions. I ask all my guests. What are three screenplays every screenwriter
1:02:52
should read? Wow, that's tricky. I'm pausing because we've just talked about
1:03:04
how sometimes the screenplay and the movie don't necessarily just a screenplay, regardless of
1:03:08
how the movie came out, just like the craft, Like I said,
1:03:12
like Last Boy, Scout or Long Kisco Night on Shane Black, those scripts
1:03:15
are amazing comparatively for the films. Okay, so there's a movie. You
1:03:20
know, they're a writer director, George and Olphy. I don't he George
1:03:24
the Adjustment Bureau? He yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
1:03:29
yes, I love that film. Yeah. Do you mean published and produced
1:03:34
screenplays? Because this this one, I'm gonna yeah, anything that's been published
1:03:37
and produced? Yeah, all right, because the one, it's one of
1:03:39
my favorites, is one of George's that never got made because too many people.
1:03:43
There's so many there's so many of those scripts flying around. I've read
1:03:46
some of them. I'm like, how is this not an Oscar winning film?
1:03:49
Like I don't understand it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
1:03:52
all right, let me that's a good question. All right, let me
1:03:53
think. Uh see, I always go back and read um um uh okay,
1:04:12
I'll say this because of the opening fifteen pages scream by Kevin Williamson,
1:04:16
so good if you wanna. I'm talking about this with my son the other
1:04:20
day. I have a thirteen year old son, and that I remember reading
1:04:25
that, and the rest of the movie is really good. That opening is
1:04:28
just it wrong foots you over and over again and really and it reads like
1:04:32
a little mini play as it rolls at great great ship. That's one.
1:04:38
Um uh. I'd read them for what you can do with an epic scope.
1:04:47
I'd read The Dark Night and almost anything Nolan. Yeah, yeah,
1:04:53
yeah, it's funny though. I knew a bunch of executives who read Memento
1:04:58
before it got and they passed on it because they couldn't get through it.
1:05:00
He couldn't that it's such a and it's such a clear piece of film.
1:05:05
It's one of my favorite movies. Sure, all right, so uh for
1:05:10
sort of for sort of scope epic, you know, rounded storytelling. That
1:05:14
Dark Knight is kind of kind of one of my one of my favorites to
1:05:16
read. Um um child chinatowns. Chinatown's not bad. You can't go wrong
1:05:21
with Chinatown. But I just figured out a lot of people say that,
1:05:24
like everyone's gonna read Chinatown, right, Everyone's gonna probably read that. I'm
1:05:28
trying to think of some things that um uh um and I all right,
1:05:34
it's one of my favorite. I'll throughout The Eternal Sun hint as Pole as
1:05:36
mine because again, what you what you can do with karat and imagination like
1:05:42
you're We're so not ted. Third, I mean that's that is about as
1:05:45
emotionally realistic movies you will ever see, and yet it has nothing to do
1:05:48
with reality. Like you know, another one, Royal Tan embombs the West
1:05:54
Inderson movie. That is about a spot on a movie about family as you
1:05:58
will ever see, and yet it does. It doesn't look like anybody's it's
1:06:00
it's a fantasy, it's Wes Anderson, and yet emotionally it is what we
1:06:06
all go through with our dysfunctional families. Yeah, that's the beauty I much
1:06:12
prefer those to a movie that looks and smells like a real family movie but
1:06:17
doesn't get deep like those two do. It doesn't really get all right.
1:06:23
So we'll go those through, all right, m And then what is what
1:06:27
advice would you give a screenwriter wanted to break into the business today with the
1:06:31
asterisk that I broke in seventeen years ago and I not living in do good
1:06:40
work, do good work, Put your nose down and do good work you
1:06:44
can be proud of. Stop worrying about horror movies. Or and I've had
1:06:48
that conversation so many times. A friend of mine will be like, Hey,
1:06:50
a bunch of horror movies have just solder. This movie was number one
1:06:54
at the box officer, And I'm like, do you love horror movies?
1:06:57
Because there's forty thousand writers in LA love horror movies. They're all writing one
1:07:00
right now, and it will be better than your horror movie because you don't
1:07:04
love horror movie. So do good work. Right what you love, not
1:07:09
necessarily what you know. People say, right, what you do. I'm
1:07:12
a big imagination guy. Right what you love? And um, what is
1:07:16
the lesson that took you the longest to learn? Whether in the film business
1:07:19
or in life. I think I'm still learning it, and that would be
1:07:26
I've talked a lot about collaboration and when to put my foot down and really
1:07:30
stick up for myself, like really really sort of matt Um. I definitely
1:07:35
had a fear when I first got into the business about getting replaced, getting
1:07:39
fired, getting you know, all those things that you know you here and
1:07:43
yeah, and so I'm still trying to manage that so that because there are
1:07:48
there are times where you're being um, you're being paid for your professionals in
1:08:00
your opinion, and if somebody really wants it or is pushing on it,
1:08:03
you're being paid to give it. So that goes a little bit counter to
1:08:06
some of the things we were talking about, right, But there there is
1:08:10
a time and a place, um, you know, recognizing that that at
1:08:14
the end of the day, your name's on the script at the end of
1:08:15
the day, if you're lucky, um uh, or your your name's out
1:08:20
as the director of the movie, and so that you know, um so
1:08:24
so yes, realizing what what battles to to really go hard for very still
1:08:31
yeah, I'm still still figuring that one out. Miles. It's been an
1:08:33
absolute pleasure of meeting you man and and having you on the show. Uh,
1:08:38
great stories. I'm sure there's tons more that you could tell about your
1:08:43
your misadventures in Holly Weird. But I appreciate you coming on and drop in
1:08:47
the knowledge bombs on the Tribe. Brother. I appreciate that man, My
1:08:50
pleasure was super fun interview and I'm happy to come on any time you want
1:08:54
me, So thank you. I want to thank Miles for coming on the
1:08:59
show and dropping the knowledge bombs on the Tribe today. If you want to
1:09:02
get links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the
1:09:05
show notes at any filmhuscle dot com forward slash ninety four and if you have
1:09:11
it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com. Subscribe and leave
1:09:15
a good review for the show. It really helps us out a lot,
1:09:19
guys. Thank you again so much for listening. Guys, as always,
1:09:21
keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there,
1:09:26
and I'll talk too soon. Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast
1:09:30
at Indie film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I E F I
1:09:33
L M hustl dot com.