Rock, andFlash Gordon!
How did that come about?
I wrote the two kinds of things that kept me in high school an extra year.
When I got to this guys office, he was literally moving into his desk.
It was his first day.
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He told me, Listen, I love these scripts.
Will you work in television?
And I said, What do you mean?
Of course I would!
And he said Alright, because some people only want to work in features.
I gave your scripts to another client of mine.
And I said, Oh, thats great, I could use some more professional advice.
And he said, No, you dont understand.
My other clients are producers.
But no, he still has to go get a warrant because the show is more realistic.
So they would introduce like, a magic ring or something, or make him fly.
Theyd say, But he needs to fly for my episode!
I took the liberty of giving your scripts to these people, could you go see them tomorrow?
I had this pitch about how having superpowers was a problem.
Everybody else would go in and say Oh, he fights a dinosaur with his bare hands or something.
So I went in and gave all the examples of how these things are a problem.
That was written as a spec script and the Six Million Dollar Man wasnt the hero.
These are the compromises we make our first two weeks in Hollywood!
They managed to stabilize his molecules with this thing that looked like a watch.
As long as he had that watch on and it was charged, he would be visible.
But if he turned that watch off, he would be invisible and he could die.
It was a very complicated thing.
The problem was that every time he took off his rubberMission Impossiblemask and his clothes, he was naked.
And they said, This isnt working, so they came up with this idea.
I got assigned to that as a story editor, and after eight weeks it was canceled.
I ended up doing all the bionic shows.
I didnt really go back to sci-fi untilKnight Rider.
One was a TV version ofFoul Play, which was like a boy/girl detective show that was canceled quickly.
The other wasThe Powers of Matthew Starwhich was kind of likeSmallvillebeforeSmallville.
Since then Ive been going back and forth between science fiction/comic book stuff and action/adventure.
Did that TV superhero experience transfer to the movies naturally?
When it fell behind schedule, they took it and made it like an Australian tax shelter.
While were onCaptain Invincible,was that always intended to be a musical?
No, at the time when I was writing it nobody thought it was gonna be a musical.
I think when they made the switch to do it in Australia thats when the musical idea came in.
I think its great, though!
Those songs are a riot!
I mean, youve got Christopher Lee singing to Alan Arkin…
The songs are the best!
They got the guys who didRocky Horror Picture Show.
I tell em, Yeah?
Well what about these?
Captain Invinciblecame after your work on48 Hrs., right?
They brought that to the internet to say Look, heres a daily, we started on time!
But we need to shut down for a week to improve the script.
They never knew that it was pulled out of our ass.
So now I had to write the script out of order, which I was already used to doing.
I never have writers block.
Because they already had a Chinatown set built based on the old script.
So the actors are coming up to me and asking Why do I hate this guy?
And were saying, uh…youll find out before we finish shooting!
48 Hrs.was also gonna have to go at the very last moment, too.
Then they said well get Eddie Murphy right off ofSaturday Night Live.
I came back 48 hours (!)
Finally he said, Tell me something youve done that Ive seen.
And Jeffrey Katzenberg said, Oh, well Steven is one of our hottest television writers.
And Walter said, Television?
Youre having a fucking television writer rewrite me?
He probably could have found a better example.
Clearly, he didnt realize where in the pecking order the writer is in Hollywood.
That whole dynamic came out of their natural demeanor.
Dont tell anyone youre coming.
I got there, and there were script pages on the table.
They said, These are your pages from the print shop, and heres last weeks work.
Would you look at it?
So after a couple of pages I said, Wait, somethings wrong…its all changed.
Its almost like its back the way it was!
They said, Just like we thought.
You walk the pages right over to Joel.
It seems you had the last laugh…
It was good for everybody at the end of the day.
I still get brought on to fix screenplays that I had nothing to do with.
Thats my secret identity.
I have to ask…some of us really loveHudson Hawk.
Theres a lot of writers credited on there, was that one of those situations?
No, I actually started that screenplay from scratch.
WhenHudson Hawkstarted, (Hudson Hawkdirector) Michael Lehmann and Bruce wanted to make it crazier.
Then the studio brought mebackbecause they decided that it had gottentoocrazy!
So they flew me to Italy to sort of un-crazy it.
That wasnt a snarky question, by the way.
A lot of our staff, we genuinely love that movie!
When you look at a Disney movie, the villain is always played straight.
So if theres one thing that madeHudson Hawknot work for more people, its that.
Whats happening with yourFlash Gordonscript?
Flash Gordonwas being fast-tracked to get made around 1997.
It was a Jon Peters and Peter Guber production, but they left Sony in a famous kerfuffle.
The studio redeveloped the script so that the aliens invade Earth, and Flash Gordon was a fighter pilot.
It became kind of likeIndependence Day.
Its the completeoppositeof what Flash Gordon should be!
Later, I heard that Breck Eisner resurrected my script and that it was back on.
But thenJohn Cartercame along and nowFlash Gordonis probably dead for ten years.
Anybody who opens that script will go, This is just likeJohn Carter!
For better or for worse, there are a lot of similarities betweenFlash GordonandJohn Carter.
The problem withJohn Carterwas very simple.
Alfred Hitchcock said a long time ago, You cant put a flashback inside of a flashback.
Its like a joke.
Inany event, the failings ofJohn Carterwere not due to the material or the presentation.
Its a picture book!
Can you imagine making a Dr. Seuss movie, and not having it look like a Dr. Seuss book?
Eddie Murphy had done this movie calledThe Distinguished Gentlemanwhere there was a little girl in the movie.
That movie failed, so the word came down about BH3: lose the niece.
You wrote a screenplay forSgt.
Rockthat I seem to remember was moving along pretty well back in the 80s.
Whatever happened to it?
Rockwas actually greenlit and it was fast-tracked.
So they started early preparations so we could hit the ground running when the strike ended.
Within two weeks of the strike ending, I had my script.
So now they had people going out to do location scouting and they were casting the movie.
They say the Adriatic Coast is just like the Mediterranean!
And Arnold said (Arnold voice), Vat?
And she says, You know, the Yugoslavian coast, the beaches and resorts are fabulous.
Whats going on here?
So thats why the movie came to a complete halt.
Was Arnolds accent going to be an issue?
It was written and tailored exactly for Arnold, and we had it set up so that Sgt.
Rock was Austrian and his family had been killed by the Nazis.
Its like, he climbed over the mountains right behind the Von Trapp family.
Wasnt Bruce Willis name brought up forSgt.
Rockat one point, as well?
At one point they did say Bruce Willis was going to do it.
But actually, the character in the comics is more like Arnold.
He doesnt speak very much.
Hes tough, and hes not a wiseguy, Bruce Willis key in character.
I mean, you’ve got the option to adapt it and get a different version ofSgt.
Rock, but this would have been a perfect role for Arnold.
Liam Neeson could play Sgt.
Hes supposed to be an older guy.
The truth is that in WWII in the army, an older guy was about 35.
When John Wayne was playing a crusty sergeant, he was already like, 40.
I think at a certain point youre too young to play a role like that.
The best person to ever play Sgt.
Rock was Lee Marvin inThe Big Red One!
Werent you gonna doThe Phantomat one point?
Shortly after there was a TV thing on the SyFy channel where he had a special suit or something… Did any of that evolve out of your pitch?
No, it wasnt out of my script.
I thought that was the best way to do it.
Just like howFlash Gordonis fucked for another 10 years because ofJohn Carter.
I actually only ever met him at the premiere!
He had written a script with Matthew Weisman.
They had just doneTeen Wolf.
This was at the very beginning of the year.
So they pulled six or seven scripts from development hell that could possibly work for Arnold.
They gave em to everyone to read and the one that got the most attention was what eventually becameCommando.
Also, the kidnapping didnt take place until after an hour into the movie.
So for this and a lot of reasons we knew we couldnt show it to Arnold.
It was more of a spy story.
It was a totally different thing.
And I was like, Wait a minute, I havent even thought this through!
And they told me, Just improvise, you do it all the time in television!
Thats 5-6 script pages, right there.
I basically just walked them through the whole movie.
Were gonna go right to script, and de Souza, well see you in a month!
Can you talk about howCommando 2evolved intoDie Hard?
None of that is true!
It was never going to be anything else.
Then he had to break into the building that he had designed.
Lets put that rumor to bed right now, as there was no connection between those movies!
Whose idea was it to setDie Hardat Christmas?
Yes, Im aware its become that kind of thing.
Theres also a party every Christmas in theDie Hardbuilding in Century City.
It was in the original book, though.
Funny enough, the first movie my kids ever saw in the theaters wasDie Hard.
I used to bring home the airline versions of the movies with no cursing.
I said, Where did you learn that word?
It wasnt from my movies, because you havent seen the ones with bad words!
Which brings up theJudge Dreddrating controversy…
Judge Dreddwas actually supposed to be a PG-13 movie.
So when the movie was delivered to be cut, it was rated X.
It was rated Xfour times!
They say you cant appeal after four.
Four is all you get.
So the hamburger people and the toy people turned around and sued Disney, the distributor!
They couldnt withhold his salary for violating a legal promise they never asked him to make.
Keep in mind that this movie was about five frames away from being an x-rated movie.
Their ad campaign was now comic panels of Stallone with word balloons.
Its complete cognitive dissonance!
Now, Im innocent in this.
I wrote a PG-13 script!
Obviously, I knew how to do it!
I did 8 oclock internet TV shows, for gods sake!
I wrote in the script that all you would see are the shadows and hear screams.
It was the scene where they whack a newspaper reporter and his wife.
Thats what I wrote.
When they showed me the scene in the dailies, this old couple dies like Bonnie and Clyde.
Blown to bits in slow motion.
I said, Oh my God, this movie is supposed to be PG-13!
And they said, No, its fine!
the director knows all the ratings angles.
And Im like, No!
What did I miss?
He said, Theyre dry squibs!
You dont get an R-rating unless theres blood.
I said, Theres no such rule!
Who the fuck told you that?
When they put the movie together, there were no alternative takes.
When I pitched at the meeting, everything went great.
After I left, Stephen called me up, and he said, I dont understand.
He fucked us so bad, we were sued by Burger King and the toy company forJudge Dredd.
He wrote an x-rated movie for this studio!I was persona non grata at Disney because ofJudge Dredd!
Thanks, Mr. de Souza!
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