by David Hughes
At the time, cinemas were not yet overrun with low-budget zombie flicks, nor had the post-modernisation of the zombie movie (Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, et al.) really taken root, and if you were going to make a film for next to nothing — and you had access to some cheap but effective prosthetic effects — you could do a lot worse than make a zombie movie. Thus, after a brief visit to the university to meet the potential cast and crew and get the lay of the location, I set to work on the script, which came together in more or less a week flat. Alas, by the time it came to make the film, the students had all had a big falling-out, and decided not to spend their summer break making a zombie flick for more or less the price of a gastropub lunch.
The script, entitled Inhuman Remains, eventually reverted to me, and was later optioned by Joel Stevens Entertainment for the princely sum of $500 — almost, but not quite, enough to cover my legal costs for the ‘deal’. Unfortunately (there’s that word again), by the time Mr Stevens got around to shopping the script around the marketplace, there were more low-budget zombie films in Hollywood than there were actors working as waiters, and Inhuman Remains fell into yet another circle of Development Hell. As each new zombie film emerged, fewer and fewer of the ideas in Inhuman Remains remained original, until Dead Set and The Crazies remake, between them, put the final nails in its coffin. Although the option was renewed in early 2011, and I was asked to do a minor rewrite to move the setting to the US, it seemed unlikely that Inhuman Remains was ever going to get up and walk around by itself.
As all this was happening — or, more accurately, not happening — my “Outbreak on an airplane” project, Airborne, looked set to take off once more: this time, the interested producer was one with an impressively long track record, stretching back to The Getaway, and encompassing The Thing, Short Circuit and, more recently, The Mask of Zorro, a surprise hit for Sony Pictures. Over several drafts, the script was honed and tightened by this producer and his assistant, both of whom gave exceptionally good notes, and in early 2011 an up-and-coming director became loosely attached to the project, giving good notes of his own. Progress became sluggish, however, as the producers became heavily involved with their remake-cum-prequel of The Thing, and it was not until the success of Steven Soderbergh’s viral-outbreak film Contagion, later that year, that the script became active again.
In the interim, however, the same producers had invited me to pitch for the most exciting project I had worked on in my patchy screenwriting ‘career,’ which had so far encompassed ten unproduced feature films and a few well-received shorts, one or two of which I had produced myself, just to be sure they were actually made. The project was a feature film based on the T.J. Hooker television show of the early 1980s, in which William Shatner had played a fatherly Los Angeles police officer, arguably too old to still be in uniform, but too belligerent to trade it for a career in politics — a little like Captain Kirk in the Star Trek movies. Thirty years on, the idea was to re-invent the show as an action comedy, with a comic actor like Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) or Will Ferrell (The Other Guys) playing T.J. Hooker Junior, a hopeless police patrolman who has only managed to hold on to his job with the Los Angeles Police Department because his father was such a legend. And who else could play the original T.J. Hooker but William Shatner, in his late seventies, but still starring in a weekly TV show, Boston Legal.
Screenwriters Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson had been working on a story outline for almost two years without actually commencing work on a script, and I was determined to win the job for myself. The creator and producer of T.J. Hooker, Rick Husky, had read and been impressed by my script for Airborne, which suggested I might be capable of handling the action elements of T.J. Hooker: The Movie, which, as with comedy-flavoured action films like Rush Hour and Lethal Weapon, would be played ‘straight’, so that the jeopardy is real. After all, we reasoned, the villains don’t know they’re in a comedy — and neither, for that matter, do the heroes. By the time I flew out to Hollywood to pitch the project to the producers, Husky had read my earlier action-comedy, 250 GTO, and decided my kind of funny wasn’t his kind of funny. This was going to be a tough crowd. I pride myself on being “good in a room,” however, and pitched the shit out of my take on T.J. Hooker: The Movie. Against all odds, I got the gig.
Over the next few months, guided by Husky and the other producers, I wrote the very first draft of the script, loosely based on the storyline set up by Maddock and Wilson, but utilising many elements suggested by the producers, and many more of my own. Having grown up watching T.J. Hooker — hey, there were only three channels back then — and being the son of a police officer myself, I felt as deep an affinity to the material as anyone — except, perhaps, Messrs Husky and Shatner. By the time I had finished the second draft, the action was exciting and inventive, the characters fresh and funny, the set pieces spectacular and original. Finally, and crucially, I believed that the script had the correct tone — unlike, say, the misbegotten update of ’70s cop show Starsky and Hutch.
The script was delivered in the spring of 2010, and I sat back and waited for the Variety and Hollywood Reporter announcements the producers had promised: that they had signed not one but two exciting projects from a hot ‘new’ writer by the name of David Hughes: the breathtaking thriller Airborne, and the hilarious and action-packed reboot of ’80s TV series T.J. Hoolker.
Then, in June 2010, The A-Team — a comedy-leavened action film based on a popular ’80s TV show — opened at US cinemas, to mediocre reviews and lacklustre box office. “There is no Plan B,” trumpeted the posters — and it was true: by the time The A-Team slipped quietly from view a few weeks later, Husky had put T.J. Hooker back in a drawer, figuring that the world wasn’t in the mood for clever reinventions of ’80s TV shows. Not since Mike Myers had decided to turn down Paramount Pictures’ offer to adapt his Saturday Night Live ‘Sprockets’ sketch into a feature film3 had a creator-producer so deliberately torpedoed his own project, for fear of failure. With Shatner having turned eighty, and becoming increasingly difficult to insure for action scenes — even though he was more than capable of performing them — it seemed as though T.J. Hooker would never be made as we had imagined it, if at all.
Over the course of nine scripts, I had passed through all nine Dantean Circles of Development Hell, before finally landing in the Circle to which all unproduced scripts are ultimately consigned.
You guessed it: Limbo.
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1 The psychological and professional jealousy aspects of Perfect Blue could also be said to bear a certain resemblance to Aronofsky’s Oscar-winning Black Swan.
2 I remember reading a fascinating article about mathematician John W. Nash Jr. in Vanity Fair, and naively calling the magazine to ask after the availability of the film rights, only to be told that Brian Grazer and Ron Howard had beaten me to it. A lucky thing, as my script would probably have turned out more like Sam I Am than A Beautiful Mind.
3 The fact that Myers felt that The Love Guru was sufficiently hilarious to go ahead and make may offer some insight as to the comedic value of Dieter, the script of which has been unofficially circulated.
INDEX OF QUOTATIONS
* * *
Note: Quotes taken from author interviews are marked AI. All available information on sources is given. Any omissions will be corrected in future editions where possible.
INTRODUCTION
Page 9: “Trying to make a movie...” Douglas Adams, quoted in ‘Douglas Adams’ by Nicholas Wroe, The Guardian, 15 May 2001. “The writer turns in a script...” is from Killer Instinct: How Two Young Producers Took on Hollywood and Made the Most Controversial Film of the Decade by Jane Hamsher, New York: Broadway Books, 1997. Page 10: “Everybody gives writers notes...” Richard Friedenberg, AI. “In Hollywood, ideas are anathema...” Gary Goldman, AI. “tweaking a draft...” William Farmer, AI.
DISILLUSIONED
Page 15: “They wanted Indiana Jones...” and all other Ted Henning qu
otes, AI. “This was the gentleman who...” and all other quotes from Lee Batchler, quoted in the BBC Radio production Development Hell, produced by Neil Rosser, 2011. Page 16: “As we researched...” and all other quotes from Janet Scott Batchler, AI. “Manipulating the laws of physics...”; “Whatever days I have left” are from the unproduced screenplay Smoke and Mirrors by Lee and Janet Scott Batchler. Page 18: “Sounds great...” Jay Stern, quoted in The Big Deal by Thom Taylor, New York: William Morrow, 1999. “I’m looking for a million” Alan Gasmer, ibid. Page 19: “I don’t know if they got an answer...”; “I was concerned...” Stern, ibid. Page 20: “We thought it was a wonderful script...” and all other quotes from Andrew G. Vajna, quoted in the BBC Radio production Development Hell, produced by Neil Rosser, 2011. Page 23: “Houdin travels to Algeria...” and all other ‘Stax’ quotes from ‘The Stax Report: Script Review of Smoke & Mirrors’ at IGN FilmForce (filmforce.ign.com), 19 December 2000. Page 26: “The fact-based story...” quoted in ‘Douglas, Zeta-Jones stoked for Smoke & Mirrors’, uncredited, Variety, 22 May 2001.
MONKEY BUSINESS
Page 31: “I thought it was gonna be fantastic...” and all other Don Murphy quotes, AI. “He told me the story...” and other Arthur P. Jacobs quotes, from ‘Dialogues on Apes, Apes and More Apes’ by Dale Winogura, Cinefantastique, Summer 1972. Page 32: “I never thought it could be made...” Pierre Boulle, ibid. “The novel was singularly uncinematic,” and other Charlton Heston quotes from In the Arena by Charlton Heston, London: HarperCollins, 1995. Page 33: “The make-up was crude...” John Chambers, quoted in original 20th Century Fox production notes for Planet of the Apes. Page 34: “I disliked, somewhat, the ending...” Boulle, quoted in ‘Dialogues on Apes, Apes and More Apes’ by Dale Winogura, Cinefantastique, Summer 1972. “Whether by design or accident...” Maurice Evans, quoted in original 20th Century Fox production notes for Planet of the Apes. “I had never thought of this picture...” Franklin J Schaffner, ibid. Page 35: “I had always been a huge Planet Of The Apes fan...”; “but not a sequel to the 5th film...”; “Spartacus with Apes...” Adam Rifkin, AI. Page 36: “The legend throughout the humans...” Rifkin, quoted in ‘Evolution’ by Daniel Argent, Creative Screenwriting, July/August 2001. “Fox was dead set on making this movie...”; “As soon as I was to turn in the cut down script...”; Page 37: “quite unexpectedly and unceremoniously replaced...” Rifkin, AI. “[Fox wanted] a happy, harmonious ending...” Rifkin, quoted in ‘Evolution’ by Daniel Argent, Creative Screenwriting, July/ August 2001. “Eventually the script evolved to a place...” and all remaining Adam Rifkin quotes, AI. Page 38: “I imagine the conversation going something like this...”; “I watched the original movies again...” are from Killer Instinct: How Two Young Producers Took on Hollywood and Made the Most Controversial Film of the Decade by Jane Hamsher, New York: Broadway Books, 1997. “What if there were discovered cryogenically frozen Vedic Apes...” Oliver Stone, ibid. Page 39: “Oliver Stone got Fox to take exactly...” ibid. “Oliver’s notion is kind of in the Joseph...” Hamsher, quoted in ‘Fox Goes Ape for Stone’ by Leonard Klady, Variety, 14 December 1993. “I never worked out how to get back...” is from the unproduced script Return of the Apes by Terry Hayes. Page 40: “one of the best scripts he ever read”; “What if our main guy finds himself in Ape land...”; “incredibly stupid” are from Killer Instinct: How Two Young Producers Took on Hollywood and Made the Most Controversial Film of the Decade by Jane Hamsher, New York: Broadway Books, 1997. Page 41: “What we tried to do was a story...” Sam Hamm, quoted in ‘Evolution’ by Daniel Argent, Creative Screenwriting, July/August 2001. “once-proud porcelain features...” is from the unproduced Planet of the Apes screenplay by Sam Hamm. Page 42: “Schwarzenegger ... is talking with Jim Cameron...” quoted in ‘Arnold Wants Forman to take Wings’ by Army Archerd, Variety, 28 January 1997. “I’m fourty-four...” James Cameron, quoted in Premiere, November 1998. “I would have gone in a very different direction” Cameron, quoted in ‘Ape Crusaders’ by Benjamin Svetkey, Entertainment Weekly, 27 April 2001. “The original movie is about race in America...” Albert Hughes, quoted in ‘New Jack City’ by Ian Freer, Empire, February 2002. “We wanted to take the premise...” Allen Hughes, ibid. Page 43: “[Fox president] Tom Rothman called...” and other William Broyles, Jr. quotes are from ‘Evolution’ by Daniel Argent, Creative Screenwriting, July/August 2001. “I wasn’t interested in doing a remake or a sequel...”; “introduce new characters and other story elements...” Tim Burton, quoted in 20th Century Fox production notes for Planet of the Apes. “When you say ‘Planet of the Apes’ and ‘Tim Burton’ in the same breath...”; “[Broyles] came up with the characters...”, Richard D. Zanuck, ibid. Page 44: “We did some work on the script...” Burton, quoted in a commentary for the Planet of the Apes DVD, circa 2001. Page 45: “Tim had three months to edit the film...” Estella Warren, quoted in ‘Estella’ by Justin Quirk, Arena, May 2003. “would have cost $300 million”; “I’m fascinated by the studio technique...” Burton, quoted in The Independent, reported by JAM! Showbiz, www.canoe.ca Page 46: “Can I explain the Planet of the Apes ending...” Tim Roth, quoted in ‘Empire Awards 2002’, Empire, April 2002. “I thought it made sense...” Helena Bonham Carter, quoted in ‘Helena Bonham Carter’ by Mark Salisbury, Total Film, December 2001. “Let’s say Fox wants to make...” Burton, quoted in a commentary for the Planet of the Apes DVD, circa 2001. “Rick has always kept a file...” Amanda Silver, quoted in ‘Interview with Rise of the Planet of the Apes Screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver’, theforbidden-zone.com, August 2011. Page 47: “We laid out the story...”; Page 48: “When we started this...” Rick Jaffa, quoted in ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes Screenwriters: We Pictured A Trilogy” by Darren Franih, EW.com, August 2011.
CAST INTO MOUNT DOOM
Page 49: “When Gandalf is vanquished...” John Boorman, quoted on The South Bank Show edited and presented by Melvyn Bragg, LWT Productions, 2001. “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” is from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, London: Allen & Unwin, 1937. “My work has escaped from my control...” J.R.R. Tolkien, quoted in The Letters of JRR Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien, New York: HarperCollins, 1985. Page 50: “I had no sooner landed in London...” and all other Forrest J Ackerman quotes, AI. “I should welcome the idea...”; “entirely ignorant of the process of producing an ‘animated picture’...”; “very unhappy about the extreme silliness...” Tolkien, quoted in The Letters of JRR Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien, New York: HarperCollins 1985. Page 52: “The problem was that, because Tolkien was not a regular moviegoer...” Brian Sibley, quoted in ‘Middle-Earth Man’, uncredited, Starlog, January 2002. “We talked about it for a while...” Paul McCartney, quoted in Beatles at the Movies by Roy Carr, London: UFOMusic, 1996. “After reading the book...” and all other Gene Deitch quotes, quoted in How to Succeed In Animation (Don’t Let A Little Thing Like Failure Stop You) by Gene Deitch, published on awn.com/genedeitch. Page 54: “as a kind of opera, or a sort of...” and all other Heinz Edelmann quotes are from ‘Tolkien: The Road Not Taken’ by Ross Pleset, Outre, circa 2001. Page 55: “like a Fellini movie in a never-land...” and all other Rospo Pallenberg quotes, ibid. Page 56: “When you’re faced with adapting...” Peter Jackson, quoted on The South Bank Show edited and presented by Melvyn Bragg, LWT Productions, 2001. “[We] used to get the giggles...” Boorman, ibid. Page 57: “Look – only seven colours...” is from the unproduced Lord of the Rings screenplay by Rospo Pallenberg. “I was a Tolkien fan...” and all other Ralph Bakshi quotes, AI. Page 60: “that was the key to it”, Jackson, quoted in ‘The Once and Future King’ by Jenny Cooney Carillo, Dreamwatch, October 2003. “presents the characters that people love, and...” Jackson, quoted on The South Bank Show edited and presented by Melvyn Bragg, LWT Productions, 2001. “It’s a huge uphill struggle...” Boorman, ibid.
WE CAN REWRITE IT FOR YOU WHOLESA
LE
Page 61: “Ron [Shusett] said, ‘You’ve done the Philip K. Dick version...” David Cronenberg, AI. Page 62: “I think it was probably 1974...”; “This was the first story...” Ronald D. Shusett, quoted in the Artisan documentary Imagining Total Recall, circa 2001. “Ronny Shusett walked into my apartment...”; “Dick’s story is short...”; “Quaid, Earth’s top secret agent...” Dan O’Bannon, quoted in ‘Dan O’Bannon On Why It Doesn’t Work’ by Carl Brandon, Cinefantastique, April 1991. Page 63: “At the that time I was not a Philip Dick fan...” Cronenberg, quoted in David Cronenberg by Serge Grünberg, Paris: Cahiers Du Cinema, 2000. “It’s a good thing I had a computer...” Cronenberg, AI. “I didn’t want to do it as serious...” Shusett, AI. “I went to Dino...” Cronenberg, quoted in David Cronenberg by Serge Grunberg, Paris: Cahiers Du Cinema, 2000. Page 64: “Cronenberg quit for a number of reasons...” Shusett, quoted in ‘The Bizarre Mars of David Cronenberg’ by Bill Florence, Cinefantastique, April 1991. “It’s dead for me now...” Cronenberg, quoted in David Cronenberg by Serge Grünberg, Paris: Cahiers Du Cinema, 2000. Page 65 “First of all, I really wanted to cast William Hurt...” Cronenberg, AI. “Quaid takes a cab driven by Benny...” is from ‘The Bizarre Mars of David Cronenberg’ by Bill Florence, Cinefantastique, April 1991. Page 65: “They were creatures that lived in the sewers...” and other Ron Miller quotes are from ‘The Bizarre Mars of David Cronenberg’ by Bill Florence, Cinefantastique, April 1991. Page 66: “I thought it was a bad movie...” Cronenberg, quoted in David Cronenberg by Serge Grunberg, Paris: Cahiers Du Cinema, 2000. “With Arnold Schwarzenegger in the main part...” Paul Verhoeven, quoted in commentary for Total Recall DVD. “Also I thought it was very tacky...” Cronenberg, quoted in David Cronenberg by Serge Grünberg, Paris: Cahiers Du Cinema, 2000. “As I recall it was seven directors...” Shusett, quoted in the Artisan documentary Imagining Total Recall, circa 2001. Page 67: “I was asked to do a polish” and all other Gary Goldman quotes, AI. “Within a few hours...” Arnold Schwarzenegger, quoted in commentary for Total Recall DVD. “In 1981, eight years before I got the movie financed...” and all remaining Shusett quotes, AI. “about thirty” Verhoeven, AI. Page 68: “Everything we have seen before...” Verhoeven, quoted in commentary for Total Recall DVD. “What’s bullshit? That you’re having a paranoid episode...” is dialogue from Total Recall. “That’s the great thing about the movie...” Schwarzenegger, quoted in commentary for Total Recall DVD. “As much as possible...” Verhoeven, AI. “You are a top operative under deep cover...” is dialogue from Total Recall. Page 69: “McClane tells him everything...”; “That part of the narrative...” Verhoeven, quoted in commentary for Total Recall DVD. Page 70: “I think we were a very writer-friendly group...”; “There was an introduction...” Verhoeven, quoted in commentary for Total Recall DVD. p74 “Somebody whose name I won’t name...” Verhoeven, AI. Page 76: “This is the perfect franchise opportunity...” Bob Weinstein, quoted in ‘Recall in New Dimension’ by Rex Weiner and Anita M. Busch, Daily Variety, 15 January 1997. Page 76: “Immediately after turning in that script...” and all other Matthew Cirulnick quotes, AI. p79 “actively involved” is from ‘Dimension eyes Recall 2’ by Benedict Carver and Chris Petrikin, Daily Variety, 12 May 1998. Page 80: “I’m very jazzed...” Jonathan Frakes, quoted in ‘Inside Trek’ by Ian Spelling, www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6952/st9.htm, March 1998. “Arnold is serious...” Frakes, quoted in interview with Louis B. Hobson, Calgary Sun, circa December 1998. “waiting for Mr Schwarzenegger’s hands to free up...” Frakes, quoted in uncredited interview on Tripod (www.tripod.com), circa 1998. “Totall Recall is an old movie...” Frakes, quoted in Starburst, February 2000. Page 82: “That way, should we want to betray the agency...”; “Scientists say the Mars explosion...” are from unproduced script for Total Recall 2 by Matthew Cirulnick. Page 86: “Nowadays I think it’s hard...” Vincent Moore, quoted in ‘Vincent Moore has Total Recall’ by Steve Sunu, comicbookresources.com, 27 April 2011. “After all, the real one...” is from ‘We Can Remember It For You Wholesale’ by Philip K. Dick.
