Last Action Hero: Production Notes - Screenwriters & Directors - See You at the Poddy, Richter! - An Arnold Schwarzenegger Movie Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Tape Deck Media.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello and welcome back to another episode of See You
at the Party Ricta. I am one of your hosts.
Joseph bet Castro. Joining me as always is Aaron Frescas. Hello,
and Christopher. I can't come up with a good thing
to say. Chapman, what's up, dude? There we go. Thank
you for bailing me out and joining us for this episode.

(00:38):
You've heard her on the pod before various different episodes
and even a little bit of a placement for me
and some Stay Hungry episodes. But we'd like to welcome
back Erica Shasky.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
So, hello, welcome, Thanks guys.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
So I think you were on maybe like the third
or fourth episode or something, but we never got to
ask you the guest questionnaire. So ok, yeah, let's just
do that really quick. So, uh, do you have a
favorite Arnold movie?

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Actually, last section Hero is my favorite one.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well look at that. How lucky are we? Do you
have a least favorite? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Gosh, you know what, there are several Now that you
guys have put me through this adjacently, let's see.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
She's like, I'm not even sure I entirely like the
guy anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
I don't know, Stay Hungry was pretty awful for me,
to be honest, I.

Speaker 5 (01:34):
Actually got up the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
I got up and walked out, but I couldn't. I
felt like I was wasting my time. I mean I
actually started doing chores, that's how bad it was.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, I guess that's preferable.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
The other question was have you seen this movie before?
But I guess you kind of answered that already by
saying it's your favorite, or maybe it's just your favorite
because it's when you haven't seen it's the only one
you haven't been annoyed by.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Oh yeah, no, I like this one.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Okay, Well, there we go. I think that's going to
do it for intros. Of course, I should have mentioned
the movie we're doing it is. We're going to continue
the coverage of Arnold's nineteen ninety three action oom comedy
satire vehicle Last Action Hero. So why don't we get

(02:21):
into some production information? But you take it away Hearin.

Speaker 5 (02:26):
Yeah, all right, So Last Action Hero, which if for
some reason there's someone who hasn't seen it, like Joe
was saying, it's a nineteen ninety three action adventure comedy,
fantasy satire, any other genres I missed their vehicle crime,
vehicle crime, Yeah, yeah, crime. There was a there was

(02:47):
a few more. There was like a listed on IMDb,
was like a one man army. There was a couple
other one man anyway, Yeah, which is apparently a genre
on IMDb. Anyways, First Blood would probably be like that,
is that one really one? I feel like the third one.
I haven't seen it, but I know that one. It

(03:08):
takes out like the entire police department by himself.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, all right, okay, cop and a half because it's
one man and so it is technically a one man
Turner and Hooch.

Speaker 5 (03:22):
Also, it's kind of downplaying hooches.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Uh well, he's a he's a dog.

Speaker 5 (03:29):
Wait wait wait wait, is Turners the Tom Hanks? Right? Yeah, okay,
I don't know why his name.

Speaker 4 (03:35):
I mean that would be kind of funny, like if
you made the title Turner and hooch and yeah, gave the.

Speaker 5 (03:42):
Pooch and the okay anyway, So the movies. The movies
directed by John McTiernan, who is also credited as one
of the film's producers. And just like we did but
stay Hungry, I'm once again gonna have a like Wikipedia
give us the basic plot because they do a pretty
good job of it, and I'm like, there's a lot
that I had to write. Okay, So anyway, it says quote.
The film stars Arnold Swarzenegger as Jack Slater, a Los

(04:04):
Angeles police detective within the Jack Slatter actual film franchise,
while Austin O'Brien co stars as Danny Manigan, a boy
magically transported into the Slater universe, and Charles Dance as
Mister Benedict, a ruthless assassin from the Slater universe who
escapes into the real world. And that's in case the
script is not clear. It's basically about a kid who's

(04:25):
given a magic ticket that transports him into an old
Schwartzninger movie. Yeah, basically right.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
It's a very meta movie. So some stuff might sound
confusing if you haven't seen it before.

Speaker 5 (04:34):
Yeah, and I just basically described in my own words.
So but anyway, okay, So the film had four writers
listed on IMDb, with Shane Black and David are not
credited for the screenplay, and then the story credits going
to Zach Penn and Adam Leff, who co wrote the
original script, and in order to learn a little bit

(04:55):
more about that original script, we're going to kick things
off by traveling, oh the way back to the year
nineteen ninety one. Yeah, and what a magical year it was,
according to my Google search.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
Hold on, seriously, hold on for a second. Yes, nineteen
ninety one. Had Zach Penn done anything else? Like, I
recognize that, you know, this is the first thing.

Speaker 5 (05:16):
This is the first thing that both of them they didn't,
not that they wrote, but that they got like producder,
I gotta got it. Okay, Yeah, sorry, So yeah, nineteen
ninety one, in the sports world, you had Super Bowl
twenty five, which became a game to remember with an
absolutely incredible Witney Houston performance that kicked the national anthem
writing a fucking dick, which was followed by the New
York Giants defeeding the Buffalo Bills twenty to nineteen after

(05:36):
a place kicker Ray Finkle missed the game winning field goal. Dude,
damn wit they're not holding a ball laces out, which
I believe ended up making like a portly aged movie
about a few years later, I don't know, which is
basically what happened, minus the whole lace is out thing.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Right, Yeah, it was Scott and r would and before
you said that I could have named the super Bowl
because I told you that's my rain manpower.

Speaker 5 (05:57):
Which I figured right when I said, wait was it
when I said the the which one it was? Or
the year? The year?

Speaker 2 (06:04):
But it would be the nineteen ninety season, but the
nineteen super Bowl happened in nineteen ninety.

Speaker 5 (06:08):
One, so does account would it be the nineteen ninety
one suit?

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah? They had to because it looked up, but they
don't go like it's usually like if they're celebrating, they're
like nineteen ninety World champions, but usually it's like super Bowl, Yeah,
twenty five chap it.

Speaker 5 (06:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah. It used to be the last Sunday of January.
Oh and then nine to eleven. Then it was the
first week ind of February. Then they added a seven.

Speaker 6 (06:34):
Game and then back Yeah they ruined, which I argue
their greatest crime anyway.

Speaker 5 (06:47):
That Okay, will it though? Oh god, I yeah, I
don't remember that. Like I was like, oh yeah, super Bowl,
and then I started looking up. I was like, I'm
not going to mention. Then I saw it was like,
oh man, there's a spinteral with that thing. Yeah, which uh,
I'm I'm assuming is because it has it happened before,
Like I'm assuming that's what they kind of took that from.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
They're like, oh yeah, yeah, pretty much. I don't know
if that's where they took it from, but that's like
the only time that's really happened.

Speaker 5 (07:15):
And it was just like so right after, like it
seems like very like inspired by anyway. The public was
also introduced to the Worldwide Web and our guest for
this episode, Eric Shasky. Yeah, both of which I've spent
countless hours logged into, so you know, I had to
put a little break between that so the way I
can delete it if I need to, which the only

(07:38):
thing that I had written was and I'm proud to
say that I spent a significant amount of time on
both of them. Whichever one you prefer, Erica, is what
I all had in there, or just deleted both of them.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
I don't care. It's your podcast, Eric.

Speaker 5 (07:52):
Is like, nobody fucking listens to you fucking idiots. I
don't give a shit what you put on your podcast.
In music, the Simpsons Sing the Blues somehow reached number
three on the Billboard Top two hundred album, which, somehow
that is a seminal Album's true we.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Used to in year old un that had the fucking
system in the back.

Speaker 5 (08:13):
We that album Deep Deep Trouble, which was outside only
by Madonna like a greatest hits album, and then Vanilla
Ice in that in that particular, I think they go
by a week, but because just music was just in
a weird place in the there's a lot of soundtracks.

(08:36):
But then we have the film industry with Arnold Schwarzenegger
cementing his place as one of the biggest stars in
the world with the release of his latest film, Terminator two.
But little did Arnold or anyone else in Hollywood know
at the time that two unknown screenwriters, Zach Penn and
Adam Leff, had begun work on a spec script that
would eventually become his next movie. Yeah, so real quick,

(08:57):
does anyone know what a spec script, like a spec
which is a speculative script is My understanding is that
a spec script is a script that you write without
being asked to, Like, you write it just because you
want to write it, and you send it into the
studios to sell it to them, as opposed to if
you were in Commis studio, Yeah, and they are actually

(09:17):
telling you, hey, we want you to write this movie.
We are going to pay you this much to write it.
We may or may not use it, but we are
paying you to write it.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
This is a a spec script is one that you
just write. A lot of TV writers will write spec
scripts for like TV shows that already exist, like or
even TV shows that are already over, just to like
show that they can write.

Speaker 5 (09:38):
Yeah, it's basically a script that a writer was not
PAIDIRR commissioned to write, so they wrote it independently with
the hope of selling it. And by the way, all
most of this info, I pretty much all this info
comes from like a bevy of like different articles as
well as a few different books including Hit and Run
by Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters, Fiasco Colon, a History
of Hollywood's about iconic flops by James Robert that is

(10:00):
not the title, that is just trying to like whatever,
and then Blockbuster by Tom Shown. Okay, so anyway, Last
Action Heroes original writers Adam Leff and Zach Penn were
two college buddies who moved to la and we're making
a living as script readers. I think that it was
for Quincy Jones Productions at the time when they came
up with an idea for their own script, a sort
of like parody of action movies. So they spent the

(10:24):
next six months watching pretty much every action movie they
can get their hands on in order to research the genre,
which they did this by making checklists to help them
dissect the genre's tropes. And those checklicks, those checklists contained clicks. Yes,
those checklists contain questions like does the second most evil

(10:45):
bad guy die before or after the most evil bad guy?
Or does the hero have a Vietnam buddy because your
war buddy always betrays you? And what Hollywood or sorry,
what holiday is the film taking place on? And then
when does it become person for the hero? So, yeah,
they were watching a lot of eighties stuff. They mentioned

(11:06):
Leith the Weapon and Diehards. Well, I guess it would
be the first one. I don't know when two came out,
but it would be the first one of the first two.
And then they mentioned like something like a Steven Sigall
movie that they watched the whole thing for and he
was going around killing a bunch of people. I don't
remember what the which one they said it was, and
like at the end, you end up finding out that
all these people that he killed, like had nothing to

(11:26):
do with the bad guy at the end, so he
ended up killing a bunch of innocent people through I
don't know they I don't know which one that was,
but anyway. They finished the script in September of nineteen
ninety one, which they titled Extremely Violent. They were then
able to secure an agent by having friends that worked
at like a low level studios basically like not interns,

(11:48):
but like padawan assistance, like assistance and whatnot. Yeah yeah, yeah,
like a call up their future agent who ends up
being their agent, Chris Moore, and telling them about this
amazing script that they still needed, that they he needed
to read, and that it'd be perfect for all Schwarzenegger.
This actually worked because like hair Brain schemes from the
nineteen eighty sitcom still works in the nineties. Work.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
You'd never get anywhere close to that. Yeah, you'd never
get close to anybody.

Speaker 5 (12:13):
Now you gotta hail this script. Say, Okay, so before
we continue, I want to take a second to talk
about this original Zach pin Adam left script because I
think knowing the basics of it will help understand the
very basics of it. We'll go over it later, but
help you understand some of the upcoming decisions that are made.
So full disclosure, I didn't read the script. I did
ask Chris to read it. Did you end up reading it? Yes,

(12:35):
I read it, okay, and we'll talk about some of
the like changes that were made later. Like I said,
but I just want to get some basic info out
of it, so correct me if I'm wrong. But the
original script seems as if it was written specifically with
Schwarzenegger in mind.

Speaker 4 (12:48):
For sure, the lead character's name is Arno Slater instead
of Jack Slater.

Speaker 5 (12:53):
Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, so just that for right now.
But with that in mind, it shouldn't come as a
surprise that the first studio that their agent, Chris Moore,
sent the script to was Caroco Pictures. Yeah, who had
produced Arnold's last two films, Terminator two in total recall. Surprisingly, though,
Mario Kassar was somehow able to resist like throwing just
a kajillion dollars at this, like, I don't know how,

(13:13):
because that's his thing.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
Apparently, actually maybe he he may have not had quite
a ka jillion dollars at the time, yes, which I
don't I don't, like I know, Terminator two did well,
and so did YO did like it does they also
make island, which was something that.

Speaker 5 (13:32):
That's what he made instead of this. Well that's what
there's a comment that John mcinernan makes about well he
he passed on this, but he made cut their island,
so he got basically like he got what he was
I don't know sort of thing. But that wasn't made
for a few years later, So okay anyway, but yeah,
according to The New York Times, they rejected it because
they quote disliked the script and particularly the ending in

(13:55):
which the Action hero threw his gun away. Is that
pretty much what happens at the end of it? Uh, yeah,
that's like the very end. Though.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
I will say like his his arc in this original
script is quite a bit different from uh, actually what
we got in Last Action Hero.

Speaker 5 (14:13):
So he's also like super dumb, isn't he. I think
that that was one I think I wouldn't say.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
Super dumb, but he is definitely dumber, way less self aware.

Speaker 5 (14:22):
Yes, yeah, for sure dumber. Zach Penn and Adam Leff
definitely had a problem with the fact that Shane Black
made him more aware and made him kind of a
sad character. Yeah, like sadder, like yeah.

Speaker 4 (14:34):
So yeah, but it's way more interesting, Like I don't know,
we'll get into it when'll get into the summary, but
I find I find the Last Action Hero version way
more interesting.

Speaker 5 (14:44):
Did you read both of them?

Speaker 2 (14:45):
No?

Speaker 5 (14:45):
No, no, I'm just saying, like what I remember of
the movie versus the script. Oh okay, well because that
that ends up not being like the final script either.
But yeah, anyway, apparently once Coroco passed on it, their
agent just started sending it to send it to five
different studios in hopes of prevent bad word of mouth,
basically trying to find a buyer before word got around
that cross it. Yeah, and I know they're like also

(15:07):
like kind of striving for like a seller's market or whatever,
and that if any studios would have found out that,
they'd have like probably would have lowered the amount that
they were going to offer. But I'm curious if any
of the studios would have seld the like whoa coralco
passed anything, Jesus, we need to we need to really
rethink this. Anyway, So two of those studios, Columbia Pictures

(15:29):
and Trystar Pictures, ended up liking the script enough to
start a bidding war, with the offers supposedly getting as
high as seven hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, damn. The only
problem was was that both Colombia and TriStar were both
owned by the same parent company, Sony Entertainment. Okay, so
once the two studios realized they were bidding against each other,

(15:49):
they both lowered their bids pretty significantly. That's bullshit. I
guess it's like, I do you not realize that? But
I guess if it's supposed to be secretive, then ye.
Like it's the nine early ninety there's no like base.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
Also, it's also probably not let you know, it's not
like the studio is going after it. It's like one
producer at the studio has read the script. Yes, Desserts,
he wants to go by it, so he might not
be talking to all the other studio executives.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
Yeah. So Columbia eventually ends up optioning the script for
one hundred thousand dollars paid up front, against a total
of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars if the movie
actually ends up getting made. Okay, So Columbia at this
point was kind of in a I guess interesting place.
Mark Cainton had recently taken over as chairman after leaving
Warner Brothers, and he was involved in some of the

(16:39):
big big hits with Warner Brothers, including Lethal Weapon, the
first two I think, and then the nineteen eighty nine
Batman film, but he'd also overseen production on some gigantic
like bombs as well, including The Bonfire the Vanities, which
he called quote the best movie I ever saw after
after its first screening. Yeah, And I haven't seen the

(17:01):
Bonfile of Vanity, so I don't really have an opinion.
But if it's got a fifteen percent Rotten Tomato score,
like if that's any indication, Yeah, and that's the critic one.
The audience one's a little higher, but it's still sitting
at twenty six, so it's yeah, like even the audience
has given you that lov of score, it's probably not
the best. Yeah, I've never seen it. I have no
idea what it's about, but yeah, never even heard of it.

(17:22):
Think it's about rich people. It's about it's a movie
with Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith. I
don't know what it's about, but it's based on a book.
But I think it's Tom Wolf. But I'm not positive.
I know it's a famous book, but yeah, okay, so anyway,
so yeah, Mark Canton. So this this was the dude
that was in charge of Columbia Pictures at the time
that they purchased Last Section euro Slash Extremely Violent des script, which,

(17:43):
according to the book Hit and Run, he did because
he was determined to find Columbia its next big franchise
and he felt that Last Action Hero could be it
if they could somehow get on Schwarzenegger on board, who'd
taken a year off from making movies to you know,
like he started out playing a Hollywood. He launch Planet
Hollywood alongside Sylvester Salom, Bruce Willis, Dnymore. Yeah, which we'll

(18:05):
get into the whole story of Planet Hollywood. Maybe I'm
a different episode, who knows. I don't know, Joe, you've
been to a Planet Hollywood before the casino? No, sorry, sorry,
Planet Hollywood. The restaurants.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Uh maybe back in the nineties at universals. Okay, I
don't remember.

Speaker 5 (18:22):
Apparently there was one in Vegas up until like two thousand.
I looked it up the other day, twenty fifteen or
something like that, which I had no idea, Like like
in the mall right next to the Casino Hotel. Yeah,
no idea, because I definitely would have gone in there
because I'm like the perfect like sucker, like poor person.
That was like, oh my god, Hollywood, I can see

(18:44):
onwards Niggers, a fucking a fucking mark group that will.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
It's a jockstrip and in a lobbist yard.

Speaker 4 (19:00):
Yeah, I wouldn't think of, Oh go ahead, he did
go there. I remember we went there like once.

Speaker 5 (19:07):
Okay, it was so long ago.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
No, no, no, I was it was so long ago.
I barely remember it. Yeah, I just remember you're with uh, just.

Speaker 5 (19:17):
Mom and my dad. I think. I don't think there
was one of those frescus free trips that you guys
used to.

Speaker 4 (19:25):
You guys went to Universal Studios and watched a TV
show and I had to stay at home lives. No,
there was a specific time where you guys all went
up to l A to go to Universal Studios and
I got left at home.

Speaker 5 (19:38):
Oh oh yeah, you wait, was that when we went
don't remember why? Yeah, you guys saw, oh yeah, and
that would be gold Bro was fucking mad. I was.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
I was goddamn obsessed with TV at that, like so
horribly obsessed with TV at that age, and you guys
got to go watch.

Speaker 5 (19:57):
A TV show. I was so unbelievably mad. Yeah mat
whoopy no big big.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Like actually no, which is uh yeah that was that
was interesting.

Speaker 5 (20:12):
Nobody ever believes me. I'm like, yeah, mate, WHOOPI gool bir.
She gave me a shirt because I got brought up
on stage for some reason, like out of everybody picking
and picked the awkward kid. And then everybody's dancing up there,
like because it was like in between tapings of Hollywood squares,
so they like start bringing people up and they brought
me up and like everyone's dancing. I'm like, I'm not,
I don't. I'm just like standing awkwardly dance. I think that. Yeah.

(20:35):
I think that made me extra bad because I was like,
you got picture go on fucking stage.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (20:43):
Yeah, it sounded like you got a goddamn acting job
in Hollywood and I was stuck at home.

Speaker 5 (20:50):
To me when I was seven or whatever.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, you're like every model ever in existence, Like oh,
I was just going my friend to this model lane
and then they picked me for some reason. It's like, oh,
I wonder why awkwardness.

Speaker 5 (21:03):
She's like, oh, this poor kid no light anytime soon.
Let's bring him up here.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Oh and every yeah, every modeling existence was like, oh,
it's just ghaki and awkward and like MI to school
in high school and now I'm like the how is
shaking existence?

Speaker 5 (21:16):
Like okay, I mean I am enjoying this this comparison
for now. Okay, so anyway, so okay. So Columbia sends
a script to Arnold's agent during Christmas time in ninety one,
and he lets them know soon after that Arnold is interested.
The only problem was was that Arnold was also considering

(21:37):
at least four other projects at the time. The article
that I the New York Times article that I read
listed ten, but they only listed are sorry, said said
it was at least ten, but only listed four. Yes,
but those projects, which, according to the New York Times
were quote trystars cop gives waitress two million dollar tip?
Which does that sound familiar to anyone besides Erica?

Speaker 4 (21:58):
Yeah, it's oh my god, hold on, but I get
the name of it. It could happen to you.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yes, is Costner in that?

Speaker 5 (22:07):
No, that's and Bridget funded. Yes, it ends up being
the four Bridget Fonda Nicholas Kge romantic comedy It Could
Happen to You, which also stars Rosie pres A k
Early nine Jena Ortega because that's exactly who she looks
like to me. Exactly. What's his name, oh, fucking from

(22:27):
the Wire. No, the dude from the Bunk Bunk from
the uh not West Borland.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
That's the guitarist for Biscuit. I'm sorry, but bunk Moreland
is his name in the show. It's Wendell Pierce.

Speaker 5 (22:41):
Wendell Pierce. Yes, I even said his name last time.

Speaker 4 (22:44):
All right, Well, West Boorland is like an understandable mix up. Then, well,
bunk Borland, west Boreland.

Speaker 5 (22:49):
Yeah, exactly, that's what I'm saying, which was based on
a true story, with the working title given by the
New York Times pretty much describing what it is. But okay,
that's that's a really funny working title. Yeah, description of
movie exactly. Have you have you seen it? Yeah? Yeah, Joe,
Joe and Chris. Yes, you have seen it, Chris, Yeah,
we have that on VHS. I think I watched it

(23:09):
a bunch of times when I was a kid. Well,
you were watching with mom then, because I don't know, Yeah,
I'm sure she was yeah, okay, So, first off, this
is the second movie we've learned about that Nicholas Cage
ended up with Afterhold passed. What was the all?

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Though?

Speaker 5 (23:24):
I guess it's actually the first one chronologically because The
Rock came out in ninety six. Oh okay, gotcha. Yeah technically,
Eric and I watched that last night, The Rock or
it could happen to you. It can happen to you. Okay,
and Eric, can you mention Swartzneer in that role because
Chris is really funny? Actually is it is a god?

Speaker 4 (23:46):
It would make it so much funnier, a frozy Pross
pushing him around the whole time.

Speaker 5 (23:50):
Oh my god, that's what I have written down to
is Oh my god, that'd be hilarious.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
I think he would be really good at the comedy
of it and being the cop and everything.

Speaker 5 (23:58):
Yeah, but how's he gonna play sick? He plays such
like a like a straight like a straight man. I
don't know, Like, there's not a whole lot of I
guess there is a little bit bad.

Speaker 4 (24:09):
Well there is, but like again, I just can't see
him as a sad sack, especially not nineteen ninety pushover.

Speaker 5 (24:16):
Yeah seriously, So yeah, that that was one of them.
The second one, according to The New York Times, is
quote Warner brother Warner Brothers Sergeant Rock based on a
comic book character, damn unquote, which I actually believe we
talked about during the Terminator three episode. Yeah, and I
actually just read an update about this movie, I think yesterday,
but it was I think it was a Variety article

(24:39):
that says that Colin Farrell is in talks to star
in it for DC. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (24:42):
They yeah, they started working on that a year or
two ago, like or it was announced that they might
make that.

Speaker 5 (24:48):
Movie a year or two ago, like when they did
the like all the announcement for their age or whatever
when they were talking about know, it was that big
of a character. Although he's not doing that like no, no.

Speaker 4 (24:57):
No, He's like Nick Fury, but a little less known
like he was big and back in the day, like
when war comics were a big thing.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
So then it is I imagine the Penguin is not part
of the rebooted DCEU No the Batman.

Speaker 5 (25:13):
Yeah, yeah, and he he's under so much makeup it
matter well yeah, exactly. Yeah, he seems like he hates
that role, Like I think he hates the makeup part,
like the yeah, being in that makeup part of it
three hours or whatever to cover him because it's like, yeah,
there was pretty much something that said like, yeah, well
if he gets that, I doubt he's going to go
back to the Penguin, which is good. Have you have

(25:36):
you watched that?

Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, it's really good to watch it.

Speaker 5 (25:40):
Yeah, it is really good. Yeah, and it maybe rewatch
the Batman, which I still don't like that Riddler character,
but it wasn't as It's a lot easier to watch
the second time when I'm like, Okay, well I hated
it last time, so maybe this time and it was
a little better.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
It's just fucking goes on forever. It's like it has
a from long, it has a Return of the King,
the situation, yeah yeah, yeah, and it's just like aren't
you going to fucking end? And then at the end
they're like writing motorcycles together and that goes on for
like five fucking minutes. There's like, oh, they're writing off
into the fucking the moonlight or whatever, and then there's writing,

(26:18):
but they.

Speaker 5 (26:19):
Keep writing opposite ways for so long, but then.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
They keep writing, and then they keep writing, and then
they keep writing and then they keep writing and then
they go opposite ways, like we didn't need fucking four minutes.

Speaker 5 (26:27):
Of this ship.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Anyway.

Speaker 4 (26:31):
Yeah, it's they could have cut a storyline and a
half out.

Speaker 5 (26:35):
Of that movie. Yea, but yeah anyway, So okay. So
the New York Times article also lists quote Ron Howard's
Curious George, which they eventually made in two thousand and six.
All the way that definitely did not He was not
directed by Ron Howard. No, was he going to be
the man in the yellow head? That's what that was
my question right here was I don't know what who else? Also?

(26:56):
Was it live action? Because that's hilarious. The we could
have had like was live action? Was it not? What? No?
Was it that was animated? He was just the voice. Yeah, okay,
he was just a voice. But we could have had
like a Dunston checks in situation with Arnold Man.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Wait, what was that one with fucking Matt LeBlanc and
they played.

Speaker 5 (27:24):
Oh, it's like, what's his name?

Speaker 4 (27:27):
It's not I don't know, I want to say Jojo
or something, but it's not that.

Speaker 5 (27:32):
It's just like the baseball player. Yeah, yeah, it's just
like the name of the month, the name of the Monkey.
I'm pretty sure. God, what is that movie?

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Dunstan strikes out was a no, no, no, no, it was
its own movie.

Speaker 5 (27:44):
Surprised, it's not let's see if it's on his it's
not Most Valuable Primate. And then the MVP. That's a
hockey movie. Oh it's called Ed Ed. Yeah right, I'm
pretty sure Ed is the monkey's name. Did anyone watch that?
Because I kind of want to watch that one, and
I know what, Eric watched that because she likes friends,

(28:06):
she'll watch so I thought you're gonna be like she
loves monkeys anyway, So didn't want to watch that.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Carrious Storge, I was not curious. Sorry, none of you should.

Speaker 5 (28:23):
The last one the article mentions is quote Sweet Tooth,
in which he would have played the tooth fairy unquote.
But that one makes sense because of that. Eventually got
remained two thousand or sorry, made ten starting the Rock
or sorry, Duane the Rock, the Rock.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
His face as a TV.

Speaker 5 (28:45):
I did not watch that, Erica, you said you watched
that last night, right, not last night, but last night
you said you watched that. Okay, it's just exactly what
you think it would be.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
I'm assuming, Yeah, I mean it's kind of forgettable. Like, yea,
I remember Toothless better than I remember that movie.

Speaker 5 (29:05):
What's Toothless?

Speaker 3 (29:06):
Like a Disney film with the Her name just went
out my head girl lady from Cheers?

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Are you throwing no?

Speaker 5 (29:17):
The lley Christy.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Christie Elli?

Speaker 5 (29:22):
Oh yeah, show me that. Wait, it was entire pinks
and something.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
Yeah, that's a that's a Disney Channel original movie where
she plays.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
A Barbie doll.

Speaker 4 (29:33):
She plays a doll that comes to life life size.

Speaker 5 (29:38):
I forget. You guys are around the same. You guys
have kind of watched the same movies, like the Little
the Kids movies. Okay, So does anyone notice a pattern
here as far as the types of movies?

Speaker 4 (29:51):
He's yeah, comedies, family comedies.

Speaker 5 (29:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (29:55):
The reason for this is because, according to like a
few different sources, is now that he was a father,
he was actively looking to soften his image a little bit.
He was also wanting something that wouldn't require much travel
so that he could stay closer to home, And while
he doesn't outright admit it in his book, he does
sort of touch on it a little bit, saying, quote,
the idea of a warmer, more cuddly action. Sorry, he's

(30:15):
talking about last action here right here. The idea of
a warmer, more cuddly action movie did seem right for
the times. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton had just beaten George
Bush in the nineteen ninety three presidential election, and the
media were full of stories about baby boomers taking over
for the World War II generation and about how America
was now going into an anti violence direction. Entertainment journalists

(30:38):
were saying, this is the same, quoting them, I wonder
what this means for conservative hardcore action heroes like Sylvester
Stallone and Bruce Willis and Oll Schwartzenaker. Are the audiences
now more into peace and love and that? Then he
continues by saying, that's the trend that I wanted to
connect with. And yeah, unquote, but I do think he
made the right choice out of those four Jesus considering

(31:02):
although like I like, we're saying, like it could happen
to you. I watching it last night, just him a
scene of him arguing with Rosie Perez, Oh, that would
be great, good like a subtitled scene. And granted that
character doesn't really get too like hot headed. He's very
mellow like just like or him just being berated by

(31:26):
if he can pull it off, that'd be an amazing movie. Okay.
So anyway, Arnold's team sets up a meeting with Columbia
and January nineteen ninety two, which takes place at his restaurant,
Shatzi on Main Rip, which I looked it up because
I was like, yeay, wet we talked about this before.
Maybe he had a restaurant. It was like a a

(31:48):
Schnitzel place. Oh yeah, Hollywood on Sunset or something like that.
But it was called Shots. I mean it was open
till like two thousand and seven, I think. And I
was looking it up today and I was like, I
gotta stop. This is why taking so long? Are you
looking up Shots on me? Because I was trying to
find out when it closed and I saw an article.
I was like, whoa, what's that about? And apparently they

(32:08):
got a b oh like food yeah, like which is
like not the best.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah, that's uh that's what The bees were not the best.

Speaker 4 (32:18):
And that's after the bribe.

Speaker 5 (32:22):
Apparently that was after he kind of sold it, but
he was still involved. I think it was it was
still like he owns like the like I think, which
we found out or I didn't mention during Stay Hungry
he owns like a whole block on in Venice. Oh really, yeah,
which was a story from Stay Hungry. I didn't mention,

(32:46):
and it's it's Robert England talking about how after the
movie wrapped, and they were like, well, we need we
probably need to like watch out for Arnold, like just
like kind of try to take care of like make
sure like he's okay when he gets back, because you know,
like we're working actors, but he's like he's still trying
to break in acting. He might not be okay. And
then we got back to l A and we figured

(33:07):
out he owns he's like a millionaire, owns like the
whole like complex. He is an actual real estate magnet exactly.
He owns the whole He's what the fucking movie was about.
He owns like a whole block of buildings and he's
fine anyway, Okay, actually he really needs this one small

(33:28):
gym to close down. And I got some ideas from
the movie. Okay. So yeah, So during this meeting at
Shatia Main which should have been which the original writer
Zack pen and Adam Left were there by the way,

(33:49):
So apparently Arnold says about the script, quote, having a
kid come to a movie awaken certain fantasies ahead as
a kid in Australia, but he then goes Australia. Sorry,
so right, having a kid, having a kid in Austria.
I mean maybe he went on a vacation to Australia.
I don't know. Whatever. Having a kid come into a

(34:12):
movie awaken certain fantasies I had as And when I
wrote this out, I even said in my head Australia,
and I was like, don't see Australia. It's Austria, Australia.
He then mentions being able to settle up with John Wayne,
who I feel would have called mccammie or something like that,
like get off my horse. Yet I don't know because

(34:33):
John Wayne's probably stupid, but I get what he's saying.
He's like, oh, yeah, like settling up with John wayn
you know, going into a movie that would be awesome.
He didn't. Continues by saying, quote, the script had a
great concept, but it wasn't executed professionally, which the scripts
in the room whatever, like it's a meeting and yeah whatever.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
Also, he's not wrong, there's typos in the script.

Speaker 5 (34:56):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
Well, and didn't he make a big deal about that
was something else too?

Speaker 5 (35:02):
Yes, the rock? Yeah, yes, Like he's like, what is this?
This is this is bullshit? Like, yeah, bring it back
to me when it's written, like yeah, which makes sense,
Like I'd be like, sure.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
Sure, yeah if it's yeah, if it doesn't look professional.

Speaker 5 (35:14):
But yeah, he's like, there's screebles all you need. There's
a picture of a penis right here. I didn't say that,
but I mean I drew it, but I wouldn't have
done if the scrup is a little better. Okay, So
Adam Left says in a twenty eighteen interview with Yahoo
dot com. Quote, in this meeting with Arnold where we
met him for the first time, they are discussing the script.

(35:36):
So we think, okay, great, we're here to break out,
you know, some ideas. See where the weak spots are. Oh,
by the way that they were told, sorry, this is
meant real fast. By the way they were told by
their agent not to talk during the meeting. Yeah, just
shut the fuck up, Just make sense, do what they're
gonna do. But yeah, he continues by saying, quote, and
Arnold says, I like the first forty two pages. Then

(35:57):
it gets a little flat and we're like, yeah, okay,
first forty two pages are a great quote unquote but yeah,
So basically to give you an idea of how much
leverage Arnold haaded this time, he asks Columbia to bring
in Shane Block for rewrites, which they do even though
Arnold still hadn't agreed to be in the movie. So
he wants on the movie, but he hasn't signed on

(36:17):
to the movie yet.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
Yeah, rewrite this thing so I can consider being Yeah,
that's pretty funny.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
I mean, that's how this podcast works. I review what
you guys right, and I'm like, I'm not gonna be
on this piece of That's why Eric I filled in
for me another one.

Speaker 4 (36:35):
I was just like, no, this is your work boys.

Speaker 5 (36:40):
You guys are trashing Bob Rafelson. Yeah, I'm not dealing
with any of that. Bob Rafels and trash.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Say what you wanted about him as a person and
him as an artist not having it.

Speaker 5 (36:53):
So they're they're basically doing Columbia's basically improve anything they
can do get him signed on, sign on. At this point,
to be clear, I'm in no way saying that this
is a dumb move on Columbia Park because Shane Black
knows how to write action.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
Yeah, and if you have a chance at getting Schwartz
Nagger in your movie, you fucking do.

Speaker 5 (37:08):
It exactly, especially in and at this time, Shane Black
was both one of the top paid riders as well
as one of definitely one of the hottest riders because
he his most recent movie had a Boy Scout. Anyway,
has anyone besides Joe?

Speaker 2 (37:25):
I think Joe said he watched Last Boy Scout?

Speaker 5 (37:26):
But does anyone seen the Last Boy Scout?

Speaker 6 (37:28):
No?

Speaker 5 (37:29):
I think I've seen a little bit of it, but
like or whatever, Joe, you've seen it, though.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Right, I saw it probably somewhere around when this movie
came out or I was born, So it's it's in
a minute. I remember there's like football in it and
somebody got the football field. That's about all I can remember.
I remember it was bomb as fuck when I watched.

Speaker 5 (37:52):
It, though, Okay, that's probably all right. I mean, I
don't think I've seen one of his movies from this
movie fucking sucks so anyway, But uh, because like his
track record up to this point was pretty good. It
was actually pretty solid, Like he'd already had a relationship
with Arnold from working with him on Predator, which he
also did uncredited rewrites for. In addition to his work
on Predator, he also wrote the original Ethal Weapon and

(38:14):
The Monster Squad in the same year. So that was
ninety eight. Sorry, he probably wrote the before, but they
both got made in ninety or sorry, nineteen eighty seven.
He then wrote the original draft for Leath Weapon two,
which I haven't seen anybody. We've seen the first. I've seen,
the second one, okay, Yeah, that's a diplomatic community one. Yeah.
Is that the one with Gary Bucy or no, shit,

(38:38):
I can't remember. I think it is, yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
Okay, so I think the third one as Joe Pesci
and they shoot in the gun around yeah.

Speaker 5 (38:48):
And then the fourth one I've definitely seen. Yeah, the
fourth one I've seen for sure. Chris Rock Yeah, but
I guess the studio as well as Richard Donner, who
was a director, rejected Shane Black script because it was
too dark, too violent, and he also had mel Gibson
dying at the end. Oh damn.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yeah, yeah, it could be too dark. His name is
Shane Black. What do you exact exactly?

Speaker 5 (39:09):
That was his reasoning. Maybe that's why because he refused
to rewrite. He's like, fuck, no, I made this drug
for a reason. Black dark, black dunk. I'm sure black,
that's shit gray. He ended up quitting six months in.
He then took two years off from writing before coming
back with The Last Boy Scout, which he was paid
a record one hundred and seventy five million for one

(39:32):
point seventy five million for but still like one point
seven for a script, which was a record at the time,
which he ended up breaking ends up breaking later with
I think it was four million for The Long Kiskod Night,
which I haven't watched, but I'm sure did you guys
watch that? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (39:51):
I think I watched it around late nineties era, But
that one I can say with more confidence that I
thought it was really good because you know, when you're
going from eight to sixteen, you know, that's a big
gap in yeah, age, so I remember being good. It's

(40:12):
with that was and Samuel Jackson. Samuel Jackson.

Speaker 5 (40:17):
Yeah, and she's like a I read a quick thing.
She's like a it's basically the born identity. So she's
like like a secret agent that got like a memory loss.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah. Yeah, and she dyes her hair blonde. At some point. Yeah,
I remember that being really good. I enjoyed that, so
I haven't seen it this century, but.

Speaker 5 (40:36):
I haven't watched He ends up taking a break, which
whenever anyway, but I haven't watched a Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang,
which it's a good movie. Begin Yeah, I didn't watch.
We did watch The Nice Guys, which is really very
very good.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
I think I watched the beginning of Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang,
and I was kind of I don't know if I
was in the mood for it.

Speaker 5 (40:53):
But you were like, no, no, thanks, thanks.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
No. I was like, well, I thought it was a porn.
I was trying to like, hey, Laura, let's watch this,
you know, let's kind of follow the title. We ended
up watching the movie cock Block, so things didn't work. No,
I think it was just a little it was like

(41:19):
a little frantic, a little like I thought it was
gonna be more like a kind of a spy mystery,
more of like even like a at that time, like
an aff like like a directed movie, you know, like
The Town or you know, Argo or whatever, but.

Speaker 5 (41:34):
Yeah, a little more like wicked accents.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Just I can fucking hate on him. Hey, Boston, I
only hate you because of your sports teams, so but no,
it was a little frantic, So I don't know. Maybe
I'll give it a shout again someday.

Speaker 5 (41:49):
But it's a good movie. Like if you like the
nice guys, it's have you seen the nice guys? I
have not. That one's really good.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
I've seen the other guys.

Speaker 5 (41:56):
That's Zoe Saldana or now, no, that's with the other
guys is Will I'm thinking of?

Speaker 2 (42:05):
I don't like.

Speaker 5 (42:06):
Yeah, I don't know anymore what I don't know, but
I know what one of you guys are talking about. Okay,
nice guys is Russell Crowe and uh Ryan Gosling. It's
it's like a seventies and war movie.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
It's really good.

Speaker 5 (42:17):
Yeah, it's like a.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
Murder mystery kind of like an L A L A
Confidential kind.

Speaker 5 (42:21):
Of Yeah, but seventies exactly like well, and.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
I assume much more comedic because I haven't seen a Confidential.

Speaker 5 (42:28):
Yes, definitely much more.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Kiss Bank Bank is basically it's that again,
but in modern day with Robert Downey Junior in Val Kilmer.

Speaker 5 (42:39):
It's very good. You watch that. Yeah, but yeah, so
it totally makes sense why Columbia didn't hesitate when suggested
Shane Black. Yeah, like, if you're going to hire someone
to recrite an action movie, that's that's probably pretty much. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Yeah, I mean you can't get James Cameron.

Speaker 5 (42:57):
Well, especially if you.

Speaker 4 (42:57):
Want it to be like a satire, because Sane Black
is yea truly.

Speaker 5 (43:02):
Shame book. You will get to that in a second. Okay,
So Columbia pays Shane Black one million to do rewrite.
Shane Black brings in his film school friend David Arnott
to co write with him, paying him two hundred fty
thousand dollars of the one million. Yeah. By the way,
at this time, Zach Pen and Adam Left were still

(43:22):
sort of attached to the film, even though the studio
had officially hired Shane Black to rewrite the script. So,
according to both of them, Adam left and Zach Penn,
I was gonna say Adam Penn and Zach left. Shane
Black initially told them that they were going to be
part of the rewrite process, but then that eventually changed
and they actually talked about this when sorry, they actually

(43:43):
talked about when they thought like this may have happened,
like basically when they were dropped from the film. They
talked about this during an interview that they did last
December on the Inkler Podcast, which I think is an
a or amc AFI podcast. It's a yeah, it's a
music podcast, the fire arms side.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Sorry, I know that he's gonna happen every time. It
immediately came into my head. Old Davy Daggers, Davy Hammock.
Oh no, Davy Daggers was a guy knew that was
his like stage name. Like, sorry, if you're out there day, he's.

Speaker 5 (44:24):
Lying, that's Joe's porn name. Sorry. It's called the Angler Podcast.
It's an a FI dot com podcast, which is a
god damn American film institute. I was like a film inside.
But it's a good episode to listen to it. It's
basically them talking about their experience in the movie. But
apparently they had a not so great dinner with Shane
Black that took place shortly after the meeting with Arnold,

(44:46):
and they had a shot shots. They said that one
of the first things he asked them was if they
like Saturday Night Live. They said they do, and he
counters by telling them that it's bad and not funny.
The early nineties ninety one Saturday Live, that's when it
was ever, that's like prime for me.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
That's yeah, I mean that's when we were kids.

Speaker 5 (45:08):
Yeah, exactly, which anyway, so they ask why and he says,
because all I do is repetition and repeating the same
jokes over and over again. That's not comedy, Adam Left was, says.
Adam Left basically says that he was like just like
cool with like he's like trying to keep like stay
quiet and not say anything because he's like whatever this,
just don't say anything. Zach Penn was not like that. First.

(45:33):
He brings up the Monty pythe Monty Python spam sketch,
and Shane Black was like, yeah, not funny, which I
watched the whole thing of because I watched part of
it earlier, like like the way before I wrote this,
and I was like, I know, whatever, Yeah, I don't know.
It's British. Like, did you guys actually watch it? Because
I sent a tek I watched it. Yes.

Speaker 4 (45:52):
I mean, dude, I don't get Monty Python for the
most part, like or at least like I don't know,
to be fair, it's a sketch show, and a lot
of sketches don't work. Like when you when you take
a sketch show, and it's an entirety most of their
sketches don't work. But and again, to be fair, maybe
Monty Python is so revolutionary and everything changed after that

(46:16):
that I just don't recognize it as being revolutionary anymore.
I don't know, but like that shit sucked.

Speaker 5 (46:23):
That was bad.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Yeah, I watched it. I agree with everything you're saying.
I have three, well, two counterpoints and one not fun story.
So you know, there is that TV trope of Seinfeld
Isn't Funny where it's like Seinfeld came in and kind
of came out with the comedy stale, and then everybody
took it. And then like then people who didn't grow

(46:48):
up on it, you know, like people are like ten
years younger go back and watch it. They're like, this
isn't funny. That's like yeah, I mean when it came out,
it was hilarious, but everybody just stole their shit. So
I think that could be true. The other thing is
like so many of the people who like the generation
before us, who like who are our comedy icons, like yeah,

(47:10):
loved all that stuff. So I think kind of what
you're saying is true, Like it was just unlike anything
else that was on and there was like, you know,
you probably used to like fucking Laverne and Shirley or
even Bree's Company, like formulaic stuff, and then you see
this and you're like, oh my god, like this what
is this? This is amazing. But the most important thing

(47:32):
about that sketch, though, is, uh so you know like
spam like spam email or like spam calls and.

Speaker 5 (47:39):
All that stuff. Yeah, it's actually.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
From that sketch, Like that's what really, that's where that
came from.

Speaker 5 (47:46):
Did you look it up? No?

Speaker 2 (47:48):
I just I learned that within the past year or two.
Is from a Monty Python sketch, and I never cared
to watch it because even I try to watch a
Holy Grail recently, I'm like, this is dumb. But yeah,
then I watched that today. I was like, oh, yeah,
that's what's because in this sketch, all they just say
is like spam, like over and over and over.

Speaker 5 (48:07):
Basically that's the whole fucking joke.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Yeah, the whole joke. They keep saying spam, but they're
talking about the meat. So that's where like you're getting
fucking spammed. That's where that comes from. Because you know, like, uh,
if I knew anything from the Simpsons, the early Internet nerds.
You know, we're all big Monty Python fans. So there
you go. There's a little piece of Internet history.

Speaker 5 (48:30):
Yeah, and uh, definitely with the what you said about
the like the comedians that are what's the stuff with
Conan a lot, who I think is fucking Cronan talks
about money, Python, mony, Python, and then David Letterman, which
I'm like, granted, I don't like Letterman because he seems
like a fucking asshole, but like it's very it's it's

(48:51):
it's weird to how much he like likes him because
Letterman is like hosting styles is completely different, and Conan's
very like like warm and trying to like make the
guests look as good as they can. And whereas Letterman
has no problem shitting on them and letting them fail.

Speaker 4 (49:08):
Yeah we'll hang them out to dry. It almost seems
like he's trying to hang them out to drive most
of the time. Yeah, So, which I mean, I don't
watch a lot.

Speaker 5 (49:15):
Of Letterman, but he never made a great impression on me.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Now, Yeah, but I think like like when Conan came out,
that was something that was completely different, Like we didn't see,
and I think Letterman was kind of the same way
when he started his show, Like it was just like
something that hadn't been seen before, this new alter, different
comedy or whatever. Yeah, it was like the punk rock

(49:39):
version of a late night talk show exactly. But I
can respect it for that does mean I have to
like watch it and enjoy it, you know.

Speaker 5 (49:49):
Yeah, It's just I don't get it. Yeah, yeah, hey, Erica,
did you what did you think of the sketch?

Speaker 3 (49:53):
Okay, personally I love Monty Python.

Speaker 5 (49:59):
Like you. I know, you like The Holy Grail, which
I haven't seen since I was like eighteen, and not
even that.

Speaker 4 (50:08):
I mean, I'd like Holy Grail more than I like
some of their other stuff. And I haven't seen that movie.

Speaker 5 (50:12):
Since I was like sixteen or seventeen or whatever. I
should probably get another shot because I barely remember it.
But just like like watching Flying Circus sketches versus watching
Holy Grail is two pretty different things.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
My grandpa used to have a video like that's the
same guys from Monte Python. It's called how to Irritate People,
And that used to be my sister's in my favorite
video growing up, where it was just like stupid comedy
sketches that, like to this day, somebody will say something
and like one of those sketches will pop into my
head and I'm just sitting there like nobody knows what

(50:51):
I'm talking about, and like this is so stupid.

Speaker 5 (50:54):
Yeah, isn't that? Isn't that its own thing?

Speaker 3 (50:56):
That's what I thought, okay, co Yeah, so it's a
mockumentary sketch comedy television special special.

Speaker 5 (51:04):
That was a one off thing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
Yeah, I just find it, like I don't know, I
find that type of humor is just up my alley,
Like it's just stupid and nothing, and it doesn't even
need to be clever.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
Yeah, Like it's just like complete absurdity.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
Yeah, it's just complete absurdity where it's just like what And.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
I like all those guys, like individually, I enjoy all
of them as comedic actors, but like when I go
back and try to watch any of the old Monty
Python stuff, I just don't get it.

Speaker 5 (51:36):
Yeah, so it's just like a thing that goes over
my head.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
Alson, I'll find a couple of my favorites from How
to Irritate People and see what you think, because it's
a little different because it's more of like they must
have had some sort of like sketch comedy show.

Speaker 4 (51:51):
Yeah, so they had the Flying Circus, which was a
whole show that they did as Monty Python.

Speaker 5 (51:57):
Yeah, I don't like it.

Speaker 4 (51:58):
And then they also made a Flying Circuit movie. But
they ran as a TV show for a while.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
Okay, maybe that's what it was. I'm not quite sure
what exactly it was, because, like I said, it was
just it was just called how to Irritate People, and
I was just like, well, they're doing a great job.

Speaker 5 (52:13):
Like I don't know, I.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
Thoroughly enjoyed the humor. The first time I watched Monty Python,
I was kind of like, what the fuck is this?
Like this is absurdity and nonsense. But the older I
get them, more often I watch it, the more I'm like,
this is just like Chef's kiss? How many gold for me?

Speaker 6 (52:33):
So?

Speaker 5 (52:33):
Wait, you were okay, sed, what do you think of
the sketch?

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (52:36):
Did you watch the.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
Yeah? Like, as soon as I heard the absurd like
old lady voice, I was like, oh my god, is
this who I think it is? And then like because
the quality wasn't great so I couldn't really see features
very well, and it became pretty evident pretty quickly. I
was like, this has got to be one of their sketches.
This is so like there, like timing and their type

(53:01):
of like the way they write things and the way
they perform it. And then by the nd when it
was like, oh, it's Monty Python, I was like, ugh,
I could have told that from the beginning. Yeah, Now
did I like it? Not? Really? It was kind of it,
But am I am? I probably going to quote it
now at this point maybe so.

Speaker 5 (53:21):
Yeah, So I'm side Machine Black Hero when he says
that not funny.

Speaker 4 (53:27):
Yeah, I'm on the side about that, just less so
about SNL.

Speaker 5 (53:30):
But you know, yeah, especially like I think nineteen ninety
one was like transition. I guess this was like early
like late ninety one, early ninety two, so it was
like mid season, but it was like a transition. I
think I think that was before Chris Farley and all
them came on, but I'm not Yeah, I think it
was like it was when Danny Harvey was on there
and Kevin Nilan, But I don't think that Farleying, Sandler

(53:52):
and Spade are on that.

Speaker 4 (53:53):
Yeah, but I think they did have like Hartman and
yes they did because Mike Myers and probably.

Speaker 5 (53:58):
My Yeah, probably Mike my too. But yeah, but that
was still I think you're right. I think all the
younger guys weren't on. Yeah, maybe Sandler because Sandler was
like the first one they got, right, it was still
like but good anyway, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (54:11):
You know that stuff's all still really good. But even
if even if you go back and watch those it's like,
I enjoy those seasons, but every SNL episode has like,
I don't know, sixty percent stinkers.

Speaker 5 (54:23):
Yeah, like there's a reason that only a couple like
maybe one or two sketches will come out like every
week where or not even that. Sometimes, Yeah, it's like
out of a season of SNL, you get like eight
like memorable sketches. So uh So, going back to the
their little meeting, but Zach Penn then starts naming a

(54:45):
bunch of stuff like just airplane, more Monty Python stuff,
and Adam Left is basically sitting there like, dude, what
the fuck are you doing? Basically starts arguing with him
about comedy at this point because I think this was
Adam Left I said, Shane Black is just sitting and
they're staring down at his knuckles. And apparently Zach Penn

(55:06):
cannot read social cues because he just doubles down by saying,
this is a quote, Shane, I think repetition might be
one of those cornerstones of comedy. And now that you mentioned,
I not only don't agree with you, I think it's
the opposite. He's arguing with him.

Speaker 4 (55:23):
And anyway, really looking forward to spending hours and hours
working on this script.

Speaker 5 (55:28):
Both of them pretty much agreed that this was basically
the point that they were booted off the project. That
makes sense, Yeah, because Shane Black and David are Not
began working on a rewrite in February nineteen ninety one
with basically no involvement from Zach Pin or Adam left,
and I read a ton of interviews that they've done
for it. Zach Pen Adam left, but I think one

(55:48):
of them said something about how Shane Black got fed
up enough with Zach Penn bugging him that he hung
up on him base and basically stopped returning his calls
because he kept trying to get updates about the script. Yeah.
Also the icing on the cake for Zach pennant Adam
left the studio never officially hired them, so they were
unable to get into the WGA, the Writers Guild.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Damn.

Speaker 5 (56:11):
Yeah, because I guess Columbia bought the script, but that
didn't guarantee that they were hired. And I guess a
rewrite is usually included in the contract, but it wasn't
included in theirs.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Damn.

Speaker 5 (56:21):
So usually what happens, this was Zach Pannet, but one
of them explaining it. Usually what happens was specscript Sometimes
is the studio will buy the script and then we'll
hire the writer to do a rewrite, which gets them
into the Writer's Guild. But since they were never officially hired,
they were pretty much shit out of luck. They ended
up appealing it, and I think that's what got them
the story credit, but I'm not one hundred percent sure

(56:41):
on that. But anyway, so Shane Black and David Arenett
began their rewrite, with one of the major changes being
the title, which they changed from extremely Violent to the
Last Action Hero. So the there yet anyway, and this
episode is already gonna be long enough, so we'll probably
end up addressing most of the script changes when we
do the summary, but we're going to I want to
talk about a few that Zach Penn and Adam Left

(57:03):
had enough of an issue with that they brought it
up in multiple interviews. So one of them was the
addition of the whole funeral sequence and the Leo the
Fart character, which like included apparently like a bunch of
fart jokes, like way more than they already had, because
while Shane Black may not find repetition funny, apparently he
thinks fart jokes are hilarious. And I don't disagree, is

(57:25):
that right exactly? Because I love me some fart jokes.
Like that gag during the funeral when Benedict activates the
bomb by pulling Leo to fart's finger is so dumb,
but it's so good. I can really forgot about that
until we watched it like a few weeks ago, and
I was like, I forgot that he exits the bomb
by just I don't know anyway. So, according to The

(57:46):
New York Times, apparently the only parts that remained from
the original Zach Penn Adam left script which Chris, please
correct me if I'm wrong, but they were quote a
scene in which the boy is mugged in real life, yeah,
and another in which he daydreams of later playing Hamlet,
a running gag in which detectives are teamed up with
inappropriate partners, and the obscene sounding nonsense dialogue screamed by

(58:09):
Slayter's boss, Lieutenant Decker, including and this is quoted in
the article, I've got that chamber of converse doing cartwheels
and my cocoa factory unquote. Was just great to read
the New York Times article.

Speaker 4 (58:24):
Yeah, yeah, all that stuff is in the original script. Yeah,
there's the mugging. The police chief has like a very
slightly larger role in the movie or in the original script.
And then what was that third thing you said.

Speaker 5 (58:38):
Uh, the Hamlet thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's like a
classroom scene where you daydreams about Hamlet. Yeah. Pretty much
every single interview or whatever that I read would like
love They always love that Hamlet scene. It's good. Yeah.
But yeah, So Shane Black told Empire Magazine in a
twenty twelve article looking back at the movie, he said, quote,

(58:58):
me and my partner David are not were to take
this very small script, which not a lot happens, and
beef it up into a summer movie with a lot
of setups and payoffs and reversals. Zach seemed to think
that we ruined a script, but it was actually quite
fond of what we came up with, which is like
a great backhanded compliment, like a quote like just continues

(59:18):
by describing one of the gags they added, same quote,
and I'm kind of sad that they cut this one,
but he says, quote, we had a silly gag where
Slater reaches up, grabs a scratch on the film and
stabs a villain with it. I know that Columbia told
us at the time that they were kind of happy
with it unquote, but I like the idea of the gag,
but I think that kind of makes it seem like
like a little too self aware. Yeah, and that's almost
a little too Looney Tunes. Yeah, yeah, that's more a

(59:43):
scratch like you know how like there's like scratches on
the like a little damage like you know. Yeah, yeah,
so he would reach up, grab one of those and
stabs someone with it, which is funny. But it is funny.
It's like, uh, it's like a clever idea. But again,
I think it might be a little too Loony Tunes. Yeah,
especially for their script for Shane Black. Script did you

(01:00:05):
end up bringing that one.

Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
No no, no, no no, I'm just saying sorry, I'm meaning
like the movie, like the final movie.

Speaker 5 (01:00:11):
Okay, well that's not that's not the final script. Yeah,
so there's definitely way more changes after this.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:17):
Yeah, but I'm saying like that almost fits the tone of.

Speaker 5 (01:00:20):
The original script. Interesting.

Speaker 4 (01:00:23):
Yeah, but the original script is pretty looney, like I
shouldn't say it's pretty tunes, but it's a little more
silly and the jokes are less subtle.

Speaker 5 (01:00:33):
I got you. Well, if you want to read that script,
that one's also online too, I'll can send to But yeah,
so anyway, one of the other big things that Penn
and Left, sorry, there's gotta be like a super cool
nickname we can use for them instead of like pen
and left, like Sadam Peth pen left left, Pen, I

(01:00:55):
don't know, I got nothing, Adam Zach pen Adam left,
I think of something, let me now, because I couldn't
think of anything as a Katam, I don't know, you
had nothing anyway, So Penn and Left definitely had a
problem with one of the bigger changes that Shane Black
and David are not made to the script, which was
how the Danny character ends up inside the Jack Slater movie. So, Christ,

(01:01:18):
do you remember how Danny ends up getting pulled into
the movie in the original script.

Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
Yes, So in the original script he's so you know
how in the movie, he's in the theater watching like
an older Jack Slater movie at the.

Speaker 5 (01:01:33):
Very watcha yea, at the beginning. Yeah, yeah, at the very.

Speaker 4 (01:01:36):
Beginning, he's watching the older Jack Slater movie. And then
the projectionist invites him to for a sneak preview of
the new one. Right, Yeah, that's that's the same in
the original script, except as he's leaving the theater the
first time, the projectionist is talking about how there's a
tear in the screen, like a literal cut in the screen, Yeah,
that he needs to fix before the premiere, and so

(01:01:58):
he's working on that when he leaves the theater. And
so as Danny is watching the new Jack Slater movie
like the sneak preview, he happens to notice, oh, the
terror has opened up again. So he walks up to
the screen and reaches his hand like, you know, through
the screen to like try and fix it, to find
the tape to put it back together himself. Okay, well,

(01:02:18):
he's the only one in the theater. Yeah, I know,
but okay, anyway, anyway, oh and.

Speaker 5 (01:02:23):
And the projectionist has like just disappeared. That's one of
the major changes that don't don't don't mention that, get that.

Speaker 4 (01:02:31):
But anyway, he reaches into the screen to try and
find the tape so he can put the screen back
together because it's like bugging him, and then he gets
like sucked into the movie when he sticks his hand
in there.

Speaker 5 (01:02:40):
Okay, so yes, that is a big change. And I
have a real quick clip of pen and Left talking
to Yahoo News about their problems with the final film
and then mentioning the Magic Ticket is one of them.
So here, I don't know who wants to play it
but a ra.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
Yeah, but you gotta have a ticket, Danny to see him.

Speaker 5 (01:03:00):
I got just the one.

Speaker 7 (01:03:02):
I think the thing that I gagged on and still
gag on today was the Magic Ticket and that Golden Ticket,
the Magic Ticket.

Speaker 5 (01:03:10):
I mean that that just still kills me.

Speaker 7 (01:03:14):
And what we had done in the original script, and
you know, you know this is is that we had
a scene where it's unclear exactly what happens, but the
kid is sort of getting sucked.

Speaker 5 (01:03:23):
Through the screen.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
There was a tear, and there's.

Speaker 7 (01:03:26):
A tear on the screen, and he's going up to
inspect the terear and he actually kind of gets sucked
into the movie and you never really know exactly what happens.

Speaker 5 (01:03:32):
I don't know. Maybe that wasn't great either, but to me,
it was better.

Speaker 7 (01:03:35):
Than a magic ticket, which which just you know, makes
me sick to this day.

Speaker 5 (01:03:39):
Okay, that's that's good. Okay, real quick, Okay, I.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
Would like to know why if you found it so sick, mean,
like is it Willy Wonka or like he doesn't like
the chocolate factory? What's the deal?

Speaker 5 (01:03:51):
I think they're just pissed off about Uh. I will
find a reason for that, because we're you're done a video, right,
but yes, I'm done with the video, but real quick,
I'm curious to get you guys' opinion on this. But
first to have a quick quote from Shane Black discussing
the change with The New York Times in nineteen ninety three.
Same quote, Instead of the nebulous tear in the screen,

(01:04:11):
we wanted im a gguffin, which would set up a
series of rules for us unquote, but with the article
then explaining that the ticket allowed the villains to enter
the real world with real world rules, which Chris I'm
assuming didn't happen in the Pen the Pen Left script, right, No,
so they didn't come back to.

Speaker 4 (01:04:29):
The real real world until the coming back to the
real world is literally like the last thing that happens
in the movie. It's like the it's like post climax.

Speaker 5 (01:04:39):
Okay, yes, yeah, yeah, fact it's yeah, it is. It is.

Speaker 4 (01:04:45):
Literally there's there's like two scenes after it. There's like
two shots. Okay, it's it's totally different. There's there's like
no meta real world stuff where Arnold is walking around
the real world.

Speaker 5 (01:04:59):
Okay, see of it. I know we don't have like
a full context of the original script because obviously, but
I like the magic Ticket idea with Bennette coming into
the real world and then bringing the villains in, like
I don't know if it was executed like in the
best way because which we'll end up talking about later,
but like mostly because Shane Black said they wanted to
set up rules and then they're still kind of all
over the place, which I didn't notice until I've watched

(01:05:21):
it twice already. As far as what the ticket and
the characters can actually do when they come into the
real world. But I don't know, it's still a fun idea. Yeah,
it's so, I guess, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:05:33):
The the idea of the tear on the screen I
thought was kind of like a little subtler.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
And yeah, it reminds me a little more like Supernatural,
like yes.

Speaker 5 (01:05:45):
Yeah, it's a more mysterious. Yeah, like there's no explanation
to it exactly, which is my next note, because the
ticket makes definitely makes it feel like more of a
kid's movie a little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:05:55):
Yeah, definitely, Yeah, that feels way more like a kid's movie.
So I do like the screen tear because it's a
little bit subtler in my opinion. However, it does present
the problem of how do they get back, and like
there's a reason they get back in the regular movie,
but or in that original script, but it feels a

(01:06:16):
little bit more forced. Like the way they get back
in the original script is they have to end up
at a movie theater and there's also a tear in
that's like in the movie because they figure out that
they no, no, no, they just happen to end up at
the movie theater. So the the movie takes place in Hollywood,
right yeah, and so they're just driving around LA. They're

(01:06:40):
having like the kaimactic action chase scene and they end
up in an old like abandoned movie theater. There's also
a tear in that screen, and that's how they get
back into the real world, okay, which feels a little
bit bullshit to me.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Well, see, you're missing the point, and I understand why,
so said Now, it's basically an analogy for for life.
So first, how you get into the world is you
go through a slit, you know, and then you're out there,
and then how you like kind of what your goal
is after that life is to get back in another slit.

(01:07:18):
So that's basically.

Speaker 5 (01:07:22):
All agree with whatever you say. If you stop saying
slip a tear, that better, okay, Well you help me
out here. Then the screens vagina.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
I thought a good idea would be maybe like some
three D glasses like this this new video is three D.
He gets three D glasses. They're special three D glasses.
It takes him into the movie literally, and somebody on
that side ends up with the glasses which reverse reverse.

Speaker 5 (01:07:58):
Yeah, like a similar concept to what.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
But it's not like a hockey ticket, like I don't
know the ticket, the tickets kind of hockey like the.

Speaker 5 (01:08:07):
Fact that it's like a solid gold ticket.

Speaker 4 (01:08:10):
I think that's probably the worst part about it. But
otherwise I don't really have a problem with it.

Speaker 5 (01:08:15):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:08:16):
And when he was talking about how much worse it
was or like how mad it made him, I'm like,
it is no dumber than what you do, Like in
no way.

Speaker 5 (01:08:25):
That's what he said in that interview though too. He
said that in that interview, and then like pretty much
every interview that I've read with them too, they also
he's like, I don't know how much better ours was,
but still will then stop talking about it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
Trying to do what you know what Joe said, that's
the best way to go about it.

Speaker 5 (01:08:41):
He should have just said, exactly, see what you're looking
at is really important.

Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
The story specifically.

Speaker 4 (01:08:52):
The other thing though, is, like you were talking about
Shane Black was talking about how he wanted to do,
they did more like, uh uh, set up payoff stuff
in their script. Set up and payoff stuff in the
Shane Black script.

Speaker 5 (01:09:07):
Okay, yes, yes, yes, I think that's why the golden
ticket is there, because it is, like he said, a mcguffin,
it helps to set up stuff that happens later in
the movie. That is a vast improvement. Like I would
say that is probably the biggest improvement to the script
is all the set up and payoff stuff that Shane

(01:09:28):
Black put in there, because there's not very much of
it in the original script. Okay, stuff just kind of happens.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Yeah, and last thing on the uh, the slit theory.
That's why he changed his name his last name to Pen's. Oh,
I thought you were gonna have no pun intended pen name,
but I thought.

Speaker 5 (01:09:45):
We're gonna make a slater slitter his original name.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
Venus.

Speaker 5 (01:09:56):
I'm also I'm also thinking like a little kid. I'm
like the whole the villain thing that Like when I
first saw that, I was like, oh man, I mean
just imagining all the stuff that they could do at
the end, which I said, like I said, is the
kind of like a wasted opportunity, like whatever, it worked
out fine, But you also, I won't even talk about
it when.

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
We get to the kind of a it sounds like
a Roger Rabbit situation of the planning of the two words.

Speaker 5 (01:10:18):
This got compared to as well. But yeah, by the way,
a couple more of their complaints about the script, along
with the one I just mentioned, were how dark the
opening scene was compared to their version, which they compared
to the opening scene to that scene in Commando when
he was like in the mall and like, they didn't
kill a kid in the first twenty minutes. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
I guess that's true.

Speaker 4 (01:10:38):
They don't kill a kid at the beginning in the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:10:42):
I mean they technically do, but technically don't know his
movie kid.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Jack Slader's kid.

Speaker 5 (01:10:50):
Yeah, oh yeah, he dies, Yeah all right, yeah forgetting
the whole. No, his kid ends up leaving this for
school that goes he's.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
Going to a farm upstate.

Speaker 5 (01:11:04):
I just I just rewatched the beginning because we were
going to talk about it, and you don't actually see
you don't see him, yeah, because he's got like that
can kill him at the beginning. Speaking of the other
thing that they complained about was they changed Slater's character
from the like we were talking about earlier kind of
a dummy in their script to the like the sort

(01:11:25):
of world wheary, weary character or just like more like
aware I guess, which is another complaint, which is in
my opinion, really good because he has way more of
an arc in Seane Blacks one, Yeah, than.

Speaker 4 (01:11:38):
He does in or at least a more interesting arc.
Maybe it's not more of an arc, but more interesting
arc so than he does.

Speaker 5 (01:11:45):
The original script. Does he stayed dumb throughout the whole
thing and the other one? Or uh, he's pretty man.

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):
Dumb might be a little bit of a strong word,
but kind of dumb. Uh and yeah pretty much the
whole time.

Speaker 5 (01:11:59):
Is it written well where it's like because I'm all
about dumb. If it's like written like like the Simpsons
would do it, or like the like a Futurio like
kind of dumb, I don't try to gets written that well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
Nick bain, No mc.

Speaker 5 (01:12:11):
Bain, like fried dumb, I'm talking about like that. That's
what I'm saying. I think dumb is probably the wrong word.
It's more like he's just he's just super one dimensional.
And I do think that's super on purpose. Yeah, but
he's just very one dimensional and like it didn't work.
It just didn't work. Yeah, Okay, not poorly written, but

(01:12:33):
I think it was the wrong decision anyway. While Shane
Black and David are not or Black David as I'm
going to call him from you know, see that one
was easy. That was easy. So as Black David worked
on their script, which kind of sounds like it was
written by like like it like the script was written
by like an eighteenth century pirate captain who just like
pulled through time and somehow landed like screenwriting career in

(01:12:53):
nineteen nineties, Hollywood. It's like our Black David. Okay, so
Black David Scourge of the Seventh Seeds rewrote the script
columbiad while he was doing that club or while they
were doing that, Columbia was working on getting an A
list director. Unfortunately, they had quite a few pass which

(01:13:18):
accorded not die, but like pass on the script.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
What you're thinking, Hollywood is just that kind you know,
is everyone that reads the script.

Speaker 5 (01:13:30):
It was like the director that directed Frank Capro anyway,
which according to an article on the site We Monitored
and film dot Com, included Richard Donner, who did the
Lethal Weapons series, So that definitely makes sense. He was
it's that old actually anyway, it's more passing jokes. It

(01:13:51):
also listed Penny Marshall and Gary Marshall, which I guess
makes sense from like a financial stand well, it definitely
makes sense from a financial standpoint because the two of
Penny Marshall's last three movies were big and a league
of their own.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:14:04):
And then Gary Marshall had recently done Pretty Woman, which
made four hundred and sixty three million on a budget
of fourteen million. Yeah. Yeah, so I get why they
asked him. But they also don't have any experience with
action films.

Speaker 4 (01:14:15):
Yeah, that doesn't and it doesn't seem like the right
comedy sensibility either to me.

Speaker 5 (01:14:20):
Yeah, like their comedy is different. Yeah, which is I'm
assuming why they both said no. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
The next one was Lawrence kas Dan who also said no,
but he that makes sense exactly. Would have been awesome. Yeah,
and his list of movies he's directed is okay, such
as his writing credits are way better. But his list
of movies where there's a bunch, but there's the notable

(01:14:41):
ones were Silverado, which I've seen but I don't remember.
It's a cowboy movie with Kevin Klein. I think Kevin
Klein Costner might be in it too, but I know
Kevin Klein's in it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:50):
It sounds very familiar, I mean the.

Speaker 4 (01:14:53):
Big I've heard of it, I just have never seen it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
If there's a Cowboy or a baseball movie. There's a
ninety percent chance that cost.

Speaker 5 (01:15:01):
The Big Chill, which I know was a movie. I
I heard it was good.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
I don't Yeah, I don't know better ripping soundtrack, That's
all I know.

Speaker 5 (01:15:11):
And then DreamCatcher, which I think is based on a
Stephen King book.

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):
Yes, I think I watched it, but that was before
I was into Stephen King.

Speaker 5 (01:15:18):
Oh, okay, I heard it was bad, but that was like.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
Twenty five years ago. But I remember it being straight
dog shit.

Speaker 5 (01:15:24):
Okay. I'm pretty sure the critics were like the same
way about that. Which what is DreamCatcher? It's Morgan Freeman
and the Morgan free It's there's a DreamCatcher on the post.
I don't know it's Morgan Freeman. I know Morgan Freeman's
in it. I don't know who else is in it.
I would say Anthony Hopkins, but I think that's Heart's
in Atlantis. Yeah, that's Atlantis.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
Yeah, that's a good book.

Speaker 5 (01:15:44):
So I don't know. Anyway, he is as far as
Laurence kas Dan Larry kaz Dan, great fucking action adventure writer. Yeah,
so he definitely could have helped helped with that aspect
because he wrote Ragers, The Lost Arc, Empire strikes Back,
Return of the Jedi, and the Bodyguard, so he wrote
a bunch more. But he also wrote I think he

(01:16:06):
wrote he co wrote Solo, right, yes, yeah, him and
his son, him and him and Jake, which I don't
remember that movie, but man, if they didn't try to
shove in a bunch of Star Wars references, I would
enjoy that movie a whole lot that That movie is
fun like fan stuff, yeah, like bullshit, like trying to

(01:16:26):
explain why he has the name Solo. Oh yeah, because
he's I remember that out of me.

Speaker 4 (01:16:34):
Yeah, it was literally, it's just because he didn't Yeah,
so wait, what was his name before that? He didn't
have any He was like a fucking street urchin. He
didn't have a last name.

Speaker 5 (01:16:44):
Orphans don't have names. I mean if nobody gives them one,
no like interest, that's is that why in a Christmas story,
like a Christmas story, the fucking Christmas Carol, he just
yells you boy like that was like to throw the gold.
He's like, hey, uh.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
Well yeah, tiny Tim. His name is just Tim. They
just give him tiny. The beginning, they didn't have a
last name, and they only gave him Tim because it right,
it went well, it was.

Speaker 5 (01:17:12):
The cre wouldn't give him his last name.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
Well, he's small, we'll call him tiny, tiny Tim. Because
Katy Steve does not work.

Speaker 5 (01:17:23):
That one's not gonna last. We're not going to do
the paperwork on that. Okay. So the next day supposedly
asked Joel Schumacher, who at this point had had really
done like No Action. Yeah, it's like, uh, well, I
think he would have been able to handle the comedy
part of it so far. Sure like that. But at
this point he'd done The Lost Boys, he'd done San

(01:17:46):
Aniel's Fire, and he done Flat Liners, and I think
he did when you know, he did one more, but
I can't I didn't write it down, and it was
right before this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:54):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:17:54):
And then we'd also find out later that he'd eventually
do the Batman films, although I'm assuming if he did
Last Action Hero and it's still ended up bombing, he
definitely would have gotten to do those Batman films. Sure, yeah,
for sure, so that but worked out, I don't know film,
but not the second.

Speaker 4 (01:18:08):
So the fact that he did those Batman movies makes
me like, what, like, I don't know, it might be
interesting to see a Shoebacker last action year.

Speaker 5 (01:18:15):
That's what I was thinking, Like he has an idea
of the comedy because you've seen you've seen The Lost
Boys not in a very long time, it's funny, like yeah, yeah,
so that would have been interesting. Yeah, I think so.
And then the last one they mentioned is the Zucker Brothers,
which would have been interesting to see how they handle
out and like see if they lean more into the

(01:18:35):
parody side of it. By the way, they directed Airplane
in the first two Naked Gun movies, which I was
actually curious why they were considered because I was like,
Zucker Brothers really, but Airplane made eighty three million on
a three point five million budget. Yeah, the Naked Gun
movies are way bigger than I thought they were, with
the first one making seventy eight million on a twelve
million dollar budget and the second one making a seven

(01:18:57):
million on twenty three million dollar budget.

Speaker 2 (01:18:59):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (01:19:00):
Yeah. Also one of them, which was Jerry Zucker, which
is the more like like a versatile directed Ghost, which
I think we discussed it during Kindergarten cop but was
the top grossing film of nineteen ninety damn. Yeah, it
brought it in a half a billion dollars. Jesus. Wow. Yeah,
so that's that's why Columbia was Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
Mean sometimes when brothers director split up, it works out. Sometimes.
You get when Joel Cohen did the Garfield movie, you know,
all right, for anybody, it's wondering what that was going on.
So there's the Coen brothers. You know, they did like

(01:19:43):
a Fargo and No Country Frontman and everything. But then
Bill Murray signed on to voice Garfield in a Garfield
movie because he saw it was Joel Cohen, but it
was a different Joel Cohen.

Speaker 5 (01:19:54):
So yeah, you know, if it wasn't such a fucking recluse, Yeah,
he would have known that it wasn't the Joel, Like
they probably would have called him, like he could have
called someone, or someone would have called him, like, yeah,
you probably shouldn't do that. If he had made a
single phone call to Joel Cohen, he would have answered
the phone for Bill murk Yeah, like Jesus. Anyway, So

(01:20:15):
Columbia was also termed down by someone we talked a
little bit about during our Predator episode, Future Convicted felon
John McTiernan. Yeah, and you got to listen to our
Predator episode if you want to find out a little
bit more about the whole convicted villain thing. But at
this point he had directed both Shane Black and Arnold
in Predator and then got on to do die Hard

(01:20:36):
and the Hunt for Hunt for Ad October. But yeah,
so mc ternan was given the original Zach penn Adam
left script and had decided to pass. And he told
The New York Times in nineteen ninety three, quote, it
wasn't very good. It wasn't challenging or fascinating. It didn't
have a spark, which unquote an ouch right because fuck,
that's like right after the movie comes out, and kind
of a dick move on his part, Like that's punching

(01:20:58):
down at that point in their careers. First, this was
their first movie. Yeah, and it makes me curious what
they barely got credit for. But anyway, apparently Columbia asked
also as Paul Verhoven, who had recently directed Arnold in
Total Recall and whose last three movies had been major hits,
which were Basic Instinct, Total Recall, and RoboCop. Yeah, and

(01:21:20):
that was his first three American movies. That's a pretty
roll right there.

Speaker 3 (01:21:25):
Yeah, he would have been perfect. I mean, this movie
would have been rated R, but it would be a
good movie.

Speaker 5 (01:21:31):
That would have been great, Zach Penn and Adam left.
Script was written as a radar movie obviously, right, Chris.

Speaker 4 (01:21:37):
Uh, I mean yeah, as written, it would have been
rated R, but there was nothing that would have been
lost if.

Speaker 5 (01:21:45):
You would have made that PG thirteen really okay. But uh,
as far as Paul Verhoven, I think he would have
been perfect, Like basic instinct but total both Total Recall
and Robocops show that he definitely knows how to handle
this type of film.

Speaker 4 (01:21:58):
Hell yeah, yeah, I just don't I don't know if
he'd be as interested in making all like the pop
culture references stuff, you know what I mean? Yeah, I
don't feel like there's too much that's very meta about
his movies.

Speaker 5 (01:22:10):
No, he seems he's like I do feel like it
would have been a different movie. I do feel like
it would have changed quite a bit. Actually, Uh, I
feel like it might not have gotten made if they
would hire him because of how much he like, how
stubborn he seems, yeah, and putting up a fight. But
unfortunately for Hoven was busy getting another film off the

(01:22:31):
ground titled Crusade which he was actually planning to make
with Schwarzenegger. And I think we touched on it when
we had the termina A three production episode. Listen to it.
I vaguely remember that. Yeah, but according to Entertainment Weekly,
it was supposed to be this huge eleventh century sand
in Sandal epic that was supposedly going to cost around
one hundred million dollars, which is an insane price tag

(01:22:53):
at the time. Yeah, I think we said that. I
think I said that Teeth two cost around eighty million,
and that was like the big, like the biggest at
the time. So yeah, and uh, they worked on getting
this movie made for a while. Apparently they began discussing
it when they were making a total recall and Empire
Magazine called it quote part Spartacus, part Conan. I actually said,

(01:23:14):
I write that down on the first on the first try,
right ish part Conan. It was gonna be sorry, they continued,
They said, quote it was going to be full on
vintage for Hoven, with sets already built in Spain and
cast ready to roll, including Robert Duvall, Jennifer Connelly, John Taturo,
and Christopher MacDonald, which I think is Shooter McGavin right, yeah,
Shooterno suck on that baby. That was unquote. Yeah, that

(01:23:40):
would have been interesting. He was actually gonna play Shooter mcgabbon. Anyway,
as far as Crusade, unfortunately they could not seem to
find the funding for it. Yeah. During the time Arnold
was talking to Columbia about Last Section Hero, he and
Verhoven were also talking to Carolco about Crusade, but for
all Co was on the verge of bankruptcy. So yeah,

(01:24:03):
they put that on the back burner. But Arnold gives
a great quote to Empire about what caused one of
the studios. He doesn't say which one, and I'm pretty
sure it's not Calco, but yeah, but he tells u
Empire Magazine in Tales in twelve that Paul for Hooven
freaked out during a meeting and that was one of
the reasons why they never ended up doing the movie, saying, quote,

(01:24:24):
it was all written and ready to go, but then
Paul started going crazy. We had the final meeting with
the studio and we were all sitting at this boardroom table.
They said, so the budget is one hundred million. That's
a lot of money. What kind of guarantees do you
have that we will get it for one hundred and
it won't up to one thirty? For Hovin, he says,
what do you mean guarantees? There's no such thing as guarantees.

(01:24:46):
Guarantees don't happen, and if anyone promises guarantees, they're lying.
We don't even know that if you walk out of
the building here you won't get hit by a truck.
There's no guarantee that we're going to make it till tomorrow.
I cannot have control over God. I don't believe in God.
Why am I talking about God? But someone nature could
just reign for three months and then what do we do?

(01:25:06):
How can I give you a guarantee? This is ludicrous?
And then Schwartzeger continues to saying I kept kicking him
nto the table and trying to tell him the shut up,
but he just wouldn't. That was it. That was the
end of the movie. Paul always tried to be honest,
but you can be a little selective about when to
be honest and when to just move on with the project.
It was a shame unquote. So apparently, according to Schwarzenegger,

(01:25:28):
Paul Verhogan just is not wrong. He's not wrong, but
that's probably not the best starting to bring that up.
He's not wrong, there is no God, but.

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):
No, not wrong, Paul, You're just an asshole.

Speaker 4 (01:25:41):
Yeah, if they let him make that movie, he would
have run the budget up to one twenty nine million
just to fuck.

Speaker 5 (01:25:45):
With him or like one thirty one Yeah yeah maybe yeah, like, yeah,
he's not wrong at all.

Speaker 3 (01:25:54):
Nine yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:25:56):
By the way. In this same Empire article, Arnold also
talks about a few movies, sorry, a few more movies
that he was offered that he did not end up doing.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
So.

Speaker 5 (01:26:05):
He mentions The Rock which we talked about, but he
also mentions die Hard. I'm assuming the Carl Winslow role, Like,
what is he gonna play John? He's not gonna play
John Diehard right, Like, there's no fucking ways playing John.
I can't remember his last name right now. I'm sorry,
did I'm pretty sure it's John die Hard, Like it's sorry,
the Hard day.

Speaker 4 (01:26:26):
He could play the what's what's this fuck?

Speaker 5 (01:26:29):
The the guy with the ponytail.

Speaker 4 (01:26:31):
Yeah, yeah, he could play like I know he wouldn't
have Like that's that's probably.

Speaker 5 (01:26:36):
But yeah, and then he mentioned full Metal Jacket in
a role I don't remember. Uh he Animal Mother, who
ends up being played by Adam Baldwin. Look him up
because you'llcognize him when you look him up. But because
I was like, I know that name, I know that name,
and then I looked him up.

Speaker 4 (01:26:52):
I was like, Adam Baldwin, Baldwin Brothers.

Speaker 5 (01:26:54):
No, I'm telling you, look him up. You'll be like,
oh that guy, right, what's the character's name, Animal Mother?
Like the only two I remember? Oh? Sorry, Three? The
drill sergeant. What's his name?

Speaker 2 (01:27:07):
Lee Emory?

Speaker 5 (01:27:08):
Yeah, Lee Emory. That's the name of the movie too,
Matthew Modine, and then fucking Kingpin. Don't you recognize him now? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah. Apparently he was on for that. I don't know,
according to Arnold. Anyway, back on track eventually, So eventually,
Columbia sends John McTiernan in the script written by the

(01:27:30):
dreaded pirate King Black David he loves it, tent forgot
I wrote that sorry with him, telling The New York
Times in ninety three. What drew me is the wackos
sense of humor of Shane. Black and David are not brought.
Shane had done enough service in the Salt mines of
an action movies to ridicule them in an acid way.

(01:27:53):
The script had so much venom that I loved it.
I called Arnold and said, this thing is great. You
have to read it. Arnold was about to commit to
and it held them up. Yeah, okay for Arnold. Yeah yeah,
So what Arnold do the film? We'll find out next time,
And that's going to do it for part one of
our production coverage for Last Action Hero. But tune in

(01:28:14):
next time when we'll discuss some of the bigger changes
that were made to the script by yet another pretty
darn famous screenwriter. We'll also find out exactly how many
writers worked on the script, and I'll give you a
little hint. It's probably more than you think. Oh and also,
to make up for the fact that we've taken so
long between movies, we're going to be releasing the Last
Action Hero episodes as soon as we finish editing them,

(01:28:35):
so they'll drop no longer than a week apart, but
possibly sooner. Just want to give you a heads up anyway,
Thank you so much for listening, and if you have
a second, please do us a solid and leave a
rating or review on either Apple Podcast or Spotify because
it helps us a ton. Anyway, thanks again and we'll
see you soon. If you enjoy our show, please consider
giving us a positive review on Apple Podcasts or your

(01:28:58):
podcast app of choice. You can follow us on Twitter
and Instagram at the Potty Richter to make sure you
never miss an episode. See You with the Potty Richter
is a production of tape Deck Media. Follow tape Deck
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Speaker 1 (01:29:17):
This has been a tape deck Media production. Thank you
for listening.

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Last Action Hero: Production Notes - Screenwriters & Directors

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Last Action Hero: Production Notes - Screenwriters & Directors