March 28, 2025 • 43 mins
In this episode, we unpack the latest drama surrounding Disney's Snow White live-action adaptation, starring Rachel Zegler. Recently, Zegler has faced intense backlash for her comments about the film, but is she truly to blame? We dive into the controversy and examine whether she was just following orders from the higher-ups or if there's more to the story. Is the heat on Zegler justified, or are we overlooking the bigger picture?
But that's not all—we also sit down with film producer Mark Joseph to discuss his compelling new book, "Making Reagan." Joseph takes us behind the scenes of the rollercoaster journey to bring the life of Ronald Reagan to the big screen. If you think most films hit roadblocks on their way to theaters, wait until you hear about the intricate, complex process that brought Reagan to life.
And finally, we give a special shout-out to rapper Tom MacDonald for his generosity in inviting a certain podcaster into his musical world. What was it like collaborating with one of the most controversial figures in music today? Tune in to find out!
--------------------------
"Making Reagan" - https://www.amazon.com/Making-REAGAN-Memoir-Producer-Movie/dp/0982776160
"Can't Cancel All of Us" by Tom MacDonald https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgC8OUdO4mA
Subscribe to HiT's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HollywoodinToto
Read Hollywood in Toto - https://www.hollywoodintoto.com
Lend a hand: Leave a tip! https://hollywood-in-toto.ck.page/products/hollywood-in-toto-tip-jar
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto
Read: "Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul" https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Bombs-Hollywood-Woke-Lost/dp/1637580991
But that's not all—we also sit down with film producer Mark Joseph to discuss his compelling new book, "Making Reagan." Joseph takes us behind the scenes of the rollercoaster journey to bring the life of Ronald Reagan to the big screen. If you think most films hit roadblocks on their way to theaters, wait until you hear about the intricate, complex process that brought Reagan to life.
And finally, we give a special shout-out to rapper Tom MacDonald for his generosity in inviting a certain podcaster into his musical world. What was it like collaborating with one of the most controversial figures in music today? Tune in to find out!
--------------------------
"Making Reagan" - https://www.amazon.com/Making-REAGAN-Memoir-Producer-Movie/dp/0982776160
"Can't Cancel All of Us" by Tom MacDonald https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgC8OUdO4mA
Subscribe to HiT's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HollywoodinToto
Read Hollywood in Toto - https://www.hollywoodintoto.com
Lend a hand: Leave a tip! https://hollywood-in-toto.ck.page/products/hollywood-in-toto-tip-jar
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto
Read: "Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul" https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Bombs-Hollywood-Woke-Lost/dp/1637580991
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on the Hollywood and Toto Podcast, we explain
why the number one scapegoat in America, Rachel Zegler of
Snow White fame, may not be completely responsible for what's
going on with that particular film. Trust me, there's more
that meets the eye of this story. And we speak
to producer Mark Joseph about his new book, Making Reagan.
(00:20):
It is, of course, the making of the Reagan movie,
which came out last year. And if you thought that
most movies struggled to get the theaters, they hit roadblocks
along the way, you ain't seen nothing yet. It's a
miracle that Reagan came to theaters and Mark's going to
share some of those miracles coming up.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Welcome to the Hollywood and Toto Podcast. Entertainment news and reviews,
without doubt, woke Hollywood, narrative, free speech, free expression. Now
that's entertainment, and here's your host. Oh Word winning film
critic who Christian Total.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Rachel Zeckler is having an awful, terrible, no good month,
no doubt. Her new film, Snow White, is underperforming at
the box office. The critics, even liberal critics, seem to
hate it. I didn't I've been the minority audiences are
staying away in droves. The social media buzz and it
has been nothing but negative. The cinema score was not
(01:26):
good enough to really give this movie the kind of
legs it needs to survive at the box office. All
bad news. And that was before Disney whispered in the
ear of a major publication and basically threw Rachel Zegler
under the bus, and then of course the media took
that ran over her a few more times on the
rhetorical bus. Just not a good time for Rachel Zegler,
(01:47):
and she deserves it. She's an actress in a major movie.
She's getting paid handsomely, and she spent a long time
trashing both the source material weird stockery, you know, the drill,
and also telling Trump voters they should never know peace.
She also talked about being paid more for being in
(02:07):
cat in costume as her character, and other quotes that
just didn't sit right with much of anyone.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Honestly, I just mean that it's no longer nineteen thirty seven,
and we absolutely wrote a snow white that is.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Not going to be ived by the Prince.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
He's not going to be saved with the Prince and
She's not going to be dreaming about true love. She's
dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
But is it wholly her fault? Now, Let's put aside
the dwarf debacle and the little people situation that play
the movie in recent months. But wasn't Rachel Zegler just
doing what she's told, just basically reading the script that's
been handed to both her and other young performers for
the last five, six, seven, eight years. I think that's
(02:51):
the case. You will read the script that we give you,
and you will show up tomorrow happy. I mean, when
you think of it, is she the only actress who's
been very vocal about Donald Trump, who has insulted the
people who voted for him. I don't think so.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
I think he thinks he's a gangster, he does anything
like a gangster. I don't think that gangsters in that
world would think much of him.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
That seems pretty darn normal in Hollywood. Is he the
only actor who said, you know what, we're remaking this project,
but you know the source material. It's old, it's stuffy,
it's too much a product of the patriarchy. We're gonna
change it and update it. Is she the only person
who has said that? Is she the only star who
has just actually tried to be a victim despite their
(03:40):
beauty and their fame and all the wealth that's coming
to them. No, she's not the only star by a
long shot. And in fact, I think she's pretty darn
normal by modern Hollywood standards. And yet she's been singled out,
she's been thrown under the bus, she's been targeted by
a major studio and by the journalist who covered that
(04:00):
studio in recent weeks. Again, she is partially to blame here.
She's an adult. She said the things that she said.
I get that, but she's part of a larger ecosystem
that makes the stars say these kind of things. Now,
before I go on any further, I want to mention
that I didn't come up with this idea specifically. This
(04:21):
is actually John cass who's a great Chicago based columnist.
I was talking with him recently along with host Dan
Proft there on Chicago's morning Answer radio show, and the
subject of snow white came up, and we went there
and he said, quite early in the conversation, this is
just the normal. This is just the way Hollywood actors speak.
And he's absolutely right. So I wanted to expound upon
(04:43):
it here, but I also wanted to give him credit
because I don't want to just steal that idea. It's
a good one. He's right, but I just want to
keep it clear. So you know, one of the things
that leaves us with with the whole situation is what
happens next? I mean, do stars watch what they say?
Are they more careful on the red carpet in these situations?
Will they be less likely to trash Donald Trump or
(05:06):
any political party?
Speaker 4 (05:07):
You could?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
You could go bonkers on people on the left and say,
you know, they're terrible, they're awful, they're this and that,
And then would people on the left want to rush
out and see that particular movie. I think not.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Listen, the stars have been doing this for quite some time,
as I said, but they haven't been punished like Rachel
Zegler has been punished. They haven't been singled out by
a massive movie studio like Disney. That's the difference here,
and that's why I think this particular situation, snow Whitegate.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
I call it.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
It might leave a mark. It might tell people in Hollywood,
hey be careful what you say next time. Now, before
we close out this chapter, I want to just say
stars can say whatever they want freedom Like this is America.
We have free speech. No one's going to jail. But
if you're an actor and you're rebooting a beloved property,
(05:58):
you shouldn't really trash said beloved property. I always remember
years ago when dru Barrymoher was talking about Charlie's Angels.
She was remaking the series, making it into a feature film,
and she spoke so cartoonishly lovingly about the source material.
And I grew up on Charlie's Angel It's pretty frothy,
it's pretty silly, it's not fine art. But she had
(06:21):
a real reverence and an admiration for it, and she
wanted to bring that to theaters and maybe that's why
those two particular films were so successful. Well, how hard
is that? And more importantly, if you're out in the
publicity market, if you are talking to journalists and Stephen
Colbert and doing the red carpet stick, how hard is
it not to say this particular party and this particular
(06:43):
voter is not only I'm not in agreement with them,
but they might be bad people, or they might be
supporting a terrible cause, I mean, it just seems like
a terrible idea. Now, it doesn't mean that they can't
say that, doesn't mean that they shouldn't say that, per se.
But when you're on the publicity trail, when you aren't
trying to get more people to come into the theaters,
it's probably the worst way to go about it. Or,
(07:05):
as Rachel Zegler might say, it's a little it's a
little weird. Mark Joseph had a not so crazy idea
a while ago, why don't we make a movie about
(07:25):
President Ronald Reagan. There's been no major movie about him.
There have been a mini series, there have been other
references to Reagan over the years on screens large and small,
but not a full bodied bio pick. And the fact
that Mark Joseph is a film producer, well, he's just
the guy to make that happen. Well, it's a great idea,
it was a great pitch, it's something we need and
(07:47):
making it happen was nothing less than brutal for a
very very long time. Actors coming in and out of
the project, directors coming in and out of the project,
funding coming and going, so many obstacles, so many hard
luck situations, and then of course you throw in COVID nineteen.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
What's your ask coal for acess?
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I mean, making this movie was just an act of
sheer will, and thankfully Mark Joseph had that will to
get the job done. Of course, the movie came out
last year with Dennis Quaid. People seem to like it
quite a bit ninety eight percent approval on rotten toomatoes
dot com from audiences. Critics were far less kind. But
you know, there's a right leaning guy a gop icon
(08:30):
that just some political bias going on there, I think.
I don't think that's too far a stretch. But the
fact that the film exists at all is a testament
to Mark and his dream to make this reality. And
now there's a book about that whole process. It's called,
of Course, Making Reagan. It's available right now in bookstores everywhere,
(08:50):
and it shows how many obstacles he had to leap
over to make this movie happen, quite a few. I
don't know how he stuck with it. I think any
same person would have said, Okay, the universe has given
me a sign. I'm out. Mark never quit, never quit
in the movie, And of course the results speak for itself,
so I want to share his story making Reagan the book,
(09:10):
and of course him is his work as a producer
with you all this week. Now, just a quick note,
the beginning of this conversation gets snipped away. There was
a little bit of a video hiccup. I'm still learning
the tricks of my trade, so forgive that. But you
don't miss much. It jumps right into the conversation. You'll
be fine. But just no, it doesn't start in the
usual smooth fashion. So enjoy my chat with Mark Joseph.
(09:31):
And if you've got a teenager who's thinking about joining Hollywood,
becoming a screenwriter, maybe trying acting on for size, this
is the mother of all cautionary tales. It will be
impossibly hard for many many people.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
But you know what, if.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
It's your dream, if it's your goal, is your ambition,
you've got a prayer in your mind to make it happen,
it can happen. And Mark Joseph is proof of just.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
That, your viewers and listeners. It's myself, my wife and
four young daughters like age one to six or something
like that. We're not people that are going to harm
or threaten anybody driving along either two or fat back
from my cousin's wedding and I'm suddenly I see the
(10:12):
flashing lights.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
I'm pulled over.
Speaker 6 (10:14):
Oh shoot, no, but I'm driving a minivan. I don't
think I'm really doing anything wrong. But the officer comes over.
He's a very very young officer, and I noticed his
hands are kind of shaking. It's like his first day
in the job or something. And he says, you know,
you were speeding, and I said I was, and he says, yeah,
you were going sixty five and a forty five zone
and that's twenty miles above.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
That's a big deal.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
In this area, and it was. It just said sixty
five with a few. He goes, well, but it's a
whatever anyway. So so he's writing the ticket out and
I figure, okay, i'll pay my fine of you know,
one hundred bucks or whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
And he says it says in the ticket.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
As I look at it he hands it to me,
he says, you must appear in court in person a
month from now. And you know, not to be a
wiseacre la guy, but you know, I'm like, listen, I'm
I live in Los Angeles and I don't think I
can come back in a month.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Can I just pay the ticket and be done? And
he goes, oh no, no, this is you have an
appear in court person. So now I'm like, I'm in
trouble here. What do I do?
Speaker 6 (11:10):
He says, well, if you call it, maybe they'll let
you come tomorrow instead. So I call in and they said,
you've got to appear in court tomorrow in court in
person for the judge and make your plea your case.
I think, if I am, I own all you know?
Is this like the end of a Seinfeld episode or
something where they all end.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Up in jail.
Speaker 6 (11:27):
So so, but the weird part was I look at
the ticket and it says you must appear in court
in Dixon, Illinois. And I know enough about Ronald Reagan
to know that's Ronald Reagan's hometown.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
So I'm trying to pieces together my mind. I've been
pulled over for speeding and I am forced to spend
the night in Dixon, Illinois my wife and four children
and go before a judge. And I don't know what's
going to happen.
Speaker 6 (11:48):
Again, I'm thinking Seinfeld last episode. So uh, I've got
the data kill, I've got nothing to do, and so
we we just decide to make the best of it,
and I take all my kids to his boyhood, which
i'd never been to before, the river where he saved
lives and all that stuff, and just did the full
Ronald Reagan tour against my will. So the next day
(12:09):
I go for the judge, and just for fun, I
asked my wife, Hey, just for fun, let's go the
speed limit and find out what happens. And so I
went forty five and all those nice Illinois people were
middle fingering me and say af you and like speed up, buddy,
and what are you doing?
Speaker 4 (12:26):
And so now I think I've got the judge right.
Speaker 6 (12:28):
It's the next day I go for the judge and
the attorney that I guess they give you an attorney,
and so he told me.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
I said, listen, what should I do? And he says, listen,
if you say innocent, you could have a trial and
he can put you in jail.
Speaker 6 (12:45):
So you know, I'm thinking to myself, I've got four
little girls. I probably shouldn't have dad going to jail
over some stupid infraction. So but I go for the
judge and my kids are in the front row. My
wife was there in his courtroom. This all the more
I talk about, the more this sounds like it couldn't
have happened, but it definitely happened. So he goes Son
(13:05):
and he says, Son, guilty or innocent? And I said,
I said, your honor me, I please show you footage
of what happens when I go to speed of it,
and he just gives me this little slide granted, and
he says, Son, I'm not going to watch your video
and it so again I have like five seconds to
think through. Dad goes to jail over in fraction. You know,
children are haunted forever by the memory of their dad
(13:26):
being taken off in chains. So I said, your honor, okay, guilty,
and he says, go pay your fine.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
So I'm free.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Now you go to pay the fine and the fine
is five hundred bucks. Five hundred bucks. So that is
where this entire movie started. And just spending the day there.
But on a serious note, what I what inspired me
that day was that again, nothing against the wonderful folks
of Dixon, but there is not I didn't see a.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Lot going on in that town.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
I saw a gas station, was at the pizza hut
for lunch. I was a holiday in I think it
was a holiday in and it just wasn't the most
you know, exotic place in the world, and it just
really reminded me that our leaders come from normal places
like this, and our leaders are often ordinary people. Think
(14:18):
of Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Ronald Reagan. With
the exception of the Trumps and the Bushes and the Roosevelts,
our leaders are really ordinary people from ordinary places that
do extraordinary things. I think in particular, you know, Japanese
prime ministers are often the son and grandson of previous
prime ministers, and it's sort of handed down like a
legacy thing, and that's just not the case. And so
(14:42):
that really got me thinking about Ronald Reagan and what
interesting story it was. And I was at Walden Media
at the time, and so that's when I just began
to develop the idea back in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I think one of the interesting things about the movie
and your book is that it gives you such a
new and fresh perspective on Reagan. You know, the hits
are obvious, the political moments that we all know, but
it felt like your journey in making this movie allowed
you to get to know him in so many profound ways.
Maybe just share one little story from the book about
(15:12):
meeting people who knew Reagan, who got to see him
in a different sense, who connected with him, and because
he just comes across as folksy and kind in a
way that really doesn't really connect with politics.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Honestly, that's a great question.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You know.
Speaker 6 (15:27):
Whatever the critics thought about them, it was often like
they're critiquing him and not the movie. I think in
that sense, we were faithful to him. And if you
want to call some of his stuff cornball, sure, you know,
the way his love for Nancy by our modern standards,
maybe it's a little cornball, and the notes he wrote stuff.
But in any event, I don't take a lot of
(15:48):
the criticism seriously or personally, I should say, because I
think a lot of it's directed at who Ronald Reagan was,
and that's fair, you know, if you want to, But
I would, you know, in the perfect word, I'd make
that a separate critique and say, I don't like Ronald Reagan,
but here's the movie, right, Because a lot of the credit,
even the worst critics, seem to think denisqu did a
good job, which I appreciate that but anyway, Yeah, there's
(16:08):
definitely a part of Reagan that is unknowable. You know,
his official biographer, Edmund Morris, essentially threw up his hands
and said, I just can't figure him out. He's called
him inscrutable and kind of gave up and made this weird,
part novel, part historical book that nobody likes really, and
so there is a sense in which Ronald Reagan is
(16:29):
I think, intentionally inscrutable. He almost made it. I think
he left breadcrumbs on the trail, but he almost made
it difficult to get to know who he was intentionally.
There's a The senior quote in his high school yearbook
is a great example of this. I don't have it
in front of me, but I have it in the book,
and it's like two or a couple of lines from
(16:51):
a much longer poem, and people really couldn't figure out
what he was talking about just based on those lines.
But one research I went back and found the entire
poem and now, okay, now it makes sense what he
was trying to say here. But he made it. He
makes it difficult. He doesn't make it easy. If you
ever get a chance to visit the Reagan ranch, in
Santa Barbara. You'll get a physical picture of Ronald Reagan
(17:14):
the man. Because this place takes about twenty five minutes
from the highway to get to. It's winding roads and
this and that, and this gate opens and closes, and
I mean it's literally.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
And then once you get there, it's like a paradise.
Speaker 6 (17:30):
But it's literally, like you know, I guess we buy
the houses that reflect our personalities, and this definitely reflects
his personality. Because very very hard to get to. Very
few people got got to see it. In fact, his
close close friend Ed Mees told me, I have never
been there, and so when I told him that a
painting that he had given to Reagan was in there,
(17:52):
he was like, you're kidding.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
I never knew that. I never knew that he treasured
my painting so much.
Speaker 6 (17:57):
But anyway, I have a chance to visit with about
fifty to fifty five of the people that knew him
worked with him.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Of course, his son Mike was a big help. But
it was really just a journey of trying to figure
this man out. He truly is is hard to figure out.
Speaker 6 (18:13):
But I would get little pieces from this person and
that person, and it was interesting because a lot of
the times, whether it was George Schultz or Ed Meese
or all these people that worked with him, they would
tell me, hey, you know, I never told the biographer
that about this, but here's the story, or you know,
you can't put in the movie, but here here's this.
And and one of the guys who told me that
he passed away. So I think I can tell the story.
(18:34):
But look, you know, jokes and things that he would
do and say, And you know, I asked Edmees, for instance,
who's still alive? I said, you're probably the closest thing
he asked to a brother.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
You know what was it like?
Speaker 6 (18:47):
He said, well, maybe so, but I could never get
beyond a certain point emotionally.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
It's not like he.
Speaker 6 (18:51):
Would we would sit down and say, hey, you know,
how are you feeling. It was just a little bit
of a barrier there that. Yeah, he said, I could
never get beyond. And even Nancy said the same thing.
So anyway, all those people really helped give up. And
it was very random. Christian I talk in the book about,
you know, sometimes I would meet people very very randomly.
I'm sitting at a at a dinner one night, and
there's a fortune teller sitting next to me. A very
(19:14):
nice lady, but that was her whatever she did. And
she's like, oh, I knew President, I knew Reagan. I
went to school with his daughter. And then she tells
me a great story about her and Ted Kennedy and
Reagan and then just the official people. Of course, I
was very very careful with Missus Reagan and the Reagan Foundation.
We never sought approval from her or anybody, just let
(19:34):
them know what we were doing. Yeah, but I wanted
the viewer to feel like this has integrity. It's not
carrying the water for anybody or trying to make him
look good. And so they were very respectful of those boundaries.
They saw the movie at the very end, but you know,
had no input in terms of script or things like that.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
You know, to talk about the movie now and to
think about Dennis Quaido is so good, but he wasn't
the first choice. There were other actors in the mix.
And I want to let the the viewers and the
listeners kind of get the book and find out some
of the actors I want. I want to keep some surprises,
but I have to kind of mention. One was Nicholas
Cage that I had no idea. Seems like such a curveball,
(20:13):
I think physically, but also a great actor who could
probably do almost anything. I think he's playing John Madden
and in your future. So is there a little bit
of that of that story you can share right now
about Nicholas Cage and and you're you know, the back
and forth. It sounds like he was very respectful and
very honest and kind of a straight shooter.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
Yeah, just to clarify, Dennis Quid was always my first choice,
but he wasn't always he wasn't available, and so there
were periods of time so we just like, we have
to go, we have to do this, and so yeah,
but yeah, we had some great conversations with Nick Cage.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
He's an awesome person.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
And when out to Las Vegas, we had lunch out there,
we had lunch out here in Beverly Hills, and yeah,
he just look at It would have taken a lot
of hair and a lot of makeup, no doubt about it.
But Nick Cage can do almost anything, and so it
would have been interesting. It would have been a totally
different movie. But you know, those conversations ended up. We
talked for quite a while, maybe I think we went
(21:06):
on for maybe a year or so, and I was
sending him I think I might have scared him with
too many Reagan DVDs, because back when we had DVDs,
I would burn DVDs and send him speeches and things.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
But I think he just had to make a judgment
call what it would mean.
Speaker 6 (21:20):
I think he was prepared to do it, but he
has a lot of other projects, and this project, as
you know from Dennis, it's taking It would have taken.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
A lot out of his life. Dennis was with us
for like six years from because of COVID and all
the things that happened. So I'm so glad though that
worked out the way he was supposed to.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
And Dennis, as I said, Dennis required very little makeup
and hair, and you know, just like put him out
there one time when we were on set, and I
remember going up to him saying, you know, just be
Dennis Quaid, don't try too hard to be Ronald Reagan,
just because you're already very close. A lot of similarity
between Ronald Reagan and Dennis Quaid. His mother very very devout,
(22:00):
both of them, very very developed religious women. Their father's
alcoholic types. You know, and even their wives outshining them.
You know, both of their wives at one point were
more popular than them. Denis would be the first one
to tell you he'd be walking on the street in
New York City and they're screaming out his wife's name
and his name.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
And Ron Reid experienced that with Jane A. Wyman as well. So, yeah,
a lot of similarities. Interesting.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
You know, obviously politics play such a huge factor here.
We had a GP icon. You're working in Hollywood. There
are all these different forces, and certainly the industry is
not rushing to tell the story on the big screen
like it deserves to be. Maybe give a quick example
of how that that, you know, became an obstacle. I mean,
(22:46):
obviously it sounds like Nicholas Cage was ready to kind
of push past that others in the book. You know,
obviously that was a significant factor, But how would you
describe that that that bump along the way, because it
wasn't it wasn't it wasn't my it was pretty sizable.
Speaker 6 (23:01):
Yeah, I'm so thankful we had the road to ourselves.
I kept waiting for another Reagan movie to pop up,
and it was a combination of factors, you know, at
one point there was going to be a kind of
a jokey version of Reagan has Alzheimer's and.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
Doesn't know he's the present or something, Yes, with Will Ferrell,
with Will Ferrell, that poor Will Ferrell. This is how
I know what happened to that poor poor man. So
sometimes people would mistake our Facebook page for his for
that movie that was announced, and we would get all
the nasty messages.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, you were very kind in the book about that
chapter of this saga, because I think I would have
pulled less punches than you did.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
But continue, continue, Well, I remember at the time, I
mean they announced that movie and it was like an
award winning script, you know, just going to be great.
And of course the world went nuts about it when
it was announced, and within forty eight hours we'll like
backs out of it. And so, oh, I don't even
maybe maybe met that guy once.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
He has a script. A total backtrack.
Speaker 6 (24:01):
But on our Facebook page, somebody had written, Will Ferrell
graduated from such and such high school in Orange County.
He's on the He's on the wall of fame at
his high school. Call this number and demand he be
taken off the wall of fame of his high school.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
I mean, this is how serious Reagan fans are.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
And so I think the combination of when people wanted
to make a movie, it was going to be outrageous
to the fans, so that closed that down, and then
there were other attempts with Michael Douglas and various things.
But I think, you know, it's this is a tough
area because if you make a film that attacks that character,
(24:41):
that person. Let's say, if you make a Jackie Robinson
film and you tick off his fans, who is the fan?
Who is the audience for your movie? I don't know,
like racist, I don't know who the film. So it's
it's not that you have to suck up the fans,
but you want to be fair and if the fans
feel like you're being fair to their guy, then But
but I don't I don't know that makes sense. I
guess there's vice. I guess which you know. I don't
(25:04):
think Dick Cheney fans were rushing out to see. But
it's something you have to think about if you're making
a buyo. And we just tried to treat Reagan. I
didn't treat like a politician. We just treat him like
a character, like Jackie Robinson or you know, any any
biopic you've seen of a musician. So I think maybe
that's where some of the outrage was that we didn't
(25:26):
like try to treat him as a political person or
get out our pet projects, that we didn't like him
because he did this.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
It's really more about the man.
Speaker 6 (25:35):
And part of it was, as I talked about in
the book, John Avildson was originally going to be our director,
and John directed Rocky, of course, and John really helped
set the tone even though it turned out and he
passed away and had we had to part company just
before that, but he would say to me, you know, Mark,
remember that Rocky was not about boxing.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
It just happened to be his occupation.
Speaker 6 (25:58):
And we've got to treat Reagan the same way that
this is about the man and happens to be he's
in politics, but he could have been, you know, a custodian.
It's really about him overcoming a lot of failures in
his life, challenges that he faces.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
And so that was kind of a that was our
load star guiding Star.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
This makes it like a hokey question in a way,
but to do to make this project happen, you had
to be a counselor, you had to be a negotiator,
you had to be a psychiatrist. I mean, it's amazing
all the different skills you had to draw upon to
make each part of this happen, whether it was you know,
(26:37):
getting the funding, getting the actors, working with the director,
working with the writer. Do you feel like this is
you already? You know, you are already an established veteran
in this industry, but do you feel like you Emergement's
whole saga with sort of a better skill set, a
better understanding. Do you think, oh my gosh, why did
I even get into this business? I mean, I just
can't I can't imagine not being changed by this whole
(27:00):
I didn't know that you tried to remove your ego
from it, and that was a key part of the
book and the production. But how do you emerge from
this whole situation? I mean, I don't know. It's it's
a very vague question, but it just seems like such
a life changing experience. It wasn't just a movie. It
was so much more.
Speaker 6 (27:16):
Yes, And if you have a young person in your
life who wants to go into filmmaking, I encourage you
to give them this book and talk them out of it,
him or her out of it and go into dentistry
or something anything, anything, right. Yeah, No, it's a very
long and arduous road and you have to wear all
those hats.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Like you were talking about.
Speaker 6 (27:37):
People often ask you, know, what does a producer do,
and you know, you're you're like a combination of an
architect and a general contractor, and you know what you
want to do, but you have to find the right
people to help you with it. I mean, that's a
huge part of it. It is assembling that team, and
it's not just the producings but also the marketing side.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
And we kind of functioned as a studio as well.
I mean, we developed it.
Speaker 6 (28:00):
We had a great partner at the end in Showbiz,
and of course Lionsgate and Universal helped with the rest
of it, but essentially all the work was done by
our team, and you know, it took a long time.
And just the way that the way the funding works,
often funding is against foreign sales or foreign pre sales,
and we don't really have that in our case. It's
very difficult to it's a very American story. So all
(28:23):
the normal mechanisms that are used to fund a movie
are really not in play for us, so just for
your audience sake, you know, if you were making a
move with Nicholas Cage, you would go to Germany and
Italy and France and wherever, collect money from all those
places and say, hey, we'll give you the movie and
then give us the money.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
And that's how often movies are financed.
Speaker 6 (28:42):
But in our case, I don't think Ronald Reagan doesn't
have that kind of a reach, so we just had
to do things in a different way. But yeah, to
answer your question, it's throw and then throw in COVID
on top of that. It just really, you know, made
life really challenging.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
To drive out.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
I had to drive out to Oklahoma in an RV
and stay in an RV. And we arrived on set
and my team, my director Shaw McNamara and John Sullivan
are co producer, and others were already there. But I mean,
just to give you a flavor of what it was
like when I arrived there, we had an amazing COVID coordinator.
She was great, but she was very tough and she
(29:20):
just cracked the whip and I said, well, I mean,
can I go to a restaurant?
Speaker 4 (29:24):
She goes no. I said, well, can I go to Walmart?
She goes.
Speaker 6 (29:27):
She goes like, that's the most dangerous place in this
entire city. You cannot go to Walmart. So how am
I supposed to eat? I mean, I literally what am
I supposed to do? And she said, we'll deliver groceries
to your door every morning. Tell us what you want.
And so literally we couldn't have any interaction with the locals.
I think we went to a restaurant one time the
entire three months. So it was really a challenging, challenging thing.
(29:47):
And to this day, Christian there are people that I
don't know what they look like below their nose, and
I'm like.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Oh, that's what you look like.
Speaker 6 (29:54):
Yeah, So it was really and then because of the
there was just no flexibility in the rule was at
that time. They weren't like common sense flexibility. So if
you remember, I'm on a set with hundreds and hundreds
of people, and if one person got COVID, the entire
set had to shut down for ten days.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Just can't it's just not functional.
Speaker 6 (30:13):
So we were shut down for twenty days, and those
are days that I have to pay salaries for everybody.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
They're quarantine the one people who got it.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
So, I mean, a sensible thing would have been to say,
the person who came down with COVID, you know, who
did you have contact with from the last three days?
Speaker 4 (30:31):
All you guys are isolated. They didn't do that. It
was the entire set and it was just just incredibly challenging.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
One of the few perks of the delay and the
delay and the delay was by the time the movie
came out late last year, there was a whole new
media and empire where you could have Dennis Quaid on,
Joe Rogan and all these different platforms that really didn't
have the power the cultural heft that they that they
do now. I mean, I would think that part of
(30:59):
the film success was that landscape and leveraging not just
Dennis but other people in that arena. Can you talk
about that and how important that was because this was
not the kind of movie where you're going to get
wall to wall coverage in the traditional press.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:12):
That's a great, great point, and you're right, and I
think we're the first film to really really really focus
on podcasts. We saw it developing. I just remember when
certain people developed their podcasts. I began to watch and
I saw the change happening, and literally, I personally, you know,
at some point changed from coming home and turning on
(31:34):
my cable stations to coming home and training on my
YouTube channel and then seeing all the podcasters. And the
good thing is you can see the numbers, like literally
you can see, oh wow, one million people watching it.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
So we jumped in.
Speaker 6 (31:47):
I think you've seen I think we pioneered the podcast strategy,
and I think you've seen a few after us do it.
Kevin cautioned a few. I'm turning to see a few.
Mel Gibson did a couple of things. But you know,
I had kind of warned Dennis ahead of time that,
you know, we really have a different way of communicating.
You know, my background with Walden and all these places
(32:09):
that I've been in the past. It's a totally different
way of marketing films. And we didn't do things perfectly,
but it is a strategy of making sure our lead
talent is available. And we just wrote that into the
contract and provided for him the resources he would need
to do that, and he just gave it as all.
I mean, I have no Dennis, not only the performance
in the movie, but going on Joe Rogan and all
(32:33):
these these incredible shows. So that was definitely, you know,
a strategy. I think you'll see Hollywood doing more and
more of that if they're if they're smart, to really
make talent available and going on those shows. And again
you can see literally you know the ratings, I mean
the next that in real time you can see them
are people who watch these shows. But we began Dennis's
(32:55):
portion of the marketing back before the film even came out,
when we announced it on The Kelly Show on The
Today Show actually, and so Megan Kelly came out to
the Reagan Ranch and then Dennis is out there. Probably
the most interesting and fun and weird thing we did
was pawn Stars. Both Dennis and John Voight did a
pond Stars episode. And in the case of just to
(33:17):
give you the numbers. In the case of Dennis, so
the whole the joke was he comes a buddy of
mine sells the poster signed by Dennis on the show,
and then Dennis is called in to authenticate the signature.
So that little segment in total got about thirty million
views over all kinds of various different ways that it
(33:38):
was seen on TV online, And so it's definitely and
then we measured the awareness of the movie just like
you'd do a political campaign, and as far as I know,
we're the first to ever do it. But we would
periodically pull the question would be to the American people
would be have you heard.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Of a movie on Ronald Reagan's urn his Quad?
Speaker 6 (33:57):
And we began at eight percent, ten percent, fourteen percent,
and by the end we were at the last week,
we were at eighty four percent, So the way the
awareness was there and I think though that on the
on the other side of things, we definitely came straight
into the headwinds of people wanted to watch movies at home,
and it's just a reality that.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
We've had to just deal with this.
Speaker 6 (34:18):
I've had so many people say I cannot wait to
watch your film when it's in my house and like,
what's in a theater?
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Well, yeah, I like watching at home now.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
And then we did a poll that sixty three percent
of people want to watch movies at home versus the theater.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
So that's the reality we faced.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
You know, the fact that there's a movie about Ronald
Reagan of this kind it's out there now truly matters
in the pop cultural landscape because this will live on
whether it goes to Netflix eventually, whether it's on different
streaming channels, whether it's you know, however people consume the media,
they will see it, and you know, headlines fade, and
the lessons from your childhood schooling, you know, fades as well.
(34:56):
But talk about the importance of this as a pop
culture touched on because I think you're one of the
very few people that I know, like and Andrew Claven
and yours well marked, that you understand there's a necessity
for this. This doesn't this isn't just a movie that
comes in out of theaters. This has a life of
its own. Now it exists, and people will see it
and take something fresh out of it that they may
(35:18):
never get from other pieces of information.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Uh. Yeah, that's I mean, that's a that's a great point.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
I think of how movies have affected me, and I'm
sure they've affected you too, and I still carry them
with me forty years later.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
And yeah, you know, and I remember when I when
we were.
Speaker 6 (35:31):
Looking for that director, and my my friend Ralph Winter,
who didn't end up producing it with up with me.
But you know, Ralph said, well, who's your favorite what's
your favorite movie? I said, well, I always love Rocky
he because we'll go find that guy. And that's how
I found John Abltson. I'm like, well, he's probably dead
by now, Like no, he's eighty one years old and
still kicking it.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
But I think of how that movie affected me and
just spending time with John Avildson.
Speaker 6 (35:55):
We would have lunch together off and he would tell
me these great stories from Rocky and and I and
I tried to be cool and not let on what
a fan I was, but the truth is that, you know,
his movie impacted me as a young man growing up.
And you know, for us eighties kids, it was like
Rocky was like our instructor and how.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
To be a man.
Speaker 6 (36:13):
You know, you've got to be tough in the ring,
but then you've got to be kind Adrian. It's like
all those things that we learned. And so yeah, that's
exciting to think. Who knows how this movie will impact people.
And you know, obviously we took a critics dropping, but
we've applied to Guinness World Book of Records for the
greatest gap between moviegoers and critics critics, Like you know,
(36:36):
we were at and look at Christian.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
I usually I usually shoot for forty.
Speaker 6 (36:40):
Nine forty nine is my target because that was the
score for the Passion of the Christ, and so I
always feel like forty nine means it's a really good work,
but it's being punished for philosophical reasons. But I did
not expect eighteen. That was beyond my beyond expectations. But
I think that ninety eight for people who saw it
(37:02):
on Rod Tomatoes in eighteen for critics, in a way,
it's ironic because it's really is like Ronald Reagan himself.
You know, they're really smart. People in Washington literally thought
he was an idiot. Clark Clifford famously, like the most
respected statesmen in Washington when Reagan came to Washington called
him an amiable dunce. And this is not the guy
(37:25):
who's going to, you know, help bring the Cold War
to an end or be a strong president. Really, he
was just really an idiot. Even Nixon was not a
fan kind of thought he was a lightweight. And I
think Reagan kind of in a perverse way, Reagan kind
of cultivated that image.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
I think he used it to his advantage.
Speaker 6 (37:42):
You know, if he's the guy who's nap, takes a
lot of naps and is an idiot, your opponents let
their guard down. And I think that Reagan actually thought
that one through and purposely cultivated that kind of an
image because it helped him give an example of the
way his mind worked.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
Two of the lessons that I learned from his fans.
One was that you'll never see a picture of.
Speaker 6 (38:02):
Ronald Reagan with his arms around somebody with a suit
coat on, because it rumples his suit coat and it
would make it look you know, he's always about getting
the picture right. But on the red carpet he would
often position himselves as you face the camera, he'd position
himself on the very left side, so if you're looking
at a picture, you'll see him on the very left side,
(38:23):
and people would think, so, there's like him and Errol
Flynn and John Wayne or whatever, and people would think, oh,
what a modest.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
Fellow he is. Well, not really.
Speaker 6 (38:31):
He's thinking ahead later to the captions, and he gets
mentioned first in the captions if he's on the very side.
So he's not a dumb person, and he thinks things through.
And in terms of the other insight that I got
from one of his days Arthur Laugher was that he
said he said the very first moment I met Ronald
Reagan in nineteen seventy eight, I knew that he was
(38:52):
the son of an alcoholic and I said, well, why
so well, because everything was perfect now, not a hair
out of place suit, everything was just. And he said,
I often find with alcoholic children that they don't want
to take off their dad, and so they will try
to present themselves as perfectly as possible at the time visually.
And so those are the kind of insights that I
kind of gleaned from people that I met.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah, well, there's so much of that kind of content though,
kind of details in Making Reagan. It's available right now
at Amazon dot Com or your favorite bookseller, and of
course you could see regular movie itself on your favorite
video on demand platform. You know, it's funny word that
to go. There was a great Saturday Night Live sketch
back in the day with Phil Hartman that played into
that Reagan is a dunce image and then it showed
(39:34):
him as this Machabellian figure. It was brilliant, it was funny,
it was irreverent, and they would never do it today,
but it was did kind of capture that that sort
of the tug between his real person and the image
that he portrayed.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
But yeah, he'd they'd be girl scouts coming around cookies
and then they would leave and he'd put on the
map and we're attacking here. That's it wasn't quite like that,
but there is some truth to that.
Speaker 6 (39:57):
And again he had this ability to combine, you know,
being tough but also being being kind with people. And
and you know, Trump and Reagan are very much contrast.
You know, one is raised in New York City, has
to deal with the mob and the unions and you know, all.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
This stuff, and then one is is.
Speaker 6 (40:15):
A Midwestern you know, more and more polite and so
but they're both tough, yeah, but definitely different kinds of toughness. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Well, I'm glad you put through all the work, all
the heartache, all the perseverance, all the juggling to make
this all happen. It's here. The film is out now.
In the book, of course, the book is as well. Mark,
thank you so much for your time. And like I said,
if you've got a kid who is curious about the Hollywood,
have them read this book and then have a long conversation.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
I think it's dentistry.
Speaker 6 (40:43):
Dentistry, there will always be tooth that need.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
To be teeth that need to be worked on.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
That's right, but someone's got to do it.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
You did it.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Thank you so much for your efforts and hopefully we'll
talk again soon.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Thanks Christian.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Your character actor the week is Stephen Tobolowski. Before we
go one and give a quick shout out to rapper
slash musician Tom McDonald. Now, Tom is a star. He's
a star on YouTube, he's a star on the music charts,
and he's doing it basically by himself. No big record label,
no big publicity team behind him pushing out his songs,
(41:16):
bothering radio stations to play his music. It's really all
him now one caveat. His girlfriend is Nova Rockafeller, and
she does the She directs the videos to his music
and they are quite good. I mean, she's a very
talented soul. But this tag Tim duo does it on
their own, all by themselves, and they rock the charts
over and over again. His videos get millions of views.
(41:39):
He's a sensation. And he recently reached out to me
on Twitter x whatever you want to call it, and
asked if I wanted to contribute to his newest music video.
It's called can't cancel all of us, And it's a
battle cry for everyone who's been pressured, who's been canceled,
who's been told, you know, you can say that you
can't have that opinion. In many, many people have suffered
(42:01):
over the last few years because of that cultural trend,
and this is his finger in the eye to those
who tried to do it, who made that whole cultural
revolution possible and to say, hey, you know what, you
can cancel all of us that time that might be over.
Thank goodness for that. So if anybody could wreck a
music career, it's me. But I think my brief brief
(42:22):
appearance in his new music video won't do the damage
that it could. But all kidding aside, thank you Tom
McDonald for being a pioneer, for being a free spirit,
for inviting me also briefly into a musical world, and
just being a guy who just tells it like it is.
We need more of that, So thanks Tom. And this
will be my first and last music video, I promise,
(42:44):
because he can't.
Speaker 5 (42:52):
Can't.
Speaker 4 (42:58):
Well that's the.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Show this week. Thank you again. Radio America having me
is part of their great podcast lineup, and if you
get a chance, check out hollywoodintoto dot com. It is
the right take in entertainment, just like this podcast, updated
seven days a week because I don't want to have
a day off. I who needs that, right? But I
will see you all next time, But for now, please
be good, be kind, and have the best day possible.
(43:21):
Doctor's orders.
This week on the Hollywood and Toto Podcast, we explain
why the number one scapegoat in America, Rachel Zegler of
Snow White fame, may not be completely responsible for what's
going on with that particular film. Trust me, there's more
that meets the eye of this story. And we speak
to producer Mark Joseph about his new book, Making Reagan.
(00:20):
It is, of course, the making of the Reagan movie,
which came out last year. And if you thought that
most movies struggled to get the theaters, they hit roadblocks
along the way, you ain't seen nothing yet. It's a
miracle that Reagan came to theaters and Mark's going to
share some of those miracles coming up.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Welcome to the Hollywood and Toto Podcast. Entertainment news and reviews,
without doubt, woke Hollywood, narrative, free speech, free expression. Now
that's entertainment, and here's your host. Oh Word winning film
critic who Christian Total.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Rachel Zeckler is having an awful, terrible, no good month,
no doubt. Her new film, Snow White, is underperforming at
the box office. The critics, even liberal critics, seem to
hate it. I didn't I've been the minority audiences are
staying away in droves. The social media buzz and it
has been nothing but negative. The cinema score was not
(01:26):
good enough to really give this movie the kind of
legs it needs to survive at the box office. All
bad news. And that was before Disney whispered in the
ear of a major publication and basically threw Rachel Zegler
under the bus, and then of course the media took
that ran over her a few more times on the
rhetorical bus. Just not a good time for Rachel Zegler,
(01:47):
and she deserves it. She's an actress in a major movie.
She's getting paid handsomely, and she spent a long time
trashing both the source material weird stockery, you know, the drill,
and also telling Trump voters they should never know peace.
She also talked about being paid more for being in
(02:07):
cat in costume as her character, and other quotes that
just didn't sit right with much of anyone.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Honestly, I just mean that it's no longer nineteen thirty seven,
and we absolutely wrote a snow white that is.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Not going to be ived by the Prince.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
He's not going to be saved with the Prince and
She's not going to be dreaming about true love. She's
dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
But is it wholly her fault? Now, Let's put aside
the dwarf debacle and the little people situation that play
the movie in recent months. But wasn't Rachel Zegler just
doing what she's told, just basically reading the script that's
been handed to both her and other young performers for
the last five, six, seven, eight years. I think that's
(02:51):
the case. You will read the script that we give you,
and you will show up tomorrow happy. I mean, when
you think of it, is she the only actress who's
been very vocal about Donald Trump, who has insulted the
people who voted for him. I don't think so.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
I think he thinks he's a gangster, he does anything
like a gangster. I don't think that gangsters in that
world would think much of him.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
That seems pretty darn normal in Hollywood. Is he the
only actor who said, you know what, we're remaking this project,
but you know the source material. It's old, it's stuffy,
it's too much a product of the patriarchy. We're gonna
change it and update it. Is she the only person
who has said that? Is she the only star who
has just actually tried to be a victim despite their
(03:40):
beauty and their fame and all the wealth that's coming
to them. No, she's not the only star by a
long shot. And in fact, I think she's pretty darn
normal by modern Hollywood standards. And yet she's been singled out,
she's been thrown under the bus, she's been targeted by
a major studio and by the journalist who covered that
(04:00):
studio in recent weeks. Again, she is partially to blame here.
She's an adult. She said the things that she said.
I get that, but she's part of a larger ecosystem
that makes the stars say these kind of things. Now,
before I go on any further, I want to mention
that I didn't come up with this idea specifically. This
(04:21):
is actually John cass who's a great Chicago based columnist.
I was talking with him recently along with host Dan
Proft there on Chicago's morning Answer radio show, and the
subject of snow white came up, and we went there
and he said, quite early in the conversation, this is
just the normal. This is just the way Hollywood actors speak.
And he's absolutely right. So I wanted to expound upon
(04:43):
it here, but I also wanted to give him credit
because I don't want to just steal that idea. It's
a good one. He's right, but I just want to
keep it clear. So you know, one of the things
that leaves us with with the whole situation is what
happens next? I mean, do stars watch what they say?
Are they more careful on the red carpet in these situations?
Will they be less likely to trash Donald Trump or
(05:06):
any political party?
Speaker 4 (05:07):
You could?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
You could go bonkers on people on the left and say,
you know, they're terrible, they're awful, they're this and that,
And then would people on the left want to rush
out and see that particular movie. I think not.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Listen, the stars have been doing this for quite some time,
as I said, but they haven't been punished like Rachel
Zegler has been punished. They haven't been singled out by
a massive movie studio like Disney. That's the difference here,
and that's why I think this particular situation, snow Whitegate.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
I call it.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
It might leave a mark. It might tell people in Hollywood,
hey be careful what you say next time. Now, before
we close out this chapter, I want to just say
stars can say whatever they want freedom Like this is America.
We have free speech. No one's going to jail. But
if you're an actor and you're rebooting a beloved property,
(05:58):
you shouldn't really trash said beloved property. I always remember
years ago when dru Barrymoher was talking about Charlie's Angels.
She was remaking the series, making it into a feature film,
and she spoke so cartoonishly lovingly about the source material.
And I grew up on Charlie's Angel It's pretty frothy,
it's pretty silly, it's not fine art. But she had
(06:21):
a real reverence and an admiration for it, and she
wanted to bring that to theaters and maybe that's why
those two particular films were so successful. Well, how hard
is that? And more importantly, if you're out in the
publicity market, if you are talking to journalists and Stephen
Colbert and doing the red carpet stick, how hard is
it not to say this particular party and this particular
(06:43):
voter is not only I'm not in agreement with them,
but they might be bad people, or they might be
supporting a terrible cause, I mean, it just seems like
a terrible idea. Now, it doesn't mean that they can't
say that, doesn't mean that they shouldn't say that, per se.
But when you're on the publicity trail, when you aren't
trying to get more people to come into the theaters,
it's probably the worst way to go about it. Or,
(07:05):
as Rachel Zegler might say, it's a little it's a
little weird. Mark Joseph had a not so crazy idea
a while ago, why don't we make a movie about
(07:25):
President Ronald Reagan. There's been no major movie about him.
There have been a mini series, there have been other
references to Reagan over the years on screens large and small,
but not a full bodied bio pick. And the fact
that Mark Joseph is a film producer, well, he's just
the guy to make that happen. Well, it's a great idea,
it was a great pitch, it's something we need and
(07:47):
making it happen was nothing less than brutal for a
very very long time. Actors coming in and out of
the project, directors coming in and out of the project,
funding coming and going, so many obstacles, so many hard
luck situations, and then of course you throw in COVID nineteen.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
What's your ask coal for acess?
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I mean, making this movie was just an act of
sheer will, and thankfully Mark Joseph had that will to
get the job done. Of course, the movie came out
last year with Dennis Quaid. People seem to like it
quite a bit ninety eight percent approval on rotten toomatoes
dot com from audiences. Critics were far less kind. But
you know, there's a right leaning guy a gop icon
(08:30):
that just some political bias going on there, I think.
I don't think that's too far a stretch. But the
fact that the film exists at all is a testament
to Mark and his dream to make this reality. And
now there's a book about that whole process. It's called,
of Course, Making Reagan. It's available right now in bookstores everywhere,
(08:50):
and it shows how many obstacles he had to leap
over to make this movie happen, quite a few. I
don't know how he stuck with it. I think any
same person would have said, Okay, the universe has given
me a sign. I'm out. Mark never quit, never quit
in the movie, And of course the results speak for itself,
so I want to share his story making Reagan the book,
(09:10):
and of course him is his work as a producer
with you all this week. Now, just a quick note,
the beginning of this conversation gets snipped away. There was
a little bit of a video hiccup. I'm still learning
the tricks of my trade, so forgive that. But you
don't miss much. It jumps right into the conversation. You'll
be fine. But just no, it doesn't start in the
usual smooth fashion. So enjoy my chat with Mark Joseph.
(09:31):
And if you've got a teenager who's thinking about joining Hollywood,
becoming a screenwriter, maybe trying acting on for size, this
is the mother of all cautionary tales. It will be
impossibly hard for many many people.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
But you know what, if.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
It's your dream, if it's your goal, is your ambition,
you've got a prayer in your mind to make it happen,
it can happen. And Mark Joseph is proof of just.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
That, your viewers and listeners. It's myself, my wife and
four young daughters like age one to six or something
like that. We're not people that are going to harm
or threaten anybody driving along either two or fat back
from my cousin's wedding and I'm suddenly I see the
(10:12):
flashing lights.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
I'm pulled over.
Speaker 6 (10:14):
Oh shoot, no, but I'm driving a minivan. I don't
think I'm really doing anything wrong. But the officer comes over.
He's a very very young officer, and I noticed his
hands are kind of shaking. It's like his first day
in the job or something. And he says, you know,
you were speeding, and I said I was, and he says, yeah,
you were going sixty five and a forty five zone
and that's twenty miles above.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
That's a big deal.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
In this area, and it was. It just said sixty
five with a few. He goes, well, but it's a
whatever anyway. So so he's writing the ticket out and
I figure, okay, i'll pay my fine of you know,
one hundred bucks or whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
And he says it says in the ticket.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
As I look at it he hands it to me,
he says, you must appear in court in person a
month from now. And you know, not to be a
wiseacre la guy, but you know, I'm like, listen, I'm
I live in Los Angeles and I don't think I
can come back in a month.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Can I just pay the ticket and be done? And
he goes, oh no, no, this is you have an
appear in court person. So now I'm like, I'm in
trouble here. What do I do?
Speaker 6 (11:10):
He says, well, if you call it, maybe they'll let
you come tomorrow instead. So I call in and they said,
you've got to appear in court tomorrow in court in
person for the judge and make your plea your case.
I think, if I am, I own all you know?
Is this like the end of a Seinfeld episode or
something where they all end.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Up in jail.
Speaker 6 (11:27):
So so, but the weird part was I look at
the ticket and it says you must appear in court
in Dixon, Illinois. And I know enough about Ronald Reagan
to know that's Ronald Reagan's hometown.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
So I'm trying to pieces together my mind. I've been
pulled over for speeding and I am forced to spend
the night in Dixon, Illinois my wife and four children
and go before a judge. And I don't know what's
going to happen.
Speaker 6 (11:48):
Again, I'm thinking Seinfeld last episode. So uh, I've got
the data kill, I've got nothing to do, and so
we we just decide to make the best of it,
and I take all my kids to his boyhood, which
i'd never been to before, the river where he saved
lives and all that stuff, and just did the full
Ronald Reagan tour against my will. So the next day
(12:09):
I go for the judge, and just for fun, I
asked my wife, Hey, just for fun, let's go the
speed limit and find out what happens. And so I
went forty five and all those nice Illinois people were
middle fingering me and say af you and like speed up, buddy,
and what are you doing?
Speaker 4 (12:26):
And so now I think I've got the judge right.
Speaker 6 (12:28):
It's the next day I go for the judge and
the attorney that I guess they give you an attorney,
and so he told me.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
I said, listen, what should I do? And he says, listen,
if you say innocent, you could have a trial and
he can put you in jail.
Speaker 6 (12:45):
So you know, I'm thinking to myself, I've got four
little girls. I probably shouldn't have dad going to jail
over some stupid infraction. So but I go for the
judge and my kids are in the front row. My
wife was there in his courtroom. This all the more
I talk about, the more this sounds like it couldn't
have happened, but it definitely happened. So he goes Son
(13:05):
and he says, Son, guilty or innocent? And I said,
I said, your honor me, I please show you footage
of what happens when I go to speed of it,
and he just gives me this little slide granted, and
he says, Son, I'm not going to watch your video
and it so again I have like five seconds to
think through. Dad goes to jail over in fraction. You know,
children are haunted forever by the memory of their dad
(13:26):
being taken off in chains. So I said, your honor, okay, guilty,
and he says, go pay your fine.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
So I'm free.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Now you go to pay the fine and the fine
is five hundred bucks. Five hundred bucks. So that is
where this entire movie started. And just spending the day there.
But on a serious note, what I what inspired me
that day was that again, nothing against the wonderful folks
of Dixon, but there is not I didn't see a.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Lot going on in that town.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
I saw a gas station, was at the pizza hut
for lunch. I was a holiday in I think it
was a holiday in and it just wasn't the most
you know, exotic place in the world, and it just
really reminded me that our leaders come from normal places
like this, and our leaders are often ordinary people. Think
(14:18):
of Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Ronald Reagan. With
the exception of the Trumps and the Bushes and the Roosevelts,
our leaders are really ordinary people from ordinary places that
do extraordinary things. I think in particular, you know, Japanese
prime ministers are often the son and grandson of previous
prime ministers, and it's sort of handed down like a
legacy thing, and that's just not the case. And so
(14:42):
that really got me thinking about Ronald Reagan and what
interesting story it was. And I was at Walden Media
at the time, and so that's when I just began
to develop the idea back in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I think one of the interesting things about the movie
and your book is that it gives you such a
new and fresh perspective on Reagan. You know, the hits
are obvious, the political moments that we all know, but
it felt like your journey in making this movie allowed
you to get to know him in so many profound ways.
Maybe just share one little story from the book about
(15:12):
meeting people who knew Reagan, who got to see him
in a different sense, who connected with him, and because
he just comes across as folksy and kind in a
way that really doesn't really connect with politics.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Honestly, that's a great question.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You know.
Speaker 6 (15:27):
Whatever the critics thought about them, it was often like
they're critiquing him and not the movie. I think in
that sense, we were faithful to him. And if you
want to call some of his stuff cornball, sure, you know,
the way his love for Nancy by our modern standards,
maybe it's a little cornball, and the notes he wrote stuff.
But in any event, I don't take a lot of
(15:48):
the criticism seriously or personally, I should say, because I
think a lot of it's directed at who Ronald Reagan was,
and that's fair, you know, if you want to, But
I would, you know, in the perfect word, I'd make
that a separate critique and say, I don't like Ronald Reagan,
but here's the movie, right, Because a lot of the credit,
even the worst critics, seem to think denisqu did a
good job, which I appreciate that but anyway, Yeah, there's
(16:08):
definitely a part of Reagan that is unknowable. You know,
his official biographer, Edmund Morris, essentially threw up his hands
and said, I just can't figure him out. He's called
him inscrutable and kind of gave up and made this weird,
part novel, part historical book that nobody likes really, and
so there is a sense in which Ronald Reagan is
(16:29):
I think, intentionally inscrutable. He almost made it. I think
he left breadcrumbs on the trail, but he almost made
it difficult to get to know who he was intentionally.
There's a The senior quote in his high school yearbook
is a great example of this. I don't have it
in front of me, but I have it in the book,
and it's like two or a couple of lines from
(16:51):
a much longer poem, and people really couldn't figure out
what he was talking about just based on those lines.
But one research I went back and found the entire
poem and now, okay, now it makes sense what he
was trying to say here. But he made it. He
makes it difficult. He doesn't make it easy. If you
ever get a chance to visit the Reagan ranch, in
Santa Barbara. You'll get a physical picture of Ronald Reagan
(17:14):
the man. Because this place takes about twenty five minutes
from the highway to get to. It's winding roads and
this and that, and this gate opens and closes, and
I mean it's literally.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
And then once you get there, it's like a paradise.
Speaker 6 (17:30):
But it's literally, like you know, I guess we buy
the houses that reflect our personalities, and this definitely reflects
his personality. Because very very hard to get to. Very
few people got got to see it. In fact, his
close close friend Ed Mees told me, I have never
been there, and so when I told him that a
painting that he had given to Reagan was in there,
(17:52):
he was like, you're kidding.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
I never knew that. I never knew that he treasured
my painting so much.
Speaker 6 (17:57):
But anyway, I have a chance to visit with about
fifty to fifty five of the people that knew him
worked with him.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Of course, his son Mike was a big help. But
it was really just a journey of trying to figure
this man out. He truly is is hard to figure out.
Speaker 6 (18:13):
But I would get little pieces from this person and
that person, and it was interesting because a lot of
the times, whether it was George Schultz or Ed Meese
or all these people that worked with him, they would
tell me, hey, you know, I never told the biographer
that about this, but here's the story, or you know,
you can't put in the movie, but here here's this.
And and one of the guys who told me that
he passed away. So I think I can tell the story.
(18:34):
But look, you know, jokes and things that he would
do and say, And you know, I asked Edmees, for instance,
who's still alive? I said, you're probably the closest thing
he asked to a brother.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
You know what was it like?
Speaker 6 (18:47):
He said, well, maybe so, but I could never get
beyond a certain point emotionally.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
It's not like he.
Speaker 6 (18:51):
Would we would sit down and say, hey, you know,
how are you feeling. It was just a little bit
of a barrier there that. Yeah, he said, I could
never get beyond. And even Nancy said the same thing.
So anyway, all those people really helped give up. And
it was very random. Christian I talk in the book about,
you know, sometimes I would meet people very very randomly.
I'm sitting at a at a dinner one night, and
there's a fortune teller sitting next to me. A very
(19:14):
nice lady, but that was her whatever she did. And
she's like, oh, I knew President, I knew Reagan. I
went to school with his daughter. And then she tells
me a great story about her and Ted Kennedy and
Reagan and then just the official people. Of course, I
was very very careful with Missus Reagan and the Reagan Foundation.
We never sought approval from her or anybody, just let
(19:34):
them know what we were doing. Yeah, but I wanted
the viewer to feel like this has integrity. It's not
carrying the water for anybody or trying to make him
look good. And so they were very respectful of those boundaries.
They saw the movie at the very end, but you know,
had no input in terms of script or things like that.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
You know, to talk about the movie now and to
think about Dennis Quaido is so good, but he wasn't
the first choice. There were other actors in the mix.
And I want to let the the viewers and the
listeners kind of get the book and find out some
of the actors I want. I want to keep some surprises,
but I have to kind of mention. One was Nicholas
Cage that I had no idea. Seems like such a curveball,
(20:13):
I think physically, but also a great actor who could
probably do almost anything. I think he's playing John Madden
and in your future. So is there a little bit
of that of that story you can share right now
about Nicholas Cage and and you're you know, the back
and forth. It sounds like he was very respectful and
very honest and kind of a straight shooter.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
Yeah, just to clarify, Dennis Quid was always my first choice,
but he wasn't always he wasn't available, and so there
were periods of time so we just like, we have
to go, we have to do this, and so yeah,
but yeah, we had some great conversations with Nick Cage.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
He's an awesome person.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
And when out to Las Vegas, we had lunch out there,
we had lunch out here in Beverly Hills, and yeah,
he just look at It would have taken a lot
of hair and a lot of makeup, no doubt about it.
But Nick Cage can do almost anything, and so it
would have been interesting. It would have been a totally
different movie. But you know, those conversations ended up. We
talked for quite a while, maybe I think we went
(21:06):
on for maybe a year or so, and I was
sending him I think I might have scared him with
too many Reagan DVDs, because back when we had DVDs,
I would burn DVDs and send him speeches and things.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
But I think he just had to make a judgment
call what it would mean.
Speaker 6 (21:20):
I think he was prepared to do it, but he
has a lot of other projects, and this project, as
you know from Dennis, it's taking It would have taken.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
A lot out of his life. Dennis was with us
for like six years from because of COVID and all
the things that happened. So I'm so glad though that
worked out the way he was supposed to.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
And Dennis, as I said, Dennis required very little makeup
and hair, and you know, just like put him out
there one time when we were on set, and I
remember going up to him saying, you know, just be
Dennis Quaid, don't try too hard to be Ronald Reagan,
just because you're already very close. A lot of similarity
between Ronald Reagan and Dennis Quaid. His mother very very devout,
(22:00):
both of them, very very developed religious women. Their father's
alcoholic types. You know, and even their wives outshining them.
You know, both of their wives at one point were
more popular than them. Denis would be the first one
to tell you he'd be walking on the street in
New York City and they're screaming out his wife's name
and his name.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
And Ron Reid experienced that with Jane A. Wyman as well. So, yeah,
a lot of similarities. Interesting.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
You know, obviously politics play such a huge factor here.
We had a GP icon. You're working in Hollywood. There
are all these different forces, and certainly the industry is
not rushing to tell the story on the big screen
like it deserves to be. Maybe give a quick example
of how that that, you know, became an obstacle. I mean,
(22:46):
obviously it sounds like Nicholas Cage was ready to kind
of push past that others in the book. You know,
obviously that was a significant factor, But how would you
describe that that that bump along the way, because it
wasn't it wasn't it wasn't my it was pretty sizable.
Speaker 6 (23:01):
Yeah, I'm so thankful we had the road to ourselves.
I kept waiting for another Reagan movie to pop up,
and it was a combination of factors, you know, at
one point there was going to be a kind of
a jokey version of Reagan has Alzheimer's and.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
Doesn't know he's the present or something, Yes, with Will Ferrell,
with Will Ferrell, that poor Will Ferrell. This is how
I know what happened to that poor poor man. So
sometimes people would mistake our Facebook page for his for
that movie that was announced, and we would get all
the nasty messages.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, you were very kind in the book about that
chapter of this saga, because I think I would have
pulled less punches than you did.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
But continue, continue, Well, I remember at the time, I
mean they announced that movie and it was like an
award winning script, you know, just going to be great.
And of course the world went nuts about it when
it was announced, and within forty eight hours we'll like
backs out of it. And so, oh, I don't even
maybe maybe met that guy once.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
He has a script. A total backtrack.
Speaker 6 (24:01):
But on our Facebook page, somebody had written, Will Ferrell
graduated from such and such high school in Orange County.
He's on the He's on the wall of fame at
his high school. Call this number and demand he be
taken off the wall of fame of his high school.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
I mean, this is how serious Reagan fans are.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
And so I think the combination of when people wanted
to make a movie, it was going to be outrageous
to the fans, so that closed that down, and then
there were other attempts with Michael Douglas and various things.
But I think, you know, it's this is a tough
area because if you make a film that attacks that character,
(24:41):
that person. Let's say, if you make a Jackie Robinson
film and you tick off his fans, who is the fan?
Who is the audience for your movie? I don't know,
like racist, I don't know who the film. So it's
it's not that you have to suck up the fans,
but you want to be fair and if the fans
feel like you're being fair to their guy, then But
but I don't I don't know that makes sense. I
guess there's vice. I guess which you know. I don't
(25:04):
think Dick Cheney fans were rushing out to see. But
it's something you have to think about if you're making
a buyo. And we just tried to treat Reagan. I
didn't treat like a politician. We just treat him like
a character, like Jackie Robinson or you know, any any
biopic you've seen of a musician. So I think maybe
that's where some of the outrage was that we didn't
(25:26):
like try to treat him as a political person or
get out our pet projects, that we didn't like him
because he did this.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
It's really more about the man.
Speaker 6 (25:35):
And part of it was, as I talked about in
the book, John Avildson was originally going to be our director,
and John directed Rocky, of course, and John really helped
set the tone even though it turned out and he
passed away and had we had to part company just
before that, but he would say to me, you know, Mark,
remember that Rocky was not about boxing.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
It just happened to be his occupation.
Speaker 6 (25:58):
And we've got to treat Reagan the same way that
this is about the man and happens to be he's
in politics, but he could have been, you know, a custodian.
It's really about him overcoming a lot of failures in
his life, challenges that he faces.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
And so that was kind of a that was our
load star guiding Star.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
This makes it like a hokey question in a way,
but to do to make this project happen, you had
to be a counselor, you had to be a negotiator,
you had to be a psychiatrist. I mean, it's amazing
all the different skills you had to draw upon to
make each part of this happen, whether it was you know,
(26:37):
getting the funding, getting the actors, working with the director,
working with the writer. Do you feel like this is
you already? You know, you are already an established veteran
in this industry, but do you feel like you Emergement's
whole saga with sort of a better skill set, a
better understanding. Do you think, oh my gosh, why did
I even get into this business? I mean, I just
can't I can't imagine not being changed by this whole
(27:00):
I didn't know that you tried to remove your ego
from it, and that was a key part of the
book and the production. But how do you emerge from
this whole situation? I mean, I don't know. It's it's
a very vague question, but it just seems like such
a life changing experience. It wasn't just a movie. It
was so much more.
Speaker 6 (27:16):
Yes, And if you have a young person in your
life who wants to go into filmmaking, I encourage you
to give them this book and talk them out of it,
him or her out of it and go into dentistry
or something anything, anything, right. Yeah, No, it's a very
long and arduous road and you have to wear all
those hats.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Like you were talking about.
Speaker 6 (27:37):
People often ask you, know, what does a producer do,
and you know, you're you're like a combination of an
architect and a general contractor, and you know what you
want to do, but you have to find the right
people to help you with it. I mean, that's a
huge part of it. It is assembling that team, and
it's not just the producings but also the marketing side.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
And we kind of functioned as a studio as well.
I mean, we developed it.
Speaker 6 (28:00):
We had a great partner at the end in Showbiz,
and of course Lionsgate and Universal helped with the rest
of it, but essentially all the work was done by
our team, and you know, it took a long time.
And just the way that the way the funding works,
often funding is against foreign sales or foreign pre sales,
and we don't really have that in our case. It's
very difficult to it's a very American story. So all
(28:23):
the normal mechanisms that are used to fund a movie
are really not in play for us, so just for
your audience sake, you know, if you were making a
move with Nicholas Cage, you would go to Germany and
Italy and France and wherever, collect money from all those
places and say, hey, we'll give you the movie and
then give us the money.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
And that's how often movies are financed.
Speaker 6 (28:42):
But in our case, I don't think Ronald Reagan doesn't
have that kind of a reach, so we just had
to do things in a different way. But yeah, to
answer your question, it's throw and then throw in COVID
on top of that. It just really, you know, made
life really challenging.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
To drive out.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
I had to drive out to Oklahoma in an RV
and stay in an RV. And we arrived on set
and my team, my director Shaw McNamara and John Sullivan
are co producer, and others were already there. But I mean,
just to give you a flavor of what it was
like when I arrived there, we had an amazing COVID coordinator.
She was great, but she was very tough and she
(29:20):
just cracked the whip and I said, well, I mean,
can I go to a restaurant?
Speaker 4 (29:24):
She goes no. I said, well, can I go to Walmart?
She goes.
Speaker 6 (29:27):
She goes like, that's the most dangerous place in this
entire city. You cannot go to Walmart. So how am
I supposed to eat? I mean, I literally what am
I supposed to do? And she said, we'll deliver groceries
to your door every morning. Tell us what you want.
And so literally we couldn't have any interaction with the locals.
I think we went to a restaurant one time the
entire three months. So it was really a challenging, challenging thing.
(29:47):
And to this day, Christian there are people that I
don't know what they look like below their nose, and
I'm like.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Oh, that's what you look like.
Speaker 6 (29:54):
Yeah, So it was really and then because of the
there was just no flexibility in the rule was at
that time. They weren't like common sense flexibility. So if
you remember, I'm on a set with hundreds and hundreds
of people, and if one person got COVID, the entire
set had to shut down for ten days.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Just can't it's just not functional.
Speaker 6 (30:13):
So we were shut down for twenty days, and those
are days that I have to pay salaries for everybody.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
They're quarantine the one people who got it.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
So, I mean, a sensible thing would have been to say,
the person who came down with COVID, you know, who
did you have contact with from the last three days?
Speaker 4 (30:31):
All you guys are isolated. They didn't do that. It
was the entire set and it was just just incredibly challenging.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
One of the few perks of the delay and the
delay and the delay was by the time the movie
came out late last year, there was a whole new
media and empire where you could have Dennis Quaid on,
Joe Rogan and all these different platforms that really didn't
have the power the cultural heft that they that they
do now. I mean, I would think that part of
(30:59):
the film success was that landscape and leveraging not just
Dennis but other people in that arena. Can you talk
about that and how important that was because this was
not the kind of movie where you're going to get
wall to wall coverage in the traditional press.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:12):
That's a great, great point, and you're right, and I
think we're the first film to really really really focus
on podcasts. We saw it developing. I just remember when
certain people developed their podcasts. I began to watch and
I saw the change happening, and literally, I personally, you know,
at some point changed from coming home and turning on
(31:34):
my cable stations to coming home and training on my
YouTube channel and then seeing all the podcasters. And the
good thing is you can see the numbers, like literally
you can see, oh wow, one million people watching it.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
So we jumped in.
Speaker 6 (31:47):
I think you've seen I think we pioneered the podcast strategy,
and I think you've seen a few after us do it.
Kevin cautioned a few. I'm turning to see a few.
Mel Gibson did a couple of things. But you know,
I had kind of warned Dennis ahead of time that,
you know, we really have a different way of communicating.
You know, my background with Walden and all these places
(32:09):
that I've been in the past. It's a totally different
way of marketing films. And we didn't do things perfectly,
but it is a strategy of making sure our lead
talent is available. And we just wrote that into the
contract and provided for him the resources he would need
to do that, and he just gave it as all.
I mean, I have no Dennis, not only the performance
in the movie, but going on Joe Rogan and all
(32:33):
these these incredible shows. So that was definitely, you know,
a strategy. I think you'll see Hollywood doing more and
more of that if they're if they're smart, to really
make talent available and going on those shows. And again
you can see literally you know the ratings, I mean
the next that in real time you can see them
are people who watch these shows. But we began Dennis's
(32:55):
portion of the marketing back before the film even came out,
when we announced it on The Kelly Show on The
Today Show actually, and so Megan Kelly came out to
the Reagan Ranch and then Dennis is out there. Probably
the most interesting and fun and weird thing we did
was pawn Stars. Both Dennis and John Voight did a
pond Stars episode. And in the case of just to
(33:17):
give you the numbers. In the case of Dennis, so
the whole the joke was he comes a buddy of
mine sells the poster signed by Dennis on the show,
and then Dennis is called in to authenticate the signature.
So that little segment in total got about thirty million
views over all kinds of various different ways that it
(33:38):
was seen on TV online, And so it's definitely and
then we measured the awareness of the movie just like
you'd do a political campaign, and as far as I know,
we're the first to ever do it. But we would
periodically pull the question would be to the American people
would be have you heard.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Of a movie on Ronald Reagan's urn his Quad?
Speaker 6 (33:57):
And we began at eight percent, ten percent, fourteen percent,
and by the end we were at the last week,
we were at eighty four percent, So the way the
awareness was there and I think though that on the
on the other side of things, we definitely came straight
into the headwinds of people wanted to watch movies at home,
and it's just a reality that.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
We've had to just deal with this.
Speaker 6 (34:18):
I've had so many people say I cannot wait to
watch your film when it's in my house and like,
what's in a theater?
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Well, yeah, I like watching at home now.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
And then we did a poll that sixty three percent
of people want to watch movies at home versus the theater.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
So that's the reality we faced.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
You know, the fact that there's a movie about Ronald
Reagan of this kind it's out there now truly matters
in the pop cultural landscape because this will live on
whether it goes to Netflix eventually, whether it's on different
streaming channels, whether it's you know, however people consume the media,
they will see it, and you know, headlines fade, and
the lessons from your childhood schooling, you know, fades as well.
(34:56):
But talk about the importance of this as a pop
culture touched on because I think you're one of the
very few people that I know, like and Andrew Claven
and yours well marked, that you understand there's a necessity
for this. This doesn't this isn't just a movie that
comes in out of theaters. This has a life of
its own. Now it exists, and people will see it
and take something fresh out of it that they may
(35:18):
never get from other pieces of information.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Uh. Yeah, that's I mean, that's a that's a great point.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
I think of how movies have affected me, and I'm
sure they've affected you too, and I still carry them
with me forty years later.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
And yeah, you know, and I remember when I when
we were.
Speaker 6 (35:31):
Looking for that director, and my my friend Ralph Winter,
who didn't end up producing it with up with me.
But you know, Ralph said, well, who's your favorite what's
your favorite movie? I said, well, I always love Rocky
he because we'll go find that guy. And that's how
I found John Abltson. I'm like, well, he's probably dead
by now, Like no, he's eighty one years old and
still kicking it.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
But I think of how that movie affected me and
just spending time with John Avildson.
Speaker 6 (35:55):
We would have lunch together off and he would tell
me these great stories from Rocky and and I and
I tried to be cool and not let on what
a fan I was, but the truth is that, you know,
his movie impacted me as a young man growing up.
And you know, for us eighties kids, it was like
Rocky was like our instructor and how.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
To be a man.
Speaker 6 (36:13):
You know, you've got to be tough in the ring,
but then you've got to be kind Adrian. It's like
all those things that we learned. And so yeah, that's
exciting to think. Who knows how this movie will impact people.
And you know, obviously we took a critics dropping, but
we've applied to Guinness World Book of Records for the
greatest gap between moviegoers and critics critics, Like you know,
(36:36):
we were at and look at Christian.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
I usually I usually shoot for forty.
Speaker 6 (36:40):
Nine forty nine is my target because that was the
score for the Passion of the Christ, and so I
always feel like forty nine means it's a really good work,
but it's being punished for philosophical reasons. But I did
not expect eighteen. That was beyond my beyond expectations. But
I think that ninety eight for people who saw it
(37:02):
on Rod Tomatoes in eighteen for critics, in a way,
it's ironic because it's really is like Ronald Reagan himself.
You know, they're really smart. People in Washington literally thought
he was an idiot. Clark Clifford famously, like the most
respected statesmen in Washington when Reagan came to Washington called
him an amiable dunce. And this is not the guy
(37:25):
who's going to, you know, help bring the Cold War
to an end or be a strong president. Really, he
was just really an idiot. Even Nixon was not a
fan kind of thought he was a lightweight. And I
think Reagan kind of in a perverse way, Reagan kind
of cultivated that image.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
I think he used it to his advantage.
Speaker 6 (37:42):
You know, if he's the guy who's nap, takes a
lot of naps and is an idiot, your opponents let
their guard down. And I think that Reagan actually thought
that one through and purposely cultivated that kind of an
image because it helped him give an example of the
way his mind worked.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
Two of the lessons that I learned from his fans.
One was that you'll never see a picture of.
Speaker 6 (38:02):
Ronald Reagan with his arms around somebody with a suit
coat on, because it rumples his suit coat and it
would make it look you know, he's always about getting
the picture right. But on the red carpet he would
often position himselves as you face the camera, he'd position
himself on the very left side, so if you're looking
at a picture, you'll see him on the very left side,
(38:23):
and people would think, so, there's like him and Errol
Flynn and John Wayne or whatever, and people would think, oh,
what a modest.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
Fellow he is. Well, not really.
Speaker 6 (38:31):
He's thinking ahead later to the captions, and he gets
mentioned first in the captions if he's on the very side.
So he's not a dumb person, and he thinks things through.
And in terms of the other insight that I got
from one of his days Arthur Laugher was that he
said he said the very first moment I met Ronald
Reagan in nineteen seventy eight, I knew that he was
(38:52):
the son of an alcoholic and I said, well, why
so well, because everything was perfect now, not a hair
out of place suit, everything was just. And he said,
I often find with alcoholic children that they don't want
to take off their dad, and so they will try
to present themselves as perfectly as possible at the time visually.
And so those are the kind of insights that I
kind of gleaned from people that I met.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah, well, there's so much of that kind of content though,
kind of details in Making Reagan. It's available right now
at Amazon dot Com or your favorite bookseller, and of
course you could see regular movie itself on your favorite
video on demand platform. You know, it's funny word that
to go. There was a great Saturday Night Live sketch
back in the day with Phil Hartman that played into
that Reagan is a dunce image and then it showed
(39:34):
him as this Machabellian figure. It was brilliant, it was funny,
it was irreverent, and they would never do it today,
but it was did kind of capture that that sort
of the tug between his real person and the image
that he portrayed.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
But yeah, he'd they'd be girl scouts coming around cookies
and then they would leave and he'd put on the
map and we're attacking here. That's it wasn't quite like that,
but there is some truth to that.
Speaker 6 (39:57):
And again he had this ability to combine, you know,
being tough but also being being kind with people. And
and you know, Trump and Reagan are very much contrast.
You know, one is raised in New York City, has
to deal with the mob and the unions and you know, all.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
This stuff, and then one is is.
Speaker 6 (40:15):
A Midwestern you know, more and more polite and so
but they're both tough, yeah, but definitely different kinds of toughness. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Well, I'm glad you put through all the work, all
the heartache, all the perseverance, all the juggling to make
this all happen. It's here. The film is out now.
In the book, of course, the book is as well. Mark,
thank you so much for your time. And like I said,
if you've got a kid who is curious about the Hollywood,
have them read this book and then have a long conversation.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
I think it's dentistry.
Speaker 6 (40:43):
Dentistry, there will always be tooth that need.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
To be teeth that need to be worked on.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
That's right, but someone's got to do it.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
You did it.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Thank you so much for your efforts and hopefully we'll
talk again soon.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Thanks Christian.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Your character actor the week is Stephen Tobolowski. Before we
go one and give a quick shout out to rapper
slash musician Tom McDonald. Now, Tom is a star. He's
a star on YouTube, he's a star on the music charts,
and he's doing it basically by himself. No big record label,
no big publicity team behind him pushing out his songs,
(41:16):
bothering radio stations to play his music. It's really all
him now one caveat. His girlfriend is Nova Rockafeller, and
she does the She directs the videos to his music
and they are quite good. I mean, she's a very
talented soul. But this tag Tim duo does it on
their own, all by themselves, and they rock the charts
over and over again. His videos get millions of views.
(41:39):
He's a sensation. And he recently reached out to me
on Twitter x whatever you want to call it, and
asked if I wanted to contribute to his newest music video.
It's called can't cancel all of us, And it's a
battle cry for everyone who's been pressured, who's been canceled,
who's been told, you know, you can say that you
can't have that opinion. In many, many people have suffered
(42:01):
over the last few years because of that cultural trend,
and this is his finger in the eye to those
who tried to do it, who made that whole cultural
revolution possible and to say, hey, you know what, you
can cancel all of us that time that might be over.
Thank goodness for that. So if anybody could wreck a
music career, it's me. But I think my brief brief
(42:22):
appearance in his new music video won't do the damage
that it could. But all kidding aside, thank you Tom
McDonald for being a pioneer, for being a free spirit,
for inviting me also briefly into a musical world, and
just being a guy who just tells it like it is.
We need more of that, So thanks Tom. And this
will be my first and last music video, I promise,
(42:44):
because he can't.
Speaker 5 (42:52):
Can't.
Speaker 4 (42:58):
Well that's the.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Show this week. Thank you again. Radio America having me
is part of their great podcast lineup, and if you
get a chance, check out hollywoodintoto dot com. It is
the right take in entertainment, just like this podcast, updated
seven days a week because I don't want to have
a day off. I who needs that, right? But I
will see you all next time, But for now, please
be good, be kind, and have the best day possible.
(43:21):
Doctor's orders.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!