Rewrites & drafts

And as you can see, I really didn't want to take ourselves too serious. I really wanted to have not a straight-ahead horror movie, which my first draft of the script that Trimark bought, that was very horrific and no personality in a leprechaun. He was just kind of a killing... There's Gabe's credit. He was just a killing machine that became a monster, and then through rewrites and prepping this thing,

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I think we also ran into some time problems. We didn't want too short of a movie. Again, it goes back to I love to cut things, so this sequence did give us a couple of minutes of time. It's funny, when I look at it, I'm always wanting to recut everything and rewrite everything. I hear dialogue, I'm going, wow, why did I write that dialogue?

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And the Fuck You Lucky Charms at the end was written in a draft in 1988. My very first draft of this was actually written in 1988, and it's in there. I just checked. So that rumor I've dispelled now. I thought this was funny. Oh, there's also another.

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Paul M. Sammon

Frank Miller was rewriting the script on a daily basis. And by the way, there is a rumor that he was off the film. He was not. He was there. He was enthusiastic. He was right across from my office. I was right next to John Davison's office, right next to Kirsch's office, right next to Miller's office. Frank was literally writing every single day and running dialogue down and scenes down to the set. So this was a film that was written as it went along, which is never a good idea.

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Paul M. Sammon

And you can see all the videotaped stacks in the back, and boy, do I get nostalgic for a past that was more analog. Although, hey, believe me, I love digital just as well. And, of course, this is where Robo starts to interrogate a corpse. Now, this is actually a holdover from Frank Miller's second draft, which was done in April of 89 when Tim Hunter was still on. The Tim Hunter...

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Paul M. Sammon

So unfortunately, by the time Kirshner came on and there was the unfortunate diminution of Lewis's character, all of that got lost. So a lot of the human element that was in the second draft of Frank Miller's for Tim Hunter totally changed when Irv Kirshner came on. But again, that was not because of anything aesthetic. It was just time. They had to really basically write the script around the story.

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By the way, this is a lot of exposition that's happening here right now. If I had it to do over again, I think maybe a little less exposition and a little more cut to the chase here. So Shane was really busy. His star was ascending. I think he was writing Long Kiss Goodnight. And so it sort of fell by the wayside. And then a couple of months later, Michelle called me and said, would you like to direct this movie too? We'd like you to rewrite it and direct it. And I was a huge fan of the Verhoeven film. Huge fan.

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Did you have any interaction with Frank Miller at any point? Yes, yes. He knew I was a big fan. I did a rewrite, and I gave it. Here's my James Bond set. I said to Hilda Stark, I said, I want a James Bond set. Right. Watch Dr. No. And she said, okay, okay. There's another one coming up later. There's at least two, maybe three James Bond sets in this movie. Yeah, no, Frank was fantastic. I did a rewrite of his.

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first pass and then I gave it back to him and said, here's my rewrite, rewrite me. And it was, I remember it fondly, our relationship, you know, having Mexican food and talking about this movie and talking about comics and all that stuff. I think ultimately though, I don't know that he's a screenwriter. I don't mean that in a disparaging way because he's a great writer.

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In the script, you kept asking me, change this transition. In one scene, Fenster's there, and in the next scene, he's dead. And through every rewrite, I left this transition in until one day and you didn't say anything. I was thinking about, because Chris and I have a tradition, we bring our films home to our town to show them in a theater.

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I actually never expected that line to make it past the first draft, and draft after draft it kept getting by, and... I loved it.

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Yeah, this is a scene that Rachel and I were both very nervous about. We kept writing and rewriting it, and, you know, it's when you have your heroine and she's drunk.

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Or female lead, not heroin. Never mind. When you have your female lead and she's drunk, you're always a little nervous about scenes like this. You want to make sure they work like gangbusters. And we really took some time and kept rewriting it and rewriting it and massaging it. And at the end of the day, Rachel did such a terrific job. The audience really went for it, especially these lines that are coming up.

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I love how the family never finds out all that stuff he did. It's true. - They never-- They have no idea what he did. Well, may-- We miss between the two movies. I'm sure he talked about Harry and Marv. - Maybe. Maybe they don't believe him. - I don't-- Exactly. But there was that sequence at the beginning of the second one... ...where it was me cleaning up the house. Oh, that's right. - At, like... Cleaning up the Micro Machines... - Right. And stuff like that. Yeah. Now, in the original script, this did not exist. Oh, the tooth. - No, none otf it. The movie ended with, "Just hung around." - Oh, really? Laughter, freeze-frame, boom. Home Alone. Marley, now I'm convinced, was an added character. And we added him throughout the course of rewriting the script. To me it solidifies the movie, you know? - It worked. Yeah. It really solidifies the point of the movie. - It'd be a different movie. And coming up is my favorite shot in the film. That was when he looks over? - No, your close-up as you're... And then Buzz yelling. But I do remember talking you through this scene... ...because I was off camera telling you to think about something that was happy. I can't even remember what I was telling you to think about... ...but I was trying to make you laugh or think something happy. But your performance is so good there. It's so genuine, and.... Oh. It just really works.

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Off his script. Yeah, or a combination. A combination, yeah. Yeah, the prison planet was an idea early on. Was it Eric Redd? I can't remember who came up with it. Or was it Giler who came up with it? I can't remember who came up with it. But yeah, so yeah, it's an amalgamation really, isn't it? They seem to have taken the worst aspects of all the possibilities and slammed them together and then decided, actually, no, let's rewrite the script on a daily basis anyway. Yeah. But if you look at the teaser trailer for Alien 3...

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but I love it, it was a total stranger pitching me. And this is, we had a great writer, Jonathan Lemkin, who came in for a production rewrite. He came up with that joke of him cussing and using the paper's toilet paper, which I thought was a great, I love when a rewriter actually improves my stuff instead of trying to change it, and that was a great example. Now, this is also very precedent. This is about the chips installing machines

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Well, except Chloe, right? I mean, Chloe was the only one that we had to... That's true. Because we had to test it. And that was the weirdest part about that process, right? It was the first time we had to kind of create this faux score, right? But I think that's a lot of the time why my scores for you are very original and fresh and very, very identified with the film. Because I'm not replacing something else that's there. But having to rewrite the field theme...

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when I read the screenplay, the very first draft of the screenplay, and this is the Eric Roth screenplay, because there were many screenplays prior to that that were done over many years. I just kept turning the page to see what was gonna happen next. I mean, I had no real desire or compulsion to make a movie about a guy with a low IQ. It seemed to be the right character, and I kept wanting to know what was gonna happen to this character.

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I mean, I was lucky, yes, but, and fortunate, but to have an editor as good as Steve Rosenblum was to really bring his own thing to it. I mean, he took what I gave him and he managed to sort of make it better, you know, which is, when it comes right down to it, the edit's just the final rewrite. And he's a master of it.

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This idea about the bullet on the roof - it's a little bit later - it was an idea from the first version of The City of Lost Children. We didn't use it. I don't remember. In fact, it was a very good pool player, and he used a gun to kill the people, shooting on the roof exactly like this. I used this idea on this film. Yeah, but you didn't shoot it. No. It was in the first draft. Suddenly I thought I was going crazy. The weapons were based on existing ones. I remember leafing through encyclopedias of guns, which were given to me by Steve Cooper, art director. I guess somebody thought "We'll get around to the weapons." Actually, I jumped off the storyboard on to the weapons because panic was setting in. People were saying we needed to get them going. So Steve Cooper brought in all these volumes of books on handguns, rifles, whatnot. I started doing little sketches one afternoon. I think I did one page with eight or nine guns, and out of that one page almost everything came out. We showed them to Nigel and he said "Why don't you expand that one?" Then we started detailing them, and then finding ways to stick them into the wheelchair wherever possible. This was great, cos Tom would always play the hero alien. We had Mark Viniello in one of the other suits, and David Prior was in another one, but Jean-Pierre wanted to keep Tom as the main performer. That was that torso we made with all the guts and the... That's self-explanatory, isn't it? This was a neat effect. This was a prerigged floor with an elevator that would lower all the guts and so on. It would appear as if the thing was melting, but it was a simple little rig. See? They never learn in these movies, do they?

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Taylor Hackford

We rehearsed this scene for about a week. It was the one, I must say... ...for Warner Bros., a great thing they did for me. And although we had our differences, I was able to get my vision on the screen. I have no excuses. So, I do thank them. There was a great thing here in that Warner Bros. allowed us... ...to come back from New York. We built this set in Los Angeles. I had a week to prepare the set, to light it and to rehearse with the actors. Al, Keanu and Connie and myself, worked there alone... ...and really kind of built this scene. Tony Gilroy was there also, pardon me. It is not an easy scene to do when you realize it's basically a monologue. How do you keep it moving? How do you keep it visual? And it's basically a confrontation. And again, as I said... ...I want the devil to be confronting us. We all take credit for the things that we do in life that are good. When it's a good decision, "I made that decision. I'll take credit for that." But when they're wrong, we look for people to blame. That's exactly what Keanu is doing here, and Al won't have any of it. Milton is basically saying to him, "Hey. You made every decision yourself. "In fact, I told you not to. I said take care of your wife." I mean, I love the argument. And this is what we were trying to do. I give a lot of credit to my collaborative partner, Tony Gilroy, on this project... ...because this piece was a script that existed with a lot of special effects... ...and not many ideas, and it wasn't worth making. And every Hollywood star turned it down. Al Pacino turned it down five times. What we did with this script, from a page one rewrite... ...is try to give it some ideas, try to make it about free will. Not make it a special effects piece, a ghoul piece, a monster piece... ...but make it about something. Not just about lawyers... ...because lawyers are convenient and they happen to be a major target... ...and I think are the most pragmatic of all professions. However, all professionals find themselves in a position to blame... ...or be able to use their corporate entity, their boss, their organization... ...their professional oath as a screen against having to confront... ...moral realities, personal choices. If you can say "My personal, professional oath," pardon me, not my... "My professional oath says that I'm absolved from responsibility... "...because I have to represent my client to the best of my ability." Or, "My corporation says I need to do this, pollute this lake, and I'm doing it." It absolves you of your personal, moral responsibility. What this whole scene is about is confronting your own hypocrisy... ...and saying your ambition, your own vanity, in a world that's fiber-optically... ...interconnected to satisfy our every eager impulse, "You," meaning, "You humans"... ...as Milton says, "are exactly... "I've succeeded beyond my wildest dreams just by letting you do what you want. "You're so selfish. You're so self-involved." So that's what this scene is about. Kevin realizes that it's true... ...he was responsible for Mary Ann's demise... ...and when he does, he falls apart. Now watch Milton. He starts picking him up. He starts trying to say: "Hey, you know, think of it in a positive way. You have to think of yourself. "She wasn't up to you. Here's a woman who is. She's fantastic. "She happens to be your sister, but so what? She's beautiful. "She's smart. She's intelligent. You know, there's something more for you." And I think at this point, when confronted with the fact that he knows it's the devil... ...and now what Milton is gonna do, is talk about... You know, remember, Keanu is half and half. He's half Judy Ivey. He's half Al Pacino. He's half Alice Lomax. He's half John Milton. He's half God and half the devil, and this is relating to a lot of us. We all have our good side, our bad side. In this particular instance, this next sequence is, I think, really interesting... ...because Al Pacino is basically talking about his father. He's talking about his former boss. He's his own boss now. But if you think of Lucifer, the fallen angel... ...the brightest, the most honored and the most... ...you know, he was God's favorite... ...being thrown out of heaven because of ego, because he didn't want to take orders. That's what Pacino's doing here. Look. He's angry. He's losing control.

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He just shifts in his... His shirt, as you can see, is kind of Cuban. I just noticed now. I just noticed right now. He's wearing sort of a... Yeah, that's it. That was a controversial... Well, again, there we go, yeah. That was very good. Yeah, very good. And I remember we had to rewrite it because we'd originally said New York and then we had this journey and then...

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