JAWS 5 & VAN HELSING 2
I've had to check to make sure that it's okay to publish
the content of what I'm about to, coz I'd hate to offend
a friend/closet fan of the site, and I've been assured
that as long as his name and all identifying marks are
removed then it is okay to share it with you guys...
which is rather weird considering clearly the content of
the conversation would identify to the relevant parties
who this person is but... well I'm rambling. I just want
to share this with you all coz it's kinda terrifying and
amusing and a little bit cool, all rolled into one!
First a bit of back history: I used to submit spec
scripts - as a lot of struggling screenwriters without
agents used to do - to the American Zoetrope website ran
by Francis Ford Coppola and "his people". You remember
it? You submit one screenplay, you review 5 of your
peers. That sort of thing? Well I was trying to get
someone to hook into my "Annie Hall for the Generation X
crowd" script called She Walked In. There was a 'guy' on
there who'd written (what I thought was) a really awful
script called The Project about university students in
various scientific fields building their own 'human'
from dead carcasses/organs only for it to come to life
and go on a murderous rampage.
We got chatting to each other through the website and
have stayed 'e-mail buddies' ever since. That was the
mid-to-late 90s. Life caught up with me and I started
moving more towards attempting novels and boring the
crap out of you lot with reviews etc. He pushed on. Back
in 2005 he had some success and a great deal of acclaim
for a film he wrote that wowed at Sundance. He's now
firmly in the business, working on the bottom rung of
the screenwriting ladder. He's no Eric Roth but at the
same time he's no Ethan Kruger either [his description]!
The following comes from him... to you.
So my 'mate' over there in the US has just been doing
some work for Universal. He was there to discuss the
possibility of working "on a team" to put together The
Mummy 3 as Stephen Sommers was, and I quote, "pricing
himself completely out of the equation" [this has since
changed completely as Sommers is now going to deliver
his own script for Rob Cohen to direct] and... well...
I'd leave the rest to him. This is an extract from his
e-mail to me that he has given me permission to share
with you lot as "news":
... You don't realise it but those American Pie DVD
spin-offs are turning huge bucks for them. They're
already pipelining a whole other set of franchise
spin-offs and they've commissioned two back-to-back
Fast&Furious DVD sequels that they're going to spin out
on the cheap. One guy was pretty vocal that if Mummy3's
forecast budget wise came back above what they expect
then they are going to junk it and push the franchise
into this DVD market. Supposedly it's the future man.
Every studio is doing it these days because all the
money is in DVD...
Which gets us to:
... They came straight fucking out and told me that
they're trying to rehook people back into the Jaws
franchise. They reckon with cutcost CGI being what it is
they could churn this stuff out. I told them somebody
already was with those Shark Attack movies with the dude
out of Starship Troopers. This one guy says "Yes, but
they're missing the one thing ours won't be!" I was all
like "What's that?" He says "The Jaws title and the Jaws
theme! We own them!" No, I didn't tell him that those
were TWO things! So they asked me if I'd read or was
aware of the Deep Blue Sea sequel script that was out
there that Warners are hoping to make a straight-to-DVD
series out of. I say no and they tell me all about it.
It sounds shit. I tell them that. They agree. They ask
me what ideas I have on getting people back into Jaws. I
totally had nothing but I pitched it anyway. Pitched
them on what I would go rent.
Go on?
... You reboot the franchise. Look at what Warners is
doing with Superman and Batman and Sony are doing with
Bond. It's hardly comparable, being a fucking rubber
shark monster, but what the hell. You forget that Jaws 3
and Jaws 4 were ever made. You bring Brody back. Only
this time he's totally fucking frazzled from the shock
of what he's gone through twenty odd years ago. He's an
old man, he's alcholic and he's fucking emotionally
broke. His son's live away, his wife's dead and he's
about to be forcibly retired from Amity's police
department after decades. Then a shark comes back,
starts doing it's shit and Brody pulls himself together
and decides that catching and killing the shark will be
his salvation. They didn't like this. They were all
about the "It sounds dark!" "It sounds unmarketable in
the avenue we're considering!" They started talking to
me about the straight-to-DVD market being for the teens
and primarily young males/females and that they were
wanting to focus more on that. One guy says "You know?
Teens in peril? That sort of thing?" I reply "You mean
like Jaws 2?" Another tells me that Schieder wouldn't
touch anything remotely linked to Jaws sequels. They
said that back in the early 80s they nearly sued him
because he was contracted to 2 sequels and he did one
and refused the other and they got round it in the end
by him letting them use his stuff in Jaws 4 but not
having to pay him a dime! It doesn't look likely for me.
Then again my agent is telling me that I was 20th down
the line from being offered it so it seems fucking
nobody wants to touch it...
Sounds a bit shit! Lucky escape?
...My agent says it could be worse. Two days later they
rang him to offer me a re-write on a straight-to-DVD
sequel for Van Hesling that they've got Christian out of
Nip/Tuck hooked for. We didn't accept...
Oh sweet lord!
Jaws is my precious, precious jewel. I love it. It's
like my favourite movie of all time - that and Midnight
Run - and I dig the sequel in a guilty pleasure sort of
way. Hell I even keep Jaws 3 and Jaws: The Revenge in my
DVD collection, hidden away in the 'Old Childhood
Favourites' section out of some sense of warped loyalty.
But please God. More Jaws movies? Fuck no!
Jan De Bont can't even get Meg put into production (it
was due out in 2006, it's now been pushed aside by New
Line in favour of Rush Hour 3) and that's got a 70ft
shark eating a helicopter out of the sky for Christ's
sake! Come on!
From filmrot.com |
