Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a report from a spy attending the London Film Festival. He's brought us words from the mouth of Paul Verhoeven... Lots of interesting stuff below, squirts, especially if you're as huge Verhoeven fans as I am. I met the man once at Comic-Con and he was really down to earth, but just exactly the cartoon you'd expect. I treasure my autographed ROBOCOP 1-sheet hanging in my hallway. Enjoy the report! Heeeeeerrreee's Johnny!

I saw the Paul Verhoeven interview last night at the London Film Festival, which was very entertaining. He talked about his early career, working in the film unit of the Dutch military, directing TV, shows, including - to the audience's surprise and laughter - a kid's TV show which he said could be called a Dutch Ivanhoe. Even back then, he caused a strong reaction, with parents angry over the level of violence in a show for children.

The interview began with a discussion on BLACK BOOK. He said he had planned to make it in the 80s but there were script problems, mainly with the protagonist, who was originally going to be a man. He went back to it when his Dutch writer rewrote it and they changed the protagonist to a female.

A lot of the stuff he was asked about is on the record already and is well known (how he first thought the Robocop script was nonsense and it was only when his wife insist that he read it again that he agreed to do it; adding the infamous crossing the legs scene in BI, which he said Stone agreed to, etc.).

CRUSADES: He said this project may now be lost forever. He said Ridley Scott had done Kingdom of Heaven and even though they're different projects, no studio will put up $150-200million for another Crusades movie. He said it's a shame as it was a great script written by Walon Green. The script is owned by Schwarzenegger. As part of his pay or play deal, Schwarzenegger was to receive $10m. He was given $2m and for the rest, he was offered the script instead. But with him now in politics, Verhoeven said the movie is probably gone forever.

WORKING WITH ARNOLD: Although they have differences in their politics, he loved working with him on TOTAL RECALL. He said people might be surprised to hear that Arnold doesn't have an ego when it comes to his work. He's happy to go 40/50 takes to get something right. You can tell Arnold a take looked silly and he won't be offended by it. He'll watch the playback and say "let's do it again, I can do it better." Verhoeven said Arnold stood by him and supported him throughout TOTAL RECALL. There were times when the producers wanted to skip a scene because it was too costly and Arnold would say he wants it in and if they don't do it, he's going home! He also said Arnold has specifically wanted him for TR. He was aware of his Dutch movies and ROBOCOP. He heard he was developing BLACK RAIN with Michael Douglas. They were both in Aspen at the same time and when Arnold heard he was there, he immediately told the producers to get him for TR.

SCI-FI: Asked if he would make any more sci-fi movies, he said only if the script is good and only if he feels it's worth going through all the pain of making it. He said making sci-fi is long and hard but if it's worth it, he'll do it. He said he would have loved to do WAR OF THE WORLDS because it was his favourite movie as a child but Spielberg got there first.

HOLLOW MAN: To my surprise, as I didn't know he felt this way about it, Verhoeven apologised for this! He said "I regret HOLLOW MAN. It was the studio's movie."

BASIC INSTINCT II: He was offered it a number of times and was tempted. But he had told the producers he would only do it if they got a star on the scale of Michael Douglas. He said part of the reason why Stone was so good in the first one is because of Douglas, both as a strong character and actor. But the producers had paid Stone a lot of money for the sequel and didn't want to spend more on a big name actor, and he said he's seen BI II and he thought it didn't work because of that.

If you use this, call me Jack Torrance!

Thanks!