Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Even the e-mail this was sent in smelled of sulfur and brimstone. And, since I’ve made the obligatory “Michael Bay Is Satan” joke, we can move on to what’s actually a pretty darn good interview by Beaks.
Love him or hate him, Michael Bay is inarguably one of the most powerful directors working today. As far as I’m concerned, the man’s had a tremendous year, pulling out of the ugly two-film tailspin that was ARMAGEDDON and PEARL HARBOR, and delivering the kind of splashy, eager-to-please pop entertainments I’ve been expecting since his 1995 debut with BAD BOYS. Now, he’s hopping from BAD BOYS II to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and it is a rarity; a no-holds-barred studio horror film without a sardonic bone in its body. As its very involved producer, I think Bay deserves a good deal of credit for this, so I was happy that he turned up at the junket two weeks ago to discuss why he chose this film as the first release from his new production company, Platinum Dunes.
Following is, like yesterday’s interview with Marcus Nispel, a transcript from a roundtable discussion. We’re in the small print, and Michael is in the big print.
When did you first see TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and what made it stick in your mind?
I saw it, I think, when I was in high school. To me… it’s a classic title. When we were starting this new company, someone said about getting the rights to this movie. And I said that’s a great idea because I’m tired of these movies that are jokey. I want straight ahead, old school horror.
So, do you do a Marcus imitation?
(Sheepishly) Um, yeah. (Pause as he summons up his inner-Nispel.) “Michael, how *are* you!?!? Come, come! Give me some love! Yes, yes!” (Laughs.) “No! Ve SHOOT! NOW!!! Ve SHOOT!!!”
Was it hard to get this movie off the ground?
No, it was actually bizarre. We were starting this company named after one of my first student films. The idea was to help bring younger directors in, give them a shot, and I would protect them from the studios. I had this idea of… how are we going to sell this title, how are we going to start this company? (Bay begins describing the teaser trailer he shot to sell the film.) I took something from the original movie, it says, “In the annals of American history, one of the most horrific crimes happened on August 1973.” Picture yourself in a big audience, big screen, eerie music, and then the screen goes black. And you hear a woman running. Black screen. Running. Surround sound. Terrified. Up these old, wooden, rickety stairs, into a closet in the front of the screen. She’s barricading herself, and she’s panting. Then, you hear male footsteps coming up. He’s got some metal in his hand. He’s coming up and around, trying to be quiet, and, then, he comes in front of the screen. And there’s dead silence for four seconds. And, then, “Bam!”, he hits the door, and the whole audience… they jump and they laugh, because they can’t believe they got scared by the sound. Then, you hear a chainsaw go on. We sold the movie worldwide in three days because of that. We got all our foreign money. Then, we had a screening at CAA, and we had all of the studios. Bob Shaye picked up on it right away.
Marcus is someone who’s had a few false starts with films. Was this something that you really wanted to do? Give Marcus his feature debut?
We were looking at directors from Spain and some German directors for this movie, because I thought the European flair would be cool for this movie. Make it grungy. Then, Marcus’s name came up, and I’m thinking that he’s so seasoned in the commercial business. He’s a great visualist. So, right away I was really interested to get Marcus in. I was very excited to have him.
Tobe Hooper had talked about remaking the film himself for a couple of years. He’s on the screen as a co-producer; what was his involvement? What were your conversations like?
He came up with the original concept. To get the rights, that’s what you’ve gotta do.
Did he not have the rights to this at all? Was it all with New Line?
Mmm… what do you mean?
He had spoken on the record for a couple of years leading up to this that he wanted to remake THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.
(He had) nothing to do with the script. Nothing. It was just his original idea that we took, and did what we did.
Why Scott Kosar? Was it because of THE MACHINIST?
Was that what it was? THE MACHINIST? I read thirty pages of something, but, to me, with writers, once I read some samples… his ideas. He had these great ideas. And he had that great MacGuffin of the suicide in the van. In these movies, you think, “Well, you’ve got to separate the kids. What are you going to do?” And I just thought it was a great idea to separate them, and they’re stuck in this town, and they’ve got to deal with this problem.
You’ve been pretty protective of this picture since production ended. There weren’t a lot of early screenings, there wasn’t a lot of early access; was that to build anticipation?
You know what it is? It’s piracy. I’m a maniac for that stuff. This movie was finished months before – a finished print. Even on big studio movies, they always tell you, “No, we know the place that’s dubbing.” They get out. People get paid. I have a rule where none of my movies leave my office. I never give the studios the movie. I give them only pieces of the movie, because one of my movies got out two weeks before it came out.
We’ve gathered that this one may be getting out as we speak.
Is it? Are you serious?
Yeah. I heard that it’s heading towards the internet shortly.
Are you serious?
Yeah.
(A little stunned.) Wow. That sucks. Good news. This is good, fun news. (Laughs.)
Do you have any ideas on distribution? How do you feel about internet distribution, or non-tradition forms of distribution?
I don’t know. This movie… it’s not one of those f/x-laden movies where you want the big sound. It could work on an internet format. But as a distribution tool, we’ve created our own worst nightmare. We really have. I’ve been at the DGA arguing for six years, saying DVD is going to kill us one day. It’s going to bite us in the ass because we’ve got this digital world. With videotapes, there was always a way to stop it, but it’s unfortunate. It’s going to take a big bite. Maybe it’s good. They’ll probably make fewer movies. They’re going to make less expensive movies, because if you can’t get a good ancillary market… we’ve just really got to figure out ways to control it.
If this movie is now on its way to the internet, how much do you think you might lose?
Not much. You will never kill the moviegoing experience. I firmly believe that, because there’s something about a shared experience. This movie is so much cooler in a big room where everybody screams. That’s not what I’m worried about. What kills you with piracy are the ancillary markets where you sell DVD’s, and that’s where a lot of the profit comes in movies. I mean, I got a copy of BAD BOYS II that my contractor said, “Hey, I bought that for eight bucks.” This company, they have this logo: “We do the best DVD’s!” It’s like they’re priding themselves on how good they copy movies. And it was an amazing copy.
Do you think there’s an answer?
I don’t know.
(This next question was asked from the other end of the table, and was partially garbled by a passing bus outside the hotel, so I’m reconstructing it as best I can.) Do you think we should hold off? Like in the 70’s, movies used to roll out slowly across the country over months. Now, if I don’t see the movie in two weeks, it’s gone.
I know. It’s crazy, and we’ve created it. These entertainment shows have created it. Do you know that they’ve got a betting service where you can bet what a movie is going to open to? You’ve got non-industry people saying, “Oh, did you hear what that opened to on Saturday?” It’s stupid. And it’s killing movies, because if you don’t open on that first weekend they think it’s a piece of shit.
So what is Platinum Dunes going to be? Is it going to be horror, or is it just going to be smaller movies?
It’s smaller movies. The ones that we have lined up right now are thrillers.
Are you going to go for Halloween releases? What are the other movies?
I don’t want to say just yet, because we’re still making the deals.
Do you think GOTHIKA left October 24th because of you?
That’s what we heard. Have you heard our tracking? That’s pretty cool to get a little picture, a little $10 million movie, and you’ve got studio presence… “Wow, your tracking is amazing!” I heard the Weinstein brothers are really pissed. They’re pissed because we offered them the movie. We offered it to Bob Weinstein. We were on the phone with him, and… (imitating Bob’s heavy-handed manner) “So, what do you want, Michael?” “Well, we want you to buy the movie. Do you want it?” It was a really cold conversation. We went to Bob Shaye ten minutes later, and Bob was much nicer.
What about for yourself? I don’t think you’ve made a movie under $100 million for a long time, and now you’ve got this $10 million movie as a producer—
I think it’s fun. I think it serves the movie by making it low budget. It really does. It adds to that grunge factor. Now, I had to call in some favors to people that make money on those $100 million movies for sound and music…
Would you want to go back to $60 million? Or do you want to be making everything at $120 million?
No. I want to reinvent myself. It’s time to change it up for me.
Do you think you might direct one of these movies that you’re developing at Platinum Dunes?
Maybe. I love scary movies. I’d love to find an EXORCIST, or a SHINING, but they’re hard to find.
That short film that sold this is kind of notorious. Did you make that yourself?
Yeah.
How long did it take you to do it, and how did you get that horror movie sound?
Literally, I got one of my sound guys, we got a female actress; she had to audition by screaming. We (auditioned) three of them… and used the one who had the best scream. We went to a house, we had her running around, we went into the basement, and did it in a day. I think we spent three grand on it, and sold the movie.
Is there any chance that it’ll be seen on the DVD?
I’m telling you, it was the coolest teaser to have for a movie because it was totally original. It was like, “You haven’t seen anything like this,” and it was totally powerful. We used it a little bit in the trailer, but not to the effect that it was used in the teaser.
I talked to the producers who’re doing the DVD for this, and it’s very elaborate. PEARL HARBOR was very elaborate. As a filmmaker, what’s your take on DVD? Are you ever worried that all of this might take the magic away?
I think DVD’s were great in the beginning because, as a film student, they were great to learn. But you do take away some of the magic by showing everything. They’re interesting, but it’s almost like everyone’s doing it. Before, it was kind of cool that some movies did it with the behind-the-scenes features. I remember as a film student watching it, and it was a great way to learn.
Do you think marginal movies are getting a little more than they should these days?
I was a little less involved in BAD BOYS II. We did some scenelet things. They wanted me to do a commentary, and I was like, “What am I going to say?” You do it all in the scenelets. You don’t need to do a big, elaborate thing for every movie you do.
What did you think of when you started putting this together with regards to Leatherface? It’s an iconic character, but it’s gone through so many incarnations with the sequels. What was your take on what you wanted him to look like, what kind of concept artists did you work with, etc?
We used a guy who I worked with on PEARL HARBOR, Scott Stoddard, who was trained by Stan Winston. A lot of what we talked about was the lacing and stuff. I would’ve changed a few little things, but… you know.
What about the cannibalism? It was such a focus in the first one, and *definitely* a focus in the second one, and, now, it’s gone. Was there a conscious decision to move away from that?
We didn’t want to do the dinner scene, even though it’s such a classic scene in that movie, because it was just a little too jokey. Yeah, it was a conscious decision to stay away from it.
Marcus wanted actors that he could go to, and didn’t have to work with too much in order to know that he was going to get something. How hands on were you in that process?
In casting? Very. That’s where you make it or break it, I think. Jessica… I think she’s got something very cool. The unique thing about this is that New Line was like, “Women are not going to like this movie. They always test lower.” And the women rated the movie higher than the men. I think that’s because of Jessie.
What is it about her?
She’s just got this tough boy-girl thing. She’s got good emotion, and I think she’s got chops to be a real star one day.
You took some shots this year over the level of violence in BAD BOYS II, and now you have THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Any concerns over this, and do you feel a need to get away from this kind violent material?
You know what it was? Maybe it was because I took offense to the FTC coming into the Directors Guild, and saying basically that we’re going to clean your act up if you don’t clean it up yourselves. I’m young in my career, and for the government to say in kind of a backhanded way that you’re not going to have the right to shoot R-rated movies, we’re trying to clean up R-rated movies… that kind of pissed me off. I think there might be a little of that.
A reaction to them?
Just a little bit. Lieberman came in, and that just irked me.
Did anything get pulled from this movie because of the rating issue?
You know what? They were pretty good. We cleaned it up before. I think we might’ve had a trim or two, but that was it. I don’t think it’s too bloody. I mean, it’s your own cup of tea; this movie isn’t for everyone.
Not for the six year olds.
Don’t worry. I’m going to be getting to my children’s movie one day, okay?
The mind reels at the thought. Meanwhile, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE opens this Friday.
Faithfully submitted,
Mr. Beaks
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