Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Episode 41 - Adam Green
One of our longest episodes thus far because it is two shows combined! So much quickly evolved with Mr. Green's career and our fandom almost immediately after we recorded the first one in the summer of 2013. So we tucked it away and let things grow before revisiting it, resulting in our now longest running show. We certainly think Adam was worth it. We hope you will too.
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Hey, Guys! Looks like I’ll need to break this up over a few comments because it is so long... I can't tell you how hard I laughed when I heard you say "Maybe he'll listen to this during one of his sleepless nights" as it was 1:30am and I was dealing with my usual insomnia when I listened last night. Sadly, I rarely have time to read the various blogs or reviews that fans tweet me and even less rarely do I have the time to actually listen to any of the podcast postings that are sent my way. (In fact, I am 99.9% certain that this is a first.) But there I was last night, unable to sleep and killing time when your tweet came in. "2 hours long? And I'm the only topic? Really??" I figured I'd listen for a few minutes and then hopefully go to sleep. But there I was almost two hours later and at the end of your show, and well... I would have to be the biggest asshole in the world to not take a minute to write in and let you know that I heard it and that I appreciate your enthusiasm and passion for what I do more than you'll ever know. This episode was a true honor and while I may have been embarrassed to listen to the compliments (just ask my dog Arwen, she was there and listening with me) it was also extremely touching and the timing of hearing this was perfect. Given the fisting of a year that 2014 was for me between suffering the tragic loss of one of my best friends (Dave Brockie) and the death of my marriage, I'm only just now beginning to get healthy again and stand back up on my own two feet without being carried by friends and family. With my tour for DIGGING UP THE MARROW about to start I unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) have no choice but to pull through it all and prepare to interact with the outside world once again. So to hear just how appreciated the extra effort is that I put out for my fans and to hear just how much it is actually noticed that I always try and give back... the timing of hearing all of it truly couldn't have been better. It was a great reminder that the extra miles I go are all worth it. So sincerely and from the bottom of my heart- thank you. It was incredibly hard to not be able to interject and speak up during a couple of discussion points- so while I’m here let me clear up a couple things about the HATCHET series...
ReplyDelete1.) HATCHET 2 was in 68 theaters when it opened but was then mysteriously pulled from all 68 screens before the end of it's first 72 hours in release. Dark Sky had chosen to open the film in mainstream multiplexes (AMC specifically) without an MPAA rating after the ratings board was going to castrate and destroy the film in order to give us the "R" rating. Mainstream cinemas do not and are not allowed to show films without an MPAA rating so it was a big deal that such an event happened in the first place and it was the first time in almost 30 years that a horror film was going to open in major multiplexes (not just indie cinemas) without a rating and remain truly un-cut and un-censored. The release also made history when HATCHET 2 became the first film to ever be yanked from all screens in it's opening weekend. The film started disappearing on Friday and by Sunday morning it was gone. When the media pressed for an explanation, AMC cited “poor box office” as the reason which was not only untrue (HATCHET 2 was performing exactly as expected especially when compared to the fact that CHAIN LETTER opened on AMC screens that very same weekend and pulled a mere $300 per screen yet for some reason remained playing for 2 full weeks) but not something that has ever happened before. Even ISHTAR and WATERWORLD remained in cinemas for weeks if not months and those films were true bombs. While limited theatrical releases on indie movies like HATCHET are never about making money as much as they are about promotion for the film (how can a movie ever make noise at the box office on so few screens and with no marketing budget whatsoever?), HATCHET 2 was a big success for Dark Sky in the long run- thus there was a HATCHET 3. I was instructed to stand down and keep my mouth shut and the MPAA made "no comment" when asked why HATCHET 2 was pulled, but come on. You do the math. They had to eliminate it immediately as if it had worked…? If horror fans had supported it in droves? Well, then NO ONE would bother getting a rating any more and the MPAA would be seriously out of business. People always ask if I’m angry at AMC for caving under what was obviously political pressure but the answer is NO. They tried and for that I am nothing but grateful. 2.) While I was happy to hear you say that by HATCHET 3 you understood that Victor Crowley is a "repeater" and a paranormal entity that returns every night in the exact same physical state he was in when he died... it is explained several times in HATCHET 2 as well. “Marybeth” asks “Rev Zombie” why Crowley kept getting up no matter what they did to him and he explained the whole thing. No matter what you do to him, he’ll just come back again the next night, fully reformed and ready to go again. (That is… unless someone could break the curse which unfortunately for “Rev Zombie” he figured out all wrong.) When/if you watch HATCHET 2 again hopefully you'll notice that at the very start of the film, Crowley still has all of the same damage he took in the first film (like his hair being all burned off from the fire) but later in the film, when he returns the next night, he is re-assembled back in his original state as according to the mythology of a repeating paranormal entity. And for all anyone knows, “Ben’s body” was still inside the boat with Victor at the start of the film. We never showed the inside of the boat so there is no reason to assume he wasn’t. We didn't fuck that up, I swear. And thank you to whoever said HATCHET 2 was the best in the series as I fully agree with you. While we underwent the expected “not as good as the first one” reactions when it first came out, now many years later it has been great to hear so many fans change their tune and declare it the best. To us, it was our EMPIRE STRIKES BACK of the trilogy- another sequel that originally was called a “disappointment” but is now considered by most StAR WARS fans to be the best.
ReplyDelete3.) Within the group of hunters/lynch mob that accepts "Rev. Zombie’s" offer to go after Crowley, hardly any of them believed the legend was real. They weren't "going to get the monster” (FRANKENSTEIN’ing it) as much as they were planning to spend one night in a swamp, collect their fee, and leave. Only the few in the group who were tied to the original legend believed he was actually real and that there was potential for danger. The majority of the group thought it was just a silly story. 4.) Tamara Feldman was not replaced by Danielle Harris for any other reason than the fact that she blew her chance to do the sequels. She took extremely bad advice from an agent who was terrible at his job and who demanded an obscene amount of money because “she was a huge star and we couldn’t possibly make any sequels with her.” He felt like he could extort whatever he wanted out of us because he had us over a barrel. Had we paid anything close to what she was asking for- the FX budget would have had to go and we would have had half the time to shoot the movie than the meager 15 days we were already facing. And yes, I called her directly and she was indifferent as she chose to stand behind her agent who I am sure convinced her that he had us right where he wanted us. It was heartbreaking, especially being the guy who personally gave her her break. Side note: in the 10 years since we shot HATCHET, she has gone on to do a couple guest spots in cancelled TV shows, an indie that never got finished, an indie that never came out properly, and a few commercials like a Taco Bell one where she bites into a taco for 1 second of screen time. It is sad to see as I always liked her as a person and we all believed in her as an actress, but she made her own bed. I wish her no ill will whatsoever as clearly we not only survived what she chose to do but we excelled and made history in the wake of it. But it was either not make any more HATCHET films, completely rewrite the story that I had originally set-up and planned out so meticulously, or recast “Marybeth”. It’s also important to note that this all happened right before photography was going to commence. (Another agenting tactic.) Had I not recast that role, there would be no HATCHET sequels. So rather than let the girl from the Taco Bell commercial destroy things for all of us (fans and crew alike) we recast the role of “Marybeth” with the biggest scream queen of our generation and we pushed forward.
ReplyDeleteThe majority of fans were beyond excited to see Danielle take over the role and we were so fortunate to have a lead actress who actually loves the genre, appreciates her fans, and who owned the character so passionately even if she hadn’t played the part in the first chapter. While I agree entirely that it is unfortunate to have that major continuity flaw (switching lead actresses) within a trilogy that was so painstakingly and lovingly put together given that the whole story takes place over a 3-day period... it was either move onward and upward or let one unknown woman's bad career decision ruin it for all of us. I always wanted this franchise to unfold in such a way that each chapter began on the same frame that the previous one ended on like one long story/movie. Had we folded or, even worse, had we compromised the integrity of the franchise simply because of the loss of Tamara... or had we made the typical slasher sequels that are expected with a movie like this (rather than the “one long movie” concept that sets us apart from most), well... we just wouldn't have made them at all as none of us had any interest in doing that. If you consider that we already did the "brother" thing with Parry Shen (which was planned from the get go and why he mentions that his brother hooked him up with the tour guide job in the first film- aside from also being a joke who's punchline in Part 3 was him ultimately making a horror movie commentary in saying "we all look the same anyway") I truly feel that fans would have revolted if we had killed "Marybeth" off screen at the start of HATCHET 2 and had the exact same "I'm trying to find my family" angle for the main character yet again as that was "Marybeth's” exact reason for being there in the first chapter. Again, to throw the franchise down the drain simply because one woman took horrible advice from her representatives and never appreciated the incredible opportunity I gave her, never liked the genre, and never cared about the fans who made her “genre famous" in the first place... I couldn't let that happen. But MAN was that a tough decision and a tough spot to be forced into. Thank God for Danielle Harris who saved HATCHET in so many ways. Think about it this way, Joel David Moore went on to do AVATAR and become a bona fide movie star after HATCHET... yet he STILL came back to cameo in the third film and even refused to take any pay for his time simply because he loved the franchise and wanted to do it not just for me but for the fans that he knew would all get a kick out of seeing him popping up again so briefly. Joel is someone I hope the fans will always rally behind and it speaks volumes to his character as a human being and why he has and always will be such a dear friend and a staple in my work whenever appropriate. You just don't get any better than Joel David Moore and I love that you guys love him so much, too.
ReplyDeleteAll of this just goes to show how much I enjoyed listening to your discussion about the films, which I truly did. I was laughing at home while I kept vocally interrupting with “but wait- that’s not.. but, hold on- we did…” I got such a kick out of listening to all that the three of you had to say. Normally you have to just smile and say “oh well” when someone gets a fact wrong in recounting one of your films but given that this was a full 2 hour discussion that I indeed actually heard as a captive audience member… I just had to chime in and add my two cents to it. You guys were fantastic and it was great fun being a fly on the wall. You are all far too kind. Opinion is one thing, but imagine how hard it is to bite your tongue when you read a review that bashes one of your films for something that isn’t even accurate- my favorite of all time still being the now infamous review of FROZEN that stated how the only thing the critic didn’t like about it was how the actors were so clearly on a sound stage and that the wolves were badly CGI created. (And this was a major mainstream outlet, mind you.) While it can be anger inducing if you let it be, it all comes with the territory and you have no choice but to laugh about it. More so than anything, your words about HOLLISTON warmed my soul. It took 13 years to get that show made and it is my most passion of passion projects with more heart put into it than most anything out there. 9 feature films, 2 seasons of a show, and 60 something short films later…HOLLISTON remains the most personal project of my career and very likely always will be. I appreciate how much YOU appreciate the way we treat our fans and hearing the lengths you took to meet us at Horror Hound meant so much. The turn out for for us on that Season 2 convention tour was insane and Cincinnati remains a highlight for all of us, especially since it was the last time all 6 of us would ever be together. The private family dinner we had with just the 6 of us the night before the convention is something I’ll always hold dearly and I remember clear as day sitting back at one point like a proud parent and thinking how everyone I love is at the table together and what a perfect moment it was. Thankfully we had no way of knowing that Dave would be gone the next time that happened as we were all able to enjoy the moment for exactly what it was. I miss him daily and I still don’t know how any of us are supposed to carry on without him, but somehow we do. The events that we’ve been hit with over this past year would bring most people to their knees and though in some ways it did indeed cripple me, thanks to fans like you it did not break me and I’m still here. It’s all worth it simply because people like you make it all worth it. Thank you for supporting what I do and for taking the time to discuss my career to date on your show. Whether 3 people hear it or 3 million people hear it… I heard it. And I heard it right when I needed it most. THANK YOU. Most sincerely - Adam Green
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