5/19/23
Newsletter #341
The Crack of Dawn
In 1993 when I was directing Real Stories of the Highway Patrol, my old pal, Rob Tapert, came to Michigan to go fishing and invited me along. So, Rob and I were fishing in a little boat on Lake Huron, outside Oscoda, Michigan, and he offhandedly mentioned that it looked like he and Sam might be producing a TV series called Hercules. Uniquely, it was to begin with four or five, two-hour TV movies that would act as the pilot episodes. However, to Rob’s consternation, if he was actually going to do this, he needed a script right away, and he didn’t have any writers, or any money to pay any writers. I heard opportunity knock. I said, “I’ll write the script for free if I can direct.” As we fished, Rob considered my offer. Rob, being a bit of an odd duck, often spoke his thoughts aloud. “Well, you’ve already written and directed two feature films, then made your own way into TV. I suppose this could work.” Then Rob, just like his partner Sam, had to immediately figure out some catch to make it more difficult. He said, “You’d have to start as the 2nd unit director.” He pulled that one straight out of his ass, but I didn’t care – 2nd unit director on a TV movie was better than segment director on a reality show – and I said, “I’d love to be the 2nd unit director.”
And so, I moved back to L.A. for the third or fourth time. I was staying with Rob and his girlfriend Jane while I wrote the first Hercules script. Rob and Sam had an office on the Universal lot, and Jane worked within spitting distance for Steven Spielberg at Amblin Ent. While they both went off to work at Universal, I remained at their house and pounded out this script in a week.
I’ve had many headaches in my life – I’m talking about literal headaches, for which I personally take ibuprofen – but this Hercules script gave me the worst headache of my whole life. As they came and went, Rob and Jane couldn’t have been nicer, making lovely dinners every night. Salads composed of many types of lettuce and vegetables, and often baked or barbequed fish that Rob had caught.
Me and my big mouth. What the fuck was I doing? I worked from two books – both of which are on the shelf next to me – Mythology by Edith Hamilton and Bullfinch’s Mythology – and I transformed the ancient Greek myth of Hercules into a dramatic narrative that was suitable for TV. I did the best I could, and all the while it felt like someone was twisting a corkscrew into my head above my right eye. I’m sure that I was not terrific company at dinner, but Rob and Jane were both very pleasant.
I didn’t actually write a script; I wrote a lengthy (20-page) treatment, meaning that it was in prose, like a short story, not in script form. Rob had assembled a conference table-worth of Executive, Associate, and Co-Producers, most of whom were ten years younger than us, and equally split between boys and girls. The style at the time for the young intellectual was the sweater tied around the neck, of which there were many. I sat at one end of the table and Rob sat at the other. Everybody had my treatment in front of them. Everybody was looking at me. It was all of them, including Rob, against me. Defend my story. Except in this case, a great deal of it wasn’t mine, it was the myth of Hercules. I wasn’t the writer so much as the adaptor.
The questions started like this: “Why would Zeus come down from Mount Olympus and have sex with a mortal woman?” [Note: this union caused Hercules to be conceived.] I had anticipated just such a question, and replied, “She’s really beautiful.” These young producers were unconvinced. “Why,” they asked, “did Hercules perform all these ridiculous labors?” The best I had for that was, “Because that’s what really happened, supposedly, in the Hercules myth.” None of them were buying that shit. Little did they realize that I had skipped several of the weirder labors, like straightening out a winding river, or cleaning the royal stables.
All the while Rob was sitting at the end of table, doing his Buddha imitation, observing and saying very little. But at the edge of his mouth was a smirk, saying, “You asked for this job, asshole, now defend yourself.”
I couldn’t. I still had that corkscrew in my eye. I withered under questioning. I mean, why did Hercules do all that stupid shit anyway? The meeting ended and Rob and I drove back to his house. He was fine; couldn’t have been happier. He wasn’t depending on me to deliver the right story – he already had other, real writers, writing – my job had been to deliver a Hercules story that seemed like a movie (and ended up as a movie, being the basis for the fourth Hercules pilot movie). My story at that moment was simply starter fuel. Get the engine firing.
I said, “Rob, I don’t want to be a writer on Hercules.” Rob said, “That’s good because you can’t be a writer on Hercules, it’s a Writer’s Guild show and you’re not in the Writer’s Guild.” I said, “Do I still get to be the 2nd unit director?”
And if this isn’t the most-used phrase in the movie business, it’s certainly one of them.
Rob said, “We’ll see.”
The dawn came while I was writing. It was beautiful.