8/20/23
Newsletter #433
The Crack of Dawn
When I arrived in New Zealand for the first time at the end of 1993 to work on the Hercules TV movies, there was a big blackboard in the main office with the names of four Hercules movies written on it. When asked what I was doing on the films, I would reply, “I’m the 2nd unit director on the first and third movies, and I’m the main unit director on the fifth movie.” It didn’t matter who I said this to, the response was always the same, “There’s no fifth movie, mate.” I would then attempt to quickly explain that indeed there was a fifth movie, it just wasn’t written (or conceived) yet. Invariably, the response I got was a look of pity, accompanied by a slight shake of the head, meaning, “Poor delusional asshole.”
That was one hitch to being the main unit director on the fifth film – it wasn’t conceived or written yet. Also, depending on cost overruns on the first four films, could be dispensed with if necessary. I had to make damn sure that didn’t occur. Being the 2nd unit director got me into the Director’s Guild, then categorized me as a 2nd unit director. I needed to make sure that when I returned to Hollywood, the DGA now categorized me as a main unit director. Except that the fifth script was not even a dream. No writers were working on it, nor had anyone even come up with a glimmer of an idea.
Between the first and the third films, I went back to Michigan for a month. It was summer in New Zealand and a particularly cold winter in Michigan. I began reading Greek mythology. When I read about Theseus and the Minotaur, I was immediately put in mind of Time Bandits (1981), which has a big sequence with a minotaur that’s nothing more than a bull’s head strapped to a human, and it worked fine. I called Rob, the executive producer, and pitched him Hercules in the Labyrinth of the Minotaur. As I recall, there was a lengthy pause as Rob considered. I added, “The bull’s head looks like a reasonably cheap effect.” When he couldn’t find a clear objection, and knowing that the financing for this fifth film could disappear any second if he didn’t come up with something, he gave the OK to Hercules in the Labyrinth of the Minotaur. Now Rob could have said, “Congratulations, you came up with exactly the right idea at the moment I needed it. Good work, brother,” except that’s not how producers talk. Instead, he informed me that he wouldn’t pay me for the idea and that I couldn’t write it because it was a Writer’s Guild show and I wasn’t in the union. I parried with, “Oh, yeah, well you forget that I’m still 2nd unit director and coming back to New Zealand to shoot Hercules in the Underworld next week, so I don’t have time to write a script anyway. But I will write the story and send it to you.” Which I did, then Rob had his writers take over.
Back in the summer in New Zealand, we rapscallions on the crew with our rapier-like wits, referred to Hercules in the Underworld as Hercules in his Underwear. Unsurprisingly, in the film Hercules journeys to the underworld where legendary horror and adventure ensue. What was surprising, however, was that the director, who had just successfully directed the first film, Hercules and the Amazon Women (1994), with which everyone was quite pleased, completely freaked out. I wasn’t there on the main unit set because I was off shooting 2nd unit and having a good time with “Giant” Jorge Gonzales. But there was this the big sequence in the film that they called the “Ghoul Trench,” and it was supposed to be huge and spectacular, wild and wacky horror like these Evil Dead guys were supposed to deliver, that actually had two whole days to shoot (which is a lot for one scene). I repeat, I wasn’t on the main unit set, but I saw this dude enough to see that he was extremely homesick. He’d been in New Zealand for too long. I’m going to be an asshole because I can’t help it. I mean, we weren’t in Viet Nam. This director was an L.A. guy who liked to surf. I’m just saying.
So, this director, in his wisdom, had skipped most of the script in the Ghoul Trench. He turned in a strangely sterile, uninteresting, certainly not wild and wacky, Ghoul Trench sequence that was nothing like anyone was expecting. As everyone watched these two days of dailies, unable to quite figure out what they were watching since the director wasn’t following the script, this nervous wreck of a director got on an airplane and flew home to L.A.
It has taken me the whole newsletter to arrive at the exciting moment when me and my 2nd unit stepped in and saved the day. It’s really an awesome story.
But saving the day will be for another day.
The dawn has already cracked.