Speaker 1: Oh geez, folks, it's showtime.
Speaker 2: People say, good mind to see this movie. When they
Speaker 2: go out to a theater.
Speaker 1: They want closed sodas, hot popcorn in. No monsters in
Speaker 1: the Projection.
Speaker 2: Booth, Everyone for tend podcasting isn't boring. Got it off? Hey, folks,
Speaker 2: welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth. I'm
Speaker 2: your host Mike White. On this episode, it is the
Speaker 2: return of Mark Edlet's. As I said during our interview,
Speaker 2: the last time we spoke was right around the beginning
Speaker 2: of the pandemic. I was on vacation right before that
Speaker 2: started and reading one of his James Bond books. You
Speaker 2: can hear that in the feed, and you can also
Speaker 2: hear us talk about one of his later books right
Speaker 2: now as we discuss movies go forth. It is a
Speaker 2: fascinating concept where he's gone through a lot of series
Speaker 2: and looked at fourth films as well as fourth films
Speaker 2: that never happened and some fourth films that happened in
Speaker 2: very odd circumstances. Had a great time talking with Mark,
Speaker 2: looking forward to having him back on the show. I
Speaker 2: hope you enjoyed this interview Mark Edletz. It is so
Speaker 2: great talking with you again, because the last time we spoke,
Speaker 2: I think it was before the pandemic, So it has
Speaker 2: been a little while, sir.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it's been that long. Because I listened
Speaker 1: to you all the time, I didn't necessarily notice the
Speaker 1: absence because I'm with you weekly. But I'm glad to
Speaker 1: be back in a different way.
Speaker 2: Tell me about Movies go Forth. First off, we should
Speaker 2: probably talk a little bit about the concept for it,
Speaker 2: but I really want to know how you got the concept,
Speaker 2: what burst of inspiration hits you to say I'm going
Speaker 2: to make this book.
Speaker 1: The book is called Movies Go Forth. Fourth films in
Speaker 1: fantastic franchises, and I look at the fourth film in
Speaker 1: popular movie series, to the fourth James Bond, the fourth
Speaker 1: Star Wars, the fourth Batman, Superman, Jaws, Halloween, on and on.
Speaker 1: I went for all the big franchises that I could
Speaker 1: think of that I could get a primary interview with
Speaker 1: a filmmaker, with a director or writer, casiquin actor, But
Speaker 1: mostly my interest is in directors and writers. And I
Speaker 1: grant you it's a weird concept for a book. Nobody
Speaker 1: was asking for a book on fourth films. My family
Speaker 1: challenged my sanity in doing this, but it seemed like
Speaker 1: a good idea at the time. And I'll try to
Speaker 1: be honest with you or honest with myself about how
Speaker 1: the idea came about, but I'm not one hundred percent sure.
Speaker 1: But what I think happened is that I'm obsessed to
Speaker 1: fourth films. They are Superman four, Quest for Piece, Batman four, Batman,
Speaker 1: and Robin Joel Schumacher's film Enjoys the Revenge or Joys for.
Speaker 2: Depending on and you slice it.
Speaker 1: When you look at lists of the worst films of
Speaker 1: all time, those three films are always on it. Superman, Batman, Jaws.
Speaker 1: And I am so fascinated by these films that I
Speaker 1: think I backed up into the premise of the book
Speaker 1: by noticing that observation each kind of franchise is a
Speaker 1: case study where I'd pick a horror film, or action
Speaker 1: film or a comedy film. But then once I interviewed
Speaker 1: someone from Halloween four, then I thought Jason for Then
Speaker 1: I thought Freddy four, so then Psycho four. So I
Speaker 1: didn't keep that kernel of each film is a case
Speaker 1: site for a specific genre. Just because I was curious
Speaker 1: about these other films. I think that's what got me
Speaker 1: into it.
Speaker 2: If my listeners are like me, their minds are reeling
Speaker 2: right now, because that's when I first got your book.
Speaker 2: I was like flipping through the intro and I'm just like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, the fourth film. And I just had
Speaker 2: this huge flood of all of these fourth films that
Speaker 2: have been around for many years or some are still
Speaker 2: just popping up. It feels like only yesterday we had
Speaker 2: Scream four, but now we're up to what seven saw
Speaker 2: four was probably a decade ago. There are franchises out
Speaker 2: there that are still just pumping them out, and some
Speaker 2: of them have been it's a tough road to get
Speaker 2: to that fourth film, and not a lot of them
Speaker 2: actually happened. I think you talk about some that weren't
Speaker 2: even made but were in the works, like a Spider
Speaker 2: Man for from Sam Raimi.
Speaker 1: Yet that's a bonus chapter, and I'm so proud of
Speaker 1: that chapter because I was a big Sam Raimi Spider
Speaker 1: Man fan. I thought he did a great job, and
Speaker 1: he didn't seem to love his own work on Spider
Speaker 1: Man three from He felt forced into it, he said,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to end the series on his own terms.
Speaker 1: And there's been a lot of rumors about what the
Speaker 1: plot would have been, who the actors would have been
Speaker 1: with the villains would have been, and it was never
Speaker 1: one hundred percent set in stone. But through the interview
Speaker 1: that I conducted, we know a lot about the casting
Speaker 1: and the plot and the arc of the character. And
Speaker 1: what I thought was interesting about Spider Man four is
Speaker 1: that Sam Raimi wanted to create an ending. He said,
Speaker 1: I know you're going to reboot this. I don't pretend
Speaker 1: that this is the end of Spider Man, nor do
Speaker 1: I want it to be the end of Spider Man.
Speaker 1: But wouldn't it be cool cool if I did my
Speaker 1: version of the end of a Spider Man series and
Speaker 1: put out on a high note. And they were far
Speaker 1: along in the process before everything got pulled and went
Speaker 1: back to Andrew Garfield. And the thing about all these
Speaker 1: series is a trilogy used to be the sign of
Speaker 1: success when I was growing up. You think of the
Speaker 1: Indiana Joe and trilogy, you think of the Star Wars trilogy,
Speaker 1: and a trilogy is, of course a perfect storytelling structure
Speaker 1: or format. Beginning, middle and end. You introduce the character
Speaker 1: as they get into problems, they resolve the problems. Act one,
Speaker 1: two and three, the exploration of the book is what
Speaker 1: do you do when the story is over and either
Speaker 1: the filmmakers or the studio want to continue with the series.
Speaker 1: How does that impact the series? How does that impact
Speaker 1: the characters? How does that impact your fans love for
Speaker 1: these characters? What is too much? What is not enough? Halloween?
Speaker 1: Write the thirteenth, We go on and on. The Psycho
Speaker 1: ended the series with four as it was meant to.
Speaker 1: Jaws was not meant to end the series on four,
Speaker 1: but it was so reviled that they had to stop.
Speaker 1: And I believe that Spielberg's experience on Jaws, seeing his
Speaker 1: classic brilliant film get the synder each series was a
Speaker 1: little bit worse. I think that is why he was
Speaker 1: so involved with the Jurassic Park films, and then the
Speaker 1: fourth Jurassic Park film was the most successful of all time.
Speaker 1: But the thing about Jaws which is fascinating is because
Speaker 1: I spoke to an actor on that Lance Guest who
Speaker 1: was in the Last Star Feet Fighter, and he said,
Speaker 1: as the director that they sincerely believed that they were
Speaker 1: making the best version of the premise of a shark
Speaker 1: getting revenge on another shark for another family, Which doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense because this shark is not getting revenge. The
Speaker 1: other shark was dead. But they bought the premise. They
Speaker 1: thought they were making a thoughtful film. And I don't
Speaker 1: write about films that I don't have an affection for,
Speaker 1: and I don't take potshots at any of these. I
Speaker 1: write about them all with love, and when I speak
Speaker 1: to the filmmakers, I'm doing it with you know, my
Speaker 1: love for their movies in the way that I love them.
Speaker 1: But however, I do know that Jaws for is objectively
Speaker 1: doesn't work. But when you look at Superman four on paper,
Speaker 1: it's a home run. Superman three was not good, even
Speaker 1: when I first thought as a kid, I knew that
Speaker 1: wasn't good. But it's strong because of Christopher Reeve and
Speaker 1: anything he's in, he's quite good. Superman four was an attempt,
Speaker 1: a deliberate attempt to go back to the foundation of
Speaker 1: Superman one. Superman the movie. They went to Donner and
Speaker 1: they went to Manquets and they said can you come back?
Speaker 1: And they're like, no, we're good, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: But the writers and the director who took a crack
Speaker 1: at it, Sidney J. Fury, is the director who is
Speaker 1: a good director. They do a serious film. They do
Speaker 1: take the elements that we loved about Superman one and
Speaker 1: two and respect them and honor them. But in that case,
Speaker 1: there were lots of reasons why the film fell apart,
Speaker 1: including at the very basic level you don't budget.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is one thing I really appreciate about the
Speaker 2: book is that respect that you show these films, because
Speaker 2: you could just, oh, I'm armed Forbear, I'm going to
Speaker 2: go talk about Police Academy four. But yes, there is
Speaker 2: a great level of respect for films that inherently I
Speaker 2: would say ninety percent of the time they don't get
Speaker 2: respect because they're seen as being something watered down after
Speaker 2: three movies. It's very rare. I mentioned a few franchises,
Speaker 2: and you've mentioned a few that have gone well beyond
Speaker 2: for I know that the last time we talked about
Speaker 2: James Bond and that you could almost say that there
Speaker 2: are many fours in that series just because of the
Speaker 2: different bonds that have come in, the changes in leadership,
Speaker 2: the changes in direction. You can look at like the
Speaker 2: John Glenn years, is QUADRILLGIY or sorry, Quintology five films there,
Speaker 2: and then you can look at the fourth one of that,
Speaker 2: and then you probably could get very tripped up when
Speaker 2: it comes to Star Wars because the fourth is the first.
Speaker 1: That was my for Star Wars, which I love, and
Speaker 1: I'm a Star Wars kid. I made a documentary called
Speaker 1: Jedi Junkies on extreme Star Wars fans. I've read so
Speaker 1: much as you have on Star Wars and watch so
Speaker 1: many videos and documentaries and talked about it so much.
Speaker 1: I wanted to come at it in a slightly skewed
Speaker 1: point of view, and so for Star Wars, I asked
Speaker 1: myself that question, what is the fourth film? For me?
Speaker 1: Is it Phantom Menace Episode one, the fourth one in
Speaker 1: the Skywalker trilogy? Is it for some people growing up later?
Speaker 1: Is it Episode four? Star Wars and New Hope? Or
Speaker 1: And what I profered for this book, Movies Go for
Speaker 1: is could it be the e Wok movie that was
Speaker 1: released theatrically overseas? So if you were overseas, the fourth
Speaker 1: Star Wars film you saw in the movie theater was
Speaker 1: the Emock movie and for that audience, that was the
Speaker 1: fourth Star Wars film. So I explore that one because
Speaker 1: I recognize that sort of a little bit a goofy approach,
Speaker 1: But you know, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 2: Well, and I don't imagine because I would ask anybody else, oh,
Speaker 2: what themes did you find in these fourth films? But
Speaker 2: I imagine each one is a unique case. It's not like
Speaker 2: you can just use one brush to paint this. Even
Speaker 2: when it comes to I imagine the horror franchises which
Speaker 2: are famous for going well beyond four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are similarities, but there are also huge differences.
Speaker 1: Like for Halloween four was an attempt to go back
Speaker 1: to the basics after Halloween three did not feature Michael Myers.
Speaker 1: It had to have Michael, and it had to get
Speaker 1: the franchise back to a Michael Myer centered story. But
Speaker 1: when I asked the writer of that, what would he
Speaker 1: do for Halloween five if he had his brothers, he
Speaker 1: didn't pick a Michael Mike Michael Meyers story. He wanted
Speaker 1: to go in another way. He followed his own impulse
Speaker 1: outside of that or with Psycho four, it's both a
Speaker 1: prequel and a sequel. So it's a sequel to Psycho
Speaker 1: three and in the flashback to Young Norman Bags which
Speaker 1: they also use as the TV show, it's a prequel
Speaker 1: to Psycho one. Friday the Thirteenth Part four was the
Speaker 1: final chapter Ah, that didn't happen. Leprechaun was in space.
Speaker 1: And then sometimes with these fourth movies, they're a passing
Speaker 1: of the Torch, like Highlander, or intended to be a
Speaker 1: passing of the Torch like Highlander was supposed to transfer
Speaker 1: the series from Christopher Lambert to the TV Guy, but
Speaker 1: that didn't work. Scream seemed to have to be set
Speaker 1: up to be a passing of the Torch movie, even
Speaker 1: though that was part of the twist of it is
Speaker 1: that it was your expectations of what a passing of
Speaker 1: the Torch movie is. Yeah, there are similarities, but there's
Speaker 1: also huge differences. Similar tobodies are the fourth James Bond
Speaker 1: one Thunderball was the most popular for many years, the
Speaker 1: fourth Dirty Harry was the most popular for years. And
Speaker 1: then you also see how the characters change in the
Speaker 1: fourth film. When you have John McClain in Diehard one,
Speaker 1: you think of the scene where he's stepping on glass
Speaker 1: and he's pulling it out, and that's that's as much
Speaker 1: as his character can take. And then you get to
Speaker 1: Diehard four and he's jumping from like a Harry or
Speaker 1: a jet to the ground and he's mostly okay or Ripley,
Speaker 1: who died in three, is completely changed in four. She
Speaker 1: is not herself. And then you get that where you
Speaker 1: have these ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances in Part one Ripley,
Speaker 1: John McClain. And you can't keep on doing that. You
Speaker 1: can't keep on putting these people in. It can't always
Speaker 1: be in the wrong place at the wrong time, Otherwise
Speaker 1: it become silly. So you have to change it. And
Speaker 1: that's what happens. But how does the character change, How
Speaker 1: does the character that we love turn into something else?
Speaker 2: In some of the fourth films are some of the
Speaker 2: best films of the series. Star Trek four and just
Speaker 2: how great that was. And again you're talking about breaking
Speaker 2: box office. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a
Speaker 2: major box office holder of the whole series for quite
Speaker 2: a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's really interesting. With Star Trek, the fan
Speaker 1: favorite is generally perceived as Wrath of Khan. That's the
Speaker 1: one that most people try to go back to, and
Speaker 1: you see it in this series and they have been
Speaker 1: able to replicate it. But the fourth Star Trek one,
Speaker 1: where they try to deliberately go beyond the base, is
Speaker 1: actually the most successful for many years.
Speaker 2: And then it goes off a cliff almost literally right
Speaker 2: after that. The poor reboot the jj Abrams films, they
Speaker 2: can never seem to get to that fourth one. So
Speaker 2: it is interesting that there's that distinction between the two
Speaker 2: areas of Star Trek. And I don't know if Next
Speaker 2: Generation managed to make it to a fourth I think
Speaker 2: they might have. And it depends on if you start
Speaker 2: with generations versus first contacts. And I would think first
Speaker 2: contact because you were talking about passing out the torch.
Speaker 2: So here we are at theemicis insurrection generations and first
Speaker 2: contact like there you go, give the man a cigar.
Speaker 1: With Star Trek. The writer told me he tried to
Speaker 1: seed a story in for part five, a work where
Speaker 1: a character would have gotten pregnant and you would have
Speaker 1: seen their child grow up, but that was written out
Speaker 1: or cut out. Really, And when you see certain series
Speaker 1: like Mission Impossible, is where that series found what it
Speaker 1: wants to be. Now, the first three each had its
Speaker 1: own identity, and then after fourth you understood what you
Speaker 1: were going to want watch each subsequent time. And Matt
Speaker 1: Mack's the fourth one that's considered the best. But so
Speaker 1: part of why I was interview, why I was doing
Speaker 1: this research, there were all these fourth films that I
Speaker 1: never heard of. I didn't know that there was a
Speaker 1: Home Alone for which which was shot in South Africa
Speaker 1: in a ridiculously short amount of time, which is funny
Speaker 1: because it's a very American movie. I didn't know there
Speaker 1: was a Home Alone four. I didn't know there was
Speaker 1: a meat Balls four. I didn't know there was a
Speaker 1: Porky's four. Now, let's briefly talk about Meatballs four and
Speaker 1: Porky's four. Porky's four was made in even less time
Speaker 1: than Home Alone for because it's something called an Ashcan property,
Speaker 1: which is to say, it is something which is created
Speaker 1: just to hold on to the rights. So that was
Speaker 1: a circumstance, which we've seen that with Spider Man movies
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, if you don't use your option
Speaker 1: to make another movie within a certain time, you lose
Speaker 1: the rights. And so with Porky's Four, that's what happened.
Speaker 1: And the writer wrote it in a few days, and
Speaker 1: they shot it in a few days, and it was
Speaker 1: released as Himp and Peewee, not even Porky's four. But now,
Speaker 1: if you watch go On, you know to be or
Speaker 1: whatever it's for Meatballs four is another interesting story because
Speaker 1: I didn't know there was and I reached out to
Speaker 1: the writer director just out of a sense of duty. Figure,
Speaker 1: if I'm doing all these fourth movies, I should do
Speaker 1: Meatballs because I see it exists. But he told me
Speaker 1: this really sad story about jack nance from a raserhead
Speaker 1: and him finding out a loved one of his died
Speaker 1: and the tragedy that snowballed after that. But he also
Speaker 1: told me a story saying that he didn't start Meatballs
Speaker 1: four as the fourth meat Balls film. He told me
Speaker 1: a story where he was in the middle of production
Speaker 1: of another film called Happy Campers, and one day the
Speaker 1: producer showed up and said, by the way, this is
Speaker 1: now Meatballs four. Funny as one finds out what is
Speaker 1: working on the Bull's four when one didn't realize it
Speaker 1: the whole time.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that has happened a lot where things of
Speaker 2: I remember Hackers Too was not Hackers Too. That was
Speaker 2: a whole different thing, cyber track, I think they called
Speaker 2: it at one point. I'm sure that when it comes
Speaker 2: to the fourth film, there are a lot of those
Speaker 2: stories where it's yeah, and now we've retitled I think
Speaker 2: House four if you remember the William cat film. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think like the fourth one is an imported Italian
Speaker 2: film that they've slapped the House four label onto.
Speaker 1: And then with Rocky four. I've always been fascinated with
Speaker 1: Rocky four because it's the most successful one in the series,
Speaker 1: but it's totally different from everything else. It doesn't fit in.
Speaker 1: And then during COVID, stallone went back and re edited
Speaker 1: four so that it was more totally closer to the
Speaker 1: rest of the series, and I thought this was a
Speaker 1: great idea in theory. So he took out some of
Speaker 1: the cheesy stuff he still kept in like the thirty
Speaker 1: minutes of montages. There's a lot of montages, but he
Speaker 1: took out some of the joker stuff, he got rid
Speaker 1: of the robot, and made it totally closer to the
Speaker 1: rest of the series. However, in doing so, he somehow
Speaker 1: took away all the fun of what makes Rocky such
Speaker 1: a cheesy, over the top Americana extravaganza or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: So I thought it was a great idea, but it
Speaker 1: was an example of how you could take away scenes,
Speaker 1: but the essence of what there was denied, and it
Speaker 1: was not as successful even though it doesn't work with
Speaker 1: the rest of the series. Obviously, I want people to
Speaker 1: buy the book, but can you share some stories with
Speaker 1: me as far as maybe some of the strangest fourth films?
Speaker 1: The Meatballs one has got to be one of those. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some other. Really. Oh, let me just
Speaker 1: briefly say, Joel Schumacher spoke to me about bat Batman
Speaker 1: and Robin.
Speaker 2: Good. Wasn't he nice? He was?
Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh, So this Joel Schumacher doesn't need to
Speaker 1: talk to me about Batman and Robin. There's no what
Speaker 1: good does that do him?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: All he's been is beating over to the calls for
Speaker 1: Batman and Robin. There's no reason for him, ducmy, Yet
Speaker 1: we had this really sprawling conversation about Batman three and
Speaker 1: four and about what sort of didn't work as well
Speaker 1: in four that didn't three, because it's interesting it's the
Speaker 1: same creative team in both movies. It's it's the same director,
Speaker 1: it's the same writer, it's the same costumes, music, cinematographer, cinematographers,
Speaker 1: it's the same world. It's the same team doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. Yet three is generally well regarded and fourth
Speaker 1: is not so what happens to an artist when they
Speaker 1: have the same goods but just fall short. And with him,
Speaker 1: I said, each character, like on paper, they each have
Speaker 1: their own arc, they each have their own story, they
Speaker 1: each have something to do, which seems like it would
Speaker 1: be a great idea. And then he paused and he said,
Speaker 1: and he whispered this, maybe it was too much, And
Speaker 1: it was like where we were just having a discussion
Speaker 1: and he had a little realization about one of the
Speaker 1: elements that didn't quite work in that maybe it was overstuffed.
Speaker 1: And also totally it was very different than three. Three
Speaker 1: still had its foot in the Timberton camp, but by
Speaker 1: the time we get to four, it's a different kind
Speaker 1: of camp.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, so yeah, I loved Joel Schumacher. Again
Speaker 2: he didn't have to talk to me about falling down,
Speaker 2: but right so at that time and was so generous
Speaker 2: with this time and so nice. I just couldn't get
Speaker 2: over how sweet that guy was. Yeah, we really lost
Speaker 2: somebody special with that one. Who were some of the
Speaker 2: other folks that you track down for.
Speaker 1: This spoke to a key creative figure from Superman four,
Speaker 1: Batman for James Bond four, Diehard for Rocky for Highlander,
Speaker 1: for Planet of the Apes, for Star Wars four, Star
Speaker 1: Trek four, Spider Man fur and the writer for what
Speaker 1: could have been Godfather for but wasn't. So Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the funny thing about when you write a book like this,
Speaker 1: where at least for me, you want to and you do.
Speaker 1: This is the same where you want a key creative
Speaker 1: figure to explore that movie, and you make a rule
Speaker 1: of yourself. If you don't get that key creative figure,
Speaker 1: you can wait some other time to explore that movie.
Speaker 1: But I got all the big movies that I wanted.
Speaker 2: We were talking about how sometimes the fourth one is
Speaker 2: the best chapter. Now I would be hard pressed between
Speaker 2: the original Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet
Speaker 2: of the Apes, and Conquest, but Conquest is so frickin good,
Speaker 2: Oh my God, and another one that was marred when
Speaker 2: it really came out with that ending.
Speaker 1: Yet they try to use the fourth originally film to
Speaker 1: end the series, and then it was just so popular
Speaker 1: that they said We're going to do it another one. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I know that goes against everything we just did, But
Speaker 1: we like making movies and we.
Speaker 2: Like making money, even tracking down some of these as
Speaker 2: far as Meatballs four probably wasn't the easiest film, Thank
Speaker 2: goodness for two b For some of these, yeah, exactly tafically,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, tracking down both the filmmakers and the films.
Speaker 2: I wrote a book on which we discussed last time,
Speaker 2: called How to Be a Superhero, in which I interviewed
Speaker 2: thirty five actors who played superheroes over seven decades. And
Speaker 2: that book because it took so long to track them down,
Speaker 2: It really took ten years to write. That was a
Speaker 2: terrible idea of my part. Don't take ten years to
Speaker 2: write a book.
Speaker 1: So this time I gave myself a two or three
Speaker 1: year timeframe to get it. And that's fun for me,
Speaker 1: is tracking down the filmmakers of the films, and some
Speaker 1: of them, like die Hard or Highlander for it, you
Speaker 1: could find fairly ease.
Speaker 2: Was this your pandemic project? It sounds like it, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: You know what? Big Or Judd wrote this book on
Speaker 1: comedy actors during the pandemic. I think the Bond book,
Speaker 1: The Loss Avengers of James Bond was my pandemic. Okay,
Speaker 1: everything is much together, though, I find a sense of
Speaker 1: the pandemic.
Speaker 2: Do you remember when you wrote this or did you
Speaker 2: just wake up and it was on your computer.
Speaker 1: It was definitely over the last few years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, would you know partially still pandemic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're still in the.
Speaker 2: I love the attention to detail. I love the passion
Speaker 2: around this. Basically, you write books the way that I
Speaker 2: like the podcast. Like you said, whereas I have to
Speaker 2: talk with these people, I have to find these details.
Speaker 2: I got to track down these scripts and all of
Speaker 2: these different ideas. James Bond books are very much the
Speaker 2: same way too, where you're just like, I got to
Speaker 2: dig and dig, and there's really sometimes there's no basement.
Speaker 2: You just keep on digging for this stuff.
Speaker 1: And at some point you have to just say when, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is the problem because there's an infinite number of
Speaker 1: Part four us. How many is too many? How many
Speaker 1: actors playing superheroes does one need to talk to in
Speaker 1: Wild's life? Yeah, And so you need to pull the
Speaker 1: plug on it at a certain point. And sometimes it's
Speaker 1: just when you go, oh, let me put all these
Speaker 1: chapters together and you go, oh, my gosh, this is
Speaker 1: several hundred more pages that I anticipated. Oops.
Speaker 2: So what are you working on now? I'm so curious.
Speaker 1: I have another book coming out which I think is
Speaker 1: going to come out by the time this comes out.
Speaker 1: I've been working on two other books, one both about
Speaker 1: James Bond, and they're both about the Continuation novels. Is
Speaker 1: anyone listening to this nos Continuation James Bond Continuation Novels
Speaker 1: a novel written after Infleming passed away. They've been going
Speaker 1: on the sixties till today, and there's scores and scores
Speaker 1: of them. I wrote one book called James Bond After
Speaker 1: Fleming the Continuation Novels, where it's a follow up book
Speaker 1: called Keeping Seven Alive Conversations with James Bond Continuation Authors,
Speaker 1: and what that is is interviews with every single living
Speaker 1: James Bond author, asking them the kind of questions of
Speaker 1: how do you write it, what's it like working with
Speaker 1: the infloment publications and things of that nature, trying to
Speaker 1: understand again the business side versus the creative side of
Speaker 1: creative creating something. And I guess that's what all these
Speaker 1: books are about. It's the movies Go Forth is about
Speaker 1: the clash between art and commerce and art what artists
Speaker 1: want with the project and what the studio wants with
Speaker 1: the project, and when you're dealing with the studio film.
Speaker 1: You don't own Superman, you don't own that Man. You
Speaker 1: surely don't own Rocky. Well, you could say you that's
Speaker 1: a bigger question who owns Rocky, which we'll say for
Speaker 1: another time. But these are studio assets, and what film
Speaker 1: gets made when and whether Schwarzenegger's in Terminator for or
Speaker 1: not is based on contracts. It's based on what the
Speaker 1: studio thinks that the market demands are. And that's true
Speaker 1: with these franchise properties. These are much bigger than any filmmaker,
Speaker 1: and there's generally a rule that you have to return
Speaker 1: the toy to the toy chest the same way you
Speaker 1: found it. Occasionally you'll find you'll be in an environment
Speaker 1: where you have more creative agency than other times. But
Speaker 1: you don't own these properties as a general rule, although
Speaker 1: I did interview the Hatchet Crowley guy for the Horror
Speaker 1: series and he doesn't own it. But those are again
Speaker 1: his characters, so it's interesting their sense of proprieed ownership
Speaker 1: of it versus with the studio things, and that's where.
Speaker 2: The conflict is. I forgot that during the pandemic we
Speaker 2: had at least one fourth, which was the Matrix four,
Speaker 2: which I would consider a Legacy sequel, and then over
Speaker 2: the last few months we had ax LEF, which was
Speaker 2: the fourth over the Hills cop films. So yeah, fours
Speaker 2: are alive and well, I don't know if we'll get
Speaker 2: fives for either of those, but I think with axl
Speaker 2: F being as successful, I think a fifth is pretty natural.
Speaker 2: But I don't know if we're going to get a
Speaker 2: fifth Matrix, which I'm okay with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Fourth Matrix was a meta commentary on sequels
Speaker 1: and series and franchises, so that was fun to have
Speaker 1: that out. While I was writing these things, were saying,
Speaker 1: scream and you know, with these franchise sequels, they usually
Speaker 1: want to have the actor in the poster and in
Speaker 1: some key scenes and then give the series to another
Speaker 1: actor who is younger and you pay less money too,
Speaker 1: and that's where you get Highlander. And that's always Now
Speaker 1: we're going to go back to Sydney and scream. How
Speaker 1: far can you get away from what is the essential
Speaker 1: nature of the series? Is it the individual actor? You
Speaker 1: can't have a Dirty Harry film without Dirty Harry. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I really dug about interviewing the
Speaker 1: guy who wrote Dirty Harry. From addition to learning how
Speaker 1: he came up with these lines go ahead and make
Speaker 1: my day. But he wrote a sixth Dirty Harry film
Speaker 1: that Eastwood hoped to make one day and clearly isn't.
Speaker 1: But he wrote the Once Upon in Once Upon a
Speaker 1: Time in the West esque Dirty Harry film, which is
Speaker 1: the Dirty Harry film to end all Dirty Harry films
Speaker 1: about the system and all crumbling and wrapping up that story.
Speaker 1: That's one thing that like, Ah, that sounds cool, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's a series that these days, in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's nearly as much love as it
Speaker 1: used to.
Speaker 2: And some of those movies are just spectacular.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. Oh, when we're talking about this, you
Speaker 1: think about what characters are better suited to sequels, and
Speaker 1: Dirty Harry is well suited to SEQL because he's a cop.
Speaker 1: He could always catch another case, a spy could always
Speaker 1: go on another mission. So I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that some of those movies are pretty good,
Speaker 1: is because it's a natural progression of that character.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those single one and done type things. Rather than
Speaker 2: to your point from earlier, too mission impossible. Each one
Speaker 2: is a mission. So we're off to the racist but
Speaker 2: when you come to your Star Wars films, it's okay, Well,
Speaker 2: now we are telling another epic story. So how are
Speaker 2: we going to do this? We now need to come
Speaker 2: up with three films, and judging from the last trilogy,
Speaker 2: I don't think they ever mapped it out because they
Speaker 2: were all so unevent.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what is after watching all of these fourths,
Speaker 2: what are some of your favorites now?
Speaker 1: I still like the Big Ones. I still like James
Speaker 1: Bond and Batman, Zuperman, Jaws, Rocky Islander has its charms,
Speaker 1: Planet of the Apes, but I now have a greater
Speaker 1: affection for those that like me Balls for where I
Speaker 1: never heard of but were really important to the people
Speaker 1: who are making them and how to work under difficult circumstances. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's got to be so different for one like that,
Speaker 1: where they don't start off as a Meatballs film versus
Speaker 1: something like even the Police Academy films where it's like
Speaker 1: the same people, with maybe the exception of Steve Gutenberg,
Speaker 1: with so many of the cast and the creatives coming
Speaker 1: back together must have been like a family for some
Speaker 1: of these folks. The first Police Academy I think would
Speaker 1: be better remembered if we didn't get to mission to Moscow,
Speaker 1: or if we didn't get to ten or whatever they
Speaker 1: got to. I think sometimes and do you see less
Speaker 1: movie comedy sequels get to these big numbers. Pink Panther did.
Speaker 1: And I think that's in part because the when you
Speaker 1: get to the second airplane, it's literally the same jokes,
Speaker 1: and it holds up because the jokes are funny, and
Speaker 1: the cast is there and Shatner is beeping and blinking.
Speaker 1: But you could only go so far before the element
Speaker 1: of surprise in a comedy is just completely gone. Mark.
Speaker 2: I look forward to your next book or books, since
Speaker 2: you are always writing. I now need to go back
Speaker 2: and check out some of these other James Bond books
Speaker 2: that I've missed, so I will be downloading those via
Speaker 2: Kindle or buying a paperback from my local independent bookstore.
Speaker 2: So is there a good place for people to keep
Speaker 2: up with you in your work online?
Speaker 1: I'm on the Twitter or x under Mark Edlins. These
Speaker 1: books take me a long time to write. I do
Speaker 1: them by myself, and I'm very grateful if anybody has
Speaker 1: the opportunity to check them out and read them. I
Speaker 1: don't take it for granted, and so I thank you
Speaker 1: and anyone who has gotten this far to listen and
Speaker 1: I hope to check it out.
Speaker 2: Mark, thank you again, and I look forward to talking
Speaker 2: to you next time.
Speaker 1: My pleasure and thank you do. That's that.
Speaker 2: Then, about that boat that bo