Question:
Can we get you to put the studio mogul hat on for a moment?

Joe:
I’ll put whatever hat you like on. Studio mogul, soccer coach…

Question:
We’ll sure, but we’re intrigued by your perspective on Disney/Pixar, you know having been part of both companies, do you think that all these stories being written about Pixar is going to save Disney?

Joe:

Well, I’m on the Pixar board. I was at Disney before Toystory came out so I’ve been with them right from the beginning and the day I left Disney, I joined the Pixar board. So obviously I’ve been, on the Pixar board there’s only 6 of us, and I think that what will happen is that Pixar will totally infuse Disney with its own stuff an if Disney can’t make movies up to the quality of Pixar they’ll have to stop. So I think Ed Cabenal and Jon Lassiter, who we would be thinking about in terms of Steven Spielberg frankly if h was working on live action. And they’ll have to learn the Pixar Team Effort and I think the Pixar will not dominate, I think in terms of animation if you want to hear it from a studio, it’s like a reverse merger.

Pixar will continue doing what they’re doing and Disney will have to, I wouldn’t be surprised somewhere 5 years down the line that there will be 2 pictures a year. One will be a Pixar original movie and the other a Pixar sequel. Cuz again, they’ve made 7 movies, Cars being the 7th. And there’s no reason to think that they couldn’t make sequels of their own. And by the way, I think that pace is yielded by itself. The fact that these guys are doing the sequels, if they would to monsters, Incredibles, Toystory, Nemo and things like that.

Question:
On a studio Mogul, how hard is it to make a decision to spend months and months of your life outside of that job to director a movie?

Joe:
I don’t take months and months. What happens is I run the studio everyday. And then I’m always reading scripts. And every so often I read a script that really compels me to do a picture. Once I read a script and say, “Oh this is something that I really want to do” then I step back and say, “ok, now how can I do that?”, or “when can I do that?” So I make sure that we’re not that active in terms of making films at that time. It’s ok for us to be releasing films at that time because what I do is shoot a film 5 days a week, and we have staff meetings on the weekends, and they send me all the marketing materials on all the movies that we have to have come out.

Question:
So what was it about this book or this script and this story that compelled you to want to make and direct this film?

Joe:
Well, I’ve known Richard since he was 23, I’ve known Richard since the very beginning, Richard Price. And I’ve read all his books, he actually wrote the screen play to Streets of Gold, the first movie that I directed 20 years ago. And I loved the book when I read it, although I must say it’s more like a mini series. I didn’t really see it as a movie because it was so dense, and I think it was 700 pages long. And then I read the script- last October probably, last September and I thought he’d done a great job adapting it. And so I liked it for like 10 different reasons, which you only analyze when you go back, but I love the story, I like the mystery thriller aspect story of it. And like all the other undertone stories about social relevance and racism, not just in America. And even larger issues than racism, which is poverty and classism and the notion in my mind that lack of civility is one lie away.

Question:
Is it just coincidence that you’ve done a lot of comedies or have there been a sort of evolution towards material like this one?

Joe:
You know, you just kind of go with whatever feels right at the time. I know that sounds silly but it’s true. I like comedies, it’s fun to do them, not so much on the set, but it’s fun to make them and go out there and show them and have people laugh at your stuff-or not. And they’re commercially, everyone likes to go to a good comedy. I just felt I was ready to take on a meatier subject.

Question:
There was a day where there was a protest and the extras just walked off the set because there was too much smoke. Can you talk about how that impacted the day and how it was resolved?

Joe:
Yeah, um we were shooting the riot sequence in Mulford Gardens and the Screen Enactors Bill representative of New York, was extremely aggressive, and said that, incorrectly told a group of extras, 15 or so of the 300 extras, that they weren’t being paid for smoke day. And the rule actually states if it was in an enclosed area and we were outside in a big wide area so they were up at the feeding station and they didn’t want to come down. It was about 2:00 in the morning. And cold and 250 other people were waiting. And I said “Well where are the extras?” and they finally told me the story. They told them what the law was. And I said “you know what, just pay them, get the guy off the set and let’s get back to work. So it held us up for about 15 minutes.

Question:
You know we’re getting so many films now that are full of stillness. I think like Brokeback Mountain, there may be pages and pages where there are maybe 2 words, and here you have pages and pages where…

Joe:
That was another thing that attracted me. You know I love the movies and I’m not comparing myself, but I like Kazan and the early movies of Sidney Lumet, and I like social dramas. And so what was interesting about this script to me was the first hour of it was very visual and kinetic where you have to set everything up but to reveal itself is done in words. And words are precious, he’s a really good writer and these are really good actors so rather than cutting back and fourth between people and things like that or cutting away to a point where I felt we should stage what it is Julianne is telling us. And then I watched her do it. And I thought there’s not going to be anything better than the words she’s saying and the way she’s acting, and I like that very much. And when Edie Falco is breaking Julianne down on that bench out there, you know it’s like a magic act. And then she’s talking about herself and all of a sudden she’s talking about her, and you can’t quite figure out how she made that transition. If you cut away at anytime, I think you would have lost it.

Question:
You talked about how you choose to direct a project, what makes you want to be a film director in addition to guiding films through production and the studio?

Joe:
I don’t know, I get bored doing one thing. You know there are different brain functions. You know the studio boss function is very external, analytical, math related situation where you’re kind of pondering what you like and the financial risk. Directing is trying to figure out what hand Sam Jackson should have the salt shaker in. So it’s a very different function so it’s enjoyable to me.

Question:
Is it tougher running a studio in terms trying to decide which films are the right films for you as the head of “Revolution” to make?

Joe:
yeah, it is. It gets tougher and tougher. First of all, we’re not Warner Brothers, we’re Revolution. So we don’t have a stockpile of 500 scripts compiled over the last 10-15 years. And we don’t have Batman or Superman or things like that so you actually have to come up with original notions every single time and that makes it more difficult too.

Question:
This strikes me as a terrific example of what I’ve described as a Tweener film because of the fact that it’s not a huge budget but it’s also not a million dollar independent film. Why is it tougher to get those Tweener films made?

Joe:
Because the economics of them are tougher. If we had made this as a studio film in terms of the salaries of the actors and all the rest of it, it would have cost 50-60 million dollars. And we made it for 32 million dollars. So for me to do that in terms of the deals we had with our partners, it had a very low threshold to break even. So it allowed me to have confidence and not compromise and come up with a Hollywood ending or turn it in a certain way. These movies are tough because it costs just as much to advertise this movie as it does Batman. And so it’s not just the cost of the movie, it’s how much money you have to spend to advertise it.

Question:
Now what is the challenge of marketing?

Joe:
Well the challenge of marketing I think is not that hard. It’s like every other movie. What you do is you take the elements of visual and emotion and that’s what you sell. And so it is a genre film, it is a thriller, it is a mystery, you sell the heartbeat of it. And I think you do that with any film.

Question:
Did you have Sam Jackson in mind from the first time you read the script?

Joe:
Yes, actually I don’t think I would have done it if I hadn’t been able to get him. Julianne was already attached to the script when I read it and I’d just done forgotten with her, and I’d done a couple other movies with her so for me the thing was who’s going to play that guy? And Sam was the epitome to me of that character, which is this kind of strong character, charismatic, street guy- met the person who he was based on, Calvin Hart, head of Jersey City Homicide. But what Sam also has is the ability, when the script calls for it, or in Time to Kill, Pulp Fiction or Jungle Fever, that he can be vulnerable and give you another side. So it’s important to have somebody good at both ends.

Question:
From the films that remain in Revolutions plate, are you expecting to direct any of them?

Joe:
No, they’re 12 other movies coming out and they’ve all been put together. 6 of them coming out this year, 6 of them coming out next year, and there are directors on all of them.

Question:
Is there any one of those that you’re particularly excited about?

Joe:
Yeah I’m excited about a number of them for different reasons. I mean the Wayans Brothers who did White Chicks for us are doing this movie Little Man which is coming out memorial day which I think it’s going to be really funny and successful. Adam Sandler’s movie Click in June which I think is going to be his biggest film, much more like Bruce Almighty, it’s a broader film for him. In the fall, in November, we have Julie Taymor’s movie, she’s the director of Lion King on Broadway and Frieda. And what I did was, for the first time we were able to license the Beatles catalogue, so we’ve got 30 Beatles songs and we’ve written an original screenplay and doing an original musical for the theaters. It’s tentatively titled Across the Universe and Bono sings a song in it, and Joe Cocker sings a song in it and the cast sings the rest of the songs. So that’s very exciting. Actually, while I’m here in town I’m going to look for about an hour at the footage that she’s done. And then I’m excited, although I can’t get anybody else excited, I’m excited about Rocky cuz I read that script and I thought it was great. And I thought it was very much like Rocky I, and Stallone is playing his age and playing the loser that he was in the first picture.

Question:
Why do you think people aren’t excited about it?

Joe:
Well, cuz the last couple of versions of it were lousy. And I think what happens is that sequels in general, as you get up to numbers 3, 4 and 5, you run out of ideas so you just make them bigger and glitzier. And the good news about this script is it’s a simple comeback story as the first picture was. So I’m excited about that.

Question:
Is that what they tried to do with the 5th one too?

Joe:
I don’t’ know I wasn’t involved in the 5th one, I didn’t see the 5th one. I read this one, I felt that this one kind of mirrored the place Stallone is at in his career. And I think that we are forgiving people and I think that his comeback story works on two levels-one as Rocky and one as Stallone.

Question:
You also have Wes Anderson doing an Animation.

Joe:
Wes Anderson, yeah. So Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach we just got nominated for Squid and the Whale wrote Fantastic Mr. Fox, and he’s in Paris now and been working for a while on an animated film for us, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and also next year, we’re shooting Perfect Strangers, which we’re shooting right now, which is a thriller with Halle Barry and Bruce Willis. And the last movie of the slate for next year is a family film called The Water Horse, written by the man who wrote Babe and it’s being produced by Walden, the people who did Narnia. And that’s pretty great. We go shoot in New Zealand starting in May.

Question:
Who’s cast in it?

Joe:
No one is cast in it yet. Jay Russell who did Tuck Everlasting, My Dog Skip and Ladder 49, is going to be a 12 year old boy and a British actress. And its’ a fantasy film. Sort of a retelling, from a child’s point of view, of the Lockness Monster story.

Question:
You’re going to go out to New Zealand to do some shooting?

Joe:
Yes, we will spend 2 months in New Zealand and a couple weeks in Scotland.

Question:
Back to the Beatles catalogue, I’m interested. How did you obtain the rights, how expensive was it and who got the rights to the Beatles catalog?

Joe:
The Beatles catalogue is owned by 2 parties equally, Sony and Michael Jackson. And so we distribute our films through Sony and I went to them with the idea, so they were OK, and then we worked long and hard at a time when I think Michael Jackson was probably somewhat vulnerable, and we got the rights, basically a license for any 30 songs in the catalogue and you know, it’s 5 million dollars, is what the number is. The fact of the matter is it’s all the music in the film. And you know if you do music with a big composer and a big symphony and stuff like that, you know your budget is gong to be 2.5 million dollars. So for a movie driven by that catalogue and probably sold based on all those songs, it’s not so terrible. It becomes the star of the film essentially. You’re paying for a star in the film.

Question:
Any feedback from Paul McCartney and Ringo?

Joe:
Well, yeah, yeah. The feedback is they made a bad deal many, many years ago where they sold their publishing so they’re not happy, I shouldn’t say they. The lawyers for Apple and not happy for any exploitation of the Beatles’ music. And you know, I’m sympathetic on one hand but on the other hand, that’s the deal they made a long time ago. It’s a wonderful script and by the way, in the movie the Beatles don’t exist, so we’re not exploiting the Beatles, it’s a period like Forrest Gump, from 63 to 69, it’s a love story of a boy from Liverpool and a girl from New York. And the plot is driven by those songs.

Question:
It seems kind of interesting to me, especially in this day of Broadway shows that are written around musical catalogues, that there’s now this movie. I mean I know they tried to do Lennon, which didn’t quite work out, I mean especially with Julie Taymor behind it, do you think this is something that has potential to maybe go in the reverse direction.

Joe:
I hope so, I think I probably got the order wrong. But be that as it may, I hope that it’s a successful in its incarnation and if it is, we would absolutely flip it back to Broadway.

Question:
Is there any hope for the “XXX” (Triple X) franchise?

Joe:
Uh, No. I don’t think so.

Question:
What happened?

Joe:
I think what happened is I made a big mistake. I felt like Vin Diesel’s representatives were more unruly than usual and I just didn’t want to pay the price, and I felt the whole thing was… I guess I just believed more in the franchise than I did in the actor in a franchise and I broke my own Cardinal rule which is if you’re going to do a sequel, keep all of the elements together. I don’t know how many times I’ve told that to film makers, and I just felt like the movie was going to be way too expensive with Vin and it just felt like it was going to explode into something that was going to be a nightmare. So I chose to go a different way and it didn’t work.

Question:
So no third attempt with someone like The Rock.

Joe:
Could he do that?

Question:
I think so.

Joe:
Yeah, he probably could. You know when you get burned on a picture like that, it kind of takes a while to get back to it, so you feel like “Oh yeah, I don’t wanna have that happen again”.

Question:
Well Rob had an idea for a woman. Wouldn’t that revitalize it?

Joe:
Yes, but the history, excuse me for saying this, but the history of women driving action pictures is not a good one.

Question:
Killbill?

Joe:
I don’t know. I would keep Quentin Tarantino out of any formula myself.

Question:
It’s interesting to hear you say what you just said a moment ago about making a mistake because it’s so rare for us, at least in a public forum, to hear someone in your position…

Joe:
Is this public? Laughter

Question:
What sort of post mortem do you do? I mean I realize you have other projects…

Joe:
No, no. If you’re me, you do heavy duty post mortem to try not to make that same mistake again. And then you’ll make another mistake and do another post mortem and you try not to make that mistake again. And sometimes, you don’t make a mistake and things just don’t work out right and sometimes things happen and they just get bigger in the picture themselves and you just get stuck. And you know I think that the results of film making is very much like playing baseball at Candlestick Park. You get up to bat, you hit the ball and then the ball goes up into the wind and either you think you hit a homerun and the shortstop catches it cuz the wind’s blowing in, or you think you’ve hit a little pop fly and it gets out of the park. So, you know I can tell you when we made 6th Sense, or Home Alone, or Toy Story, or any of these movies, “XXX” or whatever that busted through, you don’t know you’re busting through. You know just know “Oh look, that seems to work well.” That’s a good thing. And then it just takes on a life of its own at a certain point. And it happens negatively as well. There’s very little middle ground in movie making. A person much smarter than I, 20 years ago, George Lucas, said to me, oh, it wasn’t 20 years ago, it was 1989, as I was up visiting him because we had the Fox Franchise and I was working at Fox, he said “Boy, you’ve got a big hit movie coming out.” I said, “Which one, tell me.” He said, Home Alone. I said “Well, how did that happen?” He said “Well, I saw the trailer in a theater and I can tell it’s going to be a big hit.” I said, “Well how could you tell?” He said, “The movie business is binary. It’s either on or off. And if the lights on, you can’t get it off. If the light’s off, there’s nothing you can go to get it on.” So that’s all well and good. The fact that you don’t’ know about that light until after you make that film, and it seems to be true. You know we’ve all seen movies that are pretty good that have gotten incredible business and we’ve all seen movies that are pretty good that haven’t done any business at all. There’s something about it that the audience either responds to or doesn’t respond to.

Question:
Where does Rent come into that because I…

Joe:
Well, Rent is a case of the light was off and thought that Chris did a terrific job, I saw that movie 20 times with audiences, and audiences always responded to the film, and they were predetermined not to want to go. And I don’t know what their real reasons are but I can tell you that’s clearly what happened because if you took the nonsense of exit poles and all the rest of that stuff and how people felt about the picture, you’d say oh this movie was going to do 150 million dollars in business and it did 30. So whenever you’re dealing with a property that has a previous life, whether it’s a look or a song or another movie or a remake or a play, you’re in a world where you can’t control people’s expectations. The real big giant hits have come from original ideas from people’s development and they just hit the public’s fancy a certain way and just travel on. I was with someone at Disney the other day, who will remain nameless at the top of the food chain, who said “Can you believe Narnia is going to be 725 million dollars??” and it’s just one of these things that hits people the right way.

Question:
Has the booming DVD business been the saving grace for films that may not open as well in the box office?

Joe:
Uh, yes it has. 40% of the revenue you can expect on a movie now comes from the DVD business. What it does is it cuts your loss. It doesn’t turn a failure into a success, but it takes a lot of the pain away.

Question:
I know you’re getting rescued but I asked you about Pixar in the beginning. One of the things I know in talking to people like John Lassiter, the value, the separation, the fact that they stay up North

Joe:
They will be separate

Question:
They will be separate? But you won’t be able to prevent a little co-mingling

Joe:
Yes, you will. It’s like, the German’s don’t spend the summer in France do they? No, they have their own world up there. They have their own business and their own company, and I would say it’s more likely that they would burn the buildings down at Disney than lose what’s unique about their place.