Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
If you don't know his name, you should. If you've been to a horror convention in the last 10 years, you may have seen his extremely fun Full Moon Road Show. Charles Band has been responsible, as either a producer or director (often both), for some really insane films since the 1970s, most famously as founder of Empire Pictures or his current New Moon Pictures. And this Saturday in Chicago, Band and a few very special guests are bringing a handful of movies to the legendary Portage Theatre (4050 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago).
The centerpiece film of the all-day event is the world premiere of the Band-directed EVIL BONG 3-D: WRATH OF BONG, presented both in 3-D and Sniff-O-Rama (yes, glasses and scratch-and-sniff cards will be provided). Band and star Robin Sydney will introduce the film, and Band will also perform his Full Moon Road Show just before the premiere.
The film festival will also feature 35mm screenings of director Stuart Gordon’s RE-ANIMATOR (1985), FROM BEYOND (1986), and the first-ever 35mm screening of Gordon’s “CASTLE FREAK” (1995), all three of which Band produced. In a rare festival appearance, the star of all three films, Barbara Crampton, will join Chicago's own Stuart Gordon on stage to introduce the films and do post-screening Q&As. I'll be emceeing the day's events and moderating the Q&As, and I expect this to be an incredibly fun and freaky day. Full details and schedule can be found at the Flashback Weekend website.
Doors open at 2pm, with FROM BEYOND starting at 3pm, followed by CASTLE FREAK at 5:30pm, the Full Moon Road Show at 8pm, EVIL BONG 3-D at 8:30pm, and closing out at 10:30pm with THE RE-ANIMATOR. I believe the ticket price for the full day is $25, but if you just want to come for EVIL BONG 3-D and THE RE-ANIMATOR, there's a reduced price. Tickets will be available at the door.
For those of you wanting a shot at seeing EVIL BONG 3-D in a theater near year, the roadshow continues from Chicago this Saturday to:
Tempe, AZ's Madcap Theaters, April 16
Dallas, TX's Inwood Theater, April 20
Atlanta, GA's Plaza Theater, April 22
Madison, WI's Orpheum Theater, April 23
Portland, OR's Hollywood Theater, April 30
New Jersey's The Forum Arts Center, May 14
Now, onto Charles Band, as the head of Empire Pictures band was a staple of horror, sci-fi, and the occasional family family throughout the 1980s, with such works as TOURIST TRAP, PARASITE (also in 3-D), METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN (3-D), GHOULIES, TRANCERS, TROLL (weirdly enough, featuring a young boy character named Harry Potter), TERRORVISION, DOLLS, and a slew of films with Stuart Gordon, including THE RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND, ROBOT JOX, and THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM. Band also was a pioneer in direct-to-video films, including the wildly popular PUPPETMASTER series. I've barely scratched the surface of Band's expansive career, but his films have launched the careers of many of Hollywood actor, and the comparisons to the likes of Lloyd Kaufman and Roger Corman (as a jumping-off point from many talented actors and filmmakers) are not unfounded.
He's also a great showman and a fun interview, and an event like this one is right up his alley. Plus, the Portage Theatre is one of the last remaining great old movie palaces left in Chicago, and you should check it out. I got a chance to chat with Band earlier in the week, and we covered a little bit of everything concerning him as an artist and as a businessman. Hope you like it and hope to see you Saturday…
Charles Band: Steve?
Capone: Yes.
CB: Hey, it’s Charlie. How are you?
Capone: Good to hear from you. (Laughs)
CB: Yeah, well thank you.
Capone: I think we have probably met at some point over the last few years.
CB: You know, I’ve been wracking my brain, and it’s very possible.
Capone: Well, you are given a lot of the Flashback Weekends events, and actually you were at the Famous Monsters convention last year, and I'm pretty sure Harry introduced us.
CB: Yeah, I was there last year. Where do you live, though?
Capone: I’m in Chicago.
CB: Oh, that is great, because this show is going to be crazy.
Capone: I think so.
CB: This is like distilled madness over so many years, and it’s a combination of some of the more well-known films and all of the celebrities and insane new merchandise we’ve created and the road show and then of course EVIL BONG 3-D. [Laughs] It’s a 3-D and scratch-and-sniff cards and it’s about as out there as it gets. So, I’m just excited to sit in that great old movie palace.
Capone: I can honestly say even though it’s basically a straight line down from where I live, many miles away, I’ve never been to that theater before.
CB: No way. Well you know, I’m a huge fan of William Castle, and not a lot of people in this current generation know who he was, but you know he's Mr. Gimmick with THE TINGLER. All of his films premiered there, and, in many cases, were tested there, and it’s one of the few remaining true and recently restored movie palaces. It’s 1,200 seats, and a lot of people I don’t think have the experience of seeing more of an event, fun, interactive film with that many people. I’m not sure how old you are, so maybe I should only speak for myself [Laughs], unless you’re 25, it’s just today with the multiplexes, the biggest screens are usually 250 or 300 seats. So when you get 1,000 crazy people in the right mood in the theater, especially something like this--crazy escapism, 3-D, scratch and sniff, silliness, weed--it’s an experience. So, I’m excited for everything this Saturday. It’s going to be awesome.
Capone: It is. Let’s talk about these EVIL BONG movies. They still tap into the horror/sci-fi stuff that you are best known for, but you’re premiering it on what National Pot Day? You seem to have aligned yourself with a slightly different crowd.
CB: There’s no question. It’s definitely a comedy and it’s definitely different than a lot of the films I make. I think most of my films, hopefully, do have a decent dark sense of humor. That’s what I like to see in these shows, so over the years I’ve been known for that, but this is just pure silly fun. I don’t want to say this is PINEAPPLE EXPRESS. It’s hard to compare it to other films, because if there’s one that comes to mind, even though it’s a different theme entirely, it's ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. The idea of something that is just so out there and so interactive and fun. This series sort of came out of nowhere, the idea of an evil bong just sounded so fun, and I love a title that doesn’t even require like a log line, and EVIL BONG is one of those titles.
[Both Laugh]
Capone: That’s true.
CB: You get it, like “Oh cool, EVIL BONG.” So, the first one was with Tommy Chong, and the adventures are relatively similar. We have all of the same cast returning and then some new people who are wonderful. This is the third one, but the script was so funny and I thought, “You know, why don’t we tie it to some kind of event.” I’m not sure National Pot Day was the greatest idea, but there’s a sizable percentage of the country that smokes weed, and then I thought “Let’s make this into something more than sending it straight to video.”
Our direct-to-video business is pretty good, and we survived the difficult years, but I just wanted to do something theatrically. I released many films back in the '80s theatrically, back when it was much more independent. I thought, “You know, this picture just has all of the fun, so we will open it up with an abbreviated road show, and depending on the city maybe pull in some other films that I’ve made and some of the celebrities, but let’s see how an audience reacts with their glasses and their Sniff-o-Rama cards to just a fun interactive film,” and the buzz seems good. It’s very hard living for so many years in the direct-to-video, now direct-to-digital, world, to actually not even make a screener. There’s a promo of the first 22 minutes of the movie that we are just now sending out to the press, which is kind of fun, but I just didn’t want it to get out there [via bootleg]. Aside from the rip off factor, which is a bummer, I just didn’t want people to see it in a venue that it wasn’t intended for. So, if this goes well, Chicago is the first of seven cities we are doing this in through May, we'll just keep this on the road for months. There’s no reason not to.
Capone: Now is this your first journey back into 3-D since the PARASITE and METALSTORM days?
CB: It is, but I wouldn’t say I was a pioneer, because there were pioneers in the '50s, but I was pretty involved in that last wave, which petered out. 3-D historically, other than now, has become accepted with little quasi-hits and then faded away for 10 or 15 years. It’s just this strange history of 3-D. Today, I’m not even sure what it is, maybe just everyone’s desperation for something different and new and a way to charge people more money in the theaters. I have no idea what made this so different than the last time, and maybe just technology is part of it.
Capone: I think it may have something to do with the studios have found the kind of filmmaking that can’t be bootlegged yet.
CB: That’s also true. So who knows? I was there in the last wave and I made PARASITE with Demi Moore and METALSTORM, and making a 3D movie, putting aside the technology, is no different from movies made in the '50s. Now they were more gimmicky with stuff poking out at you, and we are absolutely on that track with EVIL BONG 3-D. [Laughs] Forget about AVATAR. This is not this “beautiful window of depth.” This is just fun stuff that will poke you in your face. This is back to the gimmicky roots of 3-D.
Capone: And shot in 3-D?
CB: Shot in 3-D, not some conversion, and I love doing something different, and not that this probably matters so much to people who are going to go see the movie, but I shot it in HD. I shot it in a way with two cameras where I could convert it to both the current system, because it will be out eventually in 3-D on BluRay, or whatever new network springs up that will eventually carry it, but the runs that we're doing, because we are going into old movie palaces that have not converted to digital, we are actually in anaglyph, the red and green. So, it’s almost a retro movie. although it works great, but this way a theater like The Portage that can’t show the current 3-D, and it works great, and it’s a lot of fun and it’s fun for this movie, because I wanted this to be very sort of '60s colorful, paisley look. This is not a dark, moody, horror film; this is a completely silly weed comedy.
So yeah it’s in anaglyph, and it’s funny in the last few months talking to people, whether it’s to some degree the press, but more theater owners and a lot of our good fans out there who have helped us spread the viral word how many people have no clue what “Sniff-o-Rama” or scratch and sniff are. I’ve had to explain this to probably nine out of ten people that I first talked to about this project. It’s just unbelievable an for people who have not experienced it in the theater with other people, it is gimmicky. The last movie that had any kind of release that it was attached to wasn’t a very good movie, at least that’s my humble opinion of POLYESTER. But it’s so fun, especially when 1,000 people are scratching an odor, and the odor permeates the room for a while too. It doesn’t disappear fast, especially if it’s not a pleasant one. So, the comedy you can get and the timing of that along with 3-D and a stoner comedy is like “Okay, this should be fun.”
Capone: I will admit somewhere pinned up on a billboard somewhere in my office here is my original Odorama card from POLYESTER. I don’t know if it works anymore.
CB: Hey, those smells last forever, and I’ll tell you why. I got a copy, because I wanted to refresh my memory some months ago… I was there. I was at the theater. I’ve seen a few movies in Odorama or scratch and sniff, and I said “Okay, let me just make sure I’m not fuzzy or hazy on my memory of how it works,” so I actually bought, I think it was on Amazon or eBay actually an old DVD, which was at least 10 years old at least that was the POLYESTER DVD and in there was the Odorama card. It was just as fresh and as strong as when you saw it in the movie. [Laughs] So it definitely keeps.
Capone: Growing up, my first exposure to the films that you either directed or produced was not the work of Stuart Gordon, but I think his films that you produced were the ones that I saw when I was more aware of the production angle of movies, and noticed those names.
CB: We did all of his first films here. We did seven movies starting with RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND, DOLLS, and ROBOT JOX, and we are screening three of them, so that’s pretty cool. It’s also cool that Barbara Crampton, who was the lead in all three, will be there. She doesn’t do the circuit. She’s not one of those people you can find at all of these different conventions. She’s happily married and has a great family, she has no need of money. I don’t know how to say that, but that’s kind of the way it is. I just called and said, “Barbara, this is going to be so unique. We’ve got three wonderful films, you’re the lead of all three, Stuart’s coming, it’s Chicago.” And she just decided somehow that I was very convincing, because she’s going to be there, and that’s going to be cool.
Capone: Tell me about teaming up with Stuart initially, because I love that the idea you two were so determined to bring H.P. Lovecraft to the masses, certainly it’s no easy task at the time or ever.
CB: Well, this was the '80s now and I was in my second or third year of a company called Empire, which really started because of the success of a film I made called GHOULIES, and we took it out theatrically--actually I’m going to tell a story about that in Chicago, so I don’t want to blow the story. But we were in our second or third year and we were doing well and we had a theatrical division with pictures that we were making at the time were released in anywhere from 100 to 1,000 theaters and we had a pretty good thing going on. I had purchased a studio in Italy, and we were just on this production roll. I made movies like TROLL and ELIMINATORS and others.
I was very involved with my dad [Albert Band], who was working for me then and he used to call it “reverse nepotism,” which was great and he’s a very talented filmmaker. I’m not sure if it was my father or my wife at the time but… It must have been my dad, but they had heard of this fellow and a producer that he had hooked up with, a guy named Brian Yuzna, and Brian and Stuart basically came knocking on Empire’s door saying, “Hey, we have this project, it’s Lovecraft, it’s called RE-ANIMATOR. Here’s the script. We’ve got the funding and from the beginning we want to hook up with a distributor, someone who knows how to get it out there and knows how to market it to give us some advice, even in production,” and it just made sense. Even though we were making at the time our own movies, this just made sense. It was the right genre. We certainly knew Stuart was wonderful with actors, which is really all that matters, because on the technical side, there are a million guys who can set shots up. It’s “How do you tell the story?” and “How do you deal with actors? Do you have any background in training?”, and his credentials were amazing.
So, we were shooting a few other movies at the same time, and Stuart started shooting RE-ANIMATOR, we made the deal. We had a release date. We were already playing around with some ideas for a campaign. But a few days into it, we looked at the first dailies material, and it looked not good. We thought “Oh man, this is a pretty odd movie,” but putting aside the spirit of the film and what it ultimately became, those first few days of photography were just not up to standard and didn’t have the quality. So, I basically said “You know guys, let me help. Let me find a way. It’s going to be painful.” It’s difficult getting rid of a DP on day 2 or 3, but you can’t go on and do something that’s just not going to be serviceable. So I went to Mac Ahlberg, who at the time was my ace Director of Photography, and by then had made 15 movies for me and for Empire. We had just made TRANCERS with Tim Thomerson and Helen Hunt, and I said, “You know Mac, there’s a project. We are in distribution on this with a very talented director, could you please drop everything you are doing and jump in and take over?” He agreed and in doing so we also brought some of the other more reliable crew members that we were working with at the time, and then Stuart continued shooting and shooting and shooting and then we saw an assembly. [Laughs]
There are many stories that go on, too long for this interview, but we saw an assembly and even though there were really brilliant pockets and moments, the picture, which was way long--and I still have this VHS--back in the day, we just really didn’t know what it was. Was it a straight-up horror movie? Was it a black comedy? It needed 20 or 30 minutes cut out of it to shape it into something that made more sense, because it was sort of all over the place, you didn’t know what you were watching. To my father’s credit, who is no longer with us, he worked with Stuart and Brian and shape shifted it to the cut that then became the picture that we released theatrically first in, I think, 300 or 400 theaters in the mid-80s. It was never very successful theatrically, but it was huge in video at the time, and we then developed a great relationship with Stuart and made six movies pretty much in a row. We made right after that FROM BEYOND, which we are also screening, and then DOLLS, and then a very ambitious--many years before TRANSFORMERS--robot movie called ROBOT JOX.
Capone: Oh yeah.
CB: And years later CASTLE FREAK, which is one of my favorite Full Moon films, also again with Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton.
Capone: And that’s screening as well. Is it true this is the first time it will play theatrically?
CB: Yeah. CASTLE FREAK, it’s my one and only print. It was released on video, but few people have seen any of these movies in 35mm, but CASTLE FREAK has never screened in 35mm.
Capone: I think I might be looking forward to that more than anything. I’m going to sit through the whole day, so I’m very excited.
CB: Oh my God, you're a trooper. It’ll be fun, and then of course it’s so in congress to these dark, clever, very unique horror films, is this completely silly, funny 3-D, Sniff-o-Rama movie. It will be a good pallet cleanser probably, if nothing else.
Capone: Yeah. You said before you weren't sure if you were a pioneer in the 3-D arena, but you are definitely one in the direct-to-video market. And you mentioned that there have been some hard years, especially in the last 10 years or so. How have you had to adapt and work through that?
CB: Well, man, it’s difficult, because this is a business and unlike people who can go out and raise money from family friends and doctors and go out and make a movie and take a shot and say, “Hey listen, one in a hundred if we are ever going to make our money back.” I have to still keep this place going and at least survive. The years have been extremely difficult, so I would say the combination of three things. One, at least having the training and expertise and hopefully the talent of knowing what I’m doing and being able to make still a very credible movie with very little money. That’s something that you don’t really just fall into, that takes some experience, but we had to reduce the number, the dollars we were spending on the films drastically. So, it makes you more creative and more, hopefully, clever in finding a way to tell an entertaining and involving story with far fewer dollars.
Luckily, certain things have come down in price, in post production, the whole digital thing helped us where 15 years ago, we couldn’t be making these movies at these budgets. EVIL BONG, even with it’s 3D and all of this fun, probably cost 20 percent of what the other movies cost 15 or 20 years ago, and that is RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND, and CASTLE FREAK. So part of it is reducing the cost, and then the other part, a big part, is the merchandise that I’ve invented that weaves in and out of these movies. So many of them are puppet and doll movies, so we have replicas or toys and images and shirts. You’ll see, we’ve sort of gone crazy this time with items attached to not only EVIL BONG, but some of the other more recent films.
So, it’s pretty much analogous probably to rock and rock. In music, there’s no money being made selling CDs anymore, and the bands who are active and on the road are making their few bucks selling the merch, and we’ve pretty much followed suit and have built up a good following on the internet. We have an active website, and I’m really involved with that and I’m out there every few weeks talking to the fans. So, we’ve created a little niche business, which has helped us survive to do things like Saturday. There’s no one else doing this, for better or for worse.
Capone: Adding to that, you do this road show. Where did that idea start from and what were you trying to accomplish?
CB: It started simply from the fact that I had to find a way to connect with the fans and promote my strange little brand of movies without spending big media dollars, which would never make any sense. Years ago, I thought, “Well, much like a rock and roll band goes out there and plays the tunes and connects with their fans, I’ll do the same thing. I’ve got a big library of movies and I have tons of stories and I can put some fun into all of this and create a variety show and bring celebrities, do interactive stuff, get people up on stage, get girls to take their tops off [Laughs].”
Then of course over the years, the show evolved based on reaction and letters and emails and what I felt worked, and it’s kind of a fun happening. The last time I did this, I mean I went on the road last year, I think I did 18 cities. It’s also grueling, I’ll admit this to do 18 cities in 30 days or 25 days or 20 cities, but it’s been invaluable, because it builds up as we get more people in the fold and the family with more email addresses. It’s just a very grassroots way of spreading the word, and the fans seem to really like it, and we’ve done well. These are never really that profitable. They maybe break even, but it’s expensive to take a bunch of people and props and silliness on the road, and it definitely helps keep the Full Moon flag flying.
Capone: Brand recognition is like half the game, isn’t it? Maybe more?
CB: Oh yeah, we’ve got that. We definitely have that.
Capone: You mentioned before about the title, EVIL BONG pretty much tell you what you're in for. And looking over the titles of the films that you have been involved with, just getting a title and a poster were the two key things, especially like from people like William Castle, Lloyd Kaufman or Roger Corman, who sometimes had posters designed before they’d shot a frame of film. Tell me about the process of titling a film to maximize its success.
CB: That’s an hour dissertation, because it’s always been germane to low-budget filmmaking, because you don’t have the luxury of lots of media dollars being spent to promote a new title. So the trick, especially in the early days of video, not to mention the early days of the B movie, which was way long ago, but the trick was to have a title and a piece of art that really captured the imagination, allowed someone in a video store looking at 20 or 30 horror titles to go, “Wow, that one looks pretty cool,” or better yet, “I think I missed that theatrically,” sort of the counterfeit A-movie deal, which has worked really well with some of my films, like PUPPETMASTER. At the time, it was a huge success and it came out through Paramount, but we had so many letters from people saying, “I must have missed it theatrically, but man I’m so glad I saw it on video.”
So, a title that says it all along with an image is very powerful. Without that you have nothing as an independent movie, because you have no chance otherwise and you know prior to direct to video, it was the big lurid poster in the movie theater or at the drive in and to some degree the trailer, but it was always the posters people remember. Those of us who were alive, you would probably go to the theater more for the B movie than the studio A movie. Whatever reason or why ever you went that poster, some really gross gooey monster with some half-clad chick with her boobies about to explode, it was just, “Oh my God, I’ve got to see that movie,” and that was the poster and the title, then it became the video cover and the title.
What’s ironic today in our digital world is that it’s no longer the art, unfortunately, because if you are out there in Comcast or Time Warner or on some server, people are scrolling through titles now that have no artwork attached. So the slight of hand is not just the title has to be terrific, it has to be terrific without the image, which is such a shame. But the new thing of course in the last few years, which is even more bizarre, is the title has to be somewhere in the first six or eight letters of the alphabet, because no one’s going past “G.” Once they get to “K,” they are kind of done, so if you have a title that starts with a “Z” or an “R” or a “T,” you're screwed. It’s true. You think I’m silly, but no, most people just in the way that we currently look at these menus just get exhausted once they eight or ten titles into the alphabet. So, now the challenge is great title in the first eight to ten letters of the alphabet with no image.
Capone: I’ve never heard that, but it does not surprise me in the slightest.
CB: I live this every day, this is what I’ve done for years. I love doing something out of the box and I’ve done that before at times, and it’s proven to be sort of a life saver. So, I could keep making direct-to-video movies and doing my thing and be very invisible, but I chose some years ago to get out there and create this new persona on stage and bring what I do to the fans, and then this thing on Saturday is a big gamble and a big test, because if people show up and they enjoy it and it works financially, because we make a few bucks and people dig it, then it’s another way to do something different. I’ll tour with some combination of some of my older movies, the premiere of EVIL BONG, an abbreviated road show, and a few celebrities, and I’ll do that until I’ve been to every halfway decent old movie palace.
Capone: Hey Kevin Smith is doing it right now with his movie.
CB: I hear. It’s a little different…
Capone: Very different. He came through here just a few weeks ago actually, not to a movie palace, but a good-sized venue. Actually, it was strangely under attended by my estimation.
CB: Really?
Capone: I don’t even think it was half full.
CB: What sized venue was it?
Capone: That’s a good question. It’s not as big as the theater you’re going to be in, but it’s still a pretty decent-sized theater. It was a much higher ticket price though, so you’ve got the edge there.
CB: And plus hopefully, this is where someone like yourself and Ain’t It Cool will inspire some people out there to come, this is a lot of fun. [Laughs] A stoner comedy in 3-D and scratch and sniff. And people have the option, if they don’t want to do the whole-day deal and pay the $25, they can come for the roadshow and EVIL BONG and RE-ANIMATOR for $15. So, that’s not a bad deal. It’s affordable and it’s fun and it’s with people that they may never have a chance to see again and an experience that, unless you’ve done it and been there, it’s so hard to describe. It’s just hard to describe the infectious nature of something crazy on screen in 3-D and or with the scratch-and-sniff thing. It’s just fun. It’s just a fun deal.
Capone: You mentioned earlier about GHOULIES kind of setting you up financially to do a few more things. I have a great deal of affection for that film and I didn’t realize that was Mariska Hargitay’s first film. But breaking in new actors is kind of your thing too.
CB: Absolutely. Oh, I’ve got about 30 people--whether it was Sam Raimi behind the scenes, or people like Helen Hunt, Kelly Preston, Mariska Hargitay, and Nick Cassavetes, who was in a movie called SLAVE GIRLS FROM BEYOND INFINITY. It goes on and on, so it’s fun to look back and go, “Yeah, that was Mariska.” She was 20 and cute.
Capone: I’m pretty sure I saw the second film in the theater, but then I thin the next two were right to video. Is that how it worked?
CB: Yeah, they went to video.
Capone: I couldn’t swear that I saw those, but I definitely saw the ones that played in the theaters and man I love that movie.
CB: When you come on Saturday, I’m definitely planning… now my roadshow is normally two hours, we don’t have the time to do that, so it’s will be right at 45 minutes, but I will definitely tell a very amusing GHOULIES story. I can’t tell it now, because that would kind of blow it. I really do appreciate whatever you are going to write and just get people out there. It’s going to be definitely unique. No one’s done this, and hopefully people have a good time and enjoy it and spread the word and go, “You know, this was super fun.”
Capone: We were talking about Empire before, which had a great run in both video and theatrical…
CB: Yeah, I had a deal at the time with Vestron Video.
Capone: Okay, even better.
CB: Basically we made the movies, we did all of the theatrical releasing, and then Vestron was actually the video company that released all of the Empire titles.
Capone: I did an interview not too long ago with Menahem Golan, and he was telling me about Cannon basically collapsing under its own weight and spreading itself too thin over too many titles. Is that similar to what happened to Empire?
CB: Yeah. [Laughs] Well, probably. I mean it’s a little more complicated than that, but I think if nothing else we built a pretty good mouse trap, the pictures were doing well, but then the business changes, and if you invest money and you build a little bit of a Titanic, and it’s hard to turn it around because of deals you’ve made with obligations and output deals. We'd purchased a studio in Italy, and it was all-great for a few years and then all of a sudden, “Hey, why did we purchase a studio in Italy?” Well, aside from it being a cool place, the dollar was very strong. We could send people over there and could get a great economy and make amazing movies in the old studio style, and then suddenly the dollar became worth nothing, it was super weak, and then it was like “Well, what are we doing in Italy? Oh damn, we bought a whole studio there. We have all of our stuff there.”
You have to be, as an independent, so fast on your feet, so if you get bogged down in things that seem right at the moment. If things had continued exactly the way they were from ’83 to ’87, and the world just froze, and everything that made sense back then at that time continued to make sense, we would be incredibly successful. We would still be making $1 million to $2 million movies. We'd be making them in Italy, releasing them theatrically, and video would be amazing, but there’s nothing that has remained intact as far as the business model and what it was like back then. Today it’s a whole different world. [Charles gets word that he needs to go.]
It's going to be a crazy awesome event in Chicago, very unique, and we'll have some fun. Steve, thank you so much, and I'll see you Saturday.
Capone: Sounds good. See you then.
-- Capone capone@aintitcool.com
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