William Butler speaks! -- An editorial from a Pit Celebrity...(SEPTEMBER/2005) The Return of the Return Well, the two latest projects that my writing partner, Aaron Strongoni and I have written are about to come out. In case you haven’t heard, it’s the two new sequels to the “Return of the Living Dead” franchise. It was such a long road getting these movies made. A lot has happened since that first amazing lunch I had with my good friend Tom Fox who recently passed away. Man, I miss him so very much. The week he died I dreamt he came to me and told me that the fear of death is a big joke. He said that I should tell everyone I know to relax and enjoy life here as much as you can, because nothing, absolutely nothing matters. He said that the dead live forever in an amazing spirit form and that is where he now lives. They found it “quite humorous” that we worry so much about our short time spent on earth. I was blown away by that dream, as I have never been a person who believed in heaven or the afterlife. Whether it was Tom’s spirit or the fact that maybe I ate too much Manicotti before I went to bed, I have never been the same on the subject. I met with Mr. Fox at the Hamlet Gardens in Westwood five years ago, after my old boss introduced us via conference call. He knew that I had been writing a lot of genre stuff after my work day at the Family Channel and thought that I might be a good match to work with Tom…boy was he right. Tom was an amazing guy, a gregariously funny fellow, who was also the most shrewd businessman I have ever met. The guy was so slick, he could get you to buy your own shirt off of your back. He was also the kind of person who would take the time to call every morning to see how I was doing, or to ask me “Did you see that article in the LA Times?” no matter how many times I told him I didn’t subscribe. This was a subject that was a constant source of entertainment for Aaron and I. We immediately became good friends and decided to work together to try and revive his withering, “Living Dead” franchise. I knew it was gonna be a tall order. Being a fan of the original film myself, my first thoughts were “why bother” – but Tom was determined to answer the call to the hundreds of fan emails he used to get calling out for more brain-eaters. He really loved the fans and listened closely to what they did and didn’t want. I wrote about six pitches to run past him, they varied from Aliens from a wrecked spaceship being reanimated to a flat-out duplicate of the first film. Little by little, Tom and I honed the stories into something that we ourselves would go see – as well as getting a lot of feedback from Tobe Hooper, who was the original director that we wanted for the projects. Working with Tobe was a total honor! He is very funny and has the most original taste of any movie professional I have ever met. It was decided that we would do the story I entitled “Necropolis” which was basically an amusement park/zoo where people could go see all of the zombies that had been rounded up since they were unleashed on the world. There were shooting galleries, wrestling rings…fun stuff where you could blow zombies away and eat cotton candy at the same time…a dark reflection of where the world seems to be heading. The original story involved a group of kids not unlike the guys from Jackass, who dare one another to break into the zombie holding tank when they find there is a stash of cash being held somewhere in the compound. Draft after draft the story continued to grow and change. The characters motivation to break in ultimately ends up with one of the friends being left behind when he is injured at the park. Tom finally signed off on the story and somehow talked me into writing the script on spec. Frankly, he was such a father figure to me I would of detailed his car had he asked. He had read, in the LA Times of course that zombie movies were about to make a comeback and we should have our script ready. It was about that time that I met an amazing writer by the name of Aaron Strongoni and he and I became writing partners…this made things a lot easier as Aaron is the terminator of writing. Soon after, the first draft of the script was done. Tom started getting us meetings all over town. Everyone seemed to be responding positively to the script, including Lakeshore Entertainment, who I later did “Madhouse” for. Lakeshore liked the script so much that they wanted to make it its own film without the “Return” moniker. Totally derailed of our goal and totally in love with idea of doing a thirty million dollar movie – we agreed. As wonderful as those guys are, what happened in the next months were enough to drive a man to drink… it was our first taste of what hell doing a studio movie can be. I think the first clue we were in trouble was this quote, “We love your script about zombies and amusement parks…but have two notes for you before we greenlight it…take out the zombies and the amusement park elements”. True story. They proposed that we turn the film into a big budget horror-action film with mutants in it – after all is said and done, their notes were terrific and the draft actually turned out pretty dang good. The name of the film was changed to “The Playpen”. A prison where scientific abominations are locked up and studied. The gang at Lakeshore got the new draft and loved it and it was decided that we may move forward into production. Everything was going great, we couldn’t of been happier…when one day we got a call from Lakeshore… The executive spoke in quiet, measured tones as she told me that someone who Tom had promised to help him produce the film, was now suing everyone involved…because Tom had somehow reneged on their agreement. I later found out that this wasn’t true in the least – but none the less, in one threatening phone call, a thirty million dollar project fell apart. Never underestimate the power of Hollywood entertainment lawyers. Playpen out – Necropolis back in. We went back to the drawing board and back to the “Return” scenario and took several meetings all over town. Again, people were into it, but as usual, everybody had a different take on the project. German investors, Phoenix Entertainment and Sony all came close to doing the show and all had different ideas about the projects. By this time we are a year into the process, when the subject comes up from Phoenix that they would like to do two films at once…part four and five. Being the horror-hungry whores that we are, we immediately went into action on developing part five. “Band of Brothers” was very popular at the time, so originally the film was army guys versus zombies on an island. Raves were also hugely popular at the time, so a party-drug storyline was also developed. Eventually we all decided that the Rave aspect gave us more interesting characters and visuals to work with so we wrote a first draft in about two months. In hindsight, I wish we had named the film differently, since for one, the Rave is really only the last fifteen minutes of the film and secondly, the Rave scene itself has calmed down since the projects were conceived…of course the scene is still going strong overseas, they never let up. But all was still not well in zombie-ville. After months of meetings and notes from development execs, one day Phoenix called and told us that they were slowing down on the amount of films they did and that our projects had been dropped from the slate as a result. Back to square one. To add to our horror, we also start hearing that zombie movies are indeed suddenly in production all over town. When we first started working on the projects, we were the only zombie movie being done in Hollywood – but now, we would most likely be the last production to finish. We were all getting winded. Rumor had it that Resident Evil was even toying with a storyline that was similar as ours and it was going to be released way before ours…it came and went…and was indeed slightly similar, and the sequel went into production was even closer to our storyline. I was getting ready to bail. My attention was temporarily diverted when our relationship with Lakeshore led to my directing “Madhouse” a film that Aaron and I wrote for fun. I took a break from the “Return” films to work on that show. Even Tobe Hooper was also getting tired of waiting around and started to take other projects…he would only be involved if something firm came up. No one blamed him as he had kept himself available for a year and a half. It was starting to seem like the films were not going to be made after all…but with all this bad news Tom Fox still never gave up. Nothing happened for another four months… When I returned from Romania, there was a good buzz about “Madhouse” and my ability to handle myself on set. There was no buzz, however for the “Return” films that still had not found their ideal deal. Lakeshore had offered me another film and it seemed like maybe this directing thing was going to work. Tom started to think that maybe we could do the films as lower budget productions or TV films/series. He presented the idea to me that I direct and we do them back-to-back. I of course agreed, though no one was better to direct the films other than Tobe – I couldn’t see him agreeing to do them if their budgets were under a million a piece. Eventually, there seemed to be bad blood developing between Tobe and Tom, I never really knew what about, but he seemed to disappear. Tom extended the official offer to me and I accepted. I told my manager that I was now attached to direct and he immediately started to send the scripts out. Had we only gone to him at the beginning. After two and a half years of meetings, mailings and pitches, Jonathan Hung, our beloved manager, actually sold the “Return” scripts in two weeks. Aaron and I were so happy, after all our work, it seemed like the projects were finally going to be made. I was so happy to be directing again and was looking forward to meeting the production entity. Reality Bites. “They don’t want you”, Jonathan told me over the phone. “What?”. “They want the scripts, but they don’t want you”. I remember I was in a clothes store on the third street promenade as I started screaming expletives into my cell phone. “You tell them there is no deal then…I will set these scripts on fire before I let that happen” “Okay” my manager said with a “are you sure you want to do that?” tone in his voice. I pretended not be be offended and sweat it out as I continued my day, when Jonathan finally called back. “I have a message for you from behalf of the production company…” “Really, what’s that?”. Thank God they have come to their senses, I thought. “Goodbye”. “Wow, that’s a short message”. It seemed that if I was to remain attached as director to the projects, they would not be made with this company. You have no idea what that does to a fellows ego. Especially one as both huge and delicate as mine…not to mention that my holding Tom to the deal meant the loss of a tremendous amount of cash and work for everyone involved. I swallowed my pride and called Hung back. I caved in and agreed to sell the scripts and be gone. The truth is this. I have been directing commercials and stuff for a while now and make really good money at it. I have a very high rate of pay for that kind of stuff and don’t buckle – for the same money that I was expecting to get from the Return producers, they easily could of gotten someone with more experience or history and talent for that matter. Let’s face it I’m still learning in this arena. I grew to understand their decision and didn’t hold it against them…after a few days of self-pity, that is. I went on to direct a live action, all day event for “The Incredibles” that aired on the Disney Channel, so everything worked out in the end anyway. All excited again…until the rewrites began. By this time Aaron and I had told the new “Return” stories a hundred different ways. We had taken advice, gotten both praise and jeering from the fans and shit from a few of the self proclaimed internet “critics” – as well as changed the locations and characters so much that I had to be reminded of what the leading characters names are. “Now, when Jason runs into the lobby…” “Jason was written out a year ago”, Aaron would say in boredom. “Really?” Growing old is a bitch. Eventually, the production introduced us to their development guy. He was very, very nice and in my opinion very, very out of the loop with what is going on with horror films. He had recently “left” Morgan Creek and was working as a “freelance development producer” or an “out of work movie guy” as I caustically referred to him as. He was smart, he was funny, he was likeable…and his notes drove me to the fucking brink of insanity. He didn’t know the lore of the franchise and it made me crazy. Unfortunately, it was about this time that Tom Fox was diagnosed with stomach cancer. And despite the fact that he insisted his situation was only temporary, Tom was now unable to attend story meetings. It was awful to see him get thinner and obviously combating pain to put on a brave face…and what’s worse, with big-daddy out of the picture, the jackals smelled blood and acted accordingly. The notes suddenly got heavier and presented with less sugar-coating. I would almost have to be held back by Aaron, who is the most polite guy on the face of the earth, when I would choke at some of this guy’s notes. We’d go out to his house in the valley, I’d be smiling on the way in ... trying really hard, yet, like clockwork I would be grinding my teeth and sporting steam coming out of my ears on the way out. A lot of original material in the script seemed to be fading away. No more amusement park, no more shooting gallery, no skateboarding. I had to work really hard to be a team player, because frankly I’m not a very good one when it comes to my writing. What’s worse was I feared the repercussions from the fans, over bad ideas slipped in that were not my own. I felt so protective of the script, that I even started getting into it with my friend of twenty years, John Vulich, who had been hired to do the make-up effects. He had become friends with the owner of the production entity and was now invited to come up with ideas. I started to get totally bitter over the show. In hindsight I could have handled it better. It wasn’t as bad as all that, its always the same on every movie, but I had worked for months on trying to rejuvenate the franchise and now, very clearly, the power of doing so, was slowly being taken away from me. I should have just let it go. I’m a drama-queen I suppose. As I tell the rabid fans that bitch to me about how they think the films should have been executed…just keep telling yourself, “Its only a movie…it’s only a movie”. Working in showbiz is the most bizarre of circumstances, to think I was getting worked up because a scene with a zombie shooting gallery had been omitted from the 4th sequel of a horror film. Needless to say, I survived the first round of rewrites. And when I heard the director was finally hired, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that I was actually able to pull myself together and behave like an adult. Ellory Elkayem was a smart, very nice guy. I loved “Eight Legged Freaks” so I was happy at least someone that I admired had taken the wheel. Still, I was sad that Tobe was no longer around. Somehow his participation had been disregarded. I’m sure he was pissed because he worked as hard as the rest of us for the better part of a year. I never got to speak to him any further, he simply vanished out of the picture. Hollywood relationships are so weird. You will be totally best pals with someone for four months, and then without any notice, they will just be out of your life, not out of spite or anything, it’s just your focus changes when you are constantly working with an all-new group of people. Things moved along and Ellory’s notes were not as painful, as most of them were out of practicality and from a financial point of view. I held firm on some stuff, that I am sure eventually got written out on set. J We worked on both scripts, finally finishing them…a mere glimmer of their original intent and form…but finally in production. Eventually the team headed to Romania and without us…a constant bitter pill that writers are expected to swallow…and a bittersweet ending to a very long, and very colorful journey. After four years of hard work and ten thousand reams of typing paper, Tom Fox’s “Return of the Living Dead” franchise had finally been brought back to life. Ironically, It wasn’t long after production began shooting, that I got the call that my good friend Tom had passed away. He had finally succumbed to his ass-kicking battle with cancer. My last day with him in the hospital is something that I never want to relive. I laid in bed for three months after that, too sad to cope with the loss of the amazing father figure who believed in me enough to allow me to contribute to the world of “Return of the Living Dead” By the way, I finally took Tom’s advice and subscribed to the L.A. Times, he would be proud, they just announced the release of our movies. RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 4 & 5 OFFICIAL SITE Check out the trailers! Copyright © 2005 Pit Of Horror. Commentary by William Butler. Previous Editorial Editorial Archive Back