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http://www.comics2film.com/FanFrame.php?f_id=23823
SCREENWRITER DON PAYNE ON MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND & FF2
You know superheroes have truly entered the spirit of the times when Hollywood begins releasing superhero films not based on comics. Examples have been The Incredibles, Sky High and most recently, My Super Ex-Girlfriend. My Super Ex-Girlfriend was released this past summer and wasnt commercially well received but being put out on the same weekend as Lady in the Water and Clerks II will do that to a film. But now that My Super Ex-Girlfriend is out on DVD it is sure to become a cult classic with mainstream audiences and comic book fans.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend stars Uma Thurman as a very neurotic superhero named G-Girl who in her secret identity of Jenny Johnson falls in love with Matt Saunders [played by Luke Wilson]. When Saunders decides to dump Jenny for his true love, G-Girl takes her revenge on him in ways that only a superhero could. I got a chance to talk with My Super Ex-Girlfriend screenwriter Don Payne from the office of his day job as a Simpsons writer/producer.
Daniel Robert Epstein RE: First of all, congratulations on the WGA nominations.
Don Payne: Oh thank you. You have been paying attention. Thats cool.
DRE: Its great because they just reran Simpson Christmas Stories so I was able to see it again. I thought it was going to have three writers.
Payne: They used to do that but not anymore. Usually the same person writes all three for Halloween, Christmas and New Years. Thats been going on the past few years. I think it was [Simpsons showrunner] Al Jeans decision. Although it was fun to have three different people doing it, youd come in with three segments that were way too long and when you put it together it would be an hour long show. So to add some consistency and to have some tight scripts, hes been assigning them to the same person. I was happy to do it.
DRE: It must be great to get WGA nominations because thats from your peers.
Payne: Yeah, its good. The Writers Guild Awards have been very good for the show. Ive been nominated a few times but I never won though I did win the Paul Selvin Award. Then the next year they went slumming and gave it to George Clooney. It is fun to be nominated and its fun to go to the dinner and see writers up there talking. Theyre not the people you generally see in the forefront or up on the stage. So its good to be able to celebrate your peers.
DRE: Did you write Super-Ex on spec?
Payne: Yes, I did.
DRE: How quickly did it get sold?
Payne: It all happened pretty quickly. I tried to write it pretty fast because I had a feeling it was in the zeitgeist. I sold it in November of 2004 and by the fall of the next year they were already shooting.
Superheroes were so popular and I thought this was an interesting twist on them. What really spurred me was The Incredibles because I loved that film and I knew it was coming out so I really wanted to get this idea out there. I knew that was going to do well. I have always been a big comic book fan and I like comedy so I put the two of them together.
DRE: Were you surprised that Uma wanted to do it after Batman & Robin?
Payne: Yeah I was delighted and surprised that she wanted to do it afterBatman & Robin. As a comic book fan Batman & Robin was so infuriating. Theres nothing worse than a bad superhero movie and theres nothing better than a great one. Ive been a fan of Umas since Dangerous Liaisons and I really liked My Super-Ex Girlfriend. Its a fun film. It didnt do as well in the box office as I hoped it would but I think people will rediscover it on DVD.
DRE: Shes almost luminous in Super-Ex-Girlfriend.
Payne: And in person. Shes this wonderful combination of this stunning, tall, gorgeous actress and this wonderful, slightly geeky, insecure woman. Thats who she is and you cant help but fall in love with her.
DRE: In the past 12 years or so the films that Ivan Reitman has directed have not been as good or successful as the ones from the 80s and early 90s. When you found out he was going to direct Im sure you were very excited but at the same time is there a little voice saying, Oh man, Ivan Reitman hasnt directed a good movie in a long time.
Payne: [laughs] Well, I hoped this would be the one for him. There was no hesitancy on my part. I really was excited from the get go for Ivan to be involved. Again, I think its a good film. It just didnt do so well. I think he did a great job. I grew up on Stripes and Ghostbusters and I love Dave so I feel like hes still got good movies in him.
I had a great experience working with him. In fact I knew that his name was being bandied about so I was pushing the studio to bring him on. He was really good to me throughout the entire process. Certainly there are things that you would have done differently. Theres no screenwriter thats ever done something thats been directed by someone else that said, Theyve done it exactly the way I wanted them to. But Ivan kept me on throughout the entire process. He worked with me really closely on the rewrites and really made me feel included on the set. Hed call and ask my opinion about things, which is great for a writer. He didnt always take my advice, but he was interested and that was a good thing.
DRE: In the year between you finishing the screenplay for Super-Ex and it going into production there were some superhero movies released. Were there things that you guys had to change because other superhero movies had done them?
Payne: I think at one point we had talked about doing a sequence where G-Girl saves an airplane but then we heard that Superman Returns was doing that. That was not in the original spec but it was a possible direction we were going to go in. But really it wasnt intended to be a traditional superhero, big action set piece film. It was supposed to be more of a twisted romantic comedy that happened to have a superhero character in it. So that was where the emphasis was supposed to be, on the relationship and the comedy more so than the effects and the action. I think it was a little darker in the spec and a little grungier. It became a little more of a traditional Hollywood romantic comedy than I had originally conceived it. But I still enjoyed the film.
DRE: Was it difficult for you to come up with superhero names?
Payne: Yeah, originally she was X-Girl.
DRE: Oh, I bet they took care of that real quick [laughs].
Payne: Yeah, they sure did. I totally get that X-Girl as being too close to X-Men. I just thought it was interesting because X is mysterious and it has that double meaning with ex-girlfriend. The original title of the film was Super-Ex but the powers that be felt that was too close to X-Men. I thought that was crazy. Ex is a word. It was never intended to be infringing on their copyright or stealing any of their thunder. Unfortunately the film was made by Regency Enterprises and they have a distribution deal with Fox and Fox owns the X-Men franchise rights so there was no fighting it. As much as I did want it to be Super-Ex, it wound up as My Super-Ex-Girlfriend and I dont know if that really helped us in the end.
DRE: Was it tough to come up with G-Girl?
Payne: I didnt come up with G-Girl. It was actually Ivan and Uma that came up with G-Girl. I had gone through a list of a hundred different names. It is hard to come up with a new superhero name that hasnt been taken by Marvel or DC.
DRE: I think the comic book companies also just register names without there even being a character.
Payne: Yeah, but it was definitely Ivan and Uma that came up with G-Girl. I had pitched other things but I guess Ivan found them too comic booky. Which God knows I love because Im a big comic book guy.
DRE: So how was it being on a big budget, high concept movie in New York with Ivan Reitman who directed Ghostbusters in New York over 20 years before?
Payne: Man, it was awesome. [laughs] I dont know how else to describe it. It was a surreal experience. Like I said it all happened really quickly and I havent spent that much time in New York and there I am in the thick of it. I really fell in love with the city while I was there. I thought that the people were amazing and the crew was great and the cast were all really cool people, every one of them, not a prima donna among them.
DRE: Was the film always set in New York?
Payne: It was always set in New York and I guess there was talk about moving it to a cheaper location but I think it was Uma that really wanted to shoot it there. Thats her home and she wanted to be near her kids. So God bless her for that, I think it really worked well in New York.
DRE: Its nice to see that you didnt make up a city. No one would have faulted you for though because so many cities have been made up by the big comic book companies.
Payne: Thats true. I was always more of a Marvel guy than a DC guy and I think one of the reasons is that Marvel had New York and Chicago and Los Angeles, and DC had Gotham City and Metropolis. With Marvel it seemed like you could see these guys because youve seen things like the Statue of Liberty. Thats why I set it there.
DRE: Besides the city itself, do you consider My Super-Ex Girlfriend to be more Marvel or DC?
Payne: Ivan was a big DC fan. I was always a big Marvel fan so I think its some hybrid. I certainly wrote it thinking of all my Marvel history floating around my subconscious childhood.
DRE: What was the inspiration for the shark throwing scene?
Payne: That was the very last scene I wrote. I had the whole story carded out up on a bulletin board. I had this one hole and it was when G-Girl threatens Matt and Hannah [played by Anna Faris]. I knew it had to be something where she threatens them but not where she actually hurts them so I thought, Why doesnt she throw a shark at them. So I just put it in there and that became the signature image of the movie. I always enjoyed the idea of someone throwing a shark through your apartment window.
DRE: Do you know if comic books were used by production for inspiration?
Payne: I dont know. But I was certainly sending covers and things like that to Ivan going, Hey, look at this. Isnt this cool? Wouldnt it be great if she flew up the side of the building like this? Like The Sentry? [laughs] Theres this cool cover from The Sentry where hes flying straight at you and you realize hes flying up a building and people are looking out at him. I thought that would be a cool image to use but it had already been storyboarded by then.
DRE: Would you like to see these characters live on in comic book form?
Payne: It is funny because everyones calling me going, I just saw your film on the airplane. The thing is, nobody saw it. Everyone knew about it but I had so many people coming to me going, Whens your movie coming out? I was like, Dude, it came out three months ago. Where were you? But it was a crowded summer and it got lost in the shuffle. Hopefully people will be renting it.
I would love to do a comic. I volunteered to write a graphic novel adaptation for this because I really thought that even though it is not a traditional comic book movie it would still be great to really market it toward the comic book crowd. I thought we should do convention panels and do a graphic novel adaptations and the cover of Wizard. But there was not a lot of enthusiasm for that strategy. I think they were afraid because there was so many failed straight up superheroine movies like Catwoman and Elektra. So they didnt want it to be tagged that way. I can see their point but from my point of view, just because youre doing a panel at a convention or doing a cover for Wizard, it doesnt mean my moms not going to see it. The people who go see romantic comedies dont necessarily pay attention to all that superhero genre media. So I just felt that if we had reached out to the geek community a little more that might have helped us opening weekend. I include myself in the geek community so thats not an insult whatsoever.
DRE: I dont know how these things work but does Ivans company or Regency own the comic book rights?
Payne: Ivan was freelance in this production so he doesnt own the characters. It was totally financed by Regency and it was distributed and marketed by 20th Century Fox. Regency owns all the rights to the project so if they wanted to do it Id be willing. Hey, I love comics, make it happen.
DRE: Have you heard of the Luna Brothers comic book, Ultra?
Payne: I have heard of Ultra. In fact, I didnt read Ultra as I was writing this because I didnt want to be influenced by it. I did read it later and I thought it was pretty good. I was in the thick of writing this thing when that came out. It was more of a superhero Sex in the City than the Fatal Attraction thing that my movie is. The Luna Brothers are awesome.
DRE: I know you cant talk too much about the Fantastic Four sequel.
Payne: I had a feeling this was going to come up.
DRE: If theres anything you cant tell me, just let me know.
Payne: Believe me, Id get executed on the spot. This phones probably bugged right now. Im on the Fox lot so they watch you like a hawk. The reaction to what has been released from the movie has been favorable but were six months out. I hope people are still as enthusiastic then. There are still a lot of surprises and I think its going to be good.
DRE: One of the things thats interesting about you writing the Fantastic Four sequel is that when Simpsons writers work on other projects it is usually comedies. It is really cool that you wrote a film that isnt a straight up comedy. Was that difficult to make happen?
Payne: Ive been trying to write features since I moved to Los Angeles years ago and I wound up on The Simpsons which is a show that I was really a huge fan of. But I had always wanted to do movies and I was really pushing my agent to get me out there and certainly Super-Ex helped me take that step. But Id also been meeting with Marvel for a long time. I felt that if I put myself in front of them enough Id finally wear them down and theyd give me an assignment. But I got this gig because studio executives here had responded to my original script of Super-Ex before the film came out and Id met with Marvel and they liked me and also liked the spec so thats how I got the gig. I just kept pushing for it and went in and pitched my take on it and wrote a draft. Ive always been a big comic book fan and a particularly big Fantastic Four fan. So in my mind it wasnt that much of a stretch but I am certainly lucky to have the opportunity.
DRE: How many drafts did you do?
Payne: They all blend together. Officially its probably two or three but youre constantly fixing little things. It becomes a gray area.
DRE: But you didnt work with the other writer thats credited on the IMDB, [Twin Peaks co-creator] Mark Frost.
Payne: I never met Mark Frost or read his script. It was a parallel development and we were both working independently on versions of the script. I lucked out [laughs]. I dont know Mark Frost but I know his work. He wrote these cool Sherlock Holmesian Victorian fantasy novels. One is called The 6 Messiahs. Theyre really good and entertaining and Im surprised that they havent been made into movies yet.
DRE: How much does the sequel resemble the comic books?
Payne: As much as I can get in there [laughs]. You cant do a literal translation from script to screen otherwise the first film would be talking about beating the pinkos into outer space. Youve got to do what you can with the story, the characters you have and the actors. I think Kerry Washington is great and if there is a third film and we do the Puppet Master story, Im hoping Kerry would have a lot more to do because I think shes a really talented woman.
DRE: So youre saying there is no Puppet Master in Fantastic Four 2.
Payne: [laughs] I am not at liberty to discuss the Puppet Master. Its a very crowded film as it is right now.
DRE: Did you reread Fantastic Four or is it all right there in your mind?
Payne: Its been with me for a long time, since childhood. Some of my earliest memories were from the Fantastic Four cartoons, way back when.
DRE: The one where they just basically took the panels and panned the camera over them.
Payne: Yeah, though I did buy Essential Fantastic Fours and Essential Silver Surfer just to refresh my memories about things.
DRE: Whats your favorite run of Fantastic Four?
Payne: I was really big into them in the 70s with Marv Wolfman, George Perez and Len Wein. Im really into all the Ultimate stuff right now too. I think thats cool.
DRE: Do you have a superhero that you really want to do a screenplay for?
Payne: All the Marvel stuff. I love Captain America, I love the Avengers, Spiderman, Incredible Hulk.
DRE: Those are all taken. What about something thats not taken?
Payne: Well theyre not taken until theyre up on the screen. I know they have Hawkeye. Hes a cool character. Theyve been trying to do a Black Panther thing out there also. Dr. Strange is still out there, thats cool.
DRE: Are you still doing stuff with the movie?
Payne: Im on the tail end. I believe they just wrapped first unit stuff this past weekend and they still have got another week of second unit stuff. Im sure theyll go back and do re-shoots or pickups or whatever in the spring once they take a look at everything put together, as is the norm with every single movie Ive ever heard of. But up until now, Ive been doing little tweaks. [Fantastic Four director] Tim [Story] would email me from the set saying Hey could you change this line and Id pitch him a few alternates. Well see what happens over the next few months but I have my eye on other things I want to do. I have other spec scripts I want to write and then if they dont sell, Id certainly be pursuing assignments and things like that. Id love to work with Marvel again. Every time a writer gets attached to The Avengers or The Incredible Hulk, I call up [President of Production for Marvel Studios] Kevin Feige and go Whats going on man? You gave away Avengers. I could have done that. You gave away Captain America. I could have done that.
My Super-Ex-Girlfriend DVD is priced at $29.99 and is available now