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Great new interview (spotted by narrows101) where Brett Ratner talkes about SR and the JJ Abrams script he was going to direct.I took out all the superman related bits from the interview.
From Chud.com
From Chud.com
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: BRETT RATNER
07.30.06
By Devin Faraci
Q: Whether or not it was on purpose or not, there was a sense of competition with you taking on X3, Bryan taking on Superman and the two films coming out in the same general time frame. X3 is one of the biggest hits of the year, but Superman isn’t doing as well as they hoped. What happened? What went wrong?
Ratner: I think good luck comes from good ideas. X3 is a good ****ing idea. Superman – and I started to feel this a little bit when I was in the process of making it – seems like less and less of a good idea. Contemporizing that, and the fact that there were five – I would get from a lot of people, ‘Oh, are you making Superman 7?’ From a lot of people. The studio probably thought that would benefit, but the fact that is that you have to revitalize a franchise. It’s almost like what happened with Red Dragon. Hannibal was a huge hit, but it burned a lot of the women because it was so violent. More violent than Silence of the Lambs. It burned a lot of people from the franchise. A lot of people didn’t turn out for that – even though it was a huge hit. I’m not complaining about it, but it wasn’t as big as Hannibal.
Because of the poor performances of the bad Supermans there was a stigma on it. That was the problem – how do you take that and contemporize it? It’s very difficult, and I think JJ [Abrams] had a brilliant interpretation of that story. I don’t know if you read that script?
Q: I didn’t.
Ratner: I thought it was brilliant because it showed something that could have happened previous to the mythology that people knew. It said that Superman’s father had this brother and they were the two leaders of Krypton and there was this civil war on the planet. 40 minutes of the movie took place on Krypton. We were going to build a ****ing planet! That makes it worthwhile to make a Superman movie! People would have been like, ‘Holy ****, this is mindblowing!’ Unfortunately it was too expensive – my version going in was 260 to 280 million dollars. And if you go in there you know you’re going to end up over 300.
Q: Can Hollywood keep sustaining these bigger budgets? Pirates is doing amazing business, but so many movies have huge budgets and are not going to be able to make back what was spent on them, let alone turn a profit in theaters. The money Superman’s made now would have been a blockbuster years ago.
Ratner: I think what’s going to happen is that they’re going to keep getting bigger and bigger and a lot of people are going to get burned. Companies will go out of business. It’s cyclical. There’s going to be our version of - what’s that movie Cimino did? The movie that buried -
Q: Heaven’s Gate.
Ratner: Heaven’s Gate! There’s going to be our version of that.
Source: http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=interviews&id=7251Q: Harry Knowles has come up a couple of times. Have you met him?
Ratner: I might have my facts a little bit off, but I think this is true. You can post this and see if he responds – he probably won’t, because he’s too busy with whatever he’s doing.
I think Harry Knowles is a complete hypocrite. That’s my personal opinion of him, because he’s become a different guy. I met him over the internet in 1996 or 7, when they first started. Somebody told me there was this cool guy doing reviews and I went to check him out. Nobody in Hollywood knew about him. What I’m saying, if my facts are straight, is that Quentin Tarantino was the person who knew and maybe Quentin told me about him.
I don’t remember how I got introduced to Harry. But I started emailing the guy, because I love movies. That’s all I know! I know ****. I started talking to him – ‘Did you see this one,’ ‘Yeah, tell me what you think!’ When I would see a movie I would write in, but he never printed my reviews because I’m a filmmaker.
Q: Did you have anything out yet?
Ratner: This was before Money Talks! I wasn’t even a ****ing feature director. I was a film student basically, doing music videos. I would do these ****ing emails back and forth with the guy and then we would start talking on the phone. And we would talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. For hours and hours and hours. This was before he had any influence, so I had no reason… this guy was my friend. I was the first guy. Nobody talked to this guy, you know what I’m saying?
I got $150,000 to direct Money Talks. I had negative $250,000 in the bank. Do you understand? I had no money. I had no money. I took the only money I had left and flew him and his fat ****ing father to ****ing LA. Him and his fat ****ing father to LA for the premiere of Money Talks. The first ****ing time Harry Knowles was in LA…
Q: And you flew him out there.
Ratner: I flew him out there. I brought him to LA. Now he might say, ‘Not true! In 1996 I blah blah,’ maybe Robert Rodriguez flew him to the set of El Mariachi, I don’t know. All I know is I remember putting him in the ****ing Mondrian Hotel, him and his father. I got a limousine to ****ing drive his ass to my premiere for no other reason than I liked talking movies with this guy and I wanted to know what he thought.
Now if I recall – it wasn’t like he said, ‘I love this movie, you’re an amazing filmmaker,’ I don’t know if those words were said, but he wrote a whole rave review for Money Talks. I don’t remember if I brought him out for Rush Hour, but I know one thing, and you can do the research and look in the archives – the review on Rush Hour was even ****ing better. The biggest blow job you ever read in your ****ing life. Because he really liked it. I was not the hack I am today.
Then I did Family Man. I don’t remember if it was good or bad, but I wasn’t angry with him because I was still his friend. I would never have gotten into it. Then one day I got a call and they wanted to hire me for Superman. I call up Harry and say, ‘Guess what, I’m doing Superman!’ And he was like [gasps]. I was like, ‘Why are you so shocked?’ ‘I don’t know, I just duhduhduh, duhduhduh.’
Q: And this is after Rush Hour 2?
Ratner: Yes! This is his territory. The minute I go into Superman and I told him, ‘I’m going to hire you as a consultant on the movie because you know every Superman comic book.’ I read those growing up, but I don’t retain that stuff the way that Zak and Simon [Kinberg] does. I’m a different kind of pop culture [guy]. I said, ‘I want you as a consultant.’ He says, ‘Thank you, thank you very much!’ The next time I read a review – and it might have been of the JJ Abrams script – it says I called him up and said I never heard of Superman, who’s Superman?
Who is Superman? You have to be from another ****ing planet not to know. There’s not a person on Earth – [to an extra walking by] Have you heard of Superman, sir?
Man: Yeah.
Ratner: Miss, have you ever heard of Superman?
Woman: Yes.
Ratner: OK. He’s as famous as Jesus Christ. I don’t think there’s a pop character – and this guy said I called him to say I don’t know who he was. Complete ****ing lies. That was it. I don’t know what I did but get that job.
Now I don’t recall – did he say, ‘Thank God Brett’s off, McG’s going to come save the day?’ How can he take a guy with one movie – I’m not knocking McG! He’s my friend! But how do you ****ing take McG and say that ‘It’s obvious from Charlie’s Angels that he’s going to do a better job than Brett Ratner on Superman’.
Q: At least you have a full name.
Ratner: [laughs] Exactly. It’s crazy!
Q: And it’s been…
Ratner: Ever since.
Q: There’s been no contact?
Ratner: I’ve called him at least five times and he won’t return my calls. But I think Harry Knowles has much less influence. Did you see what happened on X-Men, where there was this great review from Moriarty? Simon Kinberg took him to the movie, he loved the movie. Then what’s his name saw the movie, Harry saw it, and said, ‘It’s the worst piece of **** ever made.’ He completely wrote this whole scathing thing that Moriarty’s wrong, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And all the TalkBacks…
Q: Please tell me you don’t read the TalkBacks.
Ratner: I don’t. But they tell me. I don’t read any of this ****. But the studio reads every ****ing word.
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