All language subtitles for The Producers Featurette Genesis

I was the president
of Columbia Pictures...

...and left Columbia.

I read in a newspaper...

...about a young man
who escaped a Turkish prison ...

...and the story of his tale
seemed to intrigue me.

I had been involved at Columbia
with lots of very unique films...

...from Last Picture Show
to Taxi Driver, The Last Detail.

And these kinds of films and subjects
were intriguing to me.

So I hunted down Billy Hayes
in England .

There was no book.
There was no nothing .

It was just the articles,
and got in touch with him ...

...brought him to the United States,
brought him to Los Angeles...

...and began talking to him...

...and ultimately acquired
the film rights for the material .

Then what happened was
we started to figure out...

...how we could develop this material
into a movie.

And we auditioned
a number of writers at that time...

...screenwriters,
young screenwriters...

...and went through many
and then met this young gentleman ...

...who was intriguing ,
was intrigued by the material ...

...and he gave us a screenplay
to read .

It was kind of a war picture
about a platoon of soldiers.

It wasn't something
that we were gonna make.

Somebody did Iater,
you can figure that out.

And we said , "Let's go with him ."

He's a young screenwriter.

The studio didn't wanna spend
a lot of money.

They were qu ite frightened
of the picture.

And so we said ,
"Okay, Iet's go with him."

And that was OIiver Stone.

And OIiver began writing
the screenplay...

...and working on the research of it.

And what happened was...

...around that time,
we were developing the project...

...it was either subsequent
to that event or right near that...

...David Puttnam became
the president of my company...

...Casablanca Record and Films
and I was an old friend of David ...

...and David an old friend of mine
while I was at Colu mbia.

I made movies with him in London
as an independent producer.

He was quite a good
independent producer even then .

And he became the president
of my company.

I signed a deal to do two years
in California...

...working for a company
that Peter co-owned with Neil Bogart...

...Casablanca.

And built into the deal was that
I would produce with Alan Marshall ...

...Midnight Express,
which is a book I , by that time, read .

So it was a kind of package.

It was a package for me
that I took on a role...

...in the U .S. for a couple of years...

...that included production
of Midnight Express.

I , pretty well almost at the same time,
met Oliver.

And from memory,
I Iiked his take on it.

I found him a very energetic guy.

The most attractive of all for me was
that part of the package was that...

...AIan Parker and AIan Marshall
be involved .

So it was a great piece
of good fortune...

...because, also, because Peter, at that
point, wanted this entire package...

...we were able to negotiate up
qu ite usefully.

So in a way, Peter got me
then he also got Parker.

He knew that I've worked
with Parker in Bugsy.

So one way or another...

...it was a sweet deal
for everyone involved ...

...and from my point of my view,
it was extraordinary...

...because I got paid on it more...

...than I got for the previous 1 0 films
all put together.

So financially,
it was a real breakthrough .

The concept of the film ...

...was always anxiety-provoking
for Columbia Pictures.

The subject matter
and the period of time...

...that we were making the film ...

...and there was a complete
group of folks at Columbia...

...including the chairman
of Columbia...

...who was trying to persuade me
not to make the film .

Really not to make the film.
This wouldn't be a good move for me.

I had just finished a film
which was very, very successful ...

...for Columbia that I produced
called The Deep.

And I was forced
to be cross-collateralized .

That means the profit from The Deep
would be used ...

...to protect any Ioss
for Midnight Express.

That's what they did in those days.

They try to bundle two pictures
together to protect the studio.

And I didn't have to make
Midnight Express...

...and I would protect
all my profits from The Deep.

But I sucked up the air and said ,
"Okay, I'm gonna roll the dice."

And so the idea of the film...

...making the film , and the design
of the film was a Iot of people involved .

A Iot of folks from David and AIan
and AIan and OIiver...

...and myself, of course,
and the studio.

So ultimately,
it was a true collaborative effort.

I arrived in ,
I think it was Iate April , 1 977.

And the film was far from green-Iit.

It was a project
with a script that the studio liked ...

...and I was in place
to try and move it along .

The big issue was casting .

The studio were very, very keen
on Richard Gere in particular.

He just had a very successful movie,
I think called Bloodbrothers.

It had been very good
and he got terrific reviews.

And a whole series of meetings
occurred between them...

...AIan Parker and Richard
that I had set up.

These meetings, I think three or four
of them, went from bad to worse...

...because Richard's sense
of insecurity about the part...

...or the way in which he wanted
to address the part...

...began to undermine
AIan's confidence in the screenplay.

And so in a sense, in persuading
an actor to come on board ...

...I had a director
who was rapidly Iosing his confidence.

I n the end , one night
it was a tearful conversation with Alan .

I said , "Look, I have nothing else
to say to him .

That I cannot answer
any more questions, that I've had it."

Now by this time,
we had also cast and screen tested ...

...a number of people
that included Sam Bottoms...

...who was very good ...

...Dennis Quaid and Brad Davis.

And we had
three terrific sets of tests.

And actually
a very, very tough decision ...

...Ieaving Richard to one side...

...particularly
between Brad and Dennis.

Dennis had been
utterly outstanding .

We tested three scenes.

Dennis was outstanding
in one of the scenes...

...the courtroom scene,
absolutely extraordinary...

...and was good in the others.

Whereas Brad was that
bit better in all of them.

And also Brad had a vulnerability
that Dennis, in a sense, didn't have.

I was always very keen that
two-thirds way through the movie...

...you begin to think
he was not gonna survive this.

This kid was just not gonna make it.

And I felt that was qu ite important.

And Brad had that implicitly.

Brad eventually got the role
and it was--

I had lunch with--
And in fact, that was--

There was a very funny story.

Because AIan said to me,
"Look, you b--"

Because we thought Richard Gere
was gonna take the role.

And he said :

"Could you go and have Iunch
with Brad over at U niversal .

And just say how sorry we are...

...that he's not gonna get the role...

...because we really wanted him
to do it...

...but the studio has that control ."

And so I had lunch and it was awful .

And I said , "I'm sorry, you know...

...we thought your screen test
was fantastic.

You would be absolutely perfect
for the role and--

But we can't control the studio."

And he was really understanding ...

...and I took him down the hill
and dropped him off...

...and I saw him nip across...

...one of the main roads,
where I thought:

"Well , that's gonna be the end of it."

And then , I think it was Iiterally
four weeks Iater...

...he was in London then ...

...fitted for what rags
we could stick on him.

But AIan really read him ,
Iooked at him...

...and David Iooked at him ,
David has a really terrific eye.

He's a very smart fellow.

And Marshall jumped in ,
everybody jumped in ...

...and felt he was the right person .

You know, once you're on the river
and the rapids are ahead ...

...and you can't get to shore...

...you're best to try to give the crew
its due and try to make it through .

And I think that at that point,
they realized that--

The studio realized
that they really weren't in charge.

That the momentum
had been achieved ...

...by the picture and this director...

...and so that they've said :

"Okay, we rolled the dice this far,
we'II support him ."

Well , it was a very small film .

You gotta understand .
Midnight Express...

...if you think of it in today's terms,
the budget of Midnight Express...

...isn't the catering bill
for most films today.

I mean , you're talking about a film
that was about a million-seven ...

...a million-eight
hu ndred thousand dollars.

You know, even then
it wasn't a very expensive film .

There wasn't a Iot of attention
paid for it...

...because it was
an economic engine...

...either in terms of reward
or expense.

And the people involved ,
none of them were stars, you know.

The only folks that were known
was me and David .

I mean , in the heart of the matter.

I had momentu m because I used to be
the president of the company.

So I had some Ieverage
in the thing ...

...and I had a big hit picture
that had just come out.

So the idea of being--
Yeah , we went back and forth .

David was there a Iot...

...and I went back and forth to Malta
a number of times.

But AIan had to carry the day.

And we were very careful
because we knew those dailies...

...being showed at the stud io
was gonna cause a problem .

I had those problems before
with Taxi Driver and Last Detail...

...and Tommy where the film
was controversial in the making ...

...and the dailies
would frighten the management.

So managing the expectations
of the studio wasn't hard ...

...because they had
no expectations.

What we were trying to do
was not get shut down ...

...because they got frightened
of the film .

And the scariest moment
in the making of the film ...

...was suddenly AIan called one day
and said , "We're done."

I said , "You got four more days
of shooting . What about the ending?

What about when he swims
across the Bosporus straits...

...and goes through the minefield?"

"No, no, no. We're gonna end it
when he comes out of the prison ."

We finished the film, our film ...

...what we thought was our film ...

...and , I think
it was about eight pages...

...earlier than the actual film script
that OIiver had written .

I said , "What?" I said ,
"They're gonna kill me at the studio.

That's the action part
of the actionladventure picture.

You're gonna take that out."

He said , "No, Peter, trust me.
It won't work.

I Iooked at the way
the film was shot."

I said , "Trust you , I know,
but it's scary.

It's scary
because that's what they think."

"Oh , that should be a great piece...

...for the trailer
and to sell the picture."

I then went back and got
into a complicated negotiation ...

...with the studio, who were
very unhappy about this, saying :

"Frankly, we would Iike to finish
the film on page--" I'm making this up.

"Page 1 08. And we think
the Iast 1 4 pages are unnecessary.

And we read your contract. The
contract says you gotta do all that."

I brokered a compromise,
which was, "Look, Iet us do this."

We were pretty on the edge
of the budget anyway.

"Let us do this.

If we failed , if we're wrong ...

...it's a separate shoot anyway...

...we'll come back,
shoot those sequences...

...and if necessary,
you can dock our salaries...

...for some of the costs, et cetera.

But let's only do it when we know
that our instincts are wrong ."

You gotta defend the filmmaker,
gotta support him ...

...and I did support him,
and certainly David supported him ...

...and Alan supported him .

So the idea is, we went with that.

And when we told the studio...

...we weren't shooting the ending
of the picture, they went ballistic.

And David Begelman , who was then
the chairman of the company...

...called me Iike four times and said ,
"That's absolutely unacceptable.

You got the money and the budget.
The money, you overspent it.

You're on budget.
Just shoot it and we'll have it."

I said , "Why don't you call AIan .

See if you can persuade him
to shoot and have it.

He's just not gonna do that
because he's afraid ...

...that you're gonna put it in
no matter what he thinks."

And he said , " I am gonna put it in
no matter what he thinks."

I said , "Well , there you go."

So that's how the film ended too.

With Billy Hayes
coming out of prison ...

...clicking his heels and being free.

AIan made a very cogent comment.

He said , "The real heart of the story
as it evolved in the filmmaking ...

...was his trials and tribulations
in the prison ...

...the system , how he behaved there,
what happened to him .

It was a cautionary tale
and to change the texture of the film ...

...at the Iast 1 0 minutes
and make it an actionladventure film...

...has the accent
on the wrong syllable, you know."

H is argument held merit,
you know what I mean?

It really had merit in every sense.

So it wasn't just an egocentric
exercise on the part of AIan Parker.

He really, as a filmmaker,
crafting this film from the screenplay...

...with all the notes
and the conversations...

...had to make a fundamental
creative judgment.

And he made the right one.

Before showing it to the studio,
we showed it to one or two friends...

...which included a woman
who's married to a guy...

...who had a lot of--

I'll keep the names out of it.

He had a Iot of faith in .

An experienced stud io executive.

And she absolutely freaked out...

...two-thirds of the way through
the film and ran out of there.

Ran out.

Particularly to do with the cat,
that's what finally did it for her.

And that was pretty alarming .

I think we hadn't anticipated
that sort of reaction .

So we were a bit tense.

We did eventually then-- It was
obviously created for the studio--

It's better Alan tells this story
than I do.

But we screened it
and everything was going fine...

...until we got towards
the end of the film .

And suddenly, the projectionist
got the reels in the wrong order.

And we're suddenly looking
at the penultimate reel he said--

And I went-- I mean ,
I was intensely nervous anyway.

I went utterly ballistic. I went
racing back to the projection box.

"What the fuck's going on?"

And the guy said ,
"Well , what's the matter?"

And for some extraordinary reason ,
I've never done it before or since...

...the reels were lettered ,
not nu mbered .

-I said , "You got the wrong reel up."
-He said , "No, I haven't."

And I said , "You have."
He said , "No, no. A, B, C, D, E ...

Oh , fuck. H , I . Oh , fuck this."

He had . He d idn't know his F and
his H and his I and his J , you know.

So I whacked him .

And the next thing I knew...

...I'm on the ground
in the projection box.

I got the head of the studio
walking in pulling us apart.

AIan's there.

But it's better, in a sense,
much better if AIIan tells this story.

And mayhem.

And in an odd way,
it wasn't intentional ...

...it was a good thing to happen
because it demonstrated ...

...the seriousness
of what had happened .

We had a similar experience on Bugsy
with Barry Diller. But, another story.

And the tension , it was--
Anyway, it was all right.

And then in end , the screening ,
I think, went very well .

I mean , people were blown away
by the movie.

I mean , even if you didn't Iike it,
you're blown away by the movie.

Some people Ioved it,
some did n't Iike it, but blown away.

To understand Cannes,
you've to understand the back-story.

Because without the context...

...Cannes is just the place
where the film was first exhibited .

The context was that Colu mbia,
Norman Levy was a champion ...

...who was a distributor,
Iiked the film when he first saw it.

David Begelman was going through
his own trials and tribulations...

...didn't really ad mire the film.

I mean , he didn't dislike
the qualitative aspects of it...

...but he didn't feel comfortable with
what the film , you know, portrayed .

And the idea of going to Cannes...

...wasn't to lau nch the film ,
you know, or to praise the film...

...it was to really
put the film aside, say:

"Look, if it's not gonna work,
you know, it'Il vaporize."

And Cannes is a scary place...

...to Iaunch the first public screening
of a movie.

It's really throwing all the marbles
on the table at one shot.

And what happened was--
It was very unusual at Cannes.

First of all , what usually occurs...

...is that there's press screenings
that start in the morning ...

...at 1 0:00, 1 2:00, 2 :00, 4:00.

Then there's the big screening
in the Palais at night.

And there was a kind of feeling
amongst the Columbia brass...

...that they'd just Iike this thing to get
through and go on to the next project.

And when we went to the screening--
I went to that screening ...

...a big , big screening
in the old Palais at 1 0:00...

...and usually a Iot of the press comes
at the 1 0:00 screening .

There were very few press there.

Maybe 20 percent, 1 5 percent,
very, very few.

Looked Iike a catastrophe
because press weren't showing up.

"Oh , my God ." I know for my own self,
my own story's a Iittle different.

I went off and got
completely whacked , drunk.

I went up to Colombe d'Or, drank,
took my wife and some friends.

Because I could n't bear the thing
cratering , not only creatively...

...I believed in the film,
the filmmakers and the project...

...but also financially.

It would've been a debacle for me.

And so I got completely sloshed .

And I wandered
back into Cannes around ...

...oh , around 4:30
and bumped into Rona Barrett...

...who was then a very, very,
very important commentator...

...about popular Hollywood projects,
people, personalities.

She was People Magazine
personified for television networks.

And I had known her
for a number of years...

...and she came up to me
in the street...

...and said ,
"I wanna see Midnight Express.

Can I get four tickets?"

I said , "You can get six,
you can get eight, you can get 1 0.

You can get as many as you want.
Lay down ."

"Really? Can I get eight?"

"No problem, I'II go get eight for you ,"
figuring the place is gonna be empty.

So I strolled over to the Palais.

At that time, they had
Iike a will call box office...

...you can pick up extra seats
and such .

I walked up to the booth and I said ,
"I'd like six tickets or eight tickets...

-...for Midnight Express tonight."
-Says, "No, no, no."

I said , "Well , I'm the producer...

...executive producer, owner, head
of the studio. Can I get the tickets?"

He said , "You could be
King of France, there are no tickets."

I said , "Why?"
He said , "Because they're all gone."

AII gone? The first thing I thought...

-...how could they be all gone?
-"They're all gone."

I said , "Nobody was there
this morning at the press."

He said , "Yeah , but by 2:00,
there were 1 0,000 people...

...and 50 million , you know,
picketers in front of the theatre...

...picketing and screaming
and yelling and carrying on .

There wasn't a ticket to be had .
The press people were jammed in ."

That freaked me because I didn't know
what's gonna happen that night.

So we go that night.
There was a lot of buzz...

...a Iot of noise,
kind of Iike uncomfortableness.

And the French audience
can be very fickle.

They can boo, they can get u p,
they can stomp, they can walk out.

You know, they're not immu ne
to the niceties...

...of, you know,
being polite in the theatre.

And we all sat together
and the film played .

There was a few bumps and grinds
and people were anxious in the film .

We've never seen it really,
at all , in a public screening .

It hadn't been previewed .
That's a pretty scary thing .

And the film played , the film finished
and we knew something was wrong ...

...because they didn't applaud ,
nothing happened .

And Alan and myself and David ,
we all looked at each other.

"This is not good ."

And then the credits ended
and they all--

Two thousand people stood up
and gave a standing ovation .

So we went from the depths
of cataclysmic failure...

...to the heights of euphoria
in one minute.

I n one minute.

And then the film took off.

And then everybody-- Success has
many fathers and failure is an orphan ...

...in our business, everybody
had something to do with the film .

The one champion in the studio
that was really remarkable...

...was a man named Norman Levy,
the head of distribution ...

...who worked for me
when I was running Columbia.

He's passed away,
but he was truly a believer.

He didn't need
the social proof of the film playing .

He knew in his heart
that this film was gonna work.

The showing at the evening
was wonderful .

I mean , it was very well received
and we came out...

...we were favourites to win
the Palme d'Or, I think.

But the next morning ,
you have the press conference.

And we were very naive
in those days.

I mean , we weren't
that young actually.

But we were probably young
in film terms.

We certainly were young
in film terms.

But we got a great deal of criticism .

Mostly because I think they thought
that we had never shown ...

...any Turkish person
in any good light...

...that there was no good Turks
in the movie.

And we said , "Well , within the
circumstances of being a prison ...

...we didn't expect to find
too many nice Turks."

But that was a great deal
of the criticism.

Of course, that criticism ...

...I don't think ever came
this side of the Atlantic...

...because I don't think
it was criticized ...

...for any of its political connotations
in the U .S.A.

Whereas in Europe, it was...

I mean , in Holland ,
somebody set fire to a cinema...

...that the film was running in .

I n Germany, it failed miserably
at the box office...

...because during the Iate '60s
and early '70s...

...there was a huge influx
of Turkish workers...

...into the German community.

And so it had major criticism
in many areas...

...and mostly, I think, because
of this whole political situation ...

...that they wanted us
to show an even balance.

And we didn't show
that even balance.

Everybody was nasty in the movie.

Even the inmates were nasty
as well as the judge.

Not so much the judge,
but certainly the prosecutor...

...was a nasty piece of work.

There's a marvellous man ,
called David Matinal ...

...who, at the time, was overseas
sales director of Columbia.

He bore the brunt of this
because he was going around ...

...having to deal with Iocal distributors
and he was amazing .

We had a couple of court cases.

One I remember definitely in Holland
about the opening of the film.

To an extent, David and others
protected us from a Iot of that.

And it wasn't until we started
going out promoting the film ...

...that we, in a way,
came up against it.

The film had one of those u nique
moments in the ether of film business...

...that flies in the face of gravity.

Films would open , the first week
would always the best...

...and the second ,
the third and the fourth .

And at that time in the world
in the '70s...

...films played for 1 5-, 1 6 weeks,
1 4 weeks, 1 3 weeks.

They started out in 40 theatres,
20 theatres...

...1 0 theatres, two theatres
you know, and expanded .

They don't open in 6000 screens,
you know, internationally...

...including Phuket, Thailand
at the same time.

They opened in , you know,
the West Side of New York...

...the East Side of New York,
Hollywood Boulevard ...

...west Los Angeles, maybe Chicago,
maybe, you know, M ichigan Avenue.

I mean , three sites,
that's where this film started .

And they figured
that would be the end it.

And the film opened kind of soft.

It disappointed Norman Levy, he was
the big d istribution fan of the picture.

He said , "We were disappointed ,
we thought it was okay."

And the reviews were quite good .

Very good .

But the audience reaction
was fantastic.

Fantastic.

Suddenly the second week,
it actually went up.

And the third week went up.

Then it expanded ,
went up the fourth week.

So that
everybody was talking about.

How can the film be improving?

I think early on they realized
they had ...

...a good movie...

...which with good promotion ,
could make money.

I think the level of success
amazed them .

I mean , it did return remarkable...

...percentage of its investment.
Look at it pound for pound .

One of the most successful films
probably ever made.

Because it was
so relatively inexpensive...

...a bit Iike The Full Monty.

You know, there are films that-- Look at
what they cost, look what they gross...

...and then you think,
"My God , if every movie could do that...

...everyone would be
in this business.

Guber's gotta take a Iot credit
for the fact that he really d id push ...

...for a marketing budget
that was weighty.

He is very, very good ...

...at the promotional aspects
of filmmaking .

I Iearned a Iot from him in that area.

But the genius behind the ads
and everything else I think was AIan .

AIan understood
the power of the film ...

...and sort of how to promote
the power of the film .

About a year Iater, in England ...

...it played as a double bill
with another film , Taxi Driver...

...which I started at Columbia.

And I said to somebody in the paper,
which got quoted :

"They should stand outside the theatre
and arrest everybody...

...that comes out of the theatre."
To watch those two films in a row...

...you gotta be really hard-core.