WEBVTT - Burn the Negative 0:00:01.880 --> 0:00:04.680 Hi, I'm Bryce's Able. Thirty years ago, Brent Friedman and 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:06.760 I were living the dream. We were shooting a big 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:11.200 budget NBC pilot about a nineteen sixties alien invasion. And 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:13.119 then one day, while I was on the set, I 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:15.720 got a call from a studio executive who had a 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:19.160 demand that made no sense. He said, our show's majestic 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:21.960 field agents, who were called in our script men in Black, 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:24.880 could no longer wear black suits because he said, the 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:27.880 studio's feature division was gearing up to produce a new 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.240 movie comedy called men in Black with a famous producer 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.199 and a hot director. So I pushed back. I was 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:37.320 telling him that the men in black had been a 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.160 part of UFO lore for decades, going back to even 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:42.920 the nineteen fifties, and I'd already used the term in 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.680 script and on screen before in three separate TV series, 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:50.600 including one two hour movie. The response I got, though, 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.080 was not a debate. It was a threat. And this 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.279 is what he said, and it's a quote, get your 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:00.920 actors out of their black suits today, or we will 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:05.800 shut down your production and burn the negative. Now, what 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:09.280 follows in this episode is a chronological document based account 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:11.600 of how that one phone call mushroomed into a full 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:15.760 blown corporate meltdown, complete with many non negotiable demands that 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.000 went far beyond wardrobe and into the creative heart and 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:22.200 the very existence of our series in the days to come. 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.600 We were told that scenes must be cut, entire concepts 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:29.800 would be abandoned, key relationships changed, and even dialogue deleted. 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:32.720 In the hour ahead, Brent and I will explain why 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.959 we stayed quiet for three decades, how close we came 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.320 to losing the show and possibly our own careers, and 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:42.720 how we ended up forced into a costly compromise, including 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:47.520 an extraordinary eleven day reshoot of our already approved two 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:50.680 hour network pilot. It still gives us chills to think 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:53.480 about what happened that day back then. But today we're 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:54.960 going to tell the story anyway. 0:01:55.160 --> 0:02:14.680 Don't go away. 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:24.200 I'm Brent Friedman. Have you ever wondered if there's a 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.000 secret connection between Hollywood and UFOs? 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:31.480 I'm Brice Abel and you're listening to sound, light and frequency. 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:35.160 For thirty years now, we have not talked publicly about 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:37.320 the story. You're going to hear in this episode, and 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.440 when you hear the details, you'll understand why. 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:41.560 But what we told. 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.160 Ourselves when we agreed to do this podcast that you're 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.280 listening to, is that we would finally and forever tell 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.320 the entire story of what happened, the good, the bad, 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:51.480 the anomalous. 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:53.000 So here we go. 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.920 It's a tough episode to do, Brent. I've been dreading 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:12.800 even showing up for this. 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.760 One, I know, and it's been a long time that 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:17.919 we've been sitting on this. I know we've probably told 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:20.960 the story to our inner circle family and friends, but 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.480 now that we're actually going public with it, there's part 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.280 of me that still feels, why are we poking the bear. 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:29.839 I'm sure people are going who's the bear? You'll find 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:31.840 out there's actually a couple bears in this story. 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:34.840 You'll have to guess about the bear. Listen, this is 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:36.920 our point of view. I think that's the thing that's 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.600 most important to make clear. It's our point of view. 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.200 It's what people told us, it's what happened to us, 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.200 it's what we experienced. Okay, if we speculate, we'll tell 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.960 you we're speculating. But mostly we have the receipts. We 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.880 actually have memos that were written contemporaneously. We have conversations 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.600 that multiple people were witnessed to those kind of things. 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:01.560 You get a couple of things out of the way 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.160 right up top. It's no secret that our show Dark 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:07.480 Skys was produced by Columbia Television, which at the time 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.840 was a subsidiary of Sony, and that will become important 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:13.240 as we go on. Our intent is to tell the 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.280 story as we manage to live it. The thing I 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:18.960 most want to make clear to people right now is 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.040 we ain't looking for a fight. This is thirty years 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:27.360 on three decades, thirty years this year. We're storytellers. This 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:31.320 is a true story, and since we made these contemporaneous notes, 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.520 we feel confident in telling the story about what happened. 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:36.880 And I guess we just have to get on with it. 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:41.040 And as you mentioned, Dark Skies was set up at 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:45.520 Columbia Pictures Television, which also has another division under Sony 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.239 called TriStar, And at TriStar there was a movie in 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:53.920 production while we were in production, and it was called 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:54.560 Men in Black. 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.800 We're going to try to tell this story chronologically because 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:01.080 it's kind of complex and complicated and all that. We 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:03.520 want to make it clean and simple, so as we 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.400 get to it, the best scene setter would be to 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.000 just state for people that haven't been watching or listening 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.800 to the podcast all along. Dark Skies was an NBC 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:17.279 television series. We were in production on it in November 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.280 and December of nineteen ninety five in Washington, d C. 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.400 And then in Los Angeles, and that's where I got 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.159 the phone call that we talked about earlier. So just 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.200 to be clear, at that point where all this starts, 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.240 it's just a pilot. There's no backup scripts, there's no 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:36.560 network order. We just got our fingers crossed. We're just like, hey, 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:40.080 let's hope this works out. Our pilot's dailies and the 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.400 evolving rough assembly of our film were happening in a 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:47.560 Sony editing room, and apparently there were multiple editing suites, 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:49.680 and that's where the story begins. 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:50.159 In a way. 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.760 We can go on record as saying that two names 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.080 we need to name were the director of Men in 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:01.080 black Berry, Sonenfeld, and one of the producers, Steven Spielberg. 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.320 It was an ambulance production, and I think the inciting incident, 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.120 which we've used that term before, of all of this 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:13.320 was that well, Dark Skies was in post production in editing. 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.920 As Bryce said on the Sony lot next to that 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:21.400 post production facility. Men in Black was in post production, 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.120 and it just so happened that one day Barry Sonenfeld 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.400 heard some of our editors talking about the show. He 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:30.919 thought it sounded interesting. He asked more about it, and 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:35.040 when he heard what the storyline was, he immediately demanded. 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:35.919 To see footage. 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:39.240 Being a big director, he was shown footage and that 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:40.640 set everything in motion. 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.760 And that's what we were told by the Columbia executives. 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.120 We weren't in the editing room ourselves. I've never talked 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:51.200 to Barry Son Andfeld about this, or Steven Spielberg, and 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:53.920 I've not talked to about this. This is what we 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.440 were being told on our end. That phone call still 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:01.160 chills me. As I said earlier, the executive said, and 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:03.919 I think it bears repeating because it really goes to 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.080 our state of mind bred at that time where he said, 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.640 I remember I was arguing Men in Black nineteen fifty 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:15.000 six and Gray Barker and all this stuff, and he said, 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.880 let me put this in words you can understand, which 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.680 I thought was a pretty funny run up to it. 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:22.840 But then he said, get your actors out of their 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.800 black suits today or we will shut down your production 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.800 and burn the negative, which that's as close to being 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:32.960 erased as you can. That's like nineteen eighty four. It's hey, 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:37.200 this never happened. Had they done that, dark skies wouldn't 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.760 have ever existed, would have just been nothing. So we 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.600 did make some early adjustments while we were in production 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.360 on the pilot to the black suits. We weren't using 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.880 black suits anymore. We put our people into a multiple 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:55.560 of suits green, blue, brown, and gray and whenever possible, 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.480 not too dark a gray though, but whenever possible. We 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.640 also put them in military use uniforms. That was something 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:05.120 that we made an initial adjustment. And given that this 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.680 was during the pilot, we thought, or we hoped, that 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:10.840 was the end of it, that, Okay, they had a 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.160 problem with just our black suits, maybe we can do that. 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.400 They had a problem with the visuals, but they also 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.400 had a problem with the fact that in our pilot, 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:25.840 based on historical references, we called our men in black. 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.000 We said those words in the pilot, and we had 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:32.720 to change those words. And I remember going through an 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.120 intense asking everyone on the writing staff, what are some 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:38.559 other names we could come up with for men in black? 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:43.040 And ultimately, after a long set of lists. We ended 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:44.760 up settling on cloakers. 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:50.280 We did that in February, So just imagine the timeframe 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:52.880 this is all going down, being shot in November December. 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.199 By February, we had moved to our new offices out 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.960 in North Hollywood, all right, and we were out there. 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:03.040 We had received an order from NBC for six backup scripts, 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.280 and we hadn't actually turned into The Dark Sky's pilot yet, 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.560 but we were told at that time, under no circumstances 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.360 could our guys be in black suits, nor could they 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.040 be referred to as men in black, all right, that 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.839 was the clear thing. So that's why we did call 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.600 them cloakers, and so literally we had to do fine 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.000 replace on all the work that had ever been done. 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.040 Every time there was a men in Black, it became 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.480 a cloaker. Now what's ironic about this, I think, is 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.719 that the Men in Black feature film, at least they 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.840 say it was based on Lowell Cunningham's comic book. I 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.240 believe it was a Marvel comic book, and that comic book, 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.000 by the way, says quote based on the Men in 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:45.360 Black conspiracy theory. I don't know what people are arguing 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.079 about if anybody's got a beef about this, it would 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.959 probably be the guys from the fifties that first coined 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.080 the phrase men in Black. So then a couple of 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:55.520 interesting things happened during all this. 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.440 While this is happening and we're making these concessions, I 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:03.880 had a meeting on a film project at TriStar. I 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.040 will not name the executive, but I had that meeting 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.079 because he was such a fan of the Dark Sky script. 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.080 He wanted to meet me and talk about other projects. 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.520 Now again, this is an executive at TriStar where Men 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.120 in Black is being made into a movie. He's read 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.840 our pilot and has no problem whatsoever. In fact, he 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:24.679 loved the script. 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:29.240 I had the same situation happen at approximately that time. 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.720 At that time, while Brent was having that TriStar meeting, 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.840 I got hired by Amblein, of all people, to write 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.760 a video game called Ghost in the Machine, is about 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.800 a piece of alien technology that changed the world. And 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.280 in April of that year, I had a meeting with 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.679 Steven Spielberg. All right, they sat me in his office 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.480 waiting for the meeting about Ghost in the Machine to happen, 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:52.839 and then he came in and I think I've even 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:56.280 said this on one of our previous episodes. He shook 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:58.080 my hands. He seemed like a really nice guy and 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:00.960 he said great to see you again, and I'd never 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.600 met him, but I thought that's pleasant, that's pleasing. And 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.920 then he slapped me on the back and goes big 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.480 fan of dark skies, and I was like, you could 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:10.640 talk about it, or you could just say thank you. 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:12.040 I went with the second option. 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:14.800 I said thank you, and it was a fine meeting 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.760 and the dark guys didn't come up again. So actually, 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.679 around that time, I think probably both you and I 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:23.600 were thinking, Okay, this was just about the suits. Just 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:25.679 the color of the suits, that's the problem. 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:28.880 Yeah, I think about this time I honestly felt like, wow, 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.959 we had dodged a bullet. And looking back on it now, 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:34.600 I think, why was any of this happening? Because I 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:38.040 think the producers of Men in Black had unique leverage. 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.880 Their movie was being made at Sony and our TV 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.640 show was being made at Sony, and they didn't want 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.520 any competition for the idea of Men in Black being 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.360 out there in film or television, and so they used 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.960 their leverage, which makes perfect sense, and we had to 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:56.880 We had no choice. We capitulated, we changed the color 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:58.920 of the suits and the name men in Black, and 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:01.640 we were going on with our line thinking everything was fine. 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.679 I wasn't happy about it, to be quite candid, No, because, 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.640 like I said, and I'll be specific, by the time 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.840 we were being challenged about daring to have men in 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.360 black in our scripts, I had done the official Denial 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.280 movie for the Sci Fi Channel and it literally in 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.320 the script talked about men in black and there were 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:21.920 guys in dark suits in it. Then I went and 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.520 was working for Lois and Clark over at ABC on 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.160 the Warner Brothers lot, and I did a couple of 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.960 episodes for with Superman in it where the men in 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:32.679 black were after it and they're called in the script 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:36.079 men in Black. Nobody had any problem at Sci Fi Channel, 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:38.720 nobody had any problem at Warner Brothers. And then the 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:40.360 show that I was working on when you and I 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.160 first met was Mantis, and we did a story about 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:43.839 men in black. 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.120 So that's just my experience. 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:48.920 That's a free television series and a movie with men 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:51.360 and black in them. So I was a little myf 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.240 that we were being told this on this very important 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.920 creative vision of ours. Just to put things in perspective. 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.800 About a month before I had that meeting at Amblin 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.679 with Steven Spielberg and the gang on the video game, 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:07.240 our completed pilot had been turned into NBC, and so 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:09.439 we were working on these six backup scripts. But now 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.880 they saw our film and we were told that even 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:14.920 if it didn't go to series, they were going to 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.640 air the thing the next August. So that was all 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.800 good news. But at the same time that was happening, 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.679 we were also told that Columbia was bidding out the 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:29.600 colorization of all the black suits still existed in the pilots. 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:34.000 So in other words, we had gone to blue, black, gray, brown, 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.440 and military uniforms, but there were still some black suits 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.440 from some of the previously shot scenes, and they were 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:42.880 going to pay to I think it's rotoscope. 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:43.760 Is that what you do to it? 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.280 It was rotoscope, yes, and you're right. That was when 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:49.480 I remember the next bump in the road was a 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.600 lot of discussion about who's going to pay for this. 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:54.080 Is this going to go against the negative cost of 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:57.120 the show? Is this going to be absorbed by the 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.200 film studio. Again, It's weird because it was all in 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:02.760 the same family, but I think there was just some 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:06.199 debates internally about Okay, who's paying for this colorization? 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.319 I knew, and I weren't making those arguments. People were 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.319 making those arguments around us. There was a production meeting 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.120 at the Sony Columbia lot where this was brought up 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:19.040 and hotly debated, because even the TV people were at 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.320 this point on our side about it. They were saying 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.160 to the studio, to the feature people, look, you're the 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:27.040 guys that want this change. We'd be happy to put 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.280 this thing on the way it is. The network loves 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:31.920 it the way it is, so why should we pay 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.320 a million dollars to fix these suits? So they were 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.720 not happy. And yet, as history will note, the feature 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.200 people did not pay for our colorization. We had that 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.080 come out of our budget. But just now to pick 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:49.720 up the narrative thrust of this thing, we were on 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.120 a fast train to getting a network show. We'd already 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:56.920 turned in the pilot. Everybody liked the script. They shot it, 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.720 they were respectful of it. Toby Hooper did a hell 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.960 of a job directing it. We cut it together, and 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:04.960 I do remember we had so much of it. We 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.200 had to cut forty seven minutes out of our original 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.840 cut to get to the network until that's another episode 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.080 for us some other time, but we get it into 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:16.760 the network. Because back in those days, it was very 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.760 important for the networks to announce their fall schedules in May. 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.800 They did that at the New York upfronts okay, and 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.400 so I remember these days. It was May ninth of 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:28.240 that year that NBC called and said, we're putting you 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:30.400 on the fall schedule, and I think you and I 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:33.400 were like, hey, not only did we dodge a bullet, 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.240 but this is so fantastic. And they also said they 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:41.040 were increasing our order to eleven episodes rather than six, 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.640 which they were first talking about. So now suddenly we've 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.200 got our two hour pilot, eleven episodes were going to shoot, 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.400 We're on the fall schedule, and they're going to make 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.840 us the lead show on their Saturday night trilogy of 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.720 three shows. So we are leading the charge. We're an 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:02.120 important thing. And I remember personally that I was lucky 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:04.440 enough to get to go to New York where they 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:08.320 did the upfront announcements. Warren Littlefield made the announcement and 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:10.800 it was fantastic. So I say all this just to 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.920 paint one picture here, there's a couple of tracks going 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.120 on right now, and they're going on at the same time, 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.240 but you and I are only really aware deeply about 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.360 one of them. Track one is we're on a track 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:26.880 for big success. We're going to have a network show 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:29.640 that they're going to promote the holy crap out of 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:33.440 and did as We've talked about, buses with our Dark 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.000 Sky's posters on them all over La, that kind of thing. 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.880 So that's the track we thought is going on. Everything's 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:44.280 going well, everything's been resolved, it's all fantastic. But the 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:48.080 second track that we were not being privileged to was 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:50.960 that Sony Columbia must have been This is a supposition 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.360 when I said we would speculate. The speculation is they 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.480 were conflicted because they were continuing to get heat from 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.480 Amblin about this thing, and they don't tell us much 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.640 about that, but it would certainly come to four very 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:05.480 soon where we would learn about that. 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.400 The irony here is that our great achievement of being 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:11.879 picked up and put on the air, I think is 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.480 what set off the second act complication of our story, 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:19.240 which was if Amblin and the producers of Men in 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.600 Black were hedging their bets and saying, you know what, 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.080 we don't know what's going to happen with this TV series, 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.480 changed the suits and the name. Once we got on 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:31.919 the air and we had multiple episodes being ordered and 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.400 we were the star of Saturday Night. I think that 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:39.440 put panic in them against purely speculation, except that the 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:43.560 results speak for themselves, because that's when the hammer came down. 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.399 One final thought before we get into the Hammer coming 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.920 down section of this show, because it is so strange. 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.760 In the middle of this, I'm already doing this video 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:56.719 game for Amblin. I get a phone call from the 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:00.920 feature division at Amblin, my agent does, saying they want 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:03.040 me to come in for a meeting about something called 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.560 the Alien Organism Project. And I said to my agent 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:10.040 at the time, are they aware of how much trouble 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:15.880 they're causing Columbia TV and Sony over our show Dark Skies? 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:18.360 And he goes, I don't know if those guys are 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:20.080 You want me to tell him? I said, no, no, no, 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:22.000 I don't want you to tell them anything about that. 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:24.480 He said, but should I take the meeting? And he goes, 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.160 if you're suffering any harm anyway right now, you want 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.480 to suffer it? Twice go take the meeting. So I 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.600 took the meeting, and in fact I did have two 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:37.400 meetings on something called the Alien Organism Project at Amblin 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.760 in nineteen ninety six. Is all this stuff is going on, 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:43.840 and the last of those meetings was June sixth. 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:44.520 When it went away. 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.120 Now I only bring that data up because what Brent 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.000 and I want to do for you folks right now 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:52.800 who are listening or watching, is it kind of gets 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:57.879 intense in July of nineteen ninety six. It's the week 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.480 from hell for me and you, Brent. It'd be wrong 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.000 to say it came out of nowhere, because we certainly 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:05.760 had heard the rumblings. And when somebody says we potentially 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.720 are going to burn your negative, these are serious threats. 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.920 These are serious things that people are saying. But let 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.320 me just paint the picture of what July first was. 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:17.720 July first is a Monday, so start your engines and 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.520 your clocks here. It's Monday, July first, and what happens 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:24.480 on that day. Something people may remember that there was 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.719 a time in the seventies when Bruce Springsteen was on 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:30.040 the cover of Time and Newsweek at the same time, 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.520 same week, and people have gone that was so unusual. 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:38.879 It happened again on July. First Time magazine and Newsweek 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:43.679 magazine each had articles about aliens being popular in Hollywood 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.480 all right. The Time one was called the Aliens Have Landed, 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:50.040 and as we've talked about before, I was lucky enough 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:51.120 to get quoted in that. 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:52.600 One talking about dark skies. 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:56.200 The Newsweek one had a cover article called out There, 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:01.160 and it was also about all these alien invasion storylines. 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:03.439 I guess the point of these two articles, and the 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:06.159 reason is an interesting starter's gun for this week is 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:10.600 both articles made the point that these showbiz projects share 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.160 common roots in the mythology of the UFO movement, which 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.240 is a fancy way of even alluding to men in Black, 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:21.320 which we possibly should at least do a little quick 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.560 sidebar before we get into the rest of July and 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.119 just explain that men in Black have been around for 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:36.360 a while. The first thing is one of the earliest 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:39.480 stories people always cite goes back to nineteen forty seven, 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.760 and if that sounds familiar, folks, it's because that is 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:45.800 the year where there were all these sightings across the 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:50.320 United States and the world. Kenneth Arnold cited his nine 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:55.040 Craft flying across Washington State that year, there were things 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:58.280 going on in Puget Sound, and a guy named Harold 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.960 Dahl said that he saw UFO in nineteen forty seven 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.160 in puge Cent which is right by where you live. 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.399 It's on Maury Island is where that incident happened, and 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:08.600 it is just north of me. 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.680 And that guy Dahl said he got a visit from 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:15.000 a man in a black suit who seemed to know 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:18.840 way too much and warned him to stop talking about 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.600 his sighting. So that kind of was the starting gun 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:23.600 for it. He didn't call them anything, but he did 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:25.720 say the guy was in a black suit. 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:28.440 He was told not to speak of the incident. The 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.320