Speaker 1: H m hm. You're listening to playback a Variety I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio podcast. I'm your host, Variety Awards editor Chris Happily.
Speaker 1: This week we've got director Brad Bird stopping by to
Speaker 1: talk about Pixars Incredibles two. We also discussed the film
Speaker 1: The Iron Giant, which is nearly twenty years old and
Speaker 1: got a nice reprise and Ready Player one earlier this year.
Speaker 1: We touch on that and more on this week's episode.
Speaker 1: So sit tight. This is playback to travel to Canada
Speaker 1: and Mexico. The world lays, the world awaits, the world awaits.
Speaker 1: I tend to get a lot of people like at
Speaker 1: the end of a big international tour and it's like,
Speaker 1: well you're getting me right at the beginning and yet
Speaker 1: still fry, which is the way you like us right exactly.
Speaker 1: It's like at the end of a long junket day,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, well yesterday and it was an unbelievably
Speaker 1: long day. Uh. I look at Haitian and she goes, Okay,
Speaker 1: now it's time for this magazine. And I like the magazine.
Speaker 1: But it's like they had all these elaborate, complicated ideas
Speaker 1: that have demanded you know me, like thinking deeply, and
Speaker 1: it's like I'm at the I'm barely able to form
Speaker 1: sentences now, I'm like, where dog do you? And scene? Okay? Um,
Speaker 1: it was like dimeric god, but you know, and they're
Speaker 1: like neither one doing if you can pontifically under the
Speaker 1: very elaborate formulation the thing. And I'm like, I looked
Speaker 1: at haja right there, that's not gonna happen. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: have some fun ideas for you. I'm like, please, not
Speaker 1: fun ideas. No fun ideas at this point. All right,
Speaker 1: all right, it's gonna sounds awesome. I'm good. All right,
Speaker 1: let's just get some levels from you real fast. This
Speaker 1: is what we're gonna be doing here. So as much
Speaker 1: as you can not do this basically otherwise, you're good. Cool,
Speaker 1: all right, thank you? Dan? Is that the actual recording
Speaker 1: Dad is the recording device? How badasses? That podcast in
Speaker 1: a bread basket? I love that I can take this
Speaker 1: thing with me on the plane recording film festivals and
Speaker 1: and the quality is like hig bet rate and all
Speaker 1: that good stuff. Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm a novice,
Speaker 1: but it's it's uh so far. I mean, yeah, she
Speaker 1: might be lying, what's your favorite one well, I really
Speaker 1: like because he gave me a head duff about what's
Speaker 1: to listen for. There you go. He was fun. Alright.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're recording thirty minute conversation talk about Incredibles too.
Speaker 1: I'm here today with director Brad Bird, writer director Brad Byrne.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about Incredibles two, which is uh coming
Speaker 1: soon and so awesome. I just saw it the other day.
Speaker 1: It's fantastic. I want to start by talking about just
Speaker 1: the aesthetic of these movies. I mean, I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot, actually, certainly with the last
Speaker 1: movie as well, but just the the overall aesthetic, this
Speaker 1: idea of the future has seen from the sixties. You know,
Speaker 1: just talk about why that was the aesthetic you were
Speaker 1: interested in for these movies, and you know how that
Speaker 1: developed further in the second Yeah, I think it was
Speaker 1: just kind of um you know, that was kind of
Speaker 1: part of the first really convincing adventures for me as
Speaker 1: a child were the Bond films and the spy films
Speaker 1: of that era and Johnny Quest. You know, I think
Speaker 1: my favorite show as as a child was Johnny Quest,
Speaker 1: and there was this kind of um futurism that uh
Speaker 1: still involved kind of nutty fantasy, but it had hydrofoils
Speaker 1: and jet packs and all kinds of that stuff like
Speaker 1: that in it, and um there's something about it that
Speaker 1: that always seemed I think that the best sort of villains,
Speaker 1: the superheroes that were most convincing to me as a
Speaker 1: kid were um, spy movies. They weren't superhero movies. Um Uh.
Speaker 1: There was the Superman. It was the George Reeves one
Speaker 1: that was kind of you know in in reruns and
Speaker 1: you know, he's I like him, And for me, he
Speaker 1: kind of was Superman from my from from my youth
Speaker 1: because I saw those reruns and but he was kind
Speaker 1: of a little bit overweight and he's doing his little
Speaker 1: weird trampoline out the window and and you know, it's
Speaker 1: not the most convincing stuff. Why yeah. And you know
Speaker 1: the Batman was kind of the same way. It was
Speaker 1: very very campy and and and um, I the Bond
Speaker 1: films that were my parents were cool enough to let me,
Speaker 1: um see. I didn't see them on their first release.
Speaker 1: Some of them, like From Russia with Love and and
Speaker 1: Dr No and stuff like that. I saw it on
Speaker 1: re release, but my parents let me see them. And
Speaker 1: those films seemed to be kind of like superheroes ask
Speaker 1: in in that Uh they had the best devices, they
Speaker 1: had the best villains, they had the best henchman you know. Um,
Speaker 1: they had these theme songs that you just couldn't forget
Speaker 1: after one listen, um Oceans of Brass, you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: it seemed to have u an impact on me. So
Speaker 1: when I was thinking of this superhero idea, that's kind
Speaker 1: of it had a spy vibe to me. Um, and
Speaker 1: that felt like it felt like when I was first
Speaker 1: getting adventures as a kid. Yeah. Absolutely, Were you a
Speaker 1: fan of I'm just curious anything inspired by Darwin Cook
Speaker 1: at all. I'm a big fan of Darwin Cooks and
Speaker 1: his art working has ever come into play for you know.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure it's great, you know. You know, I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure if you were aware, But yeah, he did
Speaker 1: like DC's New Frontier and stuff. But no, I'm not
Speaker 1: really up. People think that I'm knowledgeable about comic books,
Speaker 1: and I'm really not. I mean, that's the sad truth.
Speaker 1: The only one that I know well where I can
Speaker 1: hang in there with you is the Spirit now, which
Speaker 1: is not that well known, but I consider it's really
Speaker 1: kind of genius. And uh Will Eisner to me is,
Speaker 1: you know, the Spirit and is sort of the cisten
Speaker 1: Kine of of uh comic books to me, And so
Speaker 1: I can I can have a detailed discussion with you
Speaker 1: about the Spirit. But but all the other ones are
Speaker 1: you know, I have the most embarrassing novicey sort of understanding.
Speaker 1: I got my superhero sort of second hand through movies
Speaker 1: and TV and and a little bit the comic books,
Speaker 1: but not too much cool. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: advances and animation, you know, like, is there anything that
Speaker 1: you weren't able to do fifteen years ago that you
Speaker 1: were able to do now? For instance? Or maybe it's
Speaker 1: the easier way to what I was gonna say, Maybe
Speaker 1: it's all about speed. How more, how quickly you can
Speaker 1: do something now is compared to kind of the best
Speaker 1: way to put it, I think, I mean more accurately,
Speaker 1: I think it's that we barely were able to do
Speaker 1: it on the first film. Um everything that computer animation
Speaker 1: was bad at you know, humans, hair, fabric, water fire,
Speaker 1: that's all we had in The Incredibles. And um so
Speaker 1: when we first showed our story reels to the company
Speaker 1: UM people were on one level very excited by it,
Speaker 1: but on another level, everyone came out of the screening
Speaker 1: white because they were just feeling like, oh, holy crap,
Speaker 1: how are we going to be able to do this.
Speaker 1: It's everything that we are not too hot at. And
Speaker 1: that's all it is. There is nothing else. There's no
Speaker 1: furry animals, and there's no um, you know, uh, hard
Speaker 1: surfaced characters. It's all squishy humans which were not very
Speaker 1: good at and uh fabric and hair and fire and
Speaker 1: all that. So um uh. They felt like, we'll figure
Speaker 1: it out, and they did, but we were on the
Speaker 1: edge of failure the entire time we were making the
Speaker 1: first movie. We barely got the hair in time for Violet,
Speaker 1: and and you know, we had some very promising tests
Speaker 1: early on UM, but they were kind of like strips
Speaker 1: of rubber and they kind of generally moved like hair
Speaker 1: should move. And they said, we were very encouraged by this,
Speaker 1: and I was encouraged by it too, and uh, yet uh,
Speaker 1: it didn't improve. And finally they came to me and
Speaker 1: they said, it's not getting better and we don't know
Speaker 1: how to do it, and nobody else knows how to
Speaker 1: do it. Either all the other CG films had hair helmets,
Speaker 1: you know, and and uh uh they said, um, does
Speaker 1: Violet have to have long hair? And I said, yes,
Speaker 1: it's part of her character. She hides behind it, you know,
Speaker 1: when things get intense and she has to step up,
Speaker 1: she kind of starts pulling her hair back. It is
Speaker 1: her character. Yes, that's the only kind of hair she
Speaker 1: can have. And they're like, well, it's not working. And
Speaker 1: then some uh genius decision was I mean, some genius
Speaker 1: insight has had over a weekend and somebody like, if
Speaker 1: I put a decimal point here, look what happens. And
Speaker 1: we had hair, but we had it at the last
Speaker 1: possible second that we could have it. And um, so
Speaker 1: that's kind of like what the making the first movie
Speaker 1: was like. And now, um, all the rigs are are
Speaker 1: much better. They're more responsive to what you want to do.
Speaker 1: The lighting tools are better, the fabric is we can
Speaker 1: do well. And uh, it's more like do you know
Speaker 1: what you want? And if you know what you want,
Speaker 1: we can do it. Um. And that was a much
Speaker 1: nicer place to be. But they're the hardest part is
Speaker 1: always the story and and there's nothing that makes that
Speaker 1: easy here. Yeah, absolutely, I have a question about that
Speaker 1: coming up, but before I do, Uh, regarding all of that,
Speaker 1: the texture is everything, it just looked amazing, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's considerable step up from the other movie, and
Speaker 1: for all those reasons. But I just you know, I
Speaker 1: was really taken by just how some of these environments
Speaker 1: looked and all of that. So probably, well, I think
Speaker 1: the quickest way, the quickest I think feeling people will
Speaker 1: have is that it's um bigger that it's it feels
Speaker 1: more filled out, and and that's definitely the effect of
Speaker 1: it is is that the scale is is larger. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Regarding story, you know, you hear a lot about like
Speaker 1: the Pixar brain trust and everything in that whole process
Speaker 1: of story was that employed on this, It's employed on
Speaker 1: all of the films. Um. It just basically means that
Speaker 1: you have fellow filmmakers looking over your shoulder and saying,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe here, we're a little I was a
Speaker 1: little confused about this, and it seems like this is
Speaker 1: not clear, and we it's It's it's cool because everybody
Speaker 1: who's giving um uh notes or or uh suggestions has
Speaker 1: been in the trenches before. It's not coming from executives
Speaker 1: or anything. And and uh so it's very helpful when
Speaker 1: I am uh, you know, I'm friends with Giermo del
Speaker 1: Toro and and he has that kind of relationship going
Speaker 1: with uh Quarron and in a ritu their friends and
Speaker 1: they and they're kind of tough on each other, um,
Speaker 1: but they run ideas past each other. And and kind
Speaker 1: of her fresh eyes and uh, Pixar has kind of
Speaker 1: that institutionalized We don't call ourselves that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess we do now, but for the longest time it
Speaker 1: was someone else called us the brain Trust. You know,
Speaker 1: it sounds kind of pretentious, which for for us, it's
Speaker 1: just a group of people who make films who have
Speaker 1: some you know, maybe helpful thoughts. Uh, what was the
Speaker 1: up a story nut to correck on this one? Well,
Speaker 1: really the superhero villain aspect for the sort of plotting
Speaker 1: part of it. The original notion of the job switch
Speaker 1: where Helen would get the assignment rather than Bob I
Speaker 1: had when we were pushing the first film. And uh,
Speaker 1: I also knew that I had the unexploded bomb of
Speaker 1: of Jack Jack that uh the audience knew he had
Speaker 1: multiple powers, but the part family did not. And that
Speaker 1: any any sequel to The Incredibles would have to feature
Speaker 1: Jack Jack as as a major character and not just
Speaker 1: a supporting character. And so those two things I had
Speaker 1: in my back pocket, and I felt good and excited
Speaker 1: about those ideas. But the superhero part was the part
Speaker 1: that I never I was like, you know what, what
Speaker 1: would be a good idea? And finally, when I was
Speaker 1: making Tomorrowland, and I've been dabbling in an incredible sequel
Speaker 1: before that, I I ted Mathodd, who's the story supervisor,
Speaker 1: and I worked on the opening sequence with a version
Speaker 1: of the opening sequence with the Underminer before I did
Speaker 1: Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol. So I've been you know, tinkering
Speaker 1: around with it for a while. But I came to
Speaker 1: them with an idea while tomorrow Land was you know, shooting,
Speaker 1: I sort of pitched a notion of, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I have a plot thing that that will
Speaker 1: be cool. And I pitched the idea and they liked it,
Speaker 1: and we got green lit, and and uh I got
Speaker 1: a release date and we started going. And about five
Speaker 1: months in I realized this isn't gonna work, you know,
Speaker 1: And I could either I could continue to tinker on this,
Speaker 1: but we won't make our deadline. You know. Now, now
Speaker 1: I'm kind of screwed because you everybody's starting to arrange
Speaker 1: chairs and you know, uh and uh so that idea
Speaker 1: involved Ai and and uh, it's a cool idea, but
Speaker 1: it didn't work well with the main story, which was
Speaker 1: the family stuff. And so I had another idea and
Speaker 1: and parts of that sort of worked, and then I
Speaker 1: had to change that and and uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: screen slaver notion kind of came late. And I realized
Speaker 1: just about a week ago when we were starting to
Speaker 1: talk about the film, that that's kind of like the
Speaker 1: first movie, because The Incredibles was the only um uh
Speaker 1: project to come in from the outside where I had
Speaker 1: designs for the characters, and I had a plot, and
Speaker 1: I had paintings of the style of it and everything.
Speaker 1: You know, I came in with it. But when I
Speaker 1: came in and had a different villain and uh in
Speaker 1: and uh doing uh and exploring an alternate opening for
Speaker 1: the film at Pixar, I came up with a new
Speaker 1: villain and killed him off in the opening sequence. And
Speaker 1: that villain was better than the villain that I had,
Speaker 1: and everybody said, he's kind of cool. This villain. Uh
Speaker 1: do you really want to kill him? And I thought, yeah,
Speaker 1: we should, he should be the villain. So that was
Speaker 1: syndrome and uh I And so also in the first film,
Speaker 1: the villain kind of came late. And I can't tell
Speaker 1: you why, it's just the way it happened. Interesting, speaking
Speaker 1: of what do you think of his I loved it.
Speaker 1: Uh oh season he's seeing a get to see him
Speaker 1: won all his awards. Oh yeah, No, it was a
Speaker 1: real pleasure. He's such a good filmmaker. And uh um.
Speaker 1: When I was first getting to know him, Iron Giant
Speaker 1: came out and and you know, the doors to the
Speaker 1: theater flung open and sagebrush blew through, and I was
Speaker 1: feeling kind of devastated. And I was in Vermont, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to have a vacation, but I I ended up,
Speaker 1: you know, just obsessing with what can we do to
Speaker 1: get a few people into the theater because when they go,
Speaker 1: they like it. But we couldn't get enough people to go.
Speaker 1: All the people that went, you know, had a good time.
Speaker 1: But it was just an awful feeling because I was
Speaker 1: getting all these reports of like thirty people in a theater,
Speaker 1: but at the end those thirty people would applaud the film,
Speaker 1: and and it was just this horrible feeling of like
Speaker 1: people can't like it unless they see it, and we
Speaker 1: can't get them to see it. And and Guillermo called me, uh,
Speaker 1: you know when I'm you know, just you know, just
Speaker 1: holding back tears in Vermont, and just uh was very
Speaker 1: uh supportive and had a lot of nice things to
Speaker 1: say about Iron Giant and kept saying to me that
Speaker 1: it's going to last and people are going to find
Speaker 1: it and and all this stuff. He couldn't have been
Speaker 1: cooler and it meant a lot to me. Yeah, one
Speaker 1: of the best movies of the year, hands down. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and and so to finish, I didn't really answer your question.
Speaker 1: It was a fantastic I saw a Shape of Water
Speaker 1: until your ride and hung out with him, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and hung out with him a little there, and and
Speaker 1: he knew that he had something special and it was
Speaker 1: just such a cool moment to to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he's made a lot of films and had you know,
Speaker 1: tough experiences like like everyone has, and and it was
Speaker 1: so cool to see him, you know, get vindicated the
Speaker 1: way the way he was. It's not like people didn't
Speaker 1: love Gara well before that, but just to have that
Speaker 1: kind of support and validation was really cool. And it's
Speaker 1: a really terrific movie. Yeah. I got to spend some
Speaker 1: time with him the next morning and I wrote our
Speaker 1: cover story holding the oscars and everything. He's still soaking
Speaker 1: it up. Man. I'm really happy for him. Iron Giant One.
Speaker 1: Speaking of I wanted to talk about It's almost twenty
Speaker 1: years now. Next year. Uh guess one. We all are as,
Speaker 1: I said. One of the best movies of that year,
Speaker 1: one of the best movie years, I feel like of
Speaker 1: all time. Um, you know, just the filmmakers and the
Speaker 1: movies that were on display, Spike Jones being John Malkovich,
Speaker 1: The Insider and The Matrix, Just Scorsese he had a movie,
Speaker 1: Kober had a movie. I was watched. I mean, just
Speaker 1: the caliber filmmakers that were on display that year. You
Speaker 1: get a movie, you get an If you had any
Speaker 1: thoughts about that or is that just a meeting about
Speaker 1: that year, Yeah, my perspective is different. My my perspective
Speaker 1: is you were at home bummed that your movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like what everyone do you see this? Yeah? So no, UM,
Speaker 1: I can't look at it that way. Um, it's interesting
Speaker 1: though I will go back and kind of revisit which
Speaker 1: which films came out that you check it out. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think Iron Giant has a great place in that
Speaker 1: in that history. Thanks. Um, what did you think about
Speaker 1: the way that the Iron Giant was used in Ready
Speaker 1: Player one by the One? Well, um, I'm not only
Speaker 1: a long time admirer of Steven, He's one of the
Speaker 1: filmmakers that I really have studied. And uh um when
Speaker 1: Close Encounters, you know, I saw it like eighteen times
Speaker 1: on its first release. You know, I just love his
Speaker 1: filmmaking and and uh he gave me my first opportunities
Speaker 1: to write and uh direct and produce and even like
Speaker 1: act in a stupid way, I would have had a
Speaker 1: very tiny part in a episode of Amazing Stories that
Speaker 1: I wrote. Uh but uh so it was wonderful to
Speaker 1: have Iron Giant show up in a Spielberg film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so nothing but cool for me. Yeah, regarding Amazing Stories,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about that, that was like your
Speaker 1: first thing really and yeah, right, I mean, and they're
Speaker 1: bringing that back, which is great having this anthology of
Speaker 1: of of Stephen involved. I'm not sure if he's involved.
Speaker 1: I just know that ring I heard them ringing it back.
Speaker 1: Who knows cool? They're reviving everything these days. Yeah, those
Speaker 1: pesky new ideas. Gott to not do any of those. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about that. You get you get a sequel here,
Speaker 1: you know you're you're not keen on a radit TWI sequel.
Speaker 1: Um No, I mean I feel like we we got
Speaker 1: the story. We we It's not like now he does
Speaker 1: fast food. I mean you know, it's like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't need it. There there's airspace for new ideas.
Speaker 1: I hope still. You know, Ratta Tui was a new
Speaker 1: idea not not too long ago. So um, I hope
Speaker 1: they haven't been banished from the show business landscaped Well,
Speaker 1: what do you think about Pixar, you know, going to
Speaker 1: the well a lot with cars sequels with I would
Speaker 1: love to tell you it's part of a grand plan,
Speaker 1: but it just sort of happens. I mean, right after
Speaker 1: Toy Story four, Um, there's going to be a slew
Speaker 1: of Originals and um that's not planned either. Um, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of they happen the way they happen. And
Speaker 1: uh um. You know a lot of people have opined
Speaker 1: that it's part of some Disney mandate or corporate strategy,
Speaker 1: and it's not It's just they just happened the way
Speaker 1: they happen. So uh, I knew that I wanted to
Speaker 1: do another incredible Um I've been, like I said, I've
Speaker 1: been tinkering with it for a while. Um because the
Speaker 1: most fun I've ever had making a movie so far
Speaker 1: in my pretty limited career has been the first Incredible
Speaker 1: Swet And I think it's because I got to take
Speaker 1: it from the first um atom of an idea to
Speaker 1: finished film, whereas everything else has kind of had a
Speaker 1: life before me, you know what I mean. Uh, Iron
Speaker 1: Giant was a book, uh, even though I changed it
Speaker 1: a lot. Uh, it was the notion of it was
Speaker 1: Ted Hughes notion and uh Rada Tui was beyond pink
Speaker 1: of his idea and I kind of came in on
Speaker 1: it and mission impossible as mission impossible obviously and and
Speaker 1: uh uh tomorrow Land began as a Damon Lindeloff and
Speaker 1: Jeff Jensen idea that I, uh, I was really intrigued by.
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, incredible is kind of mine. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean not to say that we you know, it's
Speaker 1: also my cruise and and you know, all of that,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's it's my baby, and and uh,
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to return to it, and I
Speaker 1: didn't also plan for it to be fourteen years. I
Speaker 1: just had other things and I kept tinkering on it,
Speaker 1: and suddenly I looked up and it was fourteen years
Speaker 1: or not fourteen years, like twelve years later, and I
Speaker 1: thought I'd better get going or people are not going
Speaker 1: to remember the first film. So, uh, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not opposed to sequels. Sometimes people think misunderstand that I'm
Speaker 1: opposed to them. Basically, I like them. I've done two
Speaker 1: of them, but I think they're taking up too much
Speaker 1: of the bandwidth. You know, it seems like we're playing
Speaker 1: musical chairs now, where it's like you do another's planet
Speaker 1: in the Apes, and I'll do a Spider Man and
Speaker 1: you do a Star Wars and I'll do a Marvel
Speaker 1: and it's it's like, no, It's like, at one point
Speaker 1: all of these things were originals and and and I
Speaker 1: remember when Spielberg came out with poulter Geist and and
Speaker 1: Et within a couple of weeks of each other, and
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, how cool was that time? And
Speaker 1: why can't we do that. You know, there's certainly no
Speaker 1: shortage of great filmmakers. Now, yeah, absolutely that. Having been said,
Speaker 1: something like the Incredible seems right for like expansion far
Speaker 1: beyond these movies. If if you, if you, uh, comic
Speaker 1: book series, TV shows the whole game, at the whole
Speaker 1: expanded universe things. And so when you're starting to say
Speaker 1: expanded universe or franchise, and all I can tell you
Speaker 1: is my skin burns, it burns, so so you don't
Speaker 1: you don't envision yea, Yeah, talked about Mission Impossible there.
Speaker 1: I wanted to actually touch on that because again, I
Speaker 1: just want to remind everyone your listeners that you know,
Speaker 1: some of my favorite movies are sequels. Sure. I love
Speaker 1: The Empire Strikes Back. I love Godfather to Bring It
Speaker 1: on Road, Warrior, love Goldfinger. Best Bond film is Goldfinger,
Speaker 1: the third one. Uh So, so don't anyone misunderstand that
Speaker 1: I don't think sequels can be fun. I think we've
Speaker 1: just made one, you know that is fun, But I
Speaker 1: don't think it can be the only part of filmmaker's
Speaker 1: diet loud and clear. Mission Impossible. I kind of feel
Speaker 1: like more than JJ's movie, even this movie goes put
Speaker 1: a protocol was kind of responsible for this new identity
Speaker 1: that the movies have, I guess for like of a
Speaker 1: better word, in my opinion, uh, it was kind of
Speaker 1: the beginning of that. And I love each of these movies. Sure,
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, you know, would you go back to it? Well? Uh,
Speaker 1: I think the reason I wanted to I was having
Speaker 1: trouble getting a project that I still hope to make
Speaker 1: called nineteen o six. I was having trouble pulling that together,
Speaker 1: and I needed to do a film. I was spending
Speaker 1: too much time banging my head against the nineteen o
Speaker 1: six wall, and when I looked around at the projects
Speaker 1: that were gassed up and ready to go. UM. The
Speaker 1: thing that I loved about the Mission movies, besides the
Speaker 1: fact that Tom Cruise and I had been looking to
Speaker 1: work with each other because he liked uh the way
Speaker 1: the action sequences and incredibles were done UM, was that
Speaker 1: the emission of Possible series embraced the differences between filmmakers.
Speaker 1: It wasn't about um us all. Subscribing to a house
Speaker 1: style was more about um. The the the Brian de
Speaker 1: Palma one wasn't was different than the John wu one,
Speaker 1: which was different than the j J one, which is
Speaker 1: different from mine. And uh, the refreshing thing about that
Speaker 1: was that they came to me and said, is there
Speaker 1: anything you've wanted to do in a spy movie and
Speaker 1: just and I said, oh, yeah, there's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of things I want to do in a spy movie.
Speaker 1: And they just said, we'll have at it, you know,
Speaker 1: and that attitude of like, we're ready to go any
Speaker 1: direction you want to go. Um, you know. So I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want the text stuff to break. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be unreliable, you know, I want to do something in
Speaker 1: a sandstorm, you know, a chase in a sandstorm, you know.
Speaker 1: And they were just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, And so
Speaker 1: it was it was just fun and and everybody worked
Speaker 1: their asses off, but that we're all kind of having fun,
Speaker 1: and uh, that was what was great about that. And
Speaker 1: and it was fun to shoot in Imax, you know.
Speaker 1: I got indulged on that one. I would have set
Speaker 1: I want to do what Nolan did on Dark Night,
Speaker 1: and and they went with it and said, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: let's do it. And you know, we got Imax cameras
Speaker 1: up on the tallest building in the world with a
Speaker 1: with an actor that was crazy enough to do that stuff.
Speaker 1: So that was really fun for me. Hard but fun
Speaker 1: is at the time that's what you wanted to do.
Speaker 1: You were really done my Nation Impossible film. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think we'd like to see you do another one. That's all. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you. He also wanted to touch on randomly
Speaker 1: batteries not included. Oh wow, randomly absolutely long ago. Um,
Speaker 1: just watch it again recently in my garage. I have
Speaker 1: a ton of vhs. Yeah, you must watch. That's the
Speaker 1: only hopefully really deteriorating exactly any memories. Sure, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's my first screenwriting credit. Um, there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of my work left in the film, to
Speaker 1: be honest. I work done a really early draft and
Speaker 1: and they went in different directions, which you know, of
Speaker 1: course one would do. But Matthew Robbins, the director, really
Speaker 1: gave me a really amazing break when I needed it
Speaker 1: to do his episode of Amazing Stories. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: he I was at a real low point. You know,
Speaker 1: this spirit project that I wanted to do, it didn't
Speaker 1: turn out. I mean, it was going to be produced
Speaker 1: by Gary Kurtz, who did you know the first two
Speaker 1: Star Wars movies. Empire strikes back in Star Wars, and
Speaker 1: we had ambitions of uh, you know, doing something really
Speaker 1: wildly different from the animation being done at the time.
Speaker 1: And I had the cream of the Disney crop ready
Speaker 1: to give their two weeks notice and and and and
Speaker 1: uh jump onto that film. But we couldn't get anybody
Speaker 1: that wanted to pay for it. And so I was
Speaker 1: at a real low point. And uh, I was having
Speaker 1: lunch with Matthew Robbins and I was telling him my
Speaker 1: tales are well, and he was telling me, you know, uh, well,
Speaker 1: there's this new Steven Spielberg TV show and and uh
Speaker 1: they're sending me a script and uh, if if I
Speaker 1: don't like the script, I'll pin you and let you know.
Speaker 1: And he loved the idea of the script that he got,
Speaker 1: which was Steven's idea, but he didn't like the way
Speaker 1: it was done in the script. So he kind of
Speaker 1: invited me in and uh gave me the shot to
Speaker 1: write a new script for it, and uh lo and
Speaker 1: behold it it got made and I was on the
Speaker 1: set and kind of doing storyboards for it, and and
Speaker 1: it was it was my shot, and and uh, Stephen
Speaker 1: liked the script enough to invite me down and and say,
Speaker 1: you know, are there other things you want to do?
Speaker 1: And I showed him a New Family Dog, which I
Speaker 1: had showed him years before as a short, and he
Speaker 1: couldn't find any movie theaters that were willing to um
Speaker 1: take time away from the concession stand. So I had
Speaker 1: done on just thumbnails sketches a new Family Dog thing
Speaker 1: um Tim Burton and I had done the first story
Speaker 1: board um and uh showed it to Stephen and he said,
Speaker 1: can you do uh, you know, a half hour of this?
Speaker 1: And I said sure, and he said, let's do it
Speaker 1: as an Amazing Stories. So that kind of got me
Speaker 1: going on on my film career. Uh, and it meant
Speaker 1: the world to me. So Batteries was part of that.
Speaker 1: The Matthew Uh. Stephen enjoyed Matthew Matthew's episode of Amazing
Speaker 1: Stories so much that he said, you know, how about this.
Speaker 1: I have this idea for an Amazing Stories and I
Speaker 1: think maybe it would rather be a film. And that
Speaker 1: was Batteries. So I got to work on and it
Speaker 1: was a great opportunity and I had a great time.
Speaker 1: I had to jump off of it in order to
Speaker 1: get Family Dog done for the second season because they
Speaker 1: didn't renew after the second season, and so I had
Speaker 1: a certain amount of time that I had to do
Speaker 1: to get family Dog in there, and I had to
Speaker 1: jump off of it. But I got a credit out
Speaker 1: of it, and that was cool. But there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of my work in there. Kind of moved on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're talking about I wanted to touch on that.
Speaker 1: What's the difficulty with because this this is yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's that it uh, it wants to be a longer story.
Speaker 1: It's a really fascinating moment in history. Um uh, the
Speaker 1: prior to the earthquake. San Francisco is this really happening
Speaker 1: city that's somewhere between the Old West and the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: I mean they still had bars where people were getting shanghaied,
Speaker 1: I mean, give and slipped Mickey Finns and you would
Speaker 1: wake up on a boat and if you didn't work
Speaker 1: the boat, you'd be thrown overboard. And so uh, that
Speaker 1: was still happening. And the people who owned those kind
Speaker 1: of bars were you know, in the California legislature, so
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I mean, in other words,
Speaker 1: it was somewhere between the Wild West and and the sophisticated.
Speaker 1: Uh City, San Francisco like to see itself as it
Speaker 1: was in many ways. So it's this fascinating moment in
Speaker 1: history where where gaslight and electric light were coexisting, and
Speaker 1: cars and horses were coexisting. And uh um uh getting
Speaker 1: it uh in a movie sized box. It's too big
Speaker 1: a story for if you do it for TV, you're
Speaker 1: missing the scale of motion pictures. And uh, so I
Speaker 1: keep trying to get it to kind of straddle these
Speaker 1: two worlds. And uh, are you opposed to TV because
Speaker 1: of that or just still something? No? I mean no,
Speaker 1: but you know, I love the movie experience and I
Speaker 1: would want the earthquake to be on a movie screen.
Speaker 1: And yet I recognize that the stories too, So I'm
Speaker 1: kind of trying to get it done. Is an amalgam
Speaker 1: and people kind of are intrigued by it, and Warners
Speaker 1: wants to do the earthquake part of it as a
Speaker 1: movie and and uh, you know, we just can't get
Speaker 1: it all under one roof. But I'm still fascinated by
Speaker 1: the story. So you I mean, you know, to be continuing,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're yeah, still plugging away at it or
Speaker 1: is it just kind of I'm still interested in it,
Speaker 1: but I want it to be done in a way
Speaker 1: that embraces all the possibilities and yet somehow stays uh
Speaker 1: near or just part of it or something on the
Speaker 1: big screen. So we'll see what happens. The last thing
Speaker 1: I want to talk about, just at the end here
Speaker 1: is on lasted. Um, you know, just morale at the
Speaker 1: company at Pixar. You know, all of that news broke,
Speaker 1: uh when you were finishing your movie, and so just
Speaker 1: curious what morale is like up at Pixar right now
Speaker 1: in the wake of all of that. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's an odd time, but I think everybody is uh
Speaker 1: you know, uh we uh hunkered down and and uh
Speaker 1: um you know, we we knew the game was on,
Speaker 1: so we're going to play the game, which is is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, get the film done. And everybody, we're heads down,
Speaker 1: and uh, I think we pulled together and pulled off
Speaker 1: a very ambitious skill. Uh. I can't talk anymore. I've
Speaker 1: been talking too much. A very ambitious film on a
Speaker 1: very tight schedule. Um, so uh we knew. People assume
Speaker 1: that we we knew or know something beyond what the
Speaker 1: public knows. Right. Um, we were all just working and
Speaker 1: then Uh. I think we knew a half an hour before.
Speaker 1: I knew a half an hour before the press knew. Um. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I haven't seen him since. I've sent him an
Speaker 1: email and he didn't. He hasn't responded, but he didn't
Speaker 1: respond before this happened. He was just doesn't respond to emails.
Speaker 1: But if you run into him, I'll have a conversation
Speaker 1: with you at any time. So, uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: haven't seen him since. You kind of know what we know.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, uh, you know, I love Johnny's
Speaker 1: an old friend and and I hope it works out
Speaker 1: in a way that everyone's happy with. Well that's what
Speaker 1: my next question. Is there an expectation that he can
Speaker 1: return in some capacity there? Uh you know, Uh, if
Speaker 1: I gave an answer one side or another, it would
Speaker 1: be untruthful. We truly don't know, and uh uh the moment,
Speaker 1: or maybe half an hour after, we know the world
Speaker 1: will know. So um, we're just all where we are
Speaker 1: right now. We don't know. Okay, Well, good look with
Speaker 1: the movie. It's called Incredible to the release date is sure,
Speaker 1: and uh, please encourage your listeners to see it on
Speaker 1: Find the biggest, best screen, the best sound system, if
Speaker 1: they are turning down the bulb and you know, get
Speaker 1: in their face and say, no, we want the full
Speaker 1: bulb on. We you know, crank it up, crank up
Speaker 1: the sound. Do you check out theaters to see how
Speaker 1: they're playing. Yeah? Sure, And and you know, by the way,
Speaker 1: if it's a pack theater, they need to turn it
Speaker 1: up for dB because the body has absorbed the sound.
Speaker 1: So um. You know, hopefully you have some geeks out
Speaker 1: there who will insist that if it's a packed house,
Speaker 1: turn it up to four D four dB. You know,
Speaker 1: that's the way to get the ultimate version of it.
Speaker 1: So see it in IMAX, see it and Dolby Vision.
Speaker 1: Find the biggest screen you can, uh you know on
Speaker 1: uh this cinem mark, I think it's x D Cinema
Speaker 1: x D. Find the x D screen and you know,
Speaker 1: just big. Find a screen the size of Cleveland and
Speaker 1: the sound system that will blow your hair back. And
Speaker 1: that's the way it should be seen. Bread would like
Speaker 1: you see his movie on a big screen everyone, and
Speaker 1: with popcorn pleas Hopcord bred Bird, thanks for coming on
Speaker 1: my show. Really tikes it. It's a blast. Thank you.