The Extras - Talking Extras on Recent 4K Releases - "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Tropic Thunder," and "The Lost Boys"

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Extras producers and friends of the podcast Alan Griswold and Constantine Nasr discuss their extras on some recent 4K releases.We start off the episode with filmmaker Constantine Nasr as he discusses his all-new documentary "To Kill a Mockingbird: All Points of View," which is a part of the "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962) 60th Anniversary Limited Edition 4K release from Universal Studios.  The film stars Gregory Peck who won an academy award for best actor for his portrayal of Atticus Finch.  In 2003 the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th Century.  Next filmmaker Alan Griswold discusses his extras work on the 2008 action/comedy "Tropic Thunder" recently released on 4K from Kino Lorber.  Starring Ben Stiller, who also directed, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Danny McBride, Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey, and Tom Cruise, this R-rated comedy takes a satirical look at the Hollywood movie-making process.  We take a deep dive look into the making of the exceptional extra "Rain of Madness" and the unique involvement of the cast and filmmakers in the making of this mockumentary.We finish out our episode speaking with Alan Griswold about his extras for the 1987 cult favorite, THE LOST BOYS, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Keifer Sutherland, Jason Patric, and the two Corey’s, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman.  This film was recently released by Warner Bros on 4K with no new extras, but with most all of the legacy extras, including an audio commentary with Joel Schumacher, a 24-minute retrospective, seven featurettes, deleted scenes, and a music video.  We also explore the legacy of this film and its impact on the teen vampire genre.Purchase on Amazon:To Kill a Mockingbird 4K Limited EditionTropic Thunder 4KLost Boys 4KRivendell Films - Constantine NasrMonkey Deux - Alan GriswoldThe Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv

Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and they're released on digital DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Millard, your host. and they're released on digital DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site.

I'm Tim Millard, your host. As some of you know, I spent 13 years at Warner Home Video, and during that time, I had the pleasure of working with a number of extremely talented producers of extras. And today, I'm trying out something a little different than our traditional show, as we'll be talking with two of them about three different movies that have recently been released on 4K. them about three different movies that have recently been released on 4k the first is one of the most important films in american cinema the 1962 film to kill a mockingbird next we'll review a blow your mind hilarious comedy 2008's tropic thunder and we'll finish with the 1987 teen vampire cult favorite the lost boys to kill a mockingbird is a 1962 film adapted by screenwriter Horton Foote from the 1960 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Harper Lee. Many of you are familiar with this film,

so I won't go into too much background about it, but the film stars Gregory Peck, who won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Atticus Finch. And one other thing of note on this, in 2003, the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th century. And I think that's saying something considering all the film heroes we've had throughout the history of cinema. Recently, Universal released a 60th anniversary limited edition in 4K UHD. And I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Konstantin Nasser, who along with his partners, worked on a brand new documentary for the release called To Kill a Mockingbird, All Points of View. This is such an important and beloved film that I wanted to give Konstantin a chance to tell us about his documentary. Well, hi, Konstantin. Thanks for coming on the show.

I know you've been very busy these days, but I appreciate you coming on. Thank you very much. Once again, Tim, always good to be here. days, but I appreciate you coming on. Thank you very much. Once again, Tim, always good to be here. Well, To Kill a Mockingbird is a film that I think most of us of a certain age read the book in school. And I think in my case, we actually saw the film after we read the book as well, or maybe that was a different year. But what's your recollection of the film and the book? different year. But what's your recollection of the film and the book? Well, you know, I was thinking a lot about this in prep for our conversation. And much like you, I believe that I saw the film for the first time in school. I had heard of the book and I heard of the film. I think I knew about it. And it's possible I saw it in my childhood. But this film is one of those movies where I think not only have most people seen if they've seen an old movie, if you bring this up to them, but there are a few films that I think you could ask almost anybody, do you like this film? Is this a good film? Films are all about what is

your taste. And I think that this film transcends quite a bit of that because not only is the storytelling so good and the performances are so strong and you have the combination of the material that is really timeless, it's a story that has still to this day been, I wouldn't say forced upon young readers or audiences, but it's certainly been shared with many, we're talking many generations now of people that have seen the film, that were impacted, that studied the film. And I think because of that, and because it as a piece of work is so strong, there will be a strong consensus that they like this film, they have memories of this film, and it is a special film to them. And so that's very difficult to find a movie like that,

especially one in this day and age that is not science fiction or fantasy, doesn't have some sort of cult following. This film is one of those works that I think when they say it'll stand the test of time, I think it already has, and I think it always will. You know, I was thinking about the film and the book and how important it was in the American education system, so to speak. It came out in 1962. The book itself won, I believe, the Pulitzer Prize, and it is so well-respected. But the film is black and white. Sometimes I actually think it's a little bit older than it is. Yeah, it's an interesting choice. And we didn't go down the road of a making of. So even in our short window of time to pull this together and to make the

documentary that we chose to make, which was a very specific choice, really on behalf of Universal that wanted to make a movie that touched less on the history of the film, because that had already been done. There are so many documentaries actually that tackle the movie, many documentaries actually that tackle the movie, you know, numerous films on Gregory Peck and documentaries on Harper Lee. And there's all of that that is out there for the taking, that we chose to do a documentary that looked at the themes of the film and why they were important then, and why they are still important now. And so when you think about the movie in black and white, I actually think it does itself a favor by being black and white. I think it does take you back to that past, that at the time when it was made in 1962, that wasn't that far away from when it was

being told. If the film was made in Technicolor, it might have looked differently. I'm not sure what they would have chosen. And I don't know if there was an argument or what was the decision-making factor, but I actually think it works in the film's favor that it's in black and white. Well, tell us a little bit about the name of the extra, the length, a little bit of the particulars there, and then dive in a little bit about the themes that you guys discussed. When we were asked to come up with a documentary, the idea was about the themes of the film. And the thing that struck me, it's going back to what we began talking about, was this idea that even the subject matter of the injustice within the criminal justice system,

the obvious racism that is going on back then as it is even today, the humanity that the family dynamic goes through between relationships of father and children, and within who you are in the standing of your community, in a small community, and how you can stand up for right and wrong. These are things that obviously the book tackled, and that Atticus Finch tackled. But I think there's an important factor that shouldn't be lost when it's recognized that Atticus Finch has made such an impression as a character. That doesn't mean the other characters in the film do not. But he has made such an impression as a character that adults, people that watch this movie even back then in the 60s to today,

look at that character as someone as a role model. And there aren't too many role models that I think we can watch a film and say, that person is someone that I wish I could... There's a conflict within Atticus Finch, but that I wish I could do the right thing, even if it's not always going to be the right thing for you personally. I mean, he took risks and in the end, there were consequences. So when we were talking about the project, one of the things that struck us was that President Obama had... We were doing all this research and had used this quote of Finch because I believe it's Obama's favorite movie and influenced him. Anyway, we were looking at all of these ideas of who we're

going to get and how can we get these people. We actually reached out to President Obama's team to see if he would grant us an interview. And it was at that point, the idea was, well, if we get President Obama to do this, then the extra is just going to be him talking, because we're not going to take a little bit of, here's a one-minute soundbite from President Obama. But they did allow us to use an excerpt of one of his speeches in which he does talk about and quote Atticus Finch. We immediately said, this is the way to open the show. But what was also interesting is we wanted to open this up to different kinds of voices. It wasn't going to be film history. It was going to be the impact this has had on the art form, on the culture, on the medium, on the educational system. Department of Education and the California State Educational Departments as well. We did connect with a few people that spoke on that subject, including Gregory Peck's grandson, Christopher

Peck, who is an educator. Because my memory, as it was with you, you said it before, and with my producing partner, Mark Nassif, that we all grew up reading this book in school. And the strange thing that proved my point was I was off shooting on location in Cincinnati, Ohio for a film while this project was in editorial and we were shooting, but I had to go away. And we were filming a movie in a private high school in Cincinnati, Ohio. And I just happened to be looking on their shelf. And I kid you not, the entire bookshelf was filled with copies of To Kill a Mockingbird. That is what they were studying at the school at that time. There's like 100 copies, paperback, hardback. And I took photographs of this. We actually shot

some B-roll, which we didn't use. I'm like, this is making theback. And I took photographs of this. We actually shot some B-roll, which we didn't use. I'm like, this is making the point. But I was in the moment, in a high school, making a documentary about this book that was on this shelf that people were actually studying. I thought that just proves exactly why we were doing what we were doing. So I know I'm a little long-winded here, but I thought that was a really good point to say that this book and this movie is still very timeless. And it got a standing ovation, I believe, for the restoration that was done. And I think it premiered at the TCM Film Festival this year. And Universal really wanted to go all out and try to celebrate the movie as it should be celebrated on its 60th anniversary. Well, it's obviously a tremendously important film.

It's been selected, I believe, by the Library of Congress for Preservation and the National Film Registry back in 1995. Stars Gregory Peck, directed by Robert Mulligan. It's a terrific film. It's always ranked among the top films by AFI, BFI, you know, in their list that they put together. I know it was released in Blu-ray and DVD back in 2012 from Universal. And this release is for the 4K.

And you said there was some additional restoration work done on it and everything. And then your extra, what's the name of it again? It's called To Kill a Mockingbird, All Points of View. And the idea was that we were looking at all different points of view. And we do have a wonderful array of different voices, the different points of view, including people like Thomas DiPirio, Shanna Redmond, Leonard Maltin, Mia Mask, Shona Tucker, Dr. Donald Bogle, and of course, as I mentioned before, Christopher Peck, the grandson of Gregory Peck. And I really do need to give credit to my team. My producing partner, Mark Nassif, and my editor, Michael Falavalita, really pulled out all the stops to make this documentary something that I think everybody

associated with felt really good about. We, I think, contributed. When you do these things and they've been done over and over and over again, you have to come up with something unique. And even if it's a little bit unique, can everybody at least try to find that angle that speaks to people now that might not have been, you know, because you can do another documentary on The Godfather. There's always something to say, especially for a work of art like this. So I just thank Mike Reback and Paul Angelikas and the team at Universal Home Entertainment for giving us this opportunity. And I hope audiences will pick it up and watch it, watch the movie, share it with their family, their family, watch it for your 15th time.

And that's the value of the extras that we do for physical media. If you love movies, I think this ought to be on your shelf and it's never looked better. And there's so many extras on the package that you'll do yourself a favor by picking it up or giving it to someone as a gift. But I'm not here to just share what we did, but the message of this movie, that's the point of the documentary, that there's so many things that the movie still says and resonates with, you know,

it's a movie we need to be watching right now. So thank you again for having me on, Tim. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of The Extras Podcast. And I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers Catalog physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page

or look for the link in the podcast show notes. Just as a follow-up to my discussion with Constine i did see the new 4k uhd version of the film and it looks and sounds terrific but more importantly i was struck by the fact that this story is as powerful as when i read the book and first saw the film back in my school days i won't go into particulars of whether this is worth an upgrade from the Blu-ray. However, I will say that the limited edition box is a very nice release. Not only do you get the all new documentary, All Points of View, but there is a host of legacy extras well worth your time if you haven't seen them. There are two feature length documentaries, Fearful Symmetry and A Conversation with Gregory Peck. His Academy Award Best Actor Acceptance speeches

on there, the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award, an excerpt from a tribute to Gregory Peck, a featurette called Scout Remembers, an audio commentary with director Robert Mulligan and producer Alan Pecula, and a bunch more extras. producer Alan Pecula, and a bunch more extras. Also, part of the limited edition is a 44-page collectible booklet featuring script excerpts with Gregory Peck's notes, storyboards, artwork, and more. There are collectible art cards and a film cell replica as well. Altogether, Universal has made this a terrific addition to your collection

should you want to upgrade, or if you've never purchased the movie, it comes highly recommended. The next up is the 2008 action comedy, Tropic Thunder, recently released on 4K from Kino Lorber. Starring Ben Stiller, who also directed Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Danny McBride, Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey, and Tom Cruise.

This film takes a satirical look at the Hollywood moviemaking process. And joining me to discuss his terrific extras on the release are my good friend and filmmaker, Alan Griswold. Well, hi, Alan. Thanks for coming on the show to talk Tropic Thunder. It is always a pleasure, Tim. Thanks for having me. So last year you came on and we talked about Free Guy, which is a lot of fun, and it had that kind of comedy element and serious. But let's talk about a film that is full on just blow your mind crazy in Tropic Thunder. I just rewatched it. And I was like, this is just an amazing movie. Just as amazing as when I first saw it. Just the outlandish idea

and the execution, everything. I was laughing hysterically. I was grossed out at times. I was uncomfortable. And I was just thinking how brilliant the Hollywood satire was. What are your thoughts as you look back on this film now, what, 14, 15 years after it came out? Yeah, it's been a while, right? So like you said, it's a big comedic film. What I love about the film and one of the things I love about Ben Stiller's stuff is he commits totally. So he's making a war comedy. It is going to have the same production value, the same budget, the same cinematic qualities of the best and biggest war movies.

So that was really, I think, the thing that separates it from a lot of other comedies. People tend to not pay attention, as much attention, I should say, to some of those cinematic elements. But he had John Toll as his DP on it. And it's just, it's got all the scope. I mean, I feel like you could watch it dubbed in another language, perhaps with a different, that you didn't understand and not get that it was a comedy, you know, it just has that, that thing. So for us, it was just, it was a real opportunity because we had worked on a lot of Venn's other comedies. This is what, 2007, it came out. So you started working on it probably a little bit before that, right? I think it came

out in 2008. Oh, okay. I think the film came out in 2008. So we started working on 2007. So the company had been around, you know, four years or so. And I'd done, I think, a little freelance in the same kind of thing before that. But for us, it was a big jump up in scale of movie that we're on. Because again, we had been doing a lot of comedies and some catalog titles. But to step into a production like this, you know, it was really amazing. And I'll just take the listeners back for those who maybe didn't listen to that previous episode where you gave some of your background, but you had been working with Ben Stiller for,

let's see, by 2007, because you were an assistant at his company, you worked for him in development, but you had been working together for, for what, 10 years by that time before you went off and created your own company here? I started with Stiller, I think, in 1998. Yeah. And, yeah. Up on 10 years, yeah. Yeah. So it had been a while.

And interestingly enough, like, Tropic Thunder was one of the projects that had been in development when I was still at Red Hour, probably between my executive assistant and, you know, production executive jobs. But he and Justin Theroux had been working on it for a long time. And, yeah, there are always these sort of a mood board of like actors that they wanted. And I remember Tom Cruise was was on there sort of as like, you know, we need somebody like this sort of for the Tug Speedman character. It's just sort of the look. But then the fact that he came back in such a very different look and a very unique performance was delightful to see later. Yeah. And for those people who have not seen the film, and I'm sure there's plenty who have not. Tom Cruise played Les Grossman, who basically is

a Hollywood producer, I mean, to the nth degree. I mean, he plays them to the extreme and it's amazing. I mean, some people probably think that's Tom's best acting role in many ways, but he wasn't in the promotional material that I recall, really. He's not really part of the main cast of the film. And yet his role in this film is undeniable. I mean, he's so important to the film and adds so much to the humor. Well, I think, you know, including all of the crazy stunts that he's done, I don't think he's ever done anything as extreme as this character, you know, in terms of like his range as an actor, which is, which is wide. It's a very broad range as an actor, but he's Tom Cruise in his movies. And in this one, it just, just a complete surprise. And what was interesting, I think,

you know, in one of the features that we did for this is, you know, we, we get into the, uh, Les Grossman character a bit, and that all happened, you know, during a camera test, when they were testing out his wardrobe and his makeup because he had a bald cap on um and at one point he just started dancing and the filmmaker's like oh my god this you've got to do this in the film and that's that's the thing that really i mean his performance just as in in the, you know, the forcefulness of this character is phenomenal. But like the dancing element of it is that it stays with you the rest of your life once you see it. Yeah. I mean, here's this Hollywood executive who is a yeller.

I mean, he yells, he shouts, he demeans, he intimidates, he does all these things. And as soon as he hits off on the phone, he's got the hip hop, the rap, whatever, just blaring and he's dancing in his office. And it's just a great juxtaposition of that personality and a peak and a real satire of Hollywood executives at that time. Yes, at that time, for sure. Yeah. I don't think people get away with yelling quite as much as they did back in the day. Yeah. Well, it's a... Sorry, I missed that.

Yeah. But that's because you grew up with it, right? Oh, man. You grew up in the industry, I mean, with it. Exactly. Yeah. But, I mean, it's a brilliant Hollywood satire. And it sounds like you were there or you had a year in on some of the early development, but

let's talk a little bit about how you were then brought into this by Ben Stiller. And what was kind of the creative vibe that you guys brought to the table saying, okay, Ben, this is a great opportunity for us to do X, Y, and Z. Right. Well, it was sort of a lightning in a bottle type situation for this project. One thing, you know, having worked with Ben at his company and on a couple of his films behind the scenes, DVD special features after I left, I'd grown up comedically with him as a mentor and not just him, all the people who'd come in and out of his office. And not just him, all the people who'd come in and out of his office.

You know, we had Will Ferrell, we had Owen Wilson, we had Jack Black, we had Vince Vaughn, another one. I was just exposed to these amazing comedic minds, a lot of improvisation. And for me, that was the thing I really wanted to dig into on this. I mean, yes, we wanted to get into the action. For sure, we wanted to talk about the stunts and explosions. But it was that ensemble cast, you know, with people like Danny McBride, who are, they're constantly inventing and writing in the scene. And I wanted us to be able to, to really capture that and bring that to the home viewer, because that's the movie magic in that film. You know, a lot of it's big sets, a lot of it's big explosions, big action. But the real alchemy is, you know, how these characters are interacting with each other.

So we pitched a lot of character based stuff. And the gist of the pitch was, you know, we want to really emphasize the cast and the characters and how those two things interact. And at the same time, we also had been doing a lot of in-character work with some of the other projects we've been on. to incorporate a mockumentary element to the behind the scenes, both for promotional materials, as well as, um, importing over to the home entertainment, which is where rain of madness, uh, we were able to work with Justin Theroux,

Steve Coogan, um, who came up with this concept of doing the behind the scenes or prequel of the film in a sense. And to be honest, I think that as a group, we invented the very first mock you prequel so on paper it was weird because on paper it's like we were making the behind the scenes

of of a fake movie so it was a real it was a fake behind the scenes of a fake movie made by a real crew or it was a real behind the scenes of a fake movie. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but in some weird like sort of meta universe, like we were, it's almost like we didn't even exist in a real way. So it's a mind trip in the best sense of the word. And the whole movie has elements of that, really. I mean, that makes me think of, of course, the classic line from Robert Downey Jr.'s character where he says, I'm playing a dude, playing a dude disguised as another dude.

You know, it's that weaving in and out. And you're like, what? What does that even mean? And yet when you stop to think about it, yeah, that's right. He's playing a dude, playing a dude disguises another dude because of the character that he plays. And it's, it's brilliant though. It can be confusing at first, but once you start to get into it, you see the brilliance of the structure of the script and the story. And then the fact that these actors embraced it and went full out, like they didn't hold back. Yeah, exactly. And that was from an aesthetic standpoint, that's what we wanted to do as well

with the, both the EPK and the behind the scenes is we wanted to make everything exist in, you know, this looks like a regular interview. This looks like a regular behind the scenes, but have that layer of, you know, we know, you know, it's not that we're winking at the audience, but, um, but we're aware of the fact that, you know, stuff is going in and out of focus. Sometimes, you know, people are, you know, being asked inappropriate questions or, you know, it's, it's, being asked inappropriate questions or, you know, it's, it's some of these, some of these scenes turned into like terrible interviews, which does happen in real life, but we were able to play that as a, as a, as a comedic element.

And I love the fact that you see, was it some of your crew, Paul on, was it, was Paul on sound? Yeah. Paul Buscemi was on soundael fitzgerald was on camera like yeah and we were i mean again one of the nice things about this project is because it was shooting in kawaii um hawaii we we were on set for like six weeks which is pretty you know a lot of times these days on big big films you'll have a embedded crew or embedded camera for us it was a very active six weeks we got tremendous amounts of us, it was a very active six weeks. We got tremendous amounts of material, but it was nice being able to integrate

with the actual production. And that, I think, is the other sort of lightning in the bottle aspect, which allowed us to get the material we did, which is that we're on a small island, oftentimes well into the interior of the island in the jungle. So people were kind of stuck on set.

Yeah. And there was a big complicated shot. So there's a lot of downtime as they're resetting for, you know, another explosion or, you know, what have you. And because we had that extra time and this incredible improvisational cast, and it was before smartphones were invented, people had time to kill and play. So we were able to really do something, you know something that I don't know that you could replicate. I didn't even think about that.

I mean, they weren't updating their social media. They had time to give you to create more comedic genius there. Well, in the Reign of Madness, which when you sent me that, I was working at Warner Brothers and you sent that over like, hey, there's something we worked on. Very low key the way you are. And I watch it and I'm like, this is crazy. How did you ever get something like this made as an extra? I mean, this is not, you know, here we are on set. And, you know, how did you come up with the idea?

I mean, it's not that i mean you have some other quite a few other pieces actually that are a little bit more for the promotional side of things or whatever but this was just bonkers i mean this was as you said a prequel mockumentary and it was just an amazing thing but the thing that probably most impressed me was how you actually used the actors from the movie in, in the flow of the whole storytelling. You know, you can try to do a mockumentary where you're not getting very many of them and you're trying to kind of do it on your own and make it happen as a extra crew. Um, but this one, it felt so organic to the film because you had all those actors participating. How did you get the Steve

Coogan and Justin Theroux right in the mix there? Yeah. So, um, you know, we had Justin there. Um, I'm trying to remember what his exact title was on the film. Um, but he was one of the writers. Yeah. He was one of the writers on it. So he was there the whole time. And, you know, again, this was a, an idea that, you know, we had certainly pitched the idea of doing some in-character work. And simultaneously, you know, Justin had been talking with Stiller about some, I think it might've originated with some ideas they had that didn't make it into the main film. I'm not entirely positive, but some backstory for the actual narrative. So when we came on the project, this was another beast that Paramount Digital was very keen on making.

So again, like a lot of it was Steve and Justin sort of working on the outline. These are sort of the beats that we want to hit. There were some elements that were scripted, but overall, I mean, I want to say the whole document was maybe 10, 13 pages. So a couple of scenes were kind of written out, but a lot of the dialogue, a lot of the interaction that you see in this was improvisational because these actors are in character right um using justin as jan jürgen the documentarian the over-the-top you know werner herzog type documentarian he was able to ask them questions as a documentarian is the same way that i would and they were able to draw into their character and have these very genuine responses for the character, which when you pull back into the wider focus of what this is, is hysterical. And who knows those characters better than one of the writers in Justin who's playing the documentarian so that he can both ask and verbalize and do all of that ad living that he does. And he's a tremendous actor of his own right. Yeah, he is. I worked on the

extras for an HBO show and I got to meet him on a show called The Leftovers and a terrific cast and just a terrific guy. He was so friendly and always wanted to help us on these extras, He was so friendly and always wanted to, you know, help us on these extras, which you don't always get. That is true. And the fact that, you know, Steve Coogan's character doesn't have as much to do in the film, like in terms of screen time. Right. Because spoiler alert, he doesn't make it very far. He doesn't make it very far.

He becomes the catalyst for the rest of the cast to go on their adventure. But we chose him as the subject of the mockumentary. So we did have a lot of time with Steve. We did have a lot of time with Justin to do these things. were days when neither of them were around, but we knew that, you know, Michael Fitzgerald, you know, Paul Buscemi and I would go off and be able to gather more material from these scenes. We also worked with, um, you know, a guy, Brian Taylor, who's a producer on the film as well. And he had a very good relationship with, with the cast. So it was just, it was a lot of play and it was a tremendous amount of editorial. There's a hour and 40 minute version of this in someone's desk drawer. And it was great. I can't recall. How long did this one end up?

It ended up being cut to just under 30 minutes because that allows it to qualify as a promotional material and not get any guilt issues. I may want to see that one someday if you ever find it. But no, it's awesome. And I mean, Rain of Madness, if you are a fan of the movie, it's a natural kind of extension that you'll enjoy because it just continues in that world and it continues with the main cast in character, which is so unique and so cool. with the main cast in character, which is so unique and so cool. So, yeah.

And I think that's the important part of it is it really is a very organic extension of the film. It's more of the characters that you enjoy in the film. So one final thing, I mean, you did a ton of other great extras on that, which we're not going to get into, but fans should know about. But one thing I did notice in rewatching the film, and this is 2007. Okay. This is probably the peak 2008. This is the peak of the home entertainment, just momentum where everybody was buying everything that came out. Every film was just making millions of dollars for the studio. Home entertainment was billion-dollar industry.

It was the heyday. But Ben and Justin wove into the script and into the concept, the whole idea, because it is about the making of a film, some really fun stuff. And I can't finish our conversation without, you know, talking about Robert Downey's line, man, I didn't drop the character till I did the DVD commentary, which I just think is so funny for those of us who've worked in the home

entertainment side. And you know what? He didn't, he did the entire commentary. And it wasn't until they were rolling credits in the commentary that he broke character wow um it was it was pretty fantastic that that commentary that said there are two commentaries on on the film but the one that that robert was in he stuck with that character throughout the whole thing so um it was uh it was spectacular to watch him it's in one of the special features i can't remember which one but we were talking to uh robert downey jr while he was in the makeup chair getting made up as his character which was a fairly long process and he just leans back

and tells us he's like i forget what the exact question i asked him he's like i was just looking for something to do you know after i wrapped iron man and before i came out and uh he's like it's a trilogy by the way and so that was like robert danny jr just before iron man you know and once iron man took off i mean yeah the rest is history right right and so sometimes i think well because of that this film might get a little bit lost in his his filmography but and obviously this is an ensemble cast but i mean you got jack black was at his peak of popularity as well. Yep. I mean, so many... Danny McBride. He is bonkers crazy in this.

Always wanting to blow stuff up. And it's so much fun to watch him. And he's kind of separate from the rest of the group that's in the jungle, you know, for a good chunk of it anyway. Yeah. But he is so over the top,

amazingly great. Yeah. So, yeah, over the top, amazingly great. Yeah. So, yeah, it's so many great performances. So, Hey, thanks for coming on the show to talk tropic thunder.

My pleasure. Fun. Yeah. Yeah. It was, that was the other thing too, is just going back to Kauai with my family. It was the first time I'd been back since we shot that and just driving around the island and seeing these little turnoffs, it really, it started bringing it back.

So this is fun to be talking about. The final movie we will be reviewing today is the 1987 cult favorite, The Lost Boys, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patrick, and the two Corys, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. This film was recently released by Warner Brothers on 4K, for Sutherland, Jason Patrick, and the two Corys, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. This film was recently released by Warner Brothers on 4K, with no new extras, but with most all of the legacy extras, including an audio commentary with Joel Schumacher,

a 24-minute retrospective, and seven featurettes, deleted scenes, and a music video. And joining me again is Alan Griswold, who produced all of these legacy extras to revisit the film and tell us about his work on these extras. Hey, Alan, I wanted to talk with you about another classic film, and this one goes back to 1987, 1987. And that's The Lost Boys. I was coming of age in the 80s and I think you were as well. So I mean, this one is kind of important to us in a certain way. And the 80s, I mean, I watched 80 movies and some of them I'm like, they look terrible. They look so dated. And then others I watched, I'm like, you know what? That's a good one. That one holds up. And yeah, it might be dated just like any movie is dated to its time

period. But I rewatched Lost Boys and I think it holds up. It's got a lot that is just hilarious. And I think it's part of the comedy. And of course, it's Joel Walker's direction and art direction in there. But let's go back to what was it, mid-2000s when you started working on this? It was 2004. This was one of our very early titles as a company. This was actually when my company was called Monkey Feeds the Robot. That's right.

And my partner and I, Len Ciccatello, was also my editor and partner. We both loved this film. And this was a time also when the DVD industry was just digging through all the archives for all these catalog titles. And I had reached out to a good friend who I'd worked with years ago when I was at Stiller's company. Her name was Leslie Hall. I was an executive at Warner Home Video home video. Um, and I said, if lost boys ever comes up, like I have to do, I'll do whatever it takes. It's one of those seminal movies,

you know, for certainly for people in our generation, it reinvents the vampire genre. You know, it's one of the first times I think we see, maybe the first time we see teenage vampires. And that, of course, is ubiquitous now. But this was that movie, this one and Near Dark, I think were the two that really kind of launched that subgenre. And it was such a stylish movie. It was both scary and funny as hell. You had an amazing cast. And yeah, Schumacher's bombastic design style just really dovetailed very well with the world. So I was enamored by the film from the first time I saw it. And the idea of being able to go back and really dig in and do some special features on it was a career dream. So we got very lucky when we got that call. So Leslie was there and then I came right after her. And, uh, when she contacted you and said,

yes, you're on board. I mean, what did you guys think that? And like, okay, now, because there's a wealth of content that you guys created for this. So how did that all kind of come about once you knew that you, uh, you had the project, how did you create that proposal for her? Well, like I said, we were, we're a young company at the time and we probably made no money off of this because we put so much into it. Right. And I think at one point I said, like, we've we've got enough material um we got enough concepts to to give you two discs and they're like well we can't really pay for two discs it was like we'll we'll just do it um and and we did uh so len and i sat down and we talked about like what are the

things that we loved as as fans of this and like i said it's like the vampires the horror versus comedy that was a really sort of dynamic mix you had the two cory's cory hame and cory feldman yep um you had the look of these vampires which was sexy and cool you know there is as monstrous as they were like my god like i wanted to be a vampire after i saw this when i was a teenager so that's how we we approached this and that's how we still try to approach things like as a fan of this what would i want to see you know behind the scenes or what i want to see more of and because it's such a beloved film i mean it's weird calling it beloved i mean that sounds more like a you know family film but you know because people love this film so much, the cast and filmmakers were all on board.

So we got everybody to agree to it. We even got Kiefer Sutherland. We shot him in a parking lot in downtown LA while he was shooting, I think, the first season of 24. Yeah, you see his trailer in the background and everything, and it's obviously not ideal. Yeah. Oh, his helicopter's going over exactly but his interview adds so much obviously you got to have him in the extras they're talking about and his character but at that point with

24 i mean he was just taking off huge on on the that tv, but so many of those guys got their, not their start, but their kickstart, you know, Jason Patrick and Kiefer were already, you know, becoming names, but this really pushed them, I think, into heartthrob eighties, you know, for sure. And then along with the Corey's who, you know, a lot of people had their posters up on their walls or whatever, you know, teenage posters. So then you knew everybody was getting involved. And I noticed that in looking at the extras, you had the commentaries, then you also had a bunch of featurette stuff. I mean, the retrospective, of course, was pretty long. It's like a 25 minute almost piece and that's great for everybody to see because it gives you it kind of gives you everything you want yeah sort of the broad strokes view yeah and joel's talking about everything i mean his interview was amazing because he was so open and and it was an important film for him yeah yeah for Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It really opened the doors for him after that. So, but take us through a little bit about working with him. What was that like? Well, he was, uh, he was

really generous with his time. Um, he clearly had, uh, a soft spot in his heart for, for this and the, the clarity of his memory of shooting this was phenomenal too i mean it was it wasn't reaching back you know 15 years in his memory or or more to pick at the the bones of the story i mean he he knew it well and he had a lot of really interesting things to say i remember there was one story he told us about you know they had this the scene where they're they're climbing through the the cave and all of a sudden there's like they they're swarmed by flies. And I think they, I think he said they were shooting,

it was a soundstage, maybe universal. And they released all these flies for the shot. Right. But it's like dark. And so he's like, you didn't see any flies. So from that point on,

it's like, you just have sounds of flies. You don't need thousands of flies and your actors will do the rest. But you know, fun little stories like that. We even talked about the guy with the saxophone. I was like, I have to ask you about this. And he's like, absolutely. So yeah, we try to hit all the subjects. Yeah. I mean, it's the kind of film that bears rewatching because of all those little moments. Yeah. There's a lot of layers to it. You know, again, you've got the horror layer, the, you know, the comedy layer, the just sort of teen angst layer. I mean, you could take any one of these elements out and you'd still have a solid film. But he really did work it together very, very well. where there's just vampires and bodies disappear and people are like have you seen i mean even the art direction all the little pieces of the art direction the little missing person stuff and

then you got the skateboarders i mean you got so much 80s stuff in there as well um and the soundtrack was just amazing too. InXS and Jimmy Barnes, you had Echo and the Bunnymen doing the Doors song, People Are Strange. The score was great. It really was kind of a great rock and roll film on top of those other genres we're talking about. I mean, the fact that they looked like Motley Crue didn't hurt. They were these gorgeous looking looking full hair you know chiseled face and keifer with the giants the mullet you know yeah the bad boys on the

motorcycles going through town i mean so california too in so many ways and you know it's just got so much to like about that film and And I kind of wish they had come back to you guys to say, hey, what else could you do? What other footage did you not use? Yeah, Jason did not. He did. He did decline the interview, but we got a phenomenal interview with Jamie Girtz. Right. But there was something in the release from the studio that her lawyers didn't like.

And based on schedule, we had to we had to pull her from all the pieces, which was too bad. I feel like it's something that, you know, had we been able to dig back in, it'd be great to have included her. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting also at the time when you did those interviews, the film was 15 years or 16, you know, something like that, right? It came out in 87. You did this in 2004, but here now we can add on another almost 18 years that we can add on to that previous. You get those actors to sit down again and you get a whole nother type of story or angle to them looking back because the fandom, that dvd came out then

it was released on blu-ray the fandom for this film has grown so it's been enough time passing that it would have been fun to revisit and do something even if they said hey can you just do one retrospective piece yeah you interview the cast and then you could have gotten jamie you know you could have gotten people who look back and say, wow, you know, you don't recognize how special some of those moments are until years later. Yeah. And you know, I've got, uh, my oldest daughter's just turned 13 and this is on the list of sort of waiting for the next tier of movies that, uh, that I can introduce her to. And she's going to flip out over this one. And I think that's, that I can introduce her to and she's going to flip out over this one.

And I think that's, what's wonderful about it is like, it does hit a zeitgeist, but it's also, it, it, it has legs, you know, it, it's still, I'm excited to see it again. Certainly in 4k too. Yeah. And because all of the movies, I think from that era benefit from every new kind of bump up in quality, especially when you, especially when you're watching on these new TVs where it becomes really obvious when you're like, wow, that DVD is not as good looking as I thought it was. I really need to upgrade this, not just to the Blu-ray, but I might as well upgrade it to the 4k. And I've got my nice 4k player and I really noticed the difference. Sure.

The quality. And again, with a film that's as, as visually spectacular as this, I think, I think that's where it really, really comes into play too. Yeah. Such a great film. A lot of classic lines. Both of the films that we've talked about today just have lines that you can quote. They're just, you know, part of it is the humor and everything. I love that whole line, death by stereo that, you know, that Corey has. I mean, it's just so crazy. And of course, out of context, you're like, what does that even mean? But it's just such a crazy line for whoever, you know, came up with it. Yeah. Those two, their characters, they play, you know, Corey Haim basically plays like a John Rambo, like a kid who wants to be John Rambo.

And yeah, the Frog Brothers, right? They're going to kill vampires. And that's the other thing, too. We even talked to, it had been long, long rumored that there was going to be a sequel to this. And we got to talk to Joel about that idea of what would Lost Boys 2 be. Is that one of the pieces? I think it might've been. I think it says here on the list of extras, it says something about... Yeah, the Lost Boys sequel, right? Two minutes, 25 seconds. And I believe, again, it's been ages since I've seen this stuff, but I believe that's when he was floating the idea of always wanting to do something called The Lost Girls. Oh.

And I believe there was some sequel made to this that I didn't see. There were some direct-to-video pieces that were done. Yeah. But opportunity missed for a big cinematic return to the franchise, I think. Well, you never know. I mean, with the way the studios are revisiting properties that could work for streaming or whatever, there is some thought of, hey, you've got this crazy town with vampires. That's the type of thing that could also be a TV show without too much trouble, I'm pretty sure. And I think Netflix with Stranger Things has proven you get some young people, you get some horror, you get some comedy, you get that mixture. It can be a real home run.

And I do think that this is one of those movies that, um, that a lot of these shows now are, have, have learned from, right. That it doesn't have to be one thing. In fact, if you can blend those two things properly, you've got something even better. Right. Well, Hey, thanks for coming on and talking about, um, one of our favorite films, The Lost Boys. Absolutely. My pleasure. Well, I hope you've enjoyed today's episode, which was a little different, but it allowed us to review a few recent 4K releases with the producers of The Extras,

which is a lot of fun. If you're interested in purchasing any of the films we discussed, there are links in the podcast show notes and on our website at www.theextras.tv. So be sure and check those out if you're interested. If this is the first episode of The Extras you've listened to and you enjoyed it, please think about following the show at your favorite podcast provider.

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