WHAT WENT WRONG - Battlefield Earth

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

A writer ignores his dog's advice, L. Ron Hubbard speaks from the grave, and the budget is... shrinking? Pour yourself a glass of kerbango and join Chris & Lizzie for John Travolta's seven-time Razzie award-winning film, Battlefield Earth.Go Ad-Free - Join Our Patreon!Check Out Our Merch!Follow Us on Instagram!What Movie's Next? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Entertainment. Entertainment. Yeah. Hello. And welcome back to your hopefully still favorite movie podcast. What Went Wrong, where we discuss what went wrong on your favorite flops, hits, and everything in between. And here with me in the flop sweat, AC-free backhouse of her home is Lizzie Bassett. Lizzie, how are you doing?

I'm doing great, Chris. If you can't tell by the enthusiasm in Chris's voice, we are extremely excited to find be back. I think I can actually say by popular demand. This is the first time in my life. People have asked me to talk more. They didn't technically say that, but they did say that they wanted more episodes. So we are doing it. We are bringing what went wrong back. We're very excited. We have such a treat for you today. I just want to say, too, I am very excited, but I'm now a father, so I'm also perpetually exhausted and feel like I'm going to die. Yes, David and I are still child-free and live-in-large.

Yeah, my wife is dealing with my baby right now, and I am trying to justify why I'm spending two hours on something that will bring our family no money. Chris, that's because the people have asked for it, and we are here to deliver it. Speaking of it, bringing us no money, however, there is a caveat to our return, which is that we will be releasing episodes bi-weekly, meaning we will be releasing them every two weeks. We reserve the right to change that. if you decide to, I don't know, start shipping us bars of gold, then maybe we'll do it more than that. But for now, it's going to be every other week. And we're extremely excited. And we're just going to,

we're going to do it forever. We're going to do it forever, Chris. It's going to keep going forever. Right? It is. I'm very excited. I thought quickly we could give people a brief life update on each of us. Lizzie, would you like to start? Sure. Well, David has built the patio furniture in the backyard and you bought a house. Yeah, okay. So I guess I should back up. Yeah, we bought a house. And we'll go with us. She has a great new job and she bought a house. My wife, Carmelah, had a baby. She's very cute and has decided to never let us sleep again. And I had two movies release, Worm, which is available for rental and we'll be on Hulu in a couple of months. And Moonshot, which in the span of 18 months, we rewrote, shot, released, and were canceled as it was removed from HBO Max. You were not canceled. It was removed from HBO Max. As part of the discovery merger slash tax write-off, so that was quite the roller

coaster. It has nothing to do with why we're back with the podcast. But maybe we'll cover each of those movies in later episodes. So look forward to that because you have the ultimate insider who dealt with the heartbreak of both of them, the highs and the lows. And David got a gym membership. So with that, we can move on to the movie. Lizzie, this is a new low. And I'm excited to talk about it. It's absolutely the worst one. So before we dive in, I do just want to shout out a couple of people who recommended this film. Benjamin K on Instagram, Jonathan S, via our email. And Ross D via email as well, recommended this hot, steaming pile of trash that we're going to talk about today. It is the worst movie we have watched so far for this podcast, which is saying a lot.

No, Chris, obviously, I want to hear what you thought about this movie. But first, I want to ask you, what do you think of when I say the Schindler's List of Science Fiction? I have no idea how to even respond to that. How about, like, Star Wars, only better? What are we talking about? If you answered Battlefield Earth, you agree with John Travolta. That is how he described this movie.

Oh, my God. I thought you were trolling. I thought you were trying to get me to say something anti-Semitic when I was very nervous. No, that's just... John Travolta did it himself. Yes, Adele Dazim. Yeah, no one has suffered persecution like the Jews, with the exception of Scientologists 1,000 years.

the future. That's right. We are covering the film described by John Stewart as quote, a cross between Star Wars and the smell of ass. It is finally time for Battlefield Earth. I think like a good indication of whether or not you like a movie is how many times you have to pause, get up, walk around your house. Yeah, take a break. And then take a break and then return to it. Honestly, it's impossible to watch it one sitting. It took six hours to watch a two-hour movie. It was really hard. And I don't, you know, this podcast is not about just unceremoniously. crapping on movies, but I have to say this was a very hard one to find things that I ultimately like about it. Oh, there's some stuff I loved, which we will definitely get to.

I'm excited to hear about how at every stage they didn't just say, should we? And just walk away. Well, I'm about to make you as happy as a baby cyclo on a straight diet of Kerbango, because here we go. This movie is directed by Roger Christian. written by Corey Mandel and sort of J.D. Shapiro. We'll get into that a little bit. Also, naturally, The Ghost of Elron Hubbard contributed. It stars John Travolta, Barry Pepper, Forrest Whitaker, Kim Coates, and a whole bunch of other people you will wish we're not a part of this movie, because they all deserve better. It's based on a 1,000-plus page sci-fi novel by Scientology founder and All-Around Creep, El Ron Hubbard. Now, the plot of this movie, well, actually, Chris,

Do you think you could sum up the plot of this movie? Vaguely. I had such a hard time focusing. So Barry Pepper, Barry Pepper is the last of the Mohicans. Sorry, Barry Pepper is Johnny Goodboy Tyler. He's Johnny Good Boy,

he's Johnny Utah. I can call him Johnny Utah because they're in color. Anyway, he's Johnny Good Boy, and he's part of a, like a, what seems like a primitive tribe with cave paintings of dragons and stuff.

And they're out of, His dad, his dad, like, I feel like they cut an opening scene. I'm going to stop you. This is going to take 500 years. Okay, Barry Pepper, Barry Pepper leaves the cave, realizes there's, it's a thousand years in the future, and there's these creatures called Cyclos, which are just giant dreadlocked humans, basically,

who have taken over Earth and enslaved mankind to mine gold through physical labor to fight their advance. Not true. What? Hold on, hold on. Let me get this out. So Barry Pepper, he just keeps trying to, he gets kidnapped, he keeps trying to escape. Meanwhile, John Travolta is, like, annoyed that he didn't get the promotion he wanted,

basically. And so he's like, I don't want to spend five more cycles on this planet. and they're like, how about 50? Ha! And that literally jumps up the whole movie. He and Barry Pepper end up kind of teaming up. And then Barry Pepper discovers perfectly intact 1,000-year-old Harrier Jets underneath Fort Knox or something.

Yeah, Fort Knox. And in one week, they learn how to pilot jets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he leaves the humans to destroy the Homo homeworld by teleporting what looks like a bit of nuclear bomb to the cyclo home world, destroying it. And that's the movie. Chris, that was almost as bad as having to watch this movie. So for those of you who fast forward during Chris's recap,

it is the year 3,000, and the Earth is lost to the alien race of cyclos. Humanity is enslaved by these gold, thirsty tyrants who are unaware. Well, they're not actually, like, this isn't totally right either. They're not like having the humans mine the gold. The reason John Travolta is like, maybe humans can mine is because he figures out there is a deposit of gold, gold bars in Fort Knox, but it's surrounded by uranium deposits, which is what like ignites their stupid atmosphere thing. It's why they have stuff stocked up their I think a weakness that's like it's their weakness, but also uranium is bad for humans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that doesn't matter because humans will do anything for gold.

So they're unaware that their men, animals are about to ignite the rebellion of a lifetime. That is the IMDB synopsis. And honestly, pretty good. That's about right. It is set in and around Denver for the most part. The best reveal. Human processing center. Denver. It premiered May 10, 2000 at Gromins Chinese theater and May 12th across the country. Now, on a hotly contested budget, which likely came in around $40 million, we will get into that a little bit later. The film grossed around $30 million worldwide. Oh, that's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I thought the movie cost more. I'm glad it cost this amount. When you're looking this up, dear listeners, you may see the budget listed in the $70 million range. That's actually usually what shows up. That is not correct. And we will get to watch.

it's not correct a little later in a fun reveal. It holds one of the lowest Rotten Tomato scores of All Time at 3% claiming the number 60 spot on their 100 worst movies of all time list. It won seven Razies and was voted the worst film of the decade. Cudos to Barry Pepper, who did say that he would have shown up to accept his Razzie had he known he was going to win. He did not show up. Yeah. The last thing you want to do is go to the Razies and not win. Come on, guys. Let them know. I love it. I love it. I love Barry Pepper. He's a good actor. And I, yeah, I feel bad because it seemed like he gave his all to this movie as you should when you're working. I will end this little summary section with one of my favorite IMDB user reviews, which says an absolute marvel of complete failure from top to bottom. And it's crazy boring. That's the thing. I think it's great as sin is that it's pretty boring for most of the movie.

The last third is pretty fun. I like the last act is fine. So you may be asking yourself as you're watching this film, how did this happen? Well, I'm going to let 1999 John Travolta talking to Charlie Rose explain it for me. You are said to have wanted to make a film about Hubbard's book, a science fiction? Well, yeah, you see, that has nothing to do with Scientology. It's just a book that he wrote. Yeah, it's a science fiction book. Maybe I think, if I'm not wrong, the best-selling science fiction book ever, you know,

or at least one of the top two or three called Battlefield Earth. And it is exactly what his creative outflow was before Scientology. But he wrote this in 1980, but he also made a living in the 30s and 40s writing all sorts of fiction and science fiction. So a lot of stuff in there obviously isn't true. Okay, John Travolta. I guess he got bad information,

because he thought, wow, look at this IP, right? He was ahead of the game with Hollywood IP. I got this IP, best-selling science fiction book of all time. Elron told me himself, turns out not 100% true. No, as far as I can tell, it doesn't crack the top 100. But, you know, I didn't comb through everything. And who knows, obviously things change with time. But it is not the best-selling sci-fi novel of all time.

I can tell you that with all certainty. So unfortunately, in order to get into Battlefield Earth, we need to take a moment to talk about the man without whom Battlefield Earth would not be possible. And that is Lafayette Ronald Hubbard. Now, he is the founder of the Church of Scientology, their supreme leader, of course. And just like John Travolta said, he got his start writing sci-fi and pulp fiction, fun coincidence, in the 30s and 40s. He spends some time in the Navy. He sucks at it. He's removed from duty twice. I'm not going to get into a ton of Elron Hubbard's absolutely wacky and messed up life. Last podcast on the left has an amazing series on El Ron Hubbard.

Go listen to it if you want to deep dive into that wakadoo because he is, I mean, just wow. 1950 he publishes Dianetics, the modern science of mental health and discovers there's one thing he excels at even more than kitsy sci-fi. And that is religion. Yeah. You know the rest. Church of Scientology happens. but we're going to fast forward to 1982. Now, LRH has been enjoying his status as the head of the church for years,

but he decides it's time to go back and do what he thinks he does best, which is right. He publishes Battlefield Earth in 1982, originally titled Man, the Endangered Species. Okay, honestly, better title, but go ahead. Yeah, there's very little battling happening, honestly. It happens in the last like 10 minutes. It's called Battlefield Denver, if anything. Yeah, the rest of the earth is not featured in this movie. Yeah, exactly.

It was his first sci-fi novel since his Pulp Fiction Days in the 40s and was being billed as his long-awaited return to the genre. Now, he had been secluded for so long at this point that many in Scientology thought that he had dropped the body, as they say, but in fact, he was just working on this masterpiece, Chris. Could you imagine being a Scientologist and, like, Elron gives you a thousand-page text and is like, hey, can you give me notes on this? You're like, oh, this is, oh, wow. I'm so glad I devoted my life to this religion.

Imagine if Jesus is at the last supper and he's like, guys, you just check out my Battlefield Earth. Hey, guys, make sure it gets published, okay? Just hook a brother up. Okay, that's basically what's about to happen. So he did equate his time writing Battlefield Earth to Henry David Thoreau on Walden pond. Oh, God, just the hubris. It's just amazing. It's incredible. This is a quote from an interview with Rocky Mountain News in 1983. Hubbard said, I have traveled through the far east and sailed

the high seas and did a few loops and some bywinged planes and gliders in my day and drew upon these for stories. I also did a lot of research for other stories. He also said, I don't really outline. I just write. Well, he does sound like a screenwriter, to be honest. I mean, it sounds just like Phillips Seymour Hoffman and the master. What are you? A nuclear physicist? A theoretical gravitationalist? A man, a god.

Like, he just goes. Exactly. Okay. So Battlefield Earth was positioned as the first step in a three-part journey to truly take over Hollywood and I think legitimize Scientology. This was their plan to like galvanize. Because like the thing is, it's not like there was ever a time when Scientology was legit. That did not.

It has always been getting a side eye from everybody, and they've always been trying to figure out how to get their foot in the door, whether it's with Tom Cruise or John Travolta. Like, the reason that they are, you know, approaching these actors, the reason they have a celebrity center in Hollywood. Oh, don't mind me about that one. The reason that they go after these very public figures, I think it is to sort of legitimize the church. Well, and some of their parents, like Giovanni Rubisi's parents are Scientologists. And so he inherited it is my understanding. Yes. There are people that are born into it. But in the early days, they did seem to be very much targeting actors, which makes sense. You know, get these Hollywood actors everybody loves. Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, you know, everybody.

And have them sort of be ambassadors for the church. So this was step one. Step two, which is my favorite thing, I think that we're going to cover in the church. this entire episode. Elron Hubbard also wrote accompanying music for the book called obviously Space Jazz. Chick Korea played on it. He was a Scientologist. Yeah, that was a fun piece of information I found out. Space Jazz. Space Jazz. It is an adaptation of the book, and it is incredible. I love it. As David said, when we listened, if they did, one thing right, it is space jazz. It's one million percent better than Battlefield Earth. Now, because I don't want to get sued by El Ron Hubbard's estate, I am not going to play it

here, but I am going to make Chris listen to my favorite banger, Turrell, the security director. Well, it's labeled as Terry, the security director. David, God damn it. It's Turl. All right, here we go. Here's the thing. I have to say, I mean, just musically, just atrocious. Very funny. And it matches how Forrest Whitaker plays the character in the movie. Like, it sounds weird, but it's like very goofy, kind of campy. Yeah, there's a lot of big villainous laughs.

It sounds like what would be playing in the background of the first Spirit Halloween store. Like, that's the best way that I can describe it. Yeah. It's, you know, check it out. I don't really know how else to describe it. But the idea of having to take that seriously while talking to a large man that's the head of a religion, you know. Oh, yeah, you better take it seriously. You're going to be scrub in the basement with a toothbrush.

Allegedly, please don't sue us. So, as you might have guessed, the book received somewhat mixed reviews. Step three in this plan was, of course, a two-part Hollywood blockbuster starring Scientology darling John Travolta as Johnny Good Boy, Tyler with LRH directly involved. Side note, Elron Hubbard's mouth kind of looks like the wheelchair doctor with an exposed brain in Nightmare Before Christmas, and I can't get it out of my head. Okay, LRH envisioned himself being directly involved in the film's production, and he expected that it would naturally happen seamlessly, and within the next couple of years after releasing

the novel. Like all movies, it'll happen naturally. Yeah, he was really wrong, because remember this is 1982. So despite pretty much everyone agreeing that Battlefield Earth was, in fact, not good. Scientology sold the film rights to, I believe, Salem Productions. Now, they're originally planning on two films, which does make sense because, again, the book is a thousand pages long. Yeah. They brought on Abraham Polonski to write, a veteran Hollywood screenwriter.

He, side note, was actually one of the victims of McCarthy's Blacklist, interestingly enough. Poor bastard. Brought on Ken Anakin to direct a veteran British TV and film director. Basically, they got way more legit people attached to this than they should have, but these guys also weren't at their peak at the time. Right. Now, production is set to begin in 1985, so to drum up some excitement one year earlier, especially since the book in Space Jazz, didn't quite stick the landing. Santa Monica PR firm Dateline Communications announced a nationwide contest. The first place prize was an all-expense paid trip to the set and a walk-on part in the film.

They also put up a 30-foot-tall blow-up recreation of the film's villain Turrell on Hollywood Boulevard at Tower Records. So auditions begin in Denver, but LRH dies, excuse me, drops his body in 1986 and the movie just kind of crumbles. That's partly due to the fact that John Travolta is adamantly trying to make this happen still. He starts shopping Battlefield Earth around Hollywood, but he doesn't really have the same star power that he did, couple of years earlier due to a string of pretty rough flops. Not to mention nobody wanted to touch the Scientology of it all. Yeah. A little background on John Travolta. He broke onto the scene in the late 70s with the TV series Welcome Back Cotter and then blew up with roles in Saturday Night Fever and Greece, of course, RIP, Olivia Newton-John, very sad. But then he does a string of just

stinkers. They're incredibly bad. He does stay in alive. Yeah. this, the very bad sequel to Saturday Night Fever. Two of a kind trying to capitalize on his duo bringing Olivia Newton John back. Perfect, which made almost no money, but that incredible. Perfect's like a great, great movie. I didn't say it was bad. I just said that these were these were flops. That movie was too sexual for America at that point. Well, it gave us a great meme. Now, he has a brief window of success with Look Who's Talking and then proceeds to make a bunch of garbage sequels to that. To his credit, John Travolta has admitted that he has a bad habit of turning down gray roles. After blowout, he was offered an officer and a gentleman, and he said, nah, it's something that he

apparently has done quite frequently is saying no to roles that were massively successful. All that is to say, it's the early 90s and his career is in the toilet, thanks to those decisions. But all that changed in 1994 with a little help from a movie called... Fiction. Pulp Fiction, exactly. Now, famously, Travolta was not even Tarantino's first choice for the role. He was his second listed as a strong, strong, strong, strong second choice if Michael Madsen couldn't do it. Now, I'm sure we'll do an episode on Pulp Fiction later, so I'm going to save diving into any more of that. So side note, you will be happy to know that the reason he took Get Shorty was allegedly Quentin Tarantino. He passed on it originally, and Quentin Tarantino called him and said, You do not pass on this. Like, this is the one to punch that you need after Pulp Fiction. You take, get Shorty. And he did.

Also, I love that movie. It's a good movie. At 40 years old, Travolta finally hits his stride and cements his place on the A-list. And what does he do with the newfound clout that he has been working his entire life for Chris? What does he do? Go to Denver. Yeah, that's right. He pushes battlefield Earth.

The one thing he's been wanting to make for 20 years. So he actually manages to drum up enough interest for MGM to take on the project. And they hire their first writer. Yeah. No, no, no. He's, listen, he is putting all of his weight behind this. They hire their first writer, J.D. Shapiro. He is fired pretty much immediately for refusing to make the script changes that MGM and maybe also John Travolta wanted.

Next, they lure in a young writer named Corey Mandel. Now we're going to spend quite a bit of time with Corey this episode. Yeah, I know a little bit about Mr. Mandel. He's a very interesting guy. And for those of you who want to hear more from him, I highly recommend that you go and listen to some of the videos that he has on YouTube. Yeah, he's very forthcoming. He's very honest. Despite only one writing credit to his name for a 1991 TV movie called Love Kills, Mandel was actually doing quite well in Hollywood at the time. He had five high-profile projects almost get made prior to this, including one with Ridley Scott attached. But he hadn't managed to get anything over the finish line yet. Chris, maybe you can speak to this.

I think it's something people outside of the industry don't really know. It's very common. Yeah. So there are a lot of incredibly successful writers who have virtually no credits to their name. Right. The idea that the only way you make money is if your movie gets made is absurd. So scripts are sold all the time that never see the light of day. People are brought on to do uncredited or sometimes credited punch up work on scripts that are never made.

you know, Tony Gilroy is someone who for a long time has had a number of projects, I'm sure, that have sold, et cetera, that never, you know, went or got made. And obviously now has become a much bigger director. John Michael McDonough is another person. Obviously, he had Garda and Calvary later, Martin McDonough's brother. So there are a number of very successful people in Hollywood that have sold projects, lots of projects, big projects, that have never seen the light of the day, and they never will see the light of day, and it's no reflection of their talent or ability or success.

Once they've turned in the script, everything's entirely beyond their control. I mean, I spent a good part of the last two years working on a script for Amblin, adapting a poor short story, basically. And I'm hopeful that it gets made, but I'm not the director, and I have no idea if that'll end up getting made. And whether or not it does, I still got paid, and my ego is still healthy. So it has nothing to do with your success. It does not.

And I just want to say that for anybody listening who's sort of not familiar with how a lot of this works. Just because you don't see a ton of credits on somebody's IMDB page does not mean that they are not a success story. So I want to play you some clips from this interview with Corey. It's from a YouTube channel called Film Courage. And the full interview is really great. I highly recommend watching it. All the clips that you're going to hear of Corey today are from this interview. So I got a call from my agency.

saying that they wanted to meet you at MGM, John Travolta was a huge star at the time, and for Balthor Earth. So I want you to go take the meeting. Do not say yes. Do not take the project. But meet John Travolta and his producing partner. These are good relationships. And you're going to meet the head of the studio, head of MGM.

So I went in and took the meeting. and they told me what I wanted to hear and I wanted to hear it and they told me this has nothing to do at Scientology. We had a writer from Scientology and the script is completely unusable. We're not following the book literally. In fact, John's going to play the main character and the main character in the book is like a young, like 17 year old or 18 year old and John's a middle age man at this point. Now, Chris, does John play the main character in this movie? Does he play the hero of the movie? Not the hero.

No, he does not. He does not play Elron's good boy in the end. He does not. Corey listens to his agent this time, and he does not take the gig. Now, unfortunately, MGM also decides to bail on the project, and it floats its way over to Fox. Just so everyone knows, that's called going into turnaround. So when a project is dumped by a studio, it goes quote into turnaround, which means it's in limbo.

And if another studio wants to pick it up, the studio that's released it usually makes them buy out whatever costs they've put into a project. They should have paid Fox to take this at this point. Yeah. So, you know, MGM could say, well, we spent $100,000. I have no idea if that's the number on that first writer writing a draft. So if you want to take Battlefield Earth from us, you have to pay us $100,000. And that's why projects sometimes will get dumped at one studio and then,

get lost forever is they have money against them and no one wants to pay for that sunk cost. Well, people wanted to pick up Battlefield Earth and I can't tell you why. It gets picked up by Fox and they come knocking on Corey's door again. They tell him, you know what, we really don't care so much. It's like a fable. It's like a fable like three times. It literally is. It literally is. They come back again and they're like, you know what? We don't care that much about the book. We really want you to like make this your own. We don't care that it's the number one most successful science fiction book of all time. We don't even care about that anymore. Yeah, we don't even care about the numbers.

So they took him out to dinner, and unfortunately, this time he takes the gig. Let's hear from Corey. I want to be clear. My wife said, don't say yes. My agent said don't say yes. My friend said don't say yes. My golden retriever, Toby, said don't say yes in his own golden retriever ways. So everyone else was saying, don't do it, but I did it.

I've actually seen that interview with him before. And, yeah, it's... Yeah. Well, why do you think he said yes? It's, I mean, I totally get it. I, for, first of all, working as a writer is an incredibly insecure position to be in economically, as well as in terms of your own psychological state. You're constantly looking for validation that I'm not terrible at what I do. I'm good at what I do.

And here's somebody saying, we think you're great at what you do. And we want, basically what they're telling him, what at least what he wants to hear is, you can write the sci-fi movie you want. Exactly. It'll be called Battlefield Earth, but you can write your Star Wars and we'll go make it with John Travolta, one of the biggest stars in the world, as the lead. And that can seem true, but ultimately, it's just not the case. Even like if you were the director, it wouldn't be the case, but especially as just the writer,

he has no control in the situation. No, which is exactly what we're about to see. happens. Once you hand it over, you have no control. So one other fun, uh, Fox tidbit, our friend, not actually our friend, but we wish he was, mega producer Bill Mechanic. Um, yes. Bill Mechanic's back. He's back. You might remember him from such episodes as Titanic and what were the other? He's most heavily featured in Titanic. Titanic was the big one, but I had met him before. I met him through a school thing and he was so cool. He's like, he's not trying to be cool. He's just like, you're, you meet him and you're like, oh my God. He's always the hero. He's the Mike Erman Trout of Hollywood. Like, that's what I'm

convinced. He's, he's awesome. I'm so glad he's making an appearance. Let's hear it. He's back for a little cameo here. Apparently, he was super creeped out because while he was at Fox and this project was at Fox, John Travolta would send Scientologists to go chat him up at parties about how great the film was. And like, he's hated it. He was like, if they thought that was going to win me over. I'm a feeling this guy would, you know, unceremoniously slam the door on the world's cutest Mormon missionary. So, God forbid, the Scientologists show up. No, did not love it.

So just as Corey is turning in his draft of the script, Fox also pulls out, potentially realizing the hot turd that they had on their hands. So the script doesn't really get a traditional, like, development pass on it because all of the studios have pulled out. So who starts making all of the edits? Johnny T. That's a solid guess. It is not confirmed, but Mandel is not sure who did the major rewrites that end up taking place. Elron's ghost. Well, you're joking, but one of the rumors he says that, quote, spiritual advisors may have come in to help.

So I don't know what that means. I was trying to find it out. To be clear, this is basically, that's how the Bible was written, just so everybody's clear. Yeah. Yeah, is how Battlefield Earth gets written. I think they pulled a bunch of Scientologists into a room together with John Travolta and his producing partner, and they basically rewrote the script. For example, you may remember how Travolta was originally playing the lead, and they'd kind of aged the lead up and all this. Well, now, he is playing Head Cyclow in Charge, Turrell, and Turtles in every scene.

That's what's kind of wild about the movie. It's like, the stakes for one character, Barry Pepper, are the survival of the... the human species, life or death, every single scene. And then the stakes for John Travolta's character are the equivalent of Michael Scott getting promoted to the New York job from Scrant and Pennsylvania in the office. This movie is the office. This movie is the office in the year 3,000, but nowhere near is entertaining. So this, this moment when the movie has gone into Turnaround again, this is where we meet the Turrell of Our Story. Ely Samaha.

Ely and his company franchise pictures swoop in, calling Travolta out of the blue and saying he's going to make Travolta's dreams come true. Meanwhile, Troultta's done interviews where he was like, I had no idea who this guy was and neither did my manager. Notice, though, how like what Ely does to Travolta is what Travolta just did to Corey, where Travolta's like, we're going to make your dreams come true. And Ely's like, we're going to make it, you know, it's the pyramid scheme of Hollywood. Well, pyramid scheme is an. apt word for what we're getting into now. So Samaha's M-O was to find a script that nobody in Hollywood wanted. Yeah. A star's pet project, take it on, pay the star less than what they'd normally make.

He would use international sales to make up the bulk of the profit, and he'd always shoot in Canada to save money. Oh, wait. What is this called the Netflix method? Wow. Chris is burning himself out of all of his future jobs. Early Netflix. Early Netflix, I would love to work with you. So he was behind the whole nine yards. for Bruce Willis. This is one of the few that gave him some credibility in Hollywood, because that one actually did pretty well. Get Carter for Sylvester Stallone, a longtime friend. The pledge for Jack Nicholson and Sean Penn, the big cahuna for Kevin Spacey, 3,000 miles to Graceland, and many more. According to a New York Times article entitled the Samaha formula, which is very interesting,

I do recommend reading it. Quote, when everyone else said no or maybe or we'll see, Samaha said yes. So, who is Ely Samaha? He is a Lebanese-American. entrepreneur who got his start owning very successful dry cleaners, celebrity dry cleaners, and was a partner... Wait, hold on, celebrity dry cleaners? What they were called, because they were Hollywood dry cleaners. And he learned something very important. He realized if he stayed open super late on the weekend and catered to Hollywood, he could make a

killing. Quote, I charged more, but I learned something. People will pay for service. Then he becomes a partner in a club called the Roxbury on the sunset strip, where he also operated as... Is this night at the Roxbury? I mean, it's a club called the Roxbury. I don't know if that was set at this particular club, but he operated allegedly as the fixer in the VIP room. If an A-list guest needed anything, anything, I'll say it again. Anything. Ely got it for them. He's excellent at making connections, seemingly a very good salesman, very charming, such a good salesman in fact that his ex-wife is

somehow Tia Carrera, so good job, Ely, I guess. So through the the connections that he makes in the VIP room, he starts making some headway in Hollywood. He somehow manages to get his hands on the script for Battlefield Earth and thinks, this is the movie that's going to take him to the next level. He and his partner in franchise pictures, Andrew Stevens, managed to strike a deal with William Morris Agency, then William Morris Agency, now WME. He will figure out how to make Battlefield Earth happen for Travolta, and they will unlock a ton of their clients for him and some of CAA's top clients. Those are the two biggest agencies ever anywhere.

And this is called packaging. So the agencies are basically saying, we'll put all of our stars in your movie. Typically, they would take a fee for doing that as well. The WGA has fought a long battle with them over this practice, which is anti-competitive and double-dipping. Honestly, I think they were just like, please, God, please, if you can get John Travolta to stop talking about Battlefield Earth,

we'll give you literally anyone on our client roster. We will throw all of our people under the bus to get him to shut out. We don't care. Have anyone you want. That's basically what happened. And he's like, sure, I'll make it happen. And of course, this is a gold mine for him because this is what he does. He wants these stars and their pet projects that no other companies want to finance.

So at this point, franchise pictures has also. somehow looped in Warner Brothers into a distribution deal for the film as long as franchise handles the bulk of the budget. Of course, as Ely said, if John wants to make this movie, what does he want to get paid? Because I do not pay anybody what they make. That is not my business plan. Okay. Aye, aye, aye. This guy feels like a character in Nathan for you, but okay, let's keep going. Well, Andrew Stevens, remember his partner in franchise pick pictures, manages to get the book rights to Battlefield Earth from author services, which is, I believe, Scientology's in-house, like, literary agency. I don't know. I've spent a long time

trying to figure out what author services was. The author services. Yeah, I guess. He said he was always afraid of eating the food that author services would offer him in meetings because he was afraid of being brainwashed. They did assure him, though, that this movie is guaranteed to be a success, because there are 7 million Scientologists, and they will all see it at least three times. So without telling Stevens, allegedly without telling Stevens, here's where things get interesting. Samaha ropes in German company Entertainment, Entertainment, to co-finance and distribute their films in Europe and China in exchange for entertainment footing 47% of the budget. Remember this. It's going to be very important later. Franchise gets a loan from an L.A. Bank using the international deals and Warner Brothers distribution as collateral.

To quote, Samaha, I'm going to have the party, and I own the billboards. So we'll have billboards for the movie. And I'll give away free dry cleaning and free meals at the sunset room on the radio. This movie will have great word of mouth. I love that he's producing a giant science fiction epic, but the guy still got his dry cleaning business in mind. Hell yeah, he does. Listen, I kind of respect that. So to finish this quote, if I was a betting man, and I am, I would bet that this movie is going to

change franchise pictures. On Battlefield Earth, I can't lose. Well, he's half right. Yeah. It's certainly changed franchise pictures. Yeah. All right. So they get into production in Montreal. Hey, it's finally happening. Everyone's so excited. John Travolta's sitting for four hours in his makeup chair. He's walking around on his stilts. He's having a great time. Roger Christian. So many stilts. So many stilts. Roger Christian comes on as the director. Poor Roger Christian. Um, He was the second unit director on Phantom Menace. He's a very accomplished DP. He was the set decorator on the original Star Wars.

Well, most famously, he's the... Alien. Alien. He came up with the industrial design look of all of those sci-fi movies. He was the art director for Alien. He's the one who decided, let's take salvage from ships and army surplus and use that to create the interiors of these shit. Like, that's that look.

Was him. I know. He's a brilliant guy. Like, this is not an... that's the thing. The people that worked on this movie, these are not untalented people. Of course not. And that's the reason I think where we do this podcast is like movies are incredibly hard to make. And it is not impossible for a bunch of very talented people to make Battlefield Earth, which is what happened. Yeah. So I read a bunch of interviews with crew members. And it seemed like they kind of maybe all knew this was going to be a bit of a piece of shit. The supervising art director actually jumped ship part way through to work on Pluto Nash. God. Pluto. I mean, that's a lateral move in my book. It's down.

It might be down. I mean, this one at least has sort of like a cult following. The one good thing anyone could say about this production was that I could not find a single bad thing anybody said about John Travolta. He is apparently very nice, paid for his own catering truck to come and feed everybody. Forest Whitaker is apparently a doll. Like, I don't think anybody had a... All the actors seem like lovely people.

I think they are. And like they all clearly were giving it. one's phoning it in for better or worse, you know. And like I really, Kim Coates, one of my favorite character actors. He's very excited to see him. Love like Kim and a rocket launcher. Again, watch them all day. Barry Pepper, you just feel for him. Like the guy had just done saving Private Ryan. He's about to do the 25th hour. Like, he's a talented actor. You also can't blame him for taking this part. No, it's like a lead role. It's a lead role. It's a lead role. In a John Travolta in what could be a giant sci-fi movie. Remember, this was supposed to be on the level of

the Star Wars movies. Yeah. So basically, you know, everyone at the time that Star Wars was made, go listen to our episode on Star Wars, thought Star Wars was going to be a giant flop. It kind of always feels like a roll of the dice with these sci-fi movies. And with Barry, it's like, hey, it's going to be a $40 million movie. You're the lead. They're pitching this as a Star Wars like movie. We've just had the Phantom Menace come out. Like these are, even if that is not a necessarily beloved movie, it was by no means a flop. Like this is, this is still, yeah, a chance to be part of a massive. massive franchise is what he's thinking. And remember, this is a two-picture thing. It's still sticking around is a two-picture deal. Now, you may have noticed, Chris, that every angle in this movie is a Dutch angle. Is a Dutch angle, yes. Which is when the camera's tilted. Yeah. There's like one straight on shot in this entire thing. The left side of the frame is higher than the right side or vice versa. It is so distracting. I was texting David about it constantly while I was watching it. It's absolutely insane. Allegedly, unfortunately. Unfortunately, this was Roger Christian's idea.

Supposedly to make it feel more like a graphic novel, I don't really know. I know that the transitions in this movie are also insane. They are interior expanding screen wipes. It looks like a PowerPoint presentation from like 1990. It's a tough look. It's a little weird. I think it looks better than a PowerPoint presentation. I think it matches the graphic novel idea of like, oh, it's a, it's kind of a page turn maybe is what they were going for.

I didn't find that as distracting as I think you did. I got used to that. I was fine with it. I mean, you let it wash over you. So, you know, who knows what the sort of creative reasoning behind those decisions were, all that aside. The budget on this movie was nowhere near what they had been promised. They had almost no. money for lighting. So they were using like any trick in the book that they could to offset costs. The cinematographer for this said this was literally the smallest lighting budget of any movie he had ever, ever worked on. Now, normally on a movie we're talking about on what went wrong, the budget is ballooning, right? It's out of control. Because usually you have a studio behind it that's got a hose full of money. Sure. That they can pump at it if they need to. Right. We don't have that

here. And in fact, on Battlefield Earth, the budget is shrinking. According to director Roger Christian in a 20th anniversary interview with Newsweek, he really only had about $21 million total to make this movie. That's an impossible number, even for back then. So 10 million when he went to Montreal to actually make it, and then the rest was for the special effects. And I think we have to assume like 99% of that went to the wigs and their little sausage paws, which I loved. Yeah, the wigs. Yeah, the wigs. budget the prosthetic tongue for that one woman when she makes her... That's Kelly Preston, by the way. Oh, that is.

That's John Travolta's wife. Oh, my God. I didn't even... Who had just done Jerry McGuire and she's so good in that movie. She's great. Yeah, that's Kelly Preston. Yeah, so I feel like when you watch it for the first two-thirds of the movie to be blunt, like the VFX look pretty bad.

They're terrible. The whole movie just doesn't look that great. I actually, like, I think they pumped all their money into the third act. And I actually thought the third act looked like it took a sizable jump. I thought the movie just was a lot better in the third act. Right. Well, it's also because like they're working with no money. They have to figure out how to stretch it.

And also I'm joking about the wigs and the makeup and prosthetics, but that cost a shit ton of money. Oh, no, that's the thing. It's like even to do that level, it's all about labor. How many, like you have dozens and dozens of people who have to get made up for hours. So if you have to put everyone in a chair at 6 a.m. to be ready for 10 a.m. to start shooting, you have to have dozens and dozens and dozens in equal, if not greater. They didn't even have that many makeup artists. So what they were doing was like an assembly line on the Cyclos where they would literally be like one person is like spraying you with glue and shoving you

down someone else. David, can you please write a song in the style of space jazz that's called cyclo assembly line because that would be the best. Oh, I feel so bad for everyone trying to make this movie work. I know. Well, for what it's worth, I think they actually had a good time. But yes. It's kind of a Roger Corman approach at that point. It 100% is. So in that same article, they asked Roger Christian, what he thinks when he hears Battlefield Earth. And his response was a huge achievement by a crew of dedicated professionals who pulled it off for a very small budget. Which is true. They had almost no money for this thing. Now you might be remembering, huh, that's so weird. I thought the budget was around $70 million. Where did it all go? Well, we're going to get to that. So it's almost premiere time, John Travolta is stoked. He says, I've been a grease toy, a Barbarino toy, a Saturday Night Fever toy, a plate, a towel, a watch, a blanket, but I'm most excited about the Turled doll. Oh, John. Oh, man. The movie premieres on May 10th at Gromond's Chinese Theater. Quentin Tarantino reportedly enjoyed it, but it's unclear if he was laughing with it or at it.

Needless to say, it gets absolutely shredded by critics. And, I mean, audiences are just kind of like, wow, that was bad and weird. Critics are like, this is the worst thing I've ever seen. And it just viciously shredding it. It grosses $11 million on opening weekend, and it just goes downhill from there. But here's where the fun really begins. So remember the German company that agreed to pay 47% of the budget, Chris? Yes, entertainment.

Entertainment, yeah. So it turns out, Ely was running. Oh, a bit of a scam. Now, the higher he told them the budget was, the more it actually shrank. Remember his quote, on Battlefield Earth, I can't lose. That may be because he had set up a scam so he literally could not lose. In total, franchise pictures ran this budget padding scam on 17 films. Oh my God. According to the LA Times, entertainment said they paid over $115 million more than they should have. Not for Battlefield Earth alone for all of them. Wait, what? Listen, if you watched Battlefield Earth, this all adds up

because it looks like it cost $10. In 2004, a jury ruled that franchise pictures owed entertainment over $77 million. I saw some other numbers that were upwards of $120 million owed in damages, which naturally franchise pictures did not have. Franchise Pictures files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And to quote Samaha's producing partner Andrew Stevens, my analogy of being a bit of being with Ely is he was an elephant with diarrhea and I had a demi-task spoon to run behind him and try to scoop up the shit and no matter how fast I scooped there was way too much shit. Oh my God. Oh, is Ely still alive? Oh yeah, buddy. He has not disappeared from Hollywood. He is a co-owner in the TCL theater, formerly Gromman's Chinese theater, several nightclubs around L.A. and

according to a deadline article from September 23rd, 2021, he's getting back into the production and distribution game. Yeah, baby. Yeah, it's streaming. It's the Wild West. I'll just interject briefly. If anybody thinks that the Ely model is unusual, it's not only common, but there's actually another producer that's been doing the same thing. And there's a great article in the Los Angeles Times on a man, his name is Randall Emmett. Yeah, I know Randall Emmett as Lala's boyfriend on Vanderpump Rules. former boyfriend. Yeah, exactly.

Randall Emmett is a producer and director who is, read the article. I mean, trigger warning, sexual assault and harassment in the article. Basically, you may have noticed over the last 10 to 15 years a growing crop of movies that, I can't remember what they call them. They go straight to red box or like straight to VOD. Yeah, it's like straight to red box action films starring aging stars. Bruce Willis being the primary driver, he's done the most. most, but not just him. I mean, John Malkovich, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, just, it's really

kind of hard to watch. Truly great actors. And the way that the scam works is the actors actually do get paid a good amount for like two days work so they can keep the fee contained. And then they sell the rights to foreign distributors saying Bruce Willis is in our movie, even though it's only for two days. And they can get $12, $15, $20 million. They go shoot the movie in like 14 days do the bare bones. You know, they get, again, they exploit people who want to work in Hollywood and say, well, this is an opportunity to go work on a Bruce Willis movie or to go work on an Al Pacino movie.

And they bring them in and either underpay them or they fail to pay them in some instances. And then they file for bankruptcy. It's the same model. Go check out the really great reporting by the Los Angeles Times on Randall Emmett. It's very worth reading. And Chris is 100% right. This is absolutely the same model. You don't get Randall Emmett.

without Ili Samaha. Let's end back with Corey Mandel, who, by the way, is a very successful screenwriting teacher now, and who somehow, after all this mess, has managed to take a very valuable lesson from Battlefield Earth. I didn't want the deals to end,

and I just kept taking deals that in my soul I knew I shouldn't be taking, but I did. And if you do that over time, it's going to lead to Battlefield Earth. If you just keep reacting and you don't find your integrity and your center and you just give your power to the industry and do whatever it takes to keep getting work, it's going to end terror.

I feel like I completely deserve battlefielder. It was that I was just making reactive, fear-based decisions and that's what it leads you to. And I was able to talk myself into taking that project. Yes, I didn't know Fox 2000 would drop out. I had no idea about franchise films. There was a lot I couldn't foresee. but I knew in my heart that I should say no. And I said yes.

So I own that and I deserve that. Yeah, I think Corey's spot on because I will say from obviously limited but real experience, the most difficult thing to do in Hollywood is say no to the bad opportunities. And by bad, I don't necessarily mean like battlefield, Earth bad, but just the projects that deep down in your heart, you think, I don't think this is right for me. I don't think this is the right project for me because it's your job and it's really hard to balance. It's my job.

It's a job. I need to put food on the table. I need to pay my mortgage. But it's also a representation of me and who I am and my work. And that's really tough and tricky. And I try not to judge anyone for their professional choices. people, why would they do that movie? Who knows? You don't know. You don't know what the first draft of the script was. You don't know what was going on in their life, why they needed payment. I don't go to your

job and ask you why you repaired that car or why you gave a massage to that person or why you gave him surgery. Like, go fuck yourself. Why did you do? Why did Corey write Battlefield Earth? He just told you. It's because he was making, you know, fear-based choices. It takes a lot of courage or a lot of privilege to be able to say no to things. And speaking from experience, I have a little bit of privilege in that I have a spouse that works full time. And that, you know, so now we couldn't just live off of her income, but like if I go six months without doing anything in terms of the economic return,

that's not the end of the world. Not everyone has that opportunity. I've been able to turn down Battlefield Earth. I was offered the Battlefield Earth too. And I should have said this. God, I would love to write Battlefield. Earth, too. It's actually I'm writing it on spec at this point.

Let's do it. I'm in. I guess I'll end here. Obviously, there was not a battlefield Earth, too, and there won't be one until Chris and I write it. So that's why at the end of the movie, John Travolta is left standing in his gold cage. Because that's only about halfway through the incredible number one, top-selling best novel of all time that El Ron. Hubbard wrote. So that's Battlefield Earth. Do you know where the how like where it goes from there? I do. Well, I should say I read the synopsis. I think I retained that information for about five

minutes and then immediately shook it loose from my brain. It's there's like it's a lot of it's a lot of like office politics type stuff. It's um there's more stuff where they like successfully get the cyclosed out. And then there's like other people that show up and they want. restitution because they're mad at the cyclos and Barry Pepper's like, I just want to live in the woods. And then everybody's on earth is like, no, Johnny Good Boy. God, I hope not. Everybody on earth's like, no, no, you got to come out here and be a hero, Johnny Good Boy, Tyler. And then he like disappears into the woods and leaves his wife and family or something. So I don't know. I could be making that up. I hope that's what it is. Well, we'll never know because I will never read that book.

No. All right. What a journey. What a journey. That wraps up our return to what went wrong. I guess if I have to pick one thing that went right. Yeah, we got to do our end segment. Our famous cherry on top.

What went right. I do love the kerbango. And I am a huge fan of Kelly Preston's cameo in this movie. If you watch the movie and you notice a woman with just a repulsively long tongue. Long forehead. And giant forehead. Yeah, they all have like combovers. I don't understand the hair in this.

But anyway, it is Kelly Preston. And it's just, it's like one of the brief moments of fun in this absolute just funeral dirge of a movie. I enjoyed it. For me, what went, like, I felt like where they landed in the third act was fun. Like the first two thirds of the movie. Because they're stretching half of a book over one movie. If they maybe tried to pack it all into one, I don't know. The third act, I thought I had a good time.

Actually, like, I don't fault any of the cast. They were saying insane things. No. I appreciated all the efforts they put into it. I appreciated Forrest Whitaker, who seemed like he was having fun. Yeah. And just the commitment, like, the amount of hair and makeup plus dentures that they were obviously wearing for their bad teeth, plus contact lenses.

Don't forget their little sausage paws. And I loved the director's cut. comment on what the movie was because every movie is a miracle accomplishment whether or not it's a success. Also, I'm sure we'll get comments on this. We're not going to go into how this movie rips off the Matrix. It rips it off like every other shot. There's just too many. Every third scene is a bad Matrix rip-off. Yes, we know. Yes, we know they did it in post because Matrix came out in 1999 and they were already imposed on this. And the Harrier Jets are from True Lies and that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, the whole thing's a rip-off.

And Star Wars is the vast. Okay. That wraps up our first return episode for what went wrong. Like Lizzie said, biweekly releases going forward. Yes, but please send us suggestions. We really, really enjoyed going through all of your messages and the time that we took off. It genuinely, genuinely, it warmed my heart hearing how many of you have enjoyed this show and how it kept some of you company during the last couple of years that we've had.

We really appreciate that. And we're taking your suggestions. We're going back through. We're going to try and hit them. Just to keep talking to us. We are going to specifically be covering the first movie that I wrote and directed, which is called Worm in the next few weeks because it's going to go on Hulu and October. And by the way, that's spelled W-Y-R-M, not W-O-R-M.

So if you guys want to check that out before the episode airs, it's available on Amazon and iTunes and Google. I think it's pretty good. It's not perfect. But 88% on Rotten Tomatoes was a good number of reviews, 3.5 on Letterboxed. I don't think it's a waste of your time. You should check it out. And I can give you truly all the first person details on all the fun stuff that went wrong. That's it for this episode. We will be back in two weeks with our next new episode and we will talk to you then. What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. editing and music by David Bowman with cover art from Euthonai Uos