WHAT WENT WRONG - Tank Girl

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

This week, Chris and Lizzie explore the mid-90's full metal misfire, Tank Girl, a movie bursting with creativity that deserved better than it got. From Ice T believing he'd be playing a stripper to Lori Petty knowing she'd gotten the part (even when she explicitly hadn't) and director Rachel Talalay fighting the studio to protect the dildo cut, this one's a doozy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome back to What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast, Full Stop, that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone, a post-apocalyptic 90s needle-drop phantasma of tanks. I am one of your hosts, Lizzie Bassett, here as always with Chris Winterbauer and Chris. What do you have for us today? That's my best Lori Petty. It's not very good. All right, there we go. I need to work on it.

I didn't know. We have Tank Girl, a movie that has long been requested on this podcast, and we thought with the upcoming Supergirl, a female-driven comic book adaptation, we thought we could go back to one of the few littered corpses of the graveyard of female superhero adaptations that for decades, Hollywood unfairly held up as examples as to why we could never, never, ever allow women into the creation of these properties and or create properties based around women, which

is obviously not true. But Lizzie, we have to start with a simple question, which is, had you ever seen Tank Girl before? The answer, it seems like, is no. And what were your thoughts upon watching it for the podcast? No, I had never seen Tank Girl. I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. I decided not to really look into this. You know, I know it's a famous bomb. I know it is a woman director and I know we're going to get into all of that. This movie is bonkers in the truest sense of the word. We watched it last night. Look, is it the most amazing movie I've ever seen that was completely unfairly maligned? No, there are a lot of problems with this movie. That being said, every individual part of this

movie is so fun. They don't quite work altogether, I don't think, but Lori Petty is wonderful. Naomi Watts, looking honestly better than she's ever looked in this movie. She's amazing. She's so clearly a movie star. It's really fun to see her very young in this. The production design by Catherine Hardwick, I noticed, is, I think, the standout part of this movie. It's so great. It's so fun. It just immediately sets you in the world. It's so poppy. And it does genuinely feel like it is designed with the female gaze in mind. And I really appreciate it. that. And then, you know, honestly, when they were going to go into the Ripper Den, I was like, this is, this is going to be bad. There's no way this is not going to be bad. And yet,

it was my favorite part of the entire movie. It's the best part. It's the best part. It's kind of the only part of the movie that really works in my opinion. I agree. I was not ready for iced tea as a jacked up mutant kangaroo. And then when it happened, it was incredible. And I wish that had been the whole movie was them teaming up with the Rippers because that section is so fun. It works so well. And somehow they make a romance between her and one of the radioactive kangaroos like kind of work. Played by Jeff Cobur, who I know from Sons of Anarchy and also as the creepy landlord on New Girl. He has a great voice. You'll recognize it right away. Also the pit. Season two of the pit. Yes, that's right. Sorry, also the pit. He's great. I always like when he pops up.

And then I really thought that the animation in this was quite fun. I did like that element of it a lot. I have a big bone to pick with Amazon. I don't know if you watched this on Amazon, but we have refused to pay for premium, so we still get ads. They put an ad in the last like 10 seconds of this movie. So it broke up the final animation sequence. And then we were like, oh, there's more. It must be so much more because they put an ad right here. And it comes back and it's like, And then it was just the end credit. So we were like, are you kidding? You're kidding me? So whoever did that, and I know it probably wasn't a person, whatever robot did that, you're done wrong. You done wrong by Tank Girl, and I hope she comes to get you. Also, she's really bad at her job.

She doesn't operate that tank super well. Seems like the tank operates itself. She's horrible at keeping watch. Anyway, Chris, what did you think? Well, I will say if they had gone with Rachel Tallulay's original cut of the film, you would have more than 10 seconds to watch after that ad had played by Amazon. So we will talk about that. Yeah, I saw this at some point in high school.

It was a movie that played on television sometimes. I believe we rented it at some point just because we were fascinated by the cover of the DVD. Didn't think anything of it. Not even 100% sure we finished it. It was very, very strange. It's really slow for a chunk of the, like, second act. Yeah, I was unfamiliar with the graphic novel, which I did read the issues from 1988 to 1990. which were, I believe, the ones that Tallulay had read before optioning this and we'll get into that process.

Yeah, look, I appreciate, like you said, so many elements of this movie. I do think the production design is really good. The costume design is great. I actually really like that at the beginning of the movie, when she comes to the weird house compound, you know, where they live, it's not bleak and wind-swept and everybody's depressed because it's post-apocalypse. They're having fun and, you know, fooling around and it's goofy because that's how people are. people would act, you know, even at the end of the world, supposedly. But the anarchist tone of the graphic novel feels so at odds with the paint by number story that has been created for the movie. I couldn't even totally tell you the story, to be completely honest. Yeah, it's just very basic.

I'm conflicted about Lori Petty's performance. I think she lays a lot of groundwork for what Margot Robbie will eventually do with Harley Quinn. Harley Quinn, and I would argue actually, like, Harley Quinn, who came after Tank Girl owes a lot in some ways to Tank Girl. especially this performance. Big time. And while I like Lori Petty's performance, if you were a fan of the comic, I could see people being frustrated by the portrayal of Taint Girl in this movie. It's very different. It's a little different than in the comic.

Well, it's so gradingly persistent, I would say. It doesn't, like, Naomi Watts's performance as Jet Girl actually feels just significantly more successful, unfortunately. I think they don't give her, like, any nuance to play with in this. I think some of it is, as we'll get to, Rachel Talley gave Lori Petty, a lot of leash to do what she, you know, wanted. And Lori Petty did not have a lot of time to prep for this role. And so I do think all things considered, she does a very good job. She's always fun to watch. Yeah, it's a fun character in its own right. Yeah. I think this movie is let down by a lack of

story. Yes. Really when it comes down to it. And that's really it, because it has so much other fun stuff to it. And it's got a great soundtrack. As you mentioned, the needle drops are great. Oh, so good. I mean, the dust shower portishead sequence is one of my favorites. Amazing. I was like, that should be the tone of this movie is the dust shower. Portishead sequence. Multiple Bjorks. Yes.

So just give me the Bjorks, all the beorks. So a flawed but very fun movie that I do think deserved better than it received, but I don't think it's a mystery as to why this movie perhaps didn't work when it was released. But let's dive into it because it is a crazy story. It's a really interesting story. And it, I think, is a good reminder. of a couple of pernicious trends in Hollywood that we've run into from time to time while making this podcast. But before we begin, Lizzie, you were about to say something. I was going to say, this has a connection to the 13th Warrior.

Which connection is that? That is Graham Revelle did the original score for this. And he did the original score, original original score, original score of 13th Warrior. Before Goldsmiths came in. Yeah. Interesting. All right. Well, sources for today's episode include, but are not limited to, Tank Girl, the DVD special features. Entertainment Weekly's 2020 behind the scenes retrospective of the film with director Rachel Talloway. Entertainment Weekly's interview with Naomi Watts on the difficulties of her first

10 years in Hollywood and many, many more articles, interviews, and retrospectives with those involved in the film. So, Lizzie, how did a pseudo-ship post-style comic born from the not yet fully developed brains of three British bandmates become a bit of a lesbian rallying cry and an initially ill-fated feminist film that eventually found a cult following and what went wrong. Now, Lizzie, in perhaps one of the funniest sections, in my opinion, of Superbad, Jonah Hills Seth recounts his youthful obsession with drawing what? Penises? Is that what it was? That's exactly right. Big, fainy penises. Yes. It's a very weird section of the movie. It's very funny. Jamie Hewlett, one of the co-creators of Tank Girl, according to his future Tank Girl collaborator, Alan Martin,

had the same problem. Now, if you don't know, Lizzie, Jamie Hewlett would later co-create the band Gorillas. Oh. Yeah. But for now, in the mid-80s, he drew, quote, huge penises on any paper he came across, end quote. It was the mid-1980s, and they were students at Art College in West Sussex. Martin was in a band with future comic book artist, Philip Bond, and one of their favorite songs was called Rocket Girl. They met Jamie. Philip and Jamie got on famously. Martin had some penis drawing reservations, but the three started working together on their own fanzine called Adam Tan. And one day, Jamie drew a, quote, grotty-looking heifer of a girl brandishing an unfeasible firearm, end quote. Another friend was working on a headphone design based on the type used by World War II

Tank Drivers. Martin snagged one of the reference photos of a combat vehicle from his room, gave it to Jamie, who then, quote, stuck it behind this grotty girl illustration and added a logo which read Tank Girl, end quote. Now I want to see the original Tank Girl. Well, let me show you an original. Yeah, let me see. Boom. Okay.

Groddy-looking heifer, according to them. I would not describe her as a grotty-looking heifer. Rude. So, if you've read Tank Girl this year, if you were to read Tank Girl or buy the box set, as I did, this all checks out. The art is fantastic. The story is very thin.

There is basically no overarching story. is extremely episodic, and it definitely feels like it was written by boys, for better or for worse. As Jamie Hewlett later said, quote, we went into Tank Girl wanting to push the limits a bit and say stuff nobody said, use words that nobody allowed us to use in comic books, and get over this sort of pathetic censorship. You can't show a nipple, but you can show someone being stabbed to death, end quote. And they did show a lot of people being stabbed to death.

And they tried to show nipples at every turn. And instead, she has post-it notes on her nipples that say, like, fuck censorship. It's funny, but it's very outlandish and sophomoric in many ways. Between getting shit-faced and lighting their farts on fire, their words, not mine, these three got Adam Tan off the ground, and in 1987, Tank Girl was born with that illustration that I just showed you, Lizzie. Now, she would end up looking pretty different in later iterations. On the one hand, Hewlett later said that he wanted to make, quote, an antidote to the usual

portrayal of women in comics. Most female characters are really boring, so I wanted to shock to have someone who drinks and fights. On the other hand, Martin said, quote, we wanted to upset people. They basically were shitposting with this comic in a big way. Yeah. So Tank Girl takes a step towards wider distribution in 1988 with an appearance in the debut issue of British Comics Magazine deadline.

I would like to show you how much she's changed. In my opinion, we are much closer to what Charlize Theron will look like eventually in Mad Max Fury Road. Oh, yeah. That is her first appearance in Deadline. Yeah, big time. She's got a shaved head. She's got some earrings. She does have the cigarette hanging out of her mouth, the band-aid on her forehead. But she looks very, very simplified. And I would argue younger, bigger eyes, more feminine in some ways. Cuter, for sure. There is a doe-eyed quality that is at odds in a kind of fun way with her psychopathic tendencies. Also, as you can see, Lizzie, on the very first page, we meet the kangaroos, the Rippers.

I love them. Yeah. Who she is dating, Buga, one of them, immediately. And I assume it's the kangaroo at the very front who has a motorcycle leather jacket on and a t-shirt that says beer. Yeah, I'm not actually sure if that is Buga. Well, I love his outfit. Yeah, but yes, he has a great outfit. I do think what's clear about these comics is that Tank Girl does not have a moral code, at least not, initially. She is effectively a mercenary. She runs people over constantly, innocent or not.

She is kind of good at her job, but fucks up a lot too. she always has a way out. She does drive her tank terribly, but because it's a comic, the tank can do absurd things, like fly through the air and land on a building and blah, blah, blah. It's very absurd.

It's very funny. I mean, she ends up, like, in one episode, she makes a deal with the devil and tricks the devil, you know, and wastes her wish on a giant can of beer. Like, it's very absurdist. So in 1990, Penguin Books published the first Tank Girl novel,

and the Daily Telegraph described her as, quote, the trendiest cartoon character in town. Now, she's about as anti-establishment as you can get, as we said, but she's part of a bigger trend. So comics geared toward adults are proving so popular that mainstream publishers are trying to cash in. And Tank Girl Lizzie is not just resonating with the man boys. An article in the evening standard called her, quote, the archetypal 90s girl, the new woman, end quote.

The new woman, mowing down everyone left and right in her tank, as women are known to do. Why, Chris? Because women are bad drivers. Women be crashing their cars. ID magazine ran a feature about girls imitating Tink Girl. By crashing their cars? Yes. Martin and Hewlett may not have been thrilled about their new groupies.

Hewlett told the evening standard that, quote, they were really horrible, really naff. The only similarity with Tant Girl was that they were bald and they drank a lot. After that, we really felt she should stay a comic character. So these guys were not exactly feminist at the end of the day. No, it doesn't seem like they like the girls that much. But it was the fact that Tant Girl burped and farted out. out loud that actually appealed to a lot of women.

Yeah. In 1988, a group of lesbians protesting Clause 28 or Section 28 in the UK held up a banner that included an image of Tank Girl in the message, Clause 28. Stop it. Lizzie, we talked about Section 28 during our coverage of V for Vendetta. This was basically a law that stated that local authorities in England, Scotland, and Wales, quote, shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting sexuality or promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of

homosexuality as a pretended family relationship. It was very much a response to the AIDS crisis and it was very, very homophobic law that was passed under Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher, the original tank girl. The iron lady.

Tank girl had broad appeal. Deadline publisher Tommy Astor said, The boys love her, the girls love her. In London, there are even weekly lesbian gatherings called Tank Girl Nights. And Margaret Thatcher said, only at my house. Only at 10 Downing Street.

That's right. As early as 1990, Hewlett and Martin had plans for four more books and hopefully a movie. In 1991, Tank Girl lands in the United States by way of Dark Horse publishing, and that Christmas, director Rachel Talloway was gifted a copy

by her 18-year-old stepdaughter. On the one hand, she thought, this is amazing. I'm hip enough to receive this as a Christmas present. That's a direct quote. On the other hand, she thought, this is me. I am Tank Girl. So on the one hand, she's like, I'm not that hip, but on the other hand, she's like, I'm pretty darn hip. Now, Rachel Tallay isn't a beer-guzzling kangaroo-boning sociopath, to my knowledge, but she's definitely a risk taker.

Do you know anything about director Rachel Tallulay, Lucy? No, I don't. I did not either. She was born in Chicago, but raised in Baltimore. She then studied math at Yale. Whoa. Yeah. She then turned down a job at IBM to work as a production assistant on John Waters Polyester.

Wow. Now, this was the first Waters film to get an R rating instead of an X rating. So it's a little more mainstream than some of his other stuff. But still, turning down a job at IBM and they say, what are you going to do? I'm going to go PA on a John Waters movie. Well, she did grow up in Baltimore. That's the ultimate Baltimore celebrity. That's true.

But still, that's pretty crazy. Yeah. Now, it may as well have been the irradiated Australia Outback relative to IBM. As Waters told EW in 2016, quote, she, meaning Tala, was thrown into a world of complete lunacy that I don't think Yale had prepared her for. You think? Yeah, probably not. It was very much an independent movie.

The neighbors were calling the police trying to get rid of us. We were the only movie that had scary hairdressers working on it. I mean, they're doing up divine on that movie. So you've got to be prepared, but she handled it really well. Now, if she could handle John Waters, she could handle Freddie Kruger. Oh. So she applied for an accounting job at New Line Cinema. Did she know how to do accounting?

No. Could she figure it? out? Yes. She went to Yale for math. Yeah, I think she's got it. Yeah. And as we all know, New Line Cinema was the Popsicle Sticks and Glue mini major of the 1980s, started by Robert Shea in New York out of his apartment. And in 1984, they released what breakthrough horror film that we have covered, Lizzie? Nightmare on Elm Street. Very good. A nightmare on Elm Street. She climbs the ranks to producer and takes on a nightmare on Elm Street 4 as a producer in 1988. She also produced hairspray and crybaby. Nice.

So in seven years, basically, she's gone from PA on a John Waters film to producing, you know, B horror movies in Hollywood. It's quite their trajectory. And arguably, like, two of the biggest John Waters movies ever, Hairspray and Cry Baby. That's right. So she marries British producer, Rupert Harvey. He's best known at this time for the 1988 remake of The Blob and Critters, I would say. I think that was 1986.

It's a horror B movie household. Love it. And Tallulay got her first chance to direct with 19. In the 1991's Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare, which was the sixth Freddie Krueger film. Okay. In seven years. Jesus. Which is so crazy.

A couple of numbers really quickly on this franchise, Lizzie. The first Nightmare in Elm Street film, as we've discussed, grossed nearly $60 million against its one to $2 million budget. It was an enormous, unprecedented, unexpected success. The sequel, Freed American. Revenge, grossed $30 million, also very cheaply made. The third film, Dream Warriors, my secret personal favorite of all of them, grossed $45 million, the fourth Dreammaster, $50 million. The fifth film, the dream child, took a stumble, grossing just $22 million against its $8 million budget. So it was

the most expensive so far and made the least amount of money. And then Tallulay helmed the six film, which cost around $10 million, but the box office performance rebounded. So her film grossed $35 million, so it grossed 50% more than its predecessor. Now, most of these, besides the first couple, received pretty bad reviews. But I mentioned the box office performances to give context to this quote from Talloway. Coming off The Nightmare on Elm Street films, the three directors before me all went on to huge action films. I was not afforded the same opportunity, and I feel that was absolutely to do with my gender.

Yep, agree. Now, I want to, again, let's support this comment, because I do think it's true. least two of those directors, that's very much the case. So Lizzie, we've discussed Rennie Harlan. We've not covered one of his films yet, but like Deep Blue Sea, cannot wait until he gets a deep loose seat, cutthroat island. Just many a bomb. Director of Dream Master, which was the one that came two films before Tala Lays, was slated to direct Alien 3. Alien Cubed. Alien Cubed, that's right, left that film because it was taking too long and immediately moved on to Die Hard 2 with a $60 million budget. So that was his next film. Stephen Hopkins, he was the director immediately

prior to Talloway. Oh, the one that didn't do well. The one that was the least financially successful moved on to Predator 2. Yeah. With a $20 to $30 million budget. Now, I do want to be fair to Chuck Russell, who was the third director, I believe she's talking about. He directed Dream Warriors, which did do really well, and I think was also decently critically received. And he went on to do the blob remake, which was not that expensive, and he wrote and directed it, and that was very successful. And Then he did the mask, which wasn't that expensive and did very well. And then he did Eraser in 1994. So his trajectory makes more sense to me.

Yes. But she's totally right about Renny Harlan and Stephen Hopkins. So what's obvious is that she is operating in a world dominated by men. The action space, the horror space, very much so at this point in time. She's effectively an internal hire for the sixth nightmare, which is no easy task, right? She's spent a decade working at New Line to get this opportunity. and it seems unlikely, unlike with these other directors, that a studio is going to call her to helm a big budget action franchise.

They're not saying, Predator 3, come on, let's do it. Put a woman in the lead role. Like, no, it's just not going to happen. So, Tallet is going to have to try to kickstart her own. Now, as soon as she read Tank Girl, she knew that she wanted to option it. But what would you imagine the problem is? What do you need to option something? She doesn't have any money.

She doesn't have any money. She doesn't have studio money. She doesn't have anybody backing her. So she's trying to option this on her own. She reaches out to Tom Astor, the owner and publisher of Deadline, the magazine which had featured Tank Girl, where she'd premiered, and she spends roughly a year trying to procure this property. Now remember, Lizzie, early 90s, Hollywood's experiencing a bit of a comic book gold rush.

James Cameron's going to direct Spider-Man. It's going to be crazy. Wesley Snipes, he does actually play a blade, you know, eventually. But everybody's snapping up all of these comic book properties. We talked about how even V for Vendetta, you know, and Watchmen were snapped up at this point. time, even though they wouldn't be made for many, many, many years. So Tal-Ale has neither the money or the muscle to compete with the studios. Tom Astor reportedly traveled to the U.S. several times

before striking a deal with her. And Tal-A-Lay said she was about to give up because there was so much competition and no decisions. And then Astor calls her up and says, we'll go with you. The reason, Tal-Lay just wouldn't leave him alone. Nice. So he just broke down eventually and said, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Now comes the fun part, pitching Tank Girl to Studios. Now, she had never pitched her own project before. She's internal at New Line up until this point. And now she's trying to sell a hyperviolent, burping, farting, female mercenary who fucks a kangaroo. Great.

It should sell itself. I kind of love just how much of a swing it is. You know what I mean if you really think about it. It's so fun. So there's one man in Hollywood, Lizzie. There's one man in particular that likes a tough woman with a gun. Who is it? We've talked about him a lot on this.

James Cameron. James Cameron. Jimmy C and the concrete roots. I mean, in a lot of ways, Teng Girl is kind of like incompetent Linda Hamilton from T2, like in a very fun way. Yes. So it makes sense.

You start with James Cameron. He loves action and he loves women. He actually has been very supportive of women filmmakers, especially, you know, his wives. I actually think he writes female characters pretty well. I agree. Aliens, Terminator 2. Yeah.

Yes. Not true lies, but the other ones. No. Elements of Titanic, I would say. Oh, yeah. I agree. So Tal-Talai goes. into Lightstorm. By the way, Cameron also makes sense because Cameron is very interested in like military machinery. You know, he has the APC, obviously, in aliens. He ends up using Harrier Jets and True Lies

shortly after this. And we have Jet Girl in the comic and we have Sub-Girl in the comic. And James loves a sub, as we know. Oh, loves it. Can't wait to go underwater. It's like, James, you got the sky, you got the land, you got the water. There's women in all three. You know, And they're all holding guns. You can hang out with all of them. But you got to wear a kangaroo suit. So she goes into Lightstorm, which is his production company, and she's pitching it passionately. She gets to the end, and the executive looks at her and says, we already have a film with a female lead.

One, a film. Can't have another one. We already have one. One's enough. We're good. Tal is crushed. Do we know what that was? Based on her comments, we suspect it was Company of Angels, which is a movie about Joan of Arc, which was to be directed by Catherine Bigelow,

and actually was supposed to star Shnade O'Connor. Oh, wow. That's... I know. That's... It sucks because it would have been perfect at Lightstorm. Yes, it would have. James Cameron, the technology, all of his interests,

it feels like such a good fit. And also, like, Bigelow could have maybe helped in some way to help, like, mentor in, I don't know. Maybe I'm handing out too much credit where it's not due, but part of me feels like that mandate probably didn't come from James Cameron. Like, I have a hard time believing... Yeah, I don't know. That may just have been the executive thinking, I don't want to pitch this up.

Right. That's what it sounds like to me. Because just looking at his, what he actually makes and produces, having a female lead is something that he does not seem to be opposed to at all. Yeah, I agree. So I just, I don't know. To me, this is the road not traveled that's the most interesting of the ones that we're talking about because it just feels like such a natural fit.

But it wasn't meant to be. So Tallet goes to Amblin at Universal, Stephen Spielberg's production. company. The pitch goes great. The exact seems into it. He's yes-ending. Like, we could do this. We could do that. And then at the end, he says, I'm really flattered. You think I'm hip enough for this, but we're not. Yeah. Which I think is true. That's fair. That's definitely fair. Yeah. So at the end, she tells this to Hewlett and Martin, the creators of the comic, and they apparently made t-shirts that said too hip for Spielberg, which I did think was pretty charming. She moves on to the third pitch and she has a breakthrough. It's executive Don Steele. She loves the pitch.

Don had a reputation of being a total hard ass, but at one point she stood up on a chair and went, I am Tank Girl, I will have this project. The only problem, Lizzie, is Don Steele is an executive at Disney. Yeah. And Talli did not trust that Disney would make the Tank Girl that she wanted to make. This is an R-rated Tank Girl. This is a burping, farting, sword-stabbing, vulgar, you know, fully realized, flawed tank girl. So she passes on Disney.

And I buried the lead, though, Lizzie, because she didn't. have to settle for Disney. Tal-Lays Tank Girl received not one, not two, but apparently three offers to be made. Wow. They end up going with MGM United Artists who offered them the biggest budget, $25 million. This is almost exactly what Catherine Bigelow had on 1991's Point Break for reference. And they had a real champion at the studio, Lizzie, which Maverick producer often takes risks on projects that the rest of the town won't, that we've discussed many a time whose

dad was in Shane. Oh, Alan Ladd Jr. Laddie, that's right. So Laddie at MGM says, great, let's do Tankroll. But things are changing for MGM and perhaps for Talloway. So in the early 90s, MGM, United Artists, is in a state of flux. Aside from 1991, Thelma and Louise, they hadn't really had a major hit since the mid to late 1980s. In 1992, the studio was acquired by a French bank, and the bank, quote, approved its plans to move back into the big leagues of movie making and agreed to support its business plan calling for substantial film production. But this means there's going to be a lot of pressure on the bigger budget movies that are getting released under this new mandate. At the same time, more or less, Tallah's second film,

Ghost in the Machine, which there's not much information about online. It's not a film that she wrote. It was in development hell for a decent period of time, I believe, at Fox. It stars Karen Allen. It is a serial killer movie with a cyber technology twist to it. It was released in 93. It was It flopped critically and commercially. So I believe, you know, it's tough timing in terms of her reputation as a director. Trying to get Tank Girl off the ground. Exactly. Yeah.

So in England, Tom Astor worried that MGM would abandon Tank Girl's humor and links with British culture. His quote, I hope they don't turn her into a bald babe with a gun, the female Arnold Schwarzenegger. End quote. Now, the studio did not want to work with the original creators, Hewlett and Martin. They wanted an established screenwriter on this movie, as studios. always are wont to do. But Hewlett and Martin Lizzie did still have a voice in the process. They sent a lot of notes, including pages of just British swear words. Just make sure you get all these in. Get them all in. I'm not going to reach you them. They're very offensive.

And to give an example of their influence, in the original opening sequence, Tank Girl was riding a horse. And they were like, she would never ride a horse. A horse is so conventional. So they changed it to a water buffalo. And I like the water buffalo. I think that was a good note. I thought it was fun. I like that. But it made me so sad. It died. I know. It was pretty brutal. It was terrible.

The screenplay, Lizzie, would be brought to life by Teddy Saraphan. Now, he's a bit of a mystery, but we'll share what we've been able to find out. He was in his late 20s and kind of born into Hollywood. His father was director, actor, writer Richard C. Sarapian. He did Vanishing Point, amongst many other films. And his mother was director Robert Altman's sister. Oh, okay. His brother's director, actor, producer, Darren.

And his sister is Karen Seraphian, a producer who is now a senior VP at Pixar. Wow. So he studied film in college and decided to take writing seriously in his late teens and early 20s. He worked at a pizza shop in Westwood, where a lot of actors also worked. So we got to read several big scripts before they were made into movies. And his first opportunity was a bit of a nepotunity, as they call them. According to Teddy, his brother Darren, got the rights to a book called Man Plus,

a sci-fi novel about NASA building a genetically altered man to live on Mars. It never got made. It sounds a little like it had a fly-like body horror vibe to it. Got it. He was 21 years old and all of a sudden he's in all these big studio meetings. Next, his dad says, hey, can you give me input on this project I'm working on?

The opening to this project I'm working on called Solar Crisis. He does, and his dad's like, you're pretty good at this, son. And so soon he starts ghost writing pages for his dad that his dad's submitting as his own. And then his dad comes clean and tells the producer, hey, by the way, my son wrote those pages. So then he gets an agent.

And then he writes a script called William the Magnificent, which Steven Spielberg buys while he's working on Schindler's list. Now, neither William the Magnificent nor Man Plus would make it to the screen. But in 1992, these projects are in progress. And to be clear, for all I know, Teddy Serapien was a Wundekind and an Uber writer, and the only exposure to his work that I have is Tank Girl now. But I do think it's worth noting that his meteoric rise and his position within the industry stands in stark contract.

to someone like Rachel Tallulay, for example. Yeah. So he lands the job. He was paid handsomely because he'd just been involved in a different bidding war, and he was busy. He said he was writing Roadflower, which became the Roadkillers in 1994, Tank Girl, and rewriting William the Magnificent all at the same time.

But Rachel Talloway didn't seem concerned. In fact, she said she wasn't particularly interested in the mechanics of the story. Maybe it should have been a little bit more. Yeah. She'd even get frustrated with execs when they would ask her about Tankgirl's motivation and backstory. To paraphrase Tallulay, if you're asking those questions, you aren't the audience for this movie.

Which, to be fair, is... True to the comic. It is true to the comic. That's exactly right. It's also what's massively missing from this movie. I mean, you brought up Fury Road and Furiosa, and, like, it's such a similar situation, and in many ways of, like, very, very similar story

in terms of, you know, trying to rescue these girls. Mm-hmm. And yet Mad Max Fury Road is, I mean, it's a movie, it's a story. That's one of the best action movies the last 20 years. Yes, it is. And it all hinges on Furiosa and her motivation. I think that this movie ends up in a bit of a no-man's land where all of the plot points feel so perfunctory and just obligatory.

And it's effectively lip service that they're paying to them. Yeah. It does not feel like anyone cares about them, including Tink Girl at the end of the day. The individual elements are really cool. Like, I love the device that, you know, you can use to suck all the water out of someone's body and the idea of a holographic head. Yes, the sequapina. Yeah. All of that is, like, so fun.

I was not a fan of the holographic. I was a fun idea. I mean, it didn't make sense. I was like, where's his brain? What's going on? Yeah. I asked similar questions, but, you know, like, in theory, it's very fun. It is.

I agree. I don't mind the elements. They just don't cohere. Nothing connects. In a way that feels like it has momentum, I would say. She was involved in the script, to be fair. There were elements of the comic that she wanted to include, but she couldn't due to budget constraints.

And the big omission here, Lizzie, subgirl. So subgirl's technically in the movie, so Anne Cusack's character who they visit. Just the Redhead? The Redhead, yeah. Yeah. That's Subgirl, technically, but they didn't have enough money to represent the sub

because they weren't working with James Cameron who would insist that they, we're going to get a submarine. We're going to get everybody's submarine. I would like to film this actually by the wreckage of the Titanic, which will involve me going down in a one-man submarine.

We're going to need somebody to clean out that sub when I get back to. Gross. She also created an email address for the movie reportedly to stay on top of online chatter about the project and learned that a lot of Tank Girl fans were worried that she was going to be Hollywoodized. But I do think Tallet was sensitive to that fact and wanted to make something that was relatively close to the comic. But Lizzie, how could she be Hollywoodized if the studio was holding an open casting call? So can you describe what an open casting call is as opposed to like, a typical casting call or a closed casting call.

It means that they put out a notification somewhere, often in the trades or, you know, somewhere else. Just on a goddamn telephone pole. On a telephone pole. They're on, what is it called, backstage? Is that what they show up on now? Yeah, it's like Craigslist. It's like Craigslist for actors.

And it just says, come one, come all. If you want to audition for this, you can audition for this. And that means you get to experience the Hoy-Polloy in a way that I imagine is exciting and also probably exhausting for the casting directors, but it's a chance for people that are not represented by agents or managers to get in the room versus a typical casting call that is arranged by your representation. You don't get to just walk in there if you want to try out for the part. I think this is most often done, especially now, with child actors.

So if you're looking for, you know, when they were casting Harry Potter, for example, back in the mid-90s. It makes sense. They do an open casting call because, you know, you don't know where you're going to find kids. Or, for example, when they were doing Game of Thrones and they were trying to cast the kids. Yeah. It's very unusual that they do a casting call for a lead actress like this. It is very unusual.

And sometimes, yes, I think that they mean it. And they have actually found people that way. Sophie Turner on Game of Thrones, I know, was located that way. I also feel like this can sometimes be a PR stunt. Very smart, Lizzie. Hold that thought. Yeah. All right.

So the studio suggested doing three open casting calls. London, L.A., New York. Tell they said they were, quote, terribly fun. And Lizzie, people showed up. The London casting call had lines that were three or four hours long. This is my favorite. One woman came in wearing a chastity belt and took a power sander to it. Great.

Sparks flew and security had to come usher her out because they thought she was going to start a fire. little quick video. Please. All right, let's see. Hi, I'm an age Victoria Adamswood. I'm 19. I don't look at all right for this part, but I'm an actress. Hi, my name is Jerry, like Tom and Jerry, but it's spelled differently.

I'm a jack-of-all-trade. I've got a quirky sense of humor. The five girls finally-cuh. Wait, it was Posh and Ginger? Those are not the ones I would have guessed. Yes, so Ginger and Posh met in line at the auditions for Tank Girl. That is so fascinating. I would have guessed, you know, like scary spice at sporty spice for sure.

I think actually Victoria, like, if you look at the original Tank Girl photos, I know she says I'm not right for this part, but I don't know. I kind of, I could kind of see it a little bit with any of them. I could see Baby even. Sure, sure, baby, yeah, definitely. Talley jokes that Tank Girl is the reason that the spice girls exist. It's amazing. Which pretty fun. But the truth is, as you already sniffed out, you little Truffle Pig.

Hey. You beautiful travel. big. Thank you. The open casting call was a publicity ploy. Back at the studio, Lizzie, we need a name. We need a star. We need Madonna? Ah. Tala-Lay claims that Madonna wanted the role. I totally believe that. I do too. I believe that. She's like, no, I'm going to go make this Guy Ritchie movie that's going to flop. Anyway, when Lori Petty read the script, she was coming off of arguably the strongest run of films in her career. We've covered one of these movies, and we just mentioned it. Point break.

Point break. Also, a league of their own. And, hold me like the river Jordan, and I will then say to thee that you will free willie. Free willie. That's right. She had also recently had a setback. She'd been let go from Demolition Man. She said that she and Sylvester Stallone did not work well together, oil and water. A number of people who had some troubles with Sylvester over the years.

And Joel Silver had told her or said that in full hair and makeup, she looked, like a quote, muff diver, Joel Silver. Cool guy. Cool guy. Professional cool guy. The movie she was currently working on was not of quite the same caliber as the prior three, Polly Shores in the Army now, but we all got to work. I've also never seen it, and I did like Biodome secretly.

My God. She thought Tank Girl was awesome. And in fact, she knew she was going to get the job. She even covered the inside of her trailer with images from the comic. She auditioned. She was like, I got this. And they reached out and said, you don't got this. We're going with someone else. And her co-stars tried to console her. And they were a bit freaked out by her reaction. And she said, don't worry. I'm going to be tank girl. And they said, Lori, you didn't get the part. She said, don't worry. I'm going to be tank girl. And he said,

Lori, you're crazy. In the meantime, the role landed with English actors. And he said, Lerrieg, actress, Emily Lloyd. Lizzie, do you know Emily Lloyd? No. You do know her. I didn't know her name either. Do you remember Jesse Burns, I believe is the character's name and a river runs through it. Barely. Okay, I'm looking at a picture. I... You got to look at her from the time period. Her look changed. Yeah, yeah. I am. Not super familiar, but I can totally see the tank girl. Yes. If you guys look up Emily Lloyd in the late 1980s or early 1990s, there's a lot of photos she was dating Danny Houston, I believe, at this time. I mean, I think she has a great look for Tank Girl. She does. A great look for Tank Girl. So I can completely see why they,

you know, zeroed in on her. And even though she's not very well known now, she was a pretty big deal in the late 80s and early 90s. So her father was British actor Roger Lloyd Pack, best known for playing Trigger in Only Fools and Horses from 1981 to 2003. But Emily Lloyd had broken out in 1987 with her turn in the film Wish You Were Here. She was only 16 when they filmed, and she got rave reviews. She moved to the United States when she was 17. In 1989, she stars opposite Bruce Willis in the movie In Country, and according to some sources, she turned down the lead role in Pretty Woman. Wow. Okay. She then has a turn in a river runs through it as Jesse Burns, which really put her on the map, stateside. But she mentions in her memoir that she'd suffered a number of big

setbacks prior to the Tank Girl auditions. She had been replaced in Woody Allen's husbands and lives after suffering health problems. She was replaced with Juliette Lewis in that movie. And I'd like to read a quote from her memoir. She was also replaced on the movie Mermaids with Cher. One thing said scheduling problems. One said that she and Cher didn't get along. Another said health problems. Was she the Winona Rider part? She was. Yeah. Okay. So I want to read a quote from her memoir. What sometimes surprises people is that throughout my turmoil, I have tried not to doubt my own ability, but my nerves and anxiety have been debilitating. I've always known that when my head is in the right place, I'm capable of producing a stellar performance."

I don't know this for a fact, but it seems like there is a pattern of her getting in her own head on these productions, even when she's landed the role, let alone auditioning, that seems to create some friction with the director or perhaps a co-star, and she was then replaced in a couple of instances. So, as Lloyd would later write, Tank Girl, though, looked like the perfect fit on paper. Wisecracks, bags of sex appeal, and a dark sense of humor. Plus, a female director, supportive of her ideas, so not Woody Allen. She would be the lead, so she wouldn't be answering to a bigger star like Cher, possibly.

And this movie did have a producing trio, Richard Lewis, Penn Desham and John Watson, who was one of my producing professors at USC, behind Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, and Backdraft, which were two extremely successful, financially successful movies. It's based on IP. This seems like a sure thing. Emily Lloyd was really into it. She said that she wanted the character to be like Sid Vicious. She imagined his version of Sinatra's My Way as Tank Girl's theme song.

She really wanted the punk elements of the character to come through. I really think about kind of the Wachowski's sensibilities and something like Bound or The Matrix, for example. It feels more akin to what she's describing. Well, and also, worth noting she's British, and, you know, the British punk scene was very different and meant something very different. Sex Pistols.

Right there than it did here. Absolutely. So, Lizzie, who's the most recognizable actress in this movie now? Naomi Watts. Bugha. No, Naomi Watts. But at the time, she was relatively unknown in the United States. Tank Girl was going to be her first big American movie.

Now, Tallah says that her audition for Jet Girl was amazing from day one, but Watts says that she had to audition nine times over two months. I do believe that Tallah loved her, but the studio wanted a name, so they kept bringing her back in. Now, they wanted a name. They didn't get one for Jet Girl. Naomi Watts did get the role, but they almost got one for Subgirl. Lizzie, Courtney Love, came into audition for,

for a subgirl. Fun. Shortly before Kurt Cobain's suicide in April of 1994. So she turned on the role. After some time passed, she came back to Tallay, though, and asked if she could help supervise the soundtrack. Ah. And so that's why she is credited as executive music coordinator.

And I believe a number of the needle drops that you mentioned were actually selected and sent to Tallis by Courtney Love. Excellent needle drops in this movie. And Tallet said, said she's kept like a bunch of the napkins and things that, you know, Courtney Love would send her with ideas scratched on them at all hours. Now, we won't talk in depth about all of the awesome rippers, but we have to talk about Ice tea. It's insane.

Ice tea's great in this movie. He's great. He's so funny. This is before Law and Order. And his first movie, in which he didn't play himself, was New Jack City from 1991. Mario Van Peebles, Wesley Snipes, that movie, co-written by the father of a classmate of me and David's. It was the only person, well, we knew two people who had parents who worked in Hollywood.

Matt Wright's dad, Thomas Lee Wright. Anywho, what's up, Matt, if you're out there. He says for this movie, he was paid scale. I believe he was paid $26,000 on New Jack City. New Jack City made a ton of money. That leads to a role in ricochet with Denzel Washington, produced by Cool Guy. Joel Silver. Ice tea goes in expecting the big bucks.

But when he goes into Joel Silver's office, Silver says, Ice Tea, you've done one movie, which means you're getting paid scale again. So a couple years later, he gets a call about another role. And I can't do a good iced tea impression. So let's just hear it from the man himself. Lizzie? I would love to. I hope Coco's there.

I'm up here. I'm getting paid. I get a call from my manager. He goes, yo, they want you to play a stripper in Arizona. I'm like, what? Hell fucking yeah. Yeah, I'm with that. So that night I did like a thousand sit-ups.

Because I always been kind of in shape, you know what I'm saying? So I was like, okay, I got to get my LL Cool J buffness on now. Watch this. I'm in there trying to get swole real quick. And the next day they send me a picture of a kangaroo. And they say the movie's called Tank Girl. I'm like, kangaroos, look at this. What kind of stripper am I?

Like, what I got a pouch? What the fuck is happening? So I'm sitting there. And so I'm like, I don't, Lori Petty, this is that, and they told me Stan Winston was doing it. And I was like, okay, I don't know. Am I going backwards? And when they told me how much money they was paying me, I was like...

Nice tea. So what Lizzie's reacting to is when he says when they told me how much money they're paying, he gets up and starts jumping like a kangaroo. Lizzie, they paid him a million dollars. As they should. That was a worthy investment. For reference, Emily Lloyd wrote in her memoir that her paycheck was going to be five $500,000.

Yeah. Ice tea was getting paid double what the lead actor. He's like sixth build in terms of number of lines in this movie. Yeah. That's crazy.

Can I also just say L.L. Cool J is maybe the first actual like celebrity, celebrity I ever saw in the wild. Oh really? In real life? In real life.

It was... I loved him in Deep Lucy as the chef. He's great. He's so nice. He was at like a... They hosted a dinner for all of the BU upcoming graduates,

our senior year of college out in L.A. with a couple of celebrities, and L.L. Kuljay was one of them. And I remember going up to, like, the cheese table to grab my cheese plate. And I looked next to me, and there was just a mountain of a man grabbing, like, a bunch of cheese. And it was L.L. Colchay. And I was like, oh, my God. Deep Blue C. Deep Lucy. Anyway, he's huge.

Don't kill my parrot. All right. They've got iced tea. And as you mentioned, they need the help of a very specific special effects and makeup artist to turn him into a kangaroo. Enter Stan Winston Studios. Now, Talley has said they couldn't actually afford Winston. I heard one story. I couldn't verify this, that she had sent out basically open letters saying any special effects artists out there willing to help me turn these men into kangaroos, let me know. And Winston agreed to do it at, you know, half his pay.

He decides to do the movie anyway. And his team's extremely busy. They're making the Rippers at the same time that they're working on interview with the vampire, which we've covered, and Congo, which we need to cover. Yes. Gorilla Lasers. Now they have mechanical ears, as you see in the movie. Some of them have mechanical muzzles.

And they have to make the makeup prosthetics flexible enough that you can still see the expressiveness of the actors underneath as they're doing it. It's kind of amazing. It's some of the best prosthetics work of the 90s. It's so good. I agree. It looks amazing.

They're so expressive. Like, Ice-T is funny because he can be deadpan in this costume. Yeah, you can still see his face. It's crazy. It actually is really amazing. And they look like the actors that are playing them just enough that you're able to identify the ones that you know, and there's a couple that are identifiable.

I actually think these look better than Jim Carrey looks as The Grinch in how the Grinch stole Christmas. A hundred percent. Which that's nuts. And that was a few years later. And they did a great job with The Grinch. I just think this work is so good. I really want to highlight it.

Now, they don't just need kangaroos. They also need a post-apocalyptic landscape. So they need a production designer. The studio sets up a bunch of meetings with big-name production designers. One day, this woman walks in bursting with enthusiasm and ideas. Two things we shouldn't let women have was he. for sure. Books, tear sheets, props. Who was she? Catherine Hardwick. Now, Talley has said that when she hired Hardwick, Hardwick wasn't in the union yet. We couldn't actually verify this. Tombstone came out in

late 1993. She did Tombstone in 93. Tank Girl shot in 94. I would have guessed she was union by now. It's possible that she wasn't, depending on the timing. But the point is, she's very much up and coming. And according to Tallulay, one of the producers or executives threw Hardwick's resume on the desk and basically said, how dare you insult me? By choosing. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. her over the big names that I shared with you. So Talletet set up a meeting with that executive and producer and Hardwick to meet so they can get to know each other. And what also helps is that Hardwick had recently designed a statue about women and film called

Four Ladies of Hollywood that had a full spread in the LA Times, which gave her more credibility. Also, she just did Tombstone in the middle of the desert. They're going to shoot Tank Girl in the middle of the desert. Yeah. It's a great. So Tombstone looks fucking great. Tombstone looks great. Hell to make looks great.

Looks great. As Tallet's team put together the look of the movie, Emily Lloyd works on Tank Girl. According to her, United Artists hired her a personal trainer. The fitter I became, the more energized I felt, and before filming started, I began looking for other projects to line up. And at some point before filming, she takes a vacation in Mexico. I will paraphrase Lloyd's version of events from her memoir,

because this is where things start to get a little weird and hard to piece together. She claims that by happenstance, she stayed at the same hotel as Teddy Saraphean and his brother Darren. She insinuates that maybe Rachel Tallulay had a quote, thing for Teddy. To be clear, Tal-Ale is married, and may have thought that Teddy and Lloyd were fooling around because they were at the same hotel, which Lloyd has said they were not. And then she says that Tallulay was subsequently frosty when she found out that they were staying at the same hotel. She also says that maybe Tal-A was just dealing with pressure. I really can't make heads or tails

of this. Then, when Lloyd returned to work, she claims that Tallulay suddenly claimed you need to shave your head. Lloyd asserts that when she'd been offered the part, she'd asked, do I need to shave my head? And Talley had said, no. Lloyd reportedly then met with an artist and photographer and used a latex bald cap to model some punk looks for the character. And I'd like to show you an image, Lizzie, of what that might have looked like. So this is more Lloyd's version of the character. Could you describe it for our audience, Lizzie? We'll put this on our Patreon. Yeah, she's got a shaved head, you know, very dark 90s lipstick eye makeup, and then basically just like a shock of pink mohawk

that kind of goes down the side of her, like a sideways mohawk that extends into sort of a side pony braid. It's actually pretty cool looking. That being said, and I know this is just a test, but you can tell she's wearing a bald cap. Yeah, even in the low-resolution image that we have. So Lloyd claims that she wanted the character to work. She invested a lot of energy into getting into shape

and was, quote, fired for a personality clash. According to Tallay and Petty, Lloyd was let go because she did not want to shave her head. In 1995, Tallulay was asked about it and said, I'm not allowed to talk about that. The lawyers would kill me. So let's jump to production assistant Carrie Bailey, who's a guy, who has published some sections from his alleged journal from the production. He also supports the idea that Lloyd was ultimately let go over her reluctance to shave her head, Although I think it's a little more complicated than just that. And there's a photo here from his Instagram of him with Naomi Watts, I believe, from the production.

So yes, he did work on the production. Okay. I'll read a couple of excerpts from his journal May of 94. Apparently everyone wants to shave Emily's head for the part, and she is reluctant. That's one entry. Drove Emily to MGM today for what was supposed to be a quick read-through of the script, but she hold herself up with Teddy Saraphean for four hours to go over the script pages. I only mention that because it does seem like she was still very invested in the movie at this point in time.

Early June. Emily had a bald cap on for some of the tests today, and it looked awful. The hair situation is really getting out of hand. The next day. Went to take Emily to MGM for rehearsals. After about 10 minutes, we left and I took her home. Once again, she was in tears. Apparently, Rachel told her to shave her head or don't do the film. Two days later, Emily was let go for breach of contract or something like that. She didn't shave and she was gone like that. Current word has Lori Petty as Taint Girl, end quote. Can I just say this? I appreciate that it sounds like Emily Lloyd has been honest about the fact that, you know, she has struggled with her own kind of self-esteem and getting in her own head about these projects. We don't know what the deal is

with them being at that hotel. I just don't see that being a reason to get rid of your lead, especially when we know Rachel Tallulay had, as you pointed out, a long and extensive career and road getting to this position. And that seems extremely unprofessional, which makes it a bit surprising to me. I don't want to totally discount Emily Lloyd, but all I'll say is this. I can absolutely see a world in which I get the perfect star that I want. She asks, do I have to shave my head? I go to some hair and makeup team and they're like, no, we can totally try a bald cap. It'll be fine. And I'm like, great. And I come back to her and I say no. And then you do the tests with the bald cap. It's not fine. It doesn't look right. And you have to say, I'm really sorry, we do need you

to shave your head. That makes complete sense to me. And I also understand, not wanting to do it because it seems like a lot of the roles she was getting were very sort of cute, sweet girl roles and shaving your head could potentially cost you those. So I understand both sides of it. My guess is that this was, sounds like it was about her shaving her head or not shaving her head. And I guess my point is it doesn't necessarily mean that Rachel Tallulay was being deceptive if she did in fact tell her that she could shave it in the first place. I agree. That's more or less the conclusion that I came to. Lloyd in the end basically says, look, we met my agent, me, the United Artists, execs at United Artists. We picked out a look in vogue that we agreed on. I was

supposed to have a hairstylist come to my house to, you know, do it. And then I'll read the quote. The hairdresser arrived on time, but then she said there was a dinner she wanted to go to. I told her not to worry. We could do it first thing in the morning. When Rachel found out, she took it that I was being difficult over the whole shaving thing. She rang me and told me I was getting fired. And again, it's like, that may be true, but the context that's being omitted here is if this has been dragging on and we're three weeks out from shooting, sorry, you cannot push that to the next morning. Yeah. I just, I don't fully buy it. There doesn't seem to be a full understanding of what's at stake here either. You know what I mean? I agree. The whole she's into Teddy thing, it just doesn't

pass the sniff test with me either. Yeah. But I do want to mention it because it is, you know, her account of the story. Sure. What we do know is that the rumor about who would be replacing Emily Lloyd was true. It was Lori Petty. They called her up. As she had somehow known they were going to, she accepted the role, came in to get her hair done, and basically said, do whatever you want. So they shaved her head, and they gave her 40 different wigs and hair pieces across the movie. Which I do want to say is a lighter ask of Lori Petty than it was of Emily Lloyd. Lerick. Lurie Petty already had short hair as part of her look. It's something she was very comfortable with. This was not a situation that was going to damage any parts Lori Petty could get at all.

Now, according to production assistant Carrie Bailey, principal photography only slipped a couple days after the transition from Lloyd to Petty. And if his diaries can be believed, Lloyd was let go on June 11th and they were filming two weeks later. Wow. So they replaced their lead two weeks out. They shot through the summer in White Sands, New Mexico, at an abandoned mall in Phoenix at a semi-abandoned copper mine in Tucson and an abandoned bowling alley in L.A. Just everything was abandoned. Semi-abandoned is the one I have some questions about. Yeah, you know what that means.

I don't. There's some secret people living down there. Some old people. Now at the abandoned mall, Petty did at one point go to change her clothes in an abandoned store, got locked inside for half an hour. And she said that it felt so long that she thought, well, they'll find my bones.

In New Mexico, they'd reportedly get notices like, there might be a test bombing tomorrow. And at the mine in Arizona, there were times when they would suddenly smell something awful and discover there had been a toxic chemical release, so they had to evacuate the area. One crew member accidentally started a fire when trying to age a mobile home.

I'm guessing they were using like a blowtorch on the side or something like that. Yeah. The whole thing went up in flames. And the hardest part, though, Lizzie, was the heat. Just like on Tombstone, shooting in Arizona and New Mexico was like shooting on the surface of the sun. Talalay later said, it was hell. We spent the middle of the summer in a copper mine.

It was physically hellish, working 16 hours a day in 110 degree heat. We were always filming in some filthy, dirty patch, climbing some hill on the heat, trying to keep everybody together. According to Bailey, one of the accountants passed out in a Walgreens, woke up, worried that she had lost bladder control and was taken away in an ambulance. Not the worst thing that happened in that Walgreens that day, by the way. No. You ever been into Walgreens? It's rough. The Rippers had it the worst.

I bet. Tal-Lay said it was like each of them was wearing a couch. And they had a posse of people from Stan Winston Studios helping them operate their ears. Every time one of these guys walked on to set, they would have two to three support people coming with them. So for the eight Rippers, there were 16 to 24 support people. They would move their ears, run their tails, put their clothes on. You find yourself asking, who's iced tea's ears and suddenly out of the woodwork, some guy with a little radio-controlly thing raises his hand.

It's incredibly time-consuming. It also made it so they couldn't go pee because they had to take the costume off to go pee. But the good news is, even though they were drinking so much Gatorade, it was so hot and they were sweating so much that they didn't really have to pee. Yay! Their call times were often around 3 a.m. The whole dressing makeup process only took three hours, which I actually think is pretty impressive.

That's amazing. Petty said the Rippers were almost always in costume. In fact, if she would see them outside of costume, you know, outside of filming, she didn't recognize them for a minute. It would take her a minute to, like, lock in and recognize them. Tala said, Ice T will tell you it was the worst experience of his life

next to being shot. It was horrible. Oh, no. According to Bailey, toward the end of the shoot, Ice T did say, there's no way I'm doing a sequel. They can let someone else act and all do the voice. But Petty said he never complained during the shoot.

And she said that people would ask him, how come you never complain, ICE? And he'd reply, better than prison. It's great. It's true. And he took the role seriously. Yeah. He did. He'd push back on anything he felt didn't fit his character, including refusing to do the dance circle.

He felt that his Ripper would not do the dance circle. He was the only one that wouldn't do the dance circle, which I do think works. I noticed. Sometimes he had to be reined in. One scene ended and he did a frustrated, improvised line. He was like, women. And how they said, well, we can't really end this feminine treatise with you saying women that way. And he said, I don't suppose I could change it to bitches.

They're like, no, we probably can't do that either, iced tea. Honestly, I prefer that to the one Ripper that is just constantly trying to sexually assault Naomi Watts. Yeah, the like weird auto hump that's going on. Yes. Yeah. Well, speaking of Naomi Watts, Ice Tea was assertive, and Naomi Watts was not. Tallet said that she sometimes had to physically pull her out from behind Lori Petty because she would just hide behind her. And she said, Naomi, you can be shy, but you have to be on camera.

Oh. Bailey said it got to the point where Talalay, quote, walked over to her and said, you're going to have to act in this scene. and then walked away, and Naomi responded with an, oh, well, okay, sort of expression. But Watts says her confidence grew across the production, in part because Lori Petty was extremely confident, to the point where she improvised a bit, and then she improvised a lot. Tallulay said she ad-libbed all the time. There were a lot of times when I would give her a martini and stick her in the tank and would say, you're fighting the bad guys, go for it.

And I do think, Lizzie, unfortunately, this does kind of, like, add to the aimlessness of the movie, even though it's fun. Yeah. It's like, she's definitely not operating this tank. You know what I mean? as she's going through it. But there were reminders that what they were doing

was dangerous. Like one time when Talley called action, the tank driver started up too fast and Petty got knocked off the top and into the wheel well. The tank caused a lot of problems. So no disrespect to the wonderful folks

who provide production vehicles, but if you've ever worked with the production vehicle, they break down at the minute you call action, the car won't start. That is just what happens every time. The tank and tank girl was clunky. It was hard to maneuver.

It would get stuck in the sand and die. It moved slowly and it couldn't reverse. Great. And so they couldn't really do the dynamic action that Talalay wanted. She needed more action. So what did she do? What did you mention? How does the movie end?

What type of sequence does it end with? Animation. They added some animated inserts. I love the animated inserts in this movie. I do too. Make the whole movie animated. They're so good. Yeah, I agree.

The tank in the comics does some wild stuff. As Tal-I said, you can't put a real tank on the pinnacle of a building or make it fly through the air or turn it upside down. Now, I saw one rumor before I started on this episode that Peter Chung, who had done Aon Flux, did the animation. And there are some similarities in the style, I guess, but that's not true. The animation was provided by animator Mike Smith. He'd been primarily a

commercial animator, but broke into features with animated sequences on natural-born killers and here on Tank Girl. And I think he does a great job, especially if you read the comic. The animated sequences in this movie really matched the tone of the comic, I think, and Tank Girl matches the tone of Tank Girl in the comic. Now,

fun fact, Lizzie, he'd also spent some time on Francis Ford Coppola's Vineyard in Napa but while storyboarding has never made Pinocchio adaptation. Oh. I love videotape of that, Coppola shouting at him about the existential crisis of being a wooden boy. Now, Tallay couldn't afford much CGI either. What you see in the movie for the most part is optical effects and miniatures. I actually think the miniatures on Jet Girls Jet look really good in this movie.

They do. Some of the CGI holograms of Malcolm McDowell's CGI face don't hold up quite as well. Towards the end of production, things get a little harder. Lizzie Tallulay got pregnant. And during production, she's fatigued in dealing with morning sickness at the end of production. And then she heads into post as she's going to like her second and third trimester, which is crazy. That's rough. You're so tired. And the one thing harder than battling the heat is battling the studio, especially during a regime change.

So during production, Al-Nad Jr. left United Artists. He got replaced by John Callie, who, according to Tallade just did not understand Tank Girl. It got so bad that she called her lawyer and said, I'm going to quit multiple times. And he said, you can't. If you do, no one will fight for this movie. And she realized she couldn't just will the studio to do what she wanted. And eventually she had to start giving in to some of the things that they wanted. What may have made this process even more painful, at least according to production assistant Carrie Bailey,

is he says that the studio actually liked the director's cut. Quote, the studio heads screened the director's cut of the movie today. They proclaim, we have a hit on our hands. Later, Jim, the editor, jokingly counters with, if studios knew what a hit was, they wouldn't make anything. else, which is true and funny. Yeah. So she fought to keep the opening song. One executive thought the singer's voice was too gritty.

That song is Girl You Want by Devo, performed with singer Jula Bell, and to keep Tank Girl's Rocket Bra. Now, in the end, Tally says Callie made her shorten to remove several shots, including Tank Girl in her bedroom with a wall of dildos. Ah, too bad. During the semi-truck tank chase sequence, Tank Girl puts a condom on a banana and throws it at the villains. Yes.

Tank Girl, being tortured by Malcolm McDowell and subs, Zero temperatures. Apparently, Callie thought Petty looked ugly in the scene. Tauley pushed back because the scene had tested well. A lot of people liked the scene. So instead of completely removing it, you just cut it down to the one shot at Dan where they come in and she's like been tied up for a long time and she's very cold, which removes the effect that she's resisting. It doesn't make sense. Exactly. Yeah. Because you're like, why are her eyes ice blue and her teeth are silver? Like it doesn't, there's stuff missing. Also, the eye color changes. There's a lot that seems to be missing from this. Yeah. There were shots that more directly implied that Tankgirls slept with Booga, but those were removed.

In fact, Stan Winston had created an entirely naked boogah suit complete with a big old kangaroo wee-wee. Wow. We really, we were robbed of a lot here. We want the buga cut. Yeah. The kangaroo wee-wee cut. The original ending featured Tank Girl, Subgirl, Jet Girl, Sam, and the Ripper standing outside as it finally started to rain. But they cut that and replaced it with the animated sequence that you see in the movie.

The way that Bailey remembers it is that they had a couple of test audience screenings. with mostly a 14 to 24-year-old audience. And the test cards weren't great, but they seemed to like it more than the test cards suggested. And then with each viewing, they changed the movie more and more to try to bid and cater to a younger crowd. So they would try to age it down,

and as a result, they would cut things that might lead to an R rating. In the DVD commentary, Tallay estimates there's about an hour of unused material, but the studio also added some things. So a couple of the shots when Tank Girl reveals her tank were not shot by Talalay. They were actually shot by another director for a promo,

and then they cut them into the movie. And Tallulay protested and they basically said, if you whine about this, we're going to replace you. Yeah. Like, we're going to fire you on this movie. One good change that came of these test screenings was that they did have Hewlett come in and do the animations for the title sequence

at the beginning of the movie and the interstitial comic book stills that you see throughout the movie, which I do like that tie it into the feeling of a comic book. But the cherry on top, Lizzie, was that even despite all of the movie, of these cuts, which neutered Tank Girl in so many ways, the movie got an R rating. Why?

I know. This is so brutal. Talley felt this was uncalled for and due to the fact that the film starred a woman, which I don't know about that. What was the criteria that got this in R? We'll talk about it. I did a little research into this. So there's one F-bomb.

That's part of it. You can usually get away with one in a PG-13, though. Yes. Let's dive into it. So I wanted to try to compare a Tank Girl with a few other movies from roughly the same time. I don't want to just go off of the MPA rating because they're just giving a rating. I wanted to try to find a more objective measurement. So there's a website called Kids in Mind. It's not about ratings. It gives a three number score for three categories, sex and nudity,

violence, and gore, language. So on those three categories, Tank Girl gets a three out of ten on sex and nudity. You see a man's butt. You know, there's a sequence at the beginning where she's telling him to strip, et cetera. They're getting humped by kangaroos. You know, there's a little bit, but it's not a ton. A 3 out of 10 makes sense. No. It feels PG-13 for sure. Violence and Gore, it gets a 6 out of 10. It is a very violent movie. They're stabbing.

There's, you know, blood, there's sucking water out of people. It's cartoonish, but I'm just saying it's there. All right. Five or six, fine. And language, it gets a five. It has an F-bomb, you know, it has some swearing. It has some innuendo, et cetera. I would like to read you some other films that are PG-13. So GoldenEye had a 3, 6, and 1.

Jurassic Park, 2, 6, and 4. I actually think violence and gore Jurassic Park should be a lot higher. A lot higher, yes. But it's Steven Spielberg. He doesn't do R. Uh-huh. Last Action Hero, 1, 6, and 4. I just think the violence should also be higher in Last Action Hero.

Yep. And Independence Day has the same cumulative score with a 275. PG-13. Okay. Wait. How? Because I was going to say, this and Independence Day actually feel like decent comps to me in terms of the violence. I agree.

To me, that's the perfect comp. Yes. 275. It's a little less on the Sex and New Deal. It's a little more violent and it's the same on the language. I would like to point out that there is a substantial, as we will find out when we cover Independence Day shortly, which I'm excited about.

I believe there is quite a substantial striptease scene featuring Vivica A. Fox in that and her incredible physique is on display. As much as you see of the guy in this, you see of her. So that's ridiculous. It basically seems like Tank Girl was on the line. Mm-hmm. But for whatever reason, it got tipped into R.

It's possible that the R rating killed him. But it seems like either way, Tank Girl was left in the desert for dead. It grossed just over $4 million against its $25 million budget, which is actually impressive given that Lori Petty said it was pulled from theaters after 10 days. That's crazy. And if box office mozos to be trusted, that's true. March 31st to April 9, 1995. Reviews were generally negative and drew comparisons to other films.

The LA Times said watching Tank Girls as disorienting as waking up in somebody else's bad dream. They run on to draw the correlation or the comparison that you did, Lizzie, distantly related to Mad Max, but without any of the brilliance, let alone the madness of that film, Tink Girl seems determined to win friends among the MTV generation. Roger Ebert gave it two stars, acknowledging the efforts that went into giving it a comic book feel. Enormous energy went into this movie. I could not, however, care about it for much more than a moment at a time,

and after a while, its manic energy wore me down. I think that's a fair review. I agree. But Variety, I think, perhaps put it best, or as I would. And this was a generally positive review. What's missing from the mix is an engaging story to bind together its intriguing bits. The New York Times was also positive. They said Tank Girl has a likable brashness,

even when breathless, pointless plotting threatens to eclipse the movie's charms. Chief among its strong points is Lori Petty, a buzzcut fashion plate, and a Prozac necklace, who brings the necessary gusto to Tank Girl's flippancy. But Hewlett and Martin, for their parts, were not fans. Their contributions, including the opening titles, were added at the last minute, and they realized when they saw it that it didn't really look anything like the original comic. But even if it had, it probably wouldn't have made a difference

because they're the first to point out that Taint Girl was extremely niche. Deadline was only selling 20,000 issues a month, which is just peanuts, really, and the character wasn't really well known in America. So Talley's mission had been to prove that female action movies worked. She thought she could break the glass ceiling, but she later said, instead the glass ceiling crushed me. I thought, I'm going to make this kick-ass totally out there female action movie. were going to show that there's a great audience for it,

and instead it came crashing in on us. It was a hellish experience, and after that, when it didn't sell enough tickets, people said that female action heroes were never going to work, and that was the end of it. It ruined my career. It put me into movie jail. It was a disaster.

I couldn't talk about it for 10 years. Yeah, I believe that. Lori Petty, created and starred in a Fox sitcom shortly after this called Lush Life. It ran seven episodes, and then she transitioned more into independent film and television. She's probably best known now Lizzie for What TV show. Orange is the New Black.

That's right. Which she's great on. She's always good. She's very good. Emily Lloyd, for her part, never really recovered from the stigma of being replaced on three films. Yeah. She had health problems for many years and she moved into more supporting work. Naomi Watts struggled for another five years, even though I think she's great in this movie,

until a seemingly failed pilot became Mulholland Drive and launched her into stardom. And we'll have to cover that film. Now, Catherine Hardwick did become a director in her own right, as we mentioned. Hell, yeah. And then something changed. In the mid-2000s, people started coming up to Talaue and Lori Petty and saying, we love Tank Girl. And it developed a cult following to the point where Ritzel Tally actually explored optioning it in 2008.

And at one point, Margot Robbie's lucky chap did option the rights to Tank Girl. But I don't think anything's to come of it. And I'm not sure if it will because it does feel very close to her take on Harley Quinn, personally. At this point, unfortunately, I think it is too close to both Harley Quinn and Mad Max Fury Road in order for it to stand on its own again. I saw some speculation that Robbie's company may have optioned it to protect against any legal liability for plagiarism, for how close Harley Quinn feels to Tank Girl. You know what I'm saying? So they own the property too. Anyway, by the mid-2010s, Tallet said she was no longer embarrassed by it, which I think is great. And for her part, Lori

Petty was never embarrassed by it, and neither was iced tea. Good. I would like to end with a quote of iced tea about folks that accused him of selling out. People like, well, you're selling out. Let me tell you, selling out is when you do something that goes against your integrity. I wasn't selling slaves or, you know, I wasn't, you know, the fuck are you talking about. I have nothing against kangaroos, nothing whatsoever. You know?

Nothing. So I was like, yo, I could do the movie and it'll pay for some things. And it allowed me to build a recording studio. See, I follow Orson Wells. And Orson Wells said he didn't like to act. He acted in order to be able to direct. So I learned from that that sometimes you've got to do what you got to do to be able to do what you want to do. That is fabulous advice.

Truly, truly fabulous advice for anybody entering really like any professional space. You have to do what you have to do in order to do what you wanted to. I agree. As long as it doesn't compromise your integrity. He's completely right. Well, Lizzie, that brings us to the end of Tank Girl. And I have to ask you, what went right? I mean, for me, what went right is easy, and it's Catherine Hardwick.

I love watching the movies that she was a production designer on. And, you know, full disclosure, like, she also holds a special place in my heart as a director as well. I grew up watching 13 and Lords of Dogtown, and obviously there's Twilight, too. But I really love the way that she visualizes worlds and creates these sets. And she has a unique talent for it. And that is especially showcased in this movie. It's really fun. So yeah, I have to say Catherine Hardwick and just letting her run wild with it. She's so great. I think that's a great choice. I'd like to give mine to Stan Winston Studios and everybody on that team. Yeah. You know, when I first saw the Rippers, I thought, no.

There's no point. And then they became my favorite part of the movie for a while. So I just have to give it to Stan Winston Studios. That's such an accomplishment. I really think they honored the look from the comic book. I mean, it's slightly different, but that's not an easy task. And it seems stupid, like martial arts kangaroos. I mean, they look close to the characters and like the Warriors of Virtue.

They look insane. It's like a weird teenage mutant ninja turtles vibe. It's so fun. but I liked it, and I kind of just wanted more of that in the movie ultimately. And so that's a real testament to their artistry. So I'll give mine to Stan Winston Studios. Great. All right, Lizzie, if folks are enjoying this podcast, how can they support it?

A few easy ways, Chris. You can tell a friend or family member that, hey, what went wrong? It's pretty good. They covered Tank Girl. Haven't seen it. Go watch Tank Girl. Listen to the podcast. Or you don't even have to watch it.

Just listen to the podcast. You can leave us a rating or review on whatever podcaster you were listening to this on. It really does help us. You can also now subscribe in both Apple and Spotify. You will get at least one bonus episode every month. Usually it's more than one bonus episode every month because we're enjoying doing them so much. They tend to be reviews of movies that are currently coming out. It's such a fun time. We love people going out and seeing these and listen to the episodes. We just did Disclosure Day. So if you join, you can listen to that. And we will be covering Supergirl as well. So you'll be able to listen to that too. Now, to get everything I just mentioned and an ad-free feed and the fan community, you just have to join Patreon. for $5 a month. You get all of that. We love talking to people on Patreon. Yes, it is us talking to you directly. We do not have money to pay for somebody else to do that. And then if you would like to take it one step further for $50 a month, you can get a Tank Girl shout out, just like one of these.

We couldn't make this show without the support of our patrons. So it pains me to have to say such horrible things to them, but in the spirit of Tank Girl, we're going to have to do something so bad that David will bleep all of it out. So without further ado, thank you so much, Adrian Panker. You shton. Angeline Renee Cook, you chock. Ben Shindleman, you gangly fuck. Blaise Ambrose,

fuck gently with a chainsaw. Brian Donahue, you absolute coaxeasel. Brittany Morris, you f***stick. Brooke, you blithering shit wizard. We appreciate you. Cameron Smith, you're a true, frieieu Fonzie.

C, Grace B, d's, titty fucking crot. We love you. Chris Leal, you quibwamble. David Friscolland. the Spocky, the Spocky, Darren and Dale Conkling, a couple of fuppets.

Don Shibble, you can s'c a fuck. And tell me, MZodia, how does one suck a fuck? Evan Downey, you're a real f*** ass. Felicia G, you're a cotton-headed ninny muggins. Didn't have to bleep that one. Film it yourself, you tch-bot. Frankenstein, you're an ass-but. Galen and Miguel, the Broken Glass Kids.

What in the Easter Bunny's white, fluffy, the crissastic fuckery of the cast and crew of Win a Trip to Browntown. All right, let's mix things up and let's go old school. Half Greyhound, you cockalorum. James McAvoy, you are the definition of a snolly gaster. Jason Frankel, you little lick spittle. And J.J. Rapido, don't be a fart catcher.

John D. Wiltshire, known pettifogger. And our favorite moon calf, Jory Hilpiper. Jose Emilano Salto del Giorgio, apparently the worst thing you can say to somebody in Australia is just, no worries champ. Karina Kanaba, you b-b-ed. Kate Allrington, I remember my first beer. Kathleen Olson, you numpty. Amy Olga Shogger McCoy, kind regards.

Someone on Reddit said that was offensive. I don't know. Lena L.J., you f***rempit. Lousy Susan, you nonce. Lydia Howes, fuck me sideways, and call me the president. Mark Bertha, you absolute shiagnet, Mariposa's humans, you buggers. Matthew Jacobson, you flapping.

Michael McGrath, my favorite canoe, our f*** clown, Nate Ashley. Okay, back to some old school ones to end the day. Nate the knife, you're a bed, wherever, rosemary southward, you afternoon farmer. Rural juror, you're an egg! And now from Henry V, Sadie, you sanguine coward.

Scott Oshita, you're a bacon-fed knave. Soman Chianani, you mad moustachio, purple-hued maltworm. Steve Winterbauer, you horseback breaker, Suzanne Johnson, you bombard of sack, the Provost family, where the O's, sound like O's. You are the various varlets that ever chewed with a tooth. straight from the hearts of three ugly ass-motherfitting. Wow.

Thank you, Chris. Oh, man. Tank Girl. Just, that's an R-rating. Yeah. Loved it. If Spielberg had said it, it would have been G. But it definitely are.

Too hip for Spielberg. All right, guys. We will see you next week for an incredibly special movie. Lizzie, can you tell the fine folks at home what we have coming next? Because, you know, it's been a long time coming. Chris, let me just tell you, we will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on.

We're going to survive. Today, we celebrate our Independence Day. I can't wait. I'm so excited. It's genuinely one of my favorite movies of the 90s. This is the peak of Randy Quaid's life. Like, this is just, it's great. Yes, I love Randy Quaid.

Like, yeah, this movie is so. insane. I definitely thought it was the greatest movie ever made. I think it might be. We're going to find out. I really thought it was like, this is the peak of political fiction. I just thought like, this is so good. It's peak Goldblum. It's peak Will Smith. It's peak everybody. It really is. Everybody is just batting a thousand in this movie. They are. I cannot wait. I am very excited to cover Independence Day. And a movie that continues to live on in pop culture, especially, you know, through other shows like Station 11, for example. Great example. Yes.

All right, guys. We will see you next week. We are very excited. Thank you so much for listening. Bye. What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Post-production and music by David Bowman. This episode was researched by Jesse Winterbauer and edited by Karen Krebsaw.