Latest news with #TonyScott
Hindustan Times
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Tom Cruise's Top Gun 3 is ‘in the bag', says director Christopher McQuarrie
Popular American filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie has shared fresh updates on his ongoing creative ventures with Tom Cruise, revealing that multiple collaborations are in motion. One of the most anticipated projects is the sequel to the 2022 mega-hit Top Gun: Maverick. According to Christopher, the follow-up is essentially set, saying it's 'already in the bag' and that he 'already know[s]' the story. During a recent appearance on Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast, Christopher described how unexpectedly easy it was to land on the concept. 'It wasn't hard. I thought it would be, and that's a good place to go from is you walk into the room going, 'Come on, what are we going to do?' And [co-writer] Ehren Kruger pitched something and I went, 'Mm, actually,' and we had one conversation about it and the framework is there. So, no, it's not hard to crack. The truth of the matter is, none of these are hard to crack,' he said. A post shared by Top Gun (@topgunmovie) He went on to explain that the real challenge comes during development, not ideation. 'It's as you start to execute it, and as you start to interrogate it, as you start [to think] why these movies are made the way they are: It's not the action, it's not even the level of or intensity of or the scope and scale of the action [or] the engineering around the action, it's none of those things — it's the emotion.' When asked whether he might direct the third Top Gun film—given that Maverick was directed by Joseph Kosinski, and the original by the late Tony Scott—Christopher responded, 'I have given that absolutely no thought, no thought whatsoever … However, I have done a lot of research into how to make a Tony Scott movie.' In addition to the Top Gun sequel, Christopher touched on another Tom-linked idea that's been in the works: a spinoff centered on Les Grossman, the outrageous movie executive Tom portrayed in Tropic Thunder. He confirmed that the concept is still actively being explored. 'Everything is a priority, everything will — in one way or another — happen,' he said. 'It will not necessarily happen in the time or place you think it will. They're all things we're talking about, they're all things we have ideas about, the conversations we have had about Les Grossman are so f**king funny. We're talking about it, man, we're having very serious conversations about it and how best to do it and it ultimately comes down to what that character is.'
RTÉ News
25-05-2025
- Business
- RTÉ News
Stripe announced as new sponsor of Young Scientist Exhibition
Financial services company Stripe has been announced as the new title sponsor of the Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition (YSTE). In February, BT said that after 25 years it was stepping down as organiser and main sponsor of the event. Stripe Co-founder Patrick Collison is a former Young Scientist winner and his brother John won a category award at the exhibition. Their company has signed a 5-year sponsorship agreement following a competitive selection process. The board of the Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition said Stripe was chosen for its clear vision for the contest, its multi-year sponsorship commitment, and its ability to support the large volunteer force required for the delivery of an exhibition and event of this scale. "YSTE is a special institution for me and John," said Patrick Collison, Co-founder and CEO of Stripe. "It amplified our curiosity and reinforced our confidence at a critical juncture." "We're honoured that Stripe has been selected to help preserve it for generations to come," Mr Collison said. Founded by Dr Tony Scott and Rev Dr Tom Burke in 1965, the Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition showcases projects from secondary school students in the areas of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). It attracts over 40,000 visitors making it one of the biggest events of its kind both in Europe and worldwide. The winners of the contest advance to participate in prestigious international events such as the European Union Contest for Young Scientists. Professor Pat Guiry, Chairperson of the Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition Board congratulated Stripe on their selection as the new title sponsor. "What really struck the board was the level of commitment and passion Stripe displayed in wanting to honour the legacy and vision that Dr Tony Scott and Rev Dr Tom Burke created more than sixty years ago," Professor Guiry said. "Collaborating with BT Ireland has been a true privilege for our board and their dedication in shaping the exhibition into what it is today has been nothing short of inspiring." "While they leave a remarkable legacy, we are confident that Stripe will be exceptional partners in the years ahead, not only given Stripe's global reputation as a leader in tech innovation, but also given its strong connection to YSTE through Patrick and John Collison, who are both past participants in the competition, with Patrick taking home the overall top prize in 2005," he added. Minister for Education Helen McEntee thanked BT Ireland for their involvement with the event for over 25 years. "We look forward to continuing our strategic partnership with the YTSE and working with Stripe as they continue to empower students to embrace new ideas, foster curiosity and encourage a love of learning," Ms McEntee said. Dr Tony Scott, Co-founder of the Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, said the support of Stripe ensures the event can continue to inspire the next generation of scientists, technologists, engineers, and innovators. "It's vital that we not only sustain the strong reputation and level of interest in the exhibition year-on-year, but continue to evolve and engage young inquiring minds in new and meaningful ways for years to come," Dr Scott said. The online entry system for next year's Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition is now open. It will take place from 7 - 10 January 2026 and the deadline for submissions is 26 September 2025.
Buzz Feed
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
'80s Movies Behind-The-Scenes Facts
The '80s were before my time, but some of my all-time favorite movies — like Heathers and Beetlejuice — come from this era. Here are 40 interesting behind-the-scenes facts about iconic '80s movies: The famous Top Gun volleyball scene nearly cost director Tony Scott his job. On THR's Behind the Screen podcast, editor Chris Lebenzon said, "That scene was scripted as a real game. They kept score and everything, and Tony shot it like a commercial, and they were angry." Editor Billy Weber said, "The studio was so pissed off. The head of production, Charlie McGuire, he said, 'I'm gonna fire him'...because he spent a whole day shooting this then, of course, it turns out it's one of the most famous scenes in the movie." Here's the scene: When Harry Met Sally... originally ended with the two leads walking away from each other, but director Rob Reiner changed the ending after he fell in love. He told the AV Club, "They did. Because at that time, I couldn't figure out how I was going to get with anybody, so I just had them walking in opposite directions at the end. And then I met the woman who became my wife during the making of the movie, and I changed the ending." Here's the scene: There's a longstanding rumor that the young cast of The Goonies weren't allowed to see One-Eyed Willy's pirate ship until the cameras were rolling in order to capture their real-life reactions. However, at a reunion panel during 2025 Awesome Con, Sean Astin said, "I was sort of offended that they had that idea, that they wouldn't let the kids see the pirate ship, so that they could capture their real reaction. Like, what? We don't know how to do real? We did real reactions all the time. But I remember wanting to perform in such a way, because I had had a sneak peek of it. So I wanted to perform in a way that really made them think that they had captured the honest reactions, so they would for 40 years be like, 'Oh, we got these kids to do this thing!'" However, Martha Plimpton added, "I hadn't seen it. My performance was [take]. [That's] all they needed, baby." Here's the scene: Christian Slater told Entertainment Weekly that he and Winona Ryder "tried" dating after wrapping Heathers. Winona said, "We never went out! He was dating Kim Walker. And I had, like, such a big crush on funny, the last time I watched the movie, I was like, 'God, we have really great chemistry!"' And I wonder if it was partly to do with the fact that, you know, I wished I could. There were a couple of times where we tried to go out, but there was always some sort of drama. Nothing happened until after the movie. Then I do remember, like, making out with him a few times after he broke up with Kim." Matthew Broderick and Jennifer Grey, who played siblings in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, publicly dated IRL after the movie's release. In her memoir Out of the Corner: A Memoir, Jennifer revealed that they actually secretly dated while everyone stayed in the same hotel during filming. She wrote, "Suddenly you're living one of those bedroom farces, padding down the carpeted hallway, barefoot in your robe, or in various stages of undress. The row of peepholes on the other guests' doors can feel like an army of eyeballs watching your every move." They were engaged in 1988 but broke up shortly after. However, they weren't the only couple to come out of the movie. Per Business Insider, Lyman Ward and Cindy Pickett, who played their onscreen parents, got married in 1986. However, they divorced in 1992. On the set of 9 to 5, Dolly Parton composed her song of the same name using her acrylic nails as an instrument. On The Graham Norton Show, she said, "I was bored always in between 'cause they have so much time between setups with lighting, and you just sit around. And what are you gonna do? You can't really get, you know, into a good book or anything 'cause you don't know when they're gonna call you. So, on the set, I would watch everybody, because this was all about women in the workplace. And part of my deal with Jane Fonda, if I was in the movie, that I would get a chance to right the theme song. So, I didn't have a chance to get my guitar, go back to the trailer all the time, so I would just kinda roam around on the set watching everything that was going on. And I would take my nails because with the acrylic nails, it makes, like, a percussive sound..." She continued, "It sounded like a typewriter too, so I just started to write little words and things that I would see and things I would think that would fit with that day-to-day, nine-to-five job — getting up and drinking your coffee, stumbling to the kitchen and all. So then, I'd go back at night into my hotel room and then put those things down. But I did that over a period of time, and after we recorded the song, I brought all the girls down that was on the show, and I played my nails. So I have a credit on the back of the album that says, 'Nails by Dolly.'" You can listen to her demonstrate how she used her nails as an instrument in the interview clip below: The Outsiders actor C. Thomas Howell told Entertainment Weekly, "There's a moment at the beginning of the movie when we're at the drive-in theater, and Matt Dillon leans back in his chair and falls. I turn and laugh right into the camera. I thought they would cut, right? Well, of course, Francis [Ford Coppola] doesn't, because those are the moments that he searches for." Here's the scene: While playing Bender in The Breakfast Club, Judd Nelson went method. Not breaking character between takes, he bullied his castmates, especially Molly Ringwald. In the book You Couldn't Ignore Me if You Tried, she said, "I am not a method actor, but I could see it was so clearly what [Judd] was doing that I think I was just sort of rolling my really did upset John [Hughes]...He was incredibly protective of me...I have never, ever seen him so angry. He was really sort of rallied together – myself included – and pleaded with John not to fire him...I really wanted Judd in that part. There was nobody who got that part the way he did." Eric Stoltz was initially cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future, but his method acting and drama skills didn't translate to screwball comedy as well as production hoped. So, a couple weeks into filming, director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale made a deal with studio head Sid Sheinberg behind his back — they'd keep filming with him until they could bring in the lead actor they really wanted — Michael J. Fox. According to the book We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy, Eric reportedly took the news pretty hard. Ahead of the announcement, some cast and crew members allegedly felt that something was "off" on set. Cinematographer Dean Cundey said, "There were signs, especially the last week or so. When we would set up a shot and we would shoot Chris Lloyd's angle, but we wouldn't do the reverse on Marty. I'd say, 'Don't we need the angle?' and Bob would say, 'No, no, no, let's not worry about that.' It didn't take long for me to see that we were saving our energy for what would come next." Reese's Pieces weren't originally part of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Director Steven Spielberg told Entertainment Tonight, "I wasn't in direct communication with M&Ms. I simply made the request. It was M&Ms in the screenplay." However, because he was trying to keep E.T.'s appearance underwraps, he didn't want to send the script to Mars, Inc., which ultimately led them to decline the product placement. Steven continued, "I was just told that we weren't given permission to use M&Ms, so I said, 'Well, what's my next favorite candy?' Which [has] now become my most favorite candy, because I've been eating it now for 20 years, and that's Reese's Pieces. [Hershey] said yes, and that became the candy of the hour.' Here's the scene: Per Digital Spy, the Die Hard producers were contractually obligated to offer the leading role to Frank Sinatra, who was 70 at the time, before any other actors could be considered. The offer had to be made because he starred in the 1966 film The Detective, which was based on the book that preceded Nothing Lasts Forever. Die Hard was adapted from Nothing Lasts Forever, making it a loose sequel to The Detective. However, the singer turned it down — as did Clint Eastwood, Sylvestor Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Gere, James Caan, and Mel Gibson. Bruce Willis actually declined the role at first, but after his show Moonlighting had to pause production to accommodate his costar Cybill Shepherd's pregnancy, he accepted. Per Entertainment Weekly, the boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark was 500 pounds of fiberglass, and it was 22 feet wide. To create the sound, sound designer Ben Burtt slowly drove his Honda Civic over gravel. Here's the scene: While filming the bug scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Kate Capshaw had several buckets of live bugs poured on her. In a behind-the-scenes featurette, she said, "I was really asking people. 'Is there a pill? There must be something I can take to keep myself from freaking out.' Because I don't want everyone to look at the movie going, 'She's on drugs!' But I did take something that was like a relaxant." Here's the scene: Michael Keaton initially turned down the titular role in Beetlejuice three times, but the last time he met with Tim Burton, the director said a few things that stuck in his mind. Michael told Charlie Rose, "I said, Give me the night or two days,' and I called the wardrobe department at the said, 'Send me a bunch of wardrobes from different time periods, randomly. Just pick a rack.'…And then I thought of an idea of teeth and I thought of an idea of a walk, and I knew it had been there. And I called and said, 'I got an idea, and I don't know if it's going to work or not, so let's just go do this thing.'" "Here's the amazing part about it: He never saw any of it. We discussed it. I said, 'I want hair that looks like I stuck my finger in an electrical socket.' And to the great Ve Neill in wardrobe, I said, 'I want mold I showed up for work, and I walked on the stage and said, 'This is either going to be way off the mark, or he's just gonna — I don't know what he's gonna do.' He got it immediately," he said. Per Screen Rant, in Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, Luke Skywalker reportedly debuted a new green lightsaber because the previous blue design was difficult to see against the sky. Ghostbusters visual effects crew member Steve Johnson told Bloody Disgusting that designing the now-iconic ghost Slimer "was the most annoying, horrendous experience [he's] ever had working with art directors, producers, and directors, ever." Writers Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis wanted to design Slimer in the likeness of their late friend John Belushi, who'd been cast as Peter Venkman before his death — but no one told Steve until the day before his final design was due. He said, "I didn't know until the last fucking day. I'd been working for six months sculpting hundreds of Slimer variations, and they finally said, 'Make him look more like Belushi, and I said, 'What the fuck are you talking about?' So I pulled out a stack of headshots of John Belushi, poured a gram of cocaine on it, and started chopping lines up. I was three grams into the night and in a cocaine-induced delusional paranoia, and I literally thought that John Belushi's ghost came to me to help me out." Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who's a big fan of The NeverEnding Story, tweeted that the Falkor prop "was 43 feet long, party made out of airplane steel, and weighed hundreds of pounds (just the head was 200 lbs.)" The Color Purple author Alice Walker was heavily involved with the 1985 film adaptation of her novel. According to the AFI Catalog, her contract required that half of the production be female, African American, or "people of the Third World." She also advocated for the casting of "lesser-known actors" because she felt they'd better relate to her characters. The Lost Boys wasn't originally envisioned as a teen vampire movie. Co-screenwriter James Jeremias told the Guardian, "I'd read Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice and was inspired by the little girl, Claudia, trapped in the body of a five-year-old for eternity. It got me thinking about JM Barrie's Peter Pan – where our title came from. What if the reason he came out at night, could fly, and didn't grow up was because he was a vampire? We took a fictional character and put him in a new light. What if it wasn't all goodness and there was some evil intent? Warner Bros paid us $375,000 for the script. About a year later, we had a meeting with [original director, later executive producer] Richard Donner about rewrites. It was brutal." "We had designed the film to be a boy's adventure, set in a time before sex rears its head. But that's not what the studio wanted. Donner wanted the boys to be old enough to drive. What he meant was old enough to fuck. He also wanted Star – whom we'd written as a boy – to change sex and be the love interest. He was turning our story into a teenage vampire movie. Once we sold the script, it was out of our hands," he said. Fast Times at Ridgemont High actor Jennifer Jason Leigh reportedly told LAHExam that, to get in character as a high school student, she got a job at Perry's Pizza in Sherman Oaks Gallery for three weeks. She also reread all of her old letters and diaries from high school. According to Empire, Beverly Hills Cop star Eddie Murphy wasn't a coffee drinker. However, one day on set, he had a strong cappuccino. As a result, he improvised a monologue that was so funny, director Martin Brest had to leave the room and use blankets to soundproof his laughter. In his book As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes said that, while filming the scene where Christopher Guest knocks him out with a sword, he was struggling to time his reaction correctly, so he asked the other actor to just tap him with it. He wrote, "Chris swung the heavy sword down toward my head. However, as fate would have it, it landed just a touch harder than either of us anticipated. And that, folks, was the last thing I remember from that day's shoot. In the script, Bill [Goldman]'s stage directions from the end of this scene state: 'The screen goes black. In the darkness, frightening sounds.' Which is precisely what happened." He continued, "I woke up in the emergency room, still in costume, to the frightening sound of stitches being sewn into my of course, Chris felt absolutely terrible about the whole thing, even though I kept telling him it wasn't his fault. It was my dumb idea. But you know what? That particular take was the one that ended up in the film. So when you see Westley fall to the ground and pass out, that's not acting. That's an overzealous actor actually losing consciousness." Here's the scene: Paula Abdul choreographed the wedding dance in Coming to America. She told Rolling Stone, "This was one of my moments of having to really prove myself, because I was still pretty new in my career as a choreographer. John Landis, the director, wanted the person that choreographed Janet Jackson. I was still a Laker Girl. I went in and he looked at me and said, 'What are you, a teenager?' And I said, 'Yes, I am!' He basically was telling me, 'What do you know about African dancing?' And this is my whole thing when becoming a choreographer: 'I'll just tell everyone yes, I know exactly what I'm doing, and then I'll figure it out later.' That's basically what I did." "I said, 'I know a lot!' And he goes, 'Hmm, I don't think so, because I was expecting someone like Debbie Allen to come in.' And I said, 'I may be young, but I know what I'm doing.' So he left me alone. When you think about it, back then we didn't have the Internet, so there was no research you could really do, other than going to the library. I created my own style of what I thought should be right for the movie, and John Landis loved it. I worked with Nile Rodgers on the music, and we came up with a drum loop. There were lots of intensive rehearsals, and it was hardcore; it was a lot of work. It was not an easy thing to accomplish, but it's one of the things I'm most proud of," she said. John Cusack was hesitant to film the iconic boombox scene in Say Anything. Director Cameron Crowe told USA Today, "[John] thought it was too subservient. The defiance that he has when he's doing the scene is what makes the scene great. He made it work. The way he performs it, it's just blatantly defying you to consider it cheesy. That's why he's so heroic in that moment. He's still doubting whether the boom box scene is going to work at all. He's kind of fighting for the scene." Here's the scene: Tom Hanks learned the rap that he does in Big from one of his sons. On Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, he said, "It was actually a thing that my son learned at summer camp, and we were looking for something to throw into the movie that we would both know. And I said, 'Well. how about we do this thing...?'" Here's the scene: Christopher Lloyd doesn't blink once in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He told Entertainment Weekly, "A toon doesn't have to blink their eyes...I mean, they're not human. So I just felt Judge Doom should never blink. It makes him even more ominous, more scary. I just loved to find little things that make him even more evil." While filming A Christmas Story, Peter Billingsley didn't actually say, "Fudge." He told BuzzFeed, "Oh, they had me say 'fuck.' On all the takes. I think we looped in the word 'fudge' on top of it, so you could get the mouth to curl to the consonant of 'K' instead of 'D.' I was like, 'Ohhhhhh, fuuuuuuck!' I had been in Hollywood for a long time at that point; it wasn't the first time I'd heard it, or probably said it." Here's the scene: Per Vanity Fair, while The Blues Brothers was filming in Chicago, John Belushi — who was from the city — was so popular with the locals that Dan Aykroyd called him "the unofficial mayor of Chicago." Journalist Mitch Glazer, a friend of the two actors, told the outlet, "John would literally hail police cars like taxis. The cops would say, 'Hey, Belushi!' Then we'd fall into the backseat, and the cops would drive us home.' Inhaling the fake cocaine in Scarface damaged Al Pacino's nose. He told Fox 5 Washington DC, "I knew, with Scarface, they combined it with stuff — not real, I mean not narcotics — but something else to cut it down so it was possible. But for years after, I have had things up in there. I don't know what happened to my nose, but it's changed. My breathing apparatus has been sort of altered a little, but other than that it was easy to do. But in moviemaking, you know, they have ways of making it look like it's more than it is. There's just so much of that stuff you can take." Blue Velvet makeup supervisor Jeff Goodwin told Entertainment Weekly, "David [Lynch, the director] and I approached [the ear] like a character in the film. We actually called it Mr. first ears I made, I actually made casts of my own ears. I made them out of material which was kind of the norm back in the day then, which was liquid latex. Rubber, you know? I took them into David's office. He was actually on the phone. I put them on the desk. He's playing with them, looking at them. He gets off the phone and goes, 'These are great, these are great, but let' s make them adult ears.' I said, 'David, those are my ears!' He looks at my ears and says, 'You have the smallest ears in the world.' It's true. I never noticed before. I do have small ears!" So, he ended up creating Mr. Ear by casting producer Fred Caruso's ear. Anthony Michael Hall hit a growth spurt before reshoots on National Lampoon's Vacation. He told Business Insider, "We did the reshoot for Vacation six or nine months later. The funny thing is that puberty had fully kicked in for me. I'm literally seven inches taller. So if you look at the movie closely, you'll see that my hair is darker, and I got taller and skinnier." According to a Facebook post from the official Stanley Kubrick page, "To create the elaborate wintery maze in The Shining, it took nearly 900 tonnes of salt and crushed Styrofoam." Here's the scene: Gremlins was inspired by the mice living in screenwriter Chris Columbus's home. He told Indiewire, "By day, it was pleasant enough, but at night, what sounded like a platoon of mice would come out, and to hear them skittering around in the blackness was really creepy." The Karate Kid was almost an Eastwood family production. Before Clint Eastwood turned down directing the film, his son Kyle auditioned for the lead role. Kyle told the Guardian, "I didn't turn it down — I was actually willing to do it. My father was looking at the script originally and then decided not to do it. He had mentioned it to me and said he thought it was an interesting part. He ended up passing the script on to somebody else, and it ended up becoming The Karate Kid." Joan Rivers's scene with Miss Piggy in The Muppets Take Manhattan was a challenge to film. Frank Oz told NPR, "I was directing that movie also, and we rented Bergdorf Goodman's on a Sunday morning, and Sunday all day, and Joan had to leave. She had an engagement that evening, some performance she had to do. So we only had her for one day, and not a complete day either. So I had two cameras going and — in the scene, really, although you didn't play it all, it ends with them hysterically giggling and losing control, just laughing like two, you know, two friends laugh. And we — it just wasn't working. I mean, I — it's very hard to if you try, it's very hard to have a spontaneous laughter. It wasn't working." "And Joan — because I didn't know Joan that well, I guess she didn't know me. So I said to one of the production assistants, we were close to the Plaza Hotel, I said, 'Get about four Bloody Marys.' And so they came back after looking and I had a couple of Bloody Marys, and Joan had a couple Bloody Marys. And we shot the scene kind of like that. And actually, then Joan left. I had to do some pickup work. And I was feeling really good, and I didn't care where the hell the cameras were," he said. Here's the scene: Per Entertainment Weekly, Aliens writer/director James Cameron and special effects artist Stan Winston decided to make the Alien Queen a puppet instead of an animatronic for safety reasons. After the director sketched out what he wanted it to look like, they tested it by building a 15-foot metal frame, hanging It up, placing two puppeteers inside, and covering them with trash bags. The final Alien Queen puppet was 14 feet tall. According to the Telegraph, operating it required 18 puppeteers, control rods, cables, and hydraulics. In the docuseries Arnold, The Terminator writer/director James Cameron said, "I had been told by [Orion Pictures cofounder] Mike Medavoy that the movie was all cast. 'I got this all worked out. O.J. Simpson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.' I said, 'Well, which is which?' Those two names just sounded so wrong to me." Recalling his meeting with the director, Arnold added, "During our conversation, it became clear no one was hooked to O.J. Simpson playing Terminator because he could not be sold as a killing machine." Friday the 13th actor Adrienne King's mom's reaction to the ending helped sell the movie. Adrienne told Uproxx, "Sean [S. Cunningham, the director] allowed me to come to a screening at a small theatre where the buyers, the head of buyers and distributors, would come to watch it, and he allowed me to bring my mom. It was the first time I saw it, and I saw it with her, and, of course, in the Monopoly scene, she gets a little nervous. Then we get through that. Then, coming to the end, and we're sitting there, she starts to grab her coat because it's March, and it's cold in New York City, and I put my hand on her lap, like, 'Chill, cool, chill down, don't get up yet.' At the point where Jason pops out, she launched out of her seat and screamed so loud that I turned around, and there's Sean." "He's shaking hands with the distributor. And I knew, genetically speaking, where I got my scream from. It was hysterical. It couldn't have worked out better. Here he was doing me a favor letting my mom come. Well, my mom's scream, I think, sold that movie. It was Warner Brothers and Paramount in the back, and they both wanted it. Unheard of. And the rest is history," she said. Here's the scene: After a horseback riding injury forced Sean Young to drop out of Batman, producer Jon Peters wanted Michelle Pfeiffer to replace her. However, Michael Keaton reportedly blocked her casting as his love interest because they were exes in real life. Costar Robert Wuhl told The Hollywood Reporter, "At the time, Michael told me he was trying to get back with his ex-wife. Keaton was firmly, and underline firmly, against that casting of Pfeiffer, and he and [producer Jon] Peters got into it." However, Michael changed his tune when Michelle was cast as Catwoman in Batman Returns. She told Entertainment Tonight, "It was great actually working with him, having had a history, because I was really out of my element. Also, the fact that he had done this kind of picture before, and I didn't know what to expect. I felt really comfortable with him. I felt really safe with him. I could go to him and say, 'Why am I feeling so awful? I don't know what's going on.' And he would explain it to me. 'I know. I went through it on the first one.'" And finally, per Universal Pictures All-Access, An American Werewolf in London director John Landis was eager to make the transformation scene unlike any werewolf transformation scene before. To make David Naughton's chest hair grow, they filmed the shots in reverse order, starting with a hairy chest. Then, they removed and trimmed some hair for each subsequent shot. To make David's body transform from human to wolf, they made what special effects makeup artist Rick Baker called "change-o-heads," "change-o-hands," and "change-o-backs." These stretchy, flesh-like props had mechanisms inside them that distorted them into different shapes. You can watch the scene here. What's your favorite '80s movie? Let us know in the comments!
Telegraph
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Why the US Navy – and Denzel Washington – almost torpedoed Crimson Tide
The recent death of the great Gene Hackman allowed his millions of fans to reassess his storied career. Although most would consider his Seventies work, including The French Connection and Night Moves, to be his finest acting, there was still a great deal of residual affection for his character work throughout the Nineties and early Noughties. One film, and one performance in particular, stands out. Hackman's appearance as the stern, upright submarine captain Frank Ramsey might have been a by-the-book antagonist part in the hands of a lesser actor, but Hackman manages to turn him into a truly fascinating and multi-faceted character, who ends the film with dignity and integrity intact. How this came to be, and how an always-prescient picture now looks even more timely, is testament to just how bloody good a film Crimson Tide is. The major creative players – director Tony Scott and producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer – had had notable success nearly a decade before with the much-loved Tom Cruise vehicle Top Gun, which, amongst its other strengths and charms, essentially acted as a two-hour recruiting vehicle for the US air force. Crimson Tide could never be described as the same thing, replacing all-American jingoistic patriotism with a darker, morally complex dilemma at the core that resonates today, just as it did upon the film's original release in 1995. The barely glimpsed villains are a group of Russian ultranationalists who have seized hold of nuclear weapons that they then use to threaten the United States and Japan. The crew of a nuclear submarine, the USS Alabama, receive contradictory orders while underwater. The first suggests that they should fire their weapons against the Russians, with a concomitant risk of beginning World War Three in the bargain, and the second, which is only partially received, appears to be a retraction. Hackman's hawkish Ramsey, a military man to his core, prepares to obey orders and fire the missiles, while his more cerebral second-in-command, Denzel Washington's Lieutenant Ron Hunter, is convinced that the situation will only be worsened by following incomplete orders. The scene is therefore set for a genuinely fascinating and horribly tense battle of will. It's the kind of picture that Hollywood seldom makes these days, complete with two outstanding star performances by two of the finest actors in the industry. When the film was first conceived, expectations were that it would be another rabble-rousing piece of propaganda – Top Gun underwater, if you will – and the US Navy were only too keen to offer as much assistance to the film-makers as they had done on the earlier film. Therefore, Scott, writer Michael Schiffer, Simpson, Bruckheimer and others were allowed access to the real-life nuclear submarine USS Florida in 1993, where they were permitted to watch the vessel go through many of the emergency routines and responses that the fictitious USS Alabama would in the finished film. However, this access had been obtained through sleight of hand – some might call it plain lying – as the Navy had been given a misleading synopsis of the film. It was airily described as being a mixture of the other big submarine thriller of recent years, Hunt for Red October, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and was said to be about a ship's super-computer going rogue and attempting to launch nuclear missiles while the crew desperately try to stop it. It's not a bad premise (and sounds a lot like the central McGuffin in this summer's Mission: Impossible picture), but the Navy wished to make it clear that such a thing was impossible and that no computer, however advanced, would be able to accomplish anything by itself. Three decades later, with the inexorable rise of AI, it would be hard to make a statement so definitively. Whether Scott, Bruckheimer et al had ever intended to make the picture as originally conceived or not, they soon dismissed any idea of a HAL-esque supercomputer and made sure that Schiffer's shooting script was far more realistic in nature. Unsurprisingly, this angered the US Navy, who withdrew all cooperation from the picture; they were particularly irked by the idea that the film would revolve around a mutiny taking place on board a military vessel, followed by a counter-mutiny. This was very much not the image of all-American competence that they wanted to portray, and had the film-makers not been both cunning and resourceful, the project might have foundered before it began. As these discussions took place, the actors came together. 'The casting was interesting. 'Bruckheimer later said. 'We'd talked to Al Pacino and Warren Beatty; both were really interested but each wanted each other's role so that didn't work out. And then we went to Denzel and Gene Hackman.' While Hackman was a bona fide leading man who had recently won an Oscar for his role in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, Washington was not then known for action or thriller roles; he had won an Oscar for Glory a few years before, but was probably best associated with his performance as the eponymous Malcolm X in Spike Lee's biopic. Yet Washington's academic, thoughtful mien, as contrasted with Hackman's death-or-glory bluster, works perfectly in the context of the picture, allowing the two men to play off against one another, but also dodging many of the clichés and expectations of the picture. Most films would have Hunter being appointed against Ramsey's wishes, but Crimson Tide makes it clear that Ramsey has picked him as his XO, despite knowing full well that he has no previous combat experience, but instead is drawn to his thoughtfulness and considered approach. Scott, who was coming off the hugely successful Quentin Tarantino-scripted True Romance, was also a more assured director than he had been when he made Top Gun. Although he had some significant flops in the late Eighties and early Nineties, including the Kevin Costner disaster Revenge and the Tom Cruise racing picture Days of Thunder, he had embraced a more go-for-broke approach with True Romance, helped immensely by man-of-the-moment Tarantino's witty, potent screenplay. It was therefore unsurprising that Scott brought many of his collaborators on that film with him, including James Gandolfini (who was cast as Hackman's unstintingly loyal right-hand-man, alongside a pre-Lord of the Rings Viggo Mortensen as Washington's lieutenant) and composer Hans Zimmer, whose work on the film would rank amongst his greatest scores. But it was Scott's (and the producers') decision to bring Tarantino along that would lead to a schism at the heart of the picture. Most big-budget Hollywood pictures, then and now, use a variety of well-paid script doctors to contribute dialogue and ideas, but Crimson Tide was unusually public about the three writers who were recruited, although none of them were credited. Chinatown creator Robert Towne was brought on board to write intellectually scintillating discussions about honour and free will in armed service, and Schindler's List's Steve Zaillian helped shape the respective characters of Ramsey and Hunter. Tarantino, meanwhile – by far the hottest screenwriter in Hollywood after the success of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction – was hired primarily to inject his own brand of pop cultural idiosyncrasy, which explains why characters have apparently surreal discussions about the Silver Surfer and Star Trek. (The character name 'Russell Vossler' is a reference to Tarantino's friend and former video store co-worker Rand Vossler.) As he proudly said: 'I wrote a lot of the dialogue for Crimson Tide and [Hackman] said that my dialogue is as wonderful as anyone's ever said it was…it was a dream to go to the Cinerama Dome and watch Gene Hackman do my stuff.' Bruckheimer said that Tarantino's rewrite 'knocked it out the park.' However, he did not mention Washington, and the reason for this omission was a much-documented feud between the two men. While on set, Tarantino came up with an idea for the film's conclusion, which was a straightforward lift from True Romance and Reservoir Dogs: a group of heavily armed man all pointing guns at one another in an increasingly tense situation. At the centre of this Mexican stand-off, the Ramsey and Hunter characters have a charged discussion about, of all things, horses, in the form of Lipizzaner stallions. 'Some of the things they do defy belief,' Ramsey says. 'Their training program is simplicity itself. You just stick a cattle prod up their ass and you can get a horse to deal cards.' Pointedly, he remarks that the horses are all white, only for Hunter to respond: 'They are not from Portugal; they're from Spain and at birth, they're not white; they're black.' It's effective in the context of the scene, if slightly heavy-handed, but Washington was deeply unhappy at the dialogue in its original form, which he considered racist. Tarantino had already elicited controversy in his own pictures for what many saw as white-man appropriation of African-American terms and language (something that he tacitly made amends for in his next picture, Jackie Brown) and Washington, angered by this taking place on a film in which he was the only lead actor of colour, called Tarantino out on set. The surprised writer asked if they could go somewhere more private for their discussion, only for Washington – who has always had a reputation for speaking his mind strongly – to respond angrily ''No, if we're going to discuss it, let's discuss it now.' The dialogue was then altered to Washington's specifications, but the argument led to a lengthy feud between the two men, who have never worked together since. But the actor did say in 2012 that ''I buried that hatchet. I sought him out 10 years ago. I told him, 'Look, I apologise.' You've just gotta let that go. You gonna walk around with that the rest of your life? He seemed relieved.' Yet on-set tensions were only one part of the difficulty during production. When the Navy withdrew their support, the film-makers reached out to other countries, and the French Navy were willing to assist with technical assistance, including the use of the aircraft carrier Foch. Yet some of the filming required skilful guerrilla activity. When the Alabama prepares to sail to sea – in one of the film's most memorable scenes, as Hackman's stirring speech is accompanied by Zimmer's equally stirring music – the crew had to shoot against the backdrop of the decommissioned USS Barbel, which had been sold for scrap and was about to be destroyed. And in the scene when the Alabama submerges, the crew obtained clandestine footage of a real-life nuclear submarine setting out to sea by dint of waiting at the naval base at Pearl Harbour until one set off; amazingly, this was not illegal, perhaps because the Navy had never considered the likelihood that any film company would do such a thing. In any case, the finished picture was released on May 12 to laudatory reviews. Roger Ebert's comments that 'This is the rare kind of war movie that not only thrills people while they're watching it, but invites them to leave the theatre actually discussing the issues' were typical, and many critics were pleasantly surprised that a Tony Scott picture could deal with intellectual and moral dilemmas with real gusto. Although, naturally, there are also big explosions and thrilling scenes of missile combat with rogue Russian submarines. The film has continued to be a much-loved highlight in the careers of everyone involved with it, and began a lengthy collaboration between Scott and Washington that only ended with the director's death by suicide in August 2012. And at a time when nuclear conflict between nations seems even more possible than three decades ago, it has a chilling resonance that only increases year after year, too. As Hunter says at one point: 'In my humble opinion, in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself.'
South China Morning Post
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Why Denzel Washington vs Gene Hackman thriller Crimson Tide remains relevant 30 years on
This is the latest instalment in our From the Vault feature series, in which we reflect on culturally significant movies celebrating notable anniversaries. Advertisement Thirty years after its release in May 1995, Tony Scott's submarine thriller feels terrifyingly timely. The film that saw one of the last great roles for Gene Hackman, who died in February , posits a world on the verge of World War III because of a conflict in Eastern Europe. Swap civil unrest in Chechnya for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it could have been plucked from today's headlines. Scott (1944-2012) was a British filmmaker known for testosterone-fuelled action films such as Top Gun , also produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. Although Crimson Tide retains the team's usual trademarks – hyperactive editing, fetishised military hardware, lots of men shouting at each other – they are always in service of the story.
