I imagine you must get so many projects coming across your desk. Like, all the time just, “Make my movie! Make my movie!” Do they ever come out from another studio and you watch it and go, “I actually did want to see that.”? Do you ever get to second guess yourself like this, or is it just you have to power through?
Well, there are so many movies that I go see, that I want to go see that people make, that I wish I had been involved [in]. That’s just the way it is.
What do you like, right now? What’s a movie recently that you wanted to see?
I can’t wait to see Superman.
You haven’t seen it yet?
No, I haven’t seen it yet.
It’s fucking awesome.
Yeah, I can’t wait to see that. I mean, I want to see World War Z that’s coming out. I enjoyed Fast and Furious. That was fun.
They’re getting increasingly more fun, aren’t they?
Yeah.
Isn’t that weird, that that franchise gets better over time?
Yeah, that was great. There are so many […] A lot of terrific movies coming out this summer. I’m looking forward to a lot of them.
Yeah. Really good average.
I haven’t seen Hangover yet. I’m looking forward to seeing that.
You don’t tend to work in a broad comedy milieu. Is that something you wanna do more?
I think we have some comedy. It all depends.
There was some talk, and I guess obviously now, not so much that there was a Top Gun 2 being filmed. Is there a future for that, without Tony Scott?
Well, we know Paramount would like to make another one. We know Tom Cruise would like to make another one. I certainly would. I hope there’s a future without him but all the stars would have to come together to make it happen. We’ve been doing it for over 30 years, trying to make it happen. It hasn’t. There’s a lot of enthusiasm right now, because of Tony, because he had such a vision for it, for what he wanted to do. Hopefully, that vision will drive us to make another one, because he had a strong point of view of what it should be. I think that excited Tom and that excited Paramount, which we never could get the two excited together. You know, we’d get Tom excited and then Paramount says, “We don’t want to make that type of movie,” but Tony had this vision for the movie that got both sides really excited.
Would it be okay to maybe talk about some of the things that someone got excited about and didn’t, like a take that we’re not going to see of Top Gun 2?
I didn’t understand the question.
Well, you said there was a version of it that Tom got excited about but Paramount didn’t, so I guess you’re not making that version. Is there any…?
It’s been so long ago, I can’t remember. We tried to develop something when Don [Simpson] was still alive, right after it came out, which never happened and then Tom, on his own tried to develop something that never happened but that was 25 years ago. I can’t remember what happened yesterday, let alone 5 years ago.
With The Lone Ranger having such a legacy and so many different directions you could have taken the character, were there enormously different versions of this film, that were in development that you had considered before you settled on the version that got made, in theaters?
There was a different version. Not terribly dissimilar, but it didn’t have the railroad in it. And it was Gore, when he came in, he shaped it around that character and building the railroad. He added that element to it, which I think made it a lot better.
Okay. So, it was basically the same story but there wasn’t that overarching theme of futurism.
Exactly.
Tell me about the framing device for the film.
Well, the framing was something that Gore came up with. Him and Johnny. The two of them came up with that, and that wasn’t part of what we originally conceived.
How was that sold to you? Did you feel like we needed a framing device, to sort of establish a theme?
I loved the idea when they pitched it to me. I thought it was fantastic. It was something that I wanted to see. I loved this character reminiscing on his past.
What was your favorite thing that came out of The Lone Ranger? What was your favorite aspect of the production or the finished film?
I think it’s the experience of making it, which was fascinating because of all the places we got to visit and I’d never been to. I’d never been to Moab, Utah. I’d never been to Canyon de Chelly. I’d never been to Monument Valley. All these places I got to experience, plus the actual, physical making of the picture which was so difficult. I don’t know if you saw any of the making-of stuff, but you see the wind storms and the snow storms. The stuff we had to deal with was quite a journey. You know, you bring together a lot of people you’ve worked with in the past. My analogy is, it’s like going to summer camp. You get really tight with the kids you’re with, then everyone goes back to their lives and you’re lucky again to come back the following year and you reminisce and have another great time. That’s what making movies is. A lot of the same people were there, who had worked on some of our other films. You know, just being with Johnny and Gore again was a fantastic experience.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
