With the Star Wars saga officially wrapped up with Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, fans will seek out any remaining sliver of that galaxy far, far away on screen. The Clone Wars animated movie gave them a little bit of light drone lasering action, but what really caught their attention was Kyle Newman's Fanboys.
Set in 1998, the film tells the story of four friends who learn that one of their number has terminal cancer, and will die before he gets to see the long-awaited Star Wars prequel, Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Thus the gang scheme to break into Skywalker Ranch and steal a rough cut.
This celluloid tribute to Star Wars fandom was supposed to hit theaters in August 2007, but distributor The Weinstein Company thought they could turn it into a bigger event. They hired Steven Brill to reshoot scenes with more dirty jokes and nudity, and removed that downer cancer bit. After news of the new version leaked, a grassroots online rebellion was mounted, spearheaded by a group called Stop Darth Weinstein who helped get Newman reinstated to deliver his version of the film, albeit two years later.
The saga wasn't all bad for Newman. He met his wife, Jaime King, on the film. She plays a Las Vegas escort who plays Jedi mind tricks with one of the boys. The online support from fans who just wanted to see the original version also warmed his heart. However, the morning of his press junket in Beverly Hills, Newman was already visibly exhausted. The day was just beginning, but the journey to bring Fanboys to the screen was nearly over. All he had to do was keep his posture up on the sofa and answer questions about Weinstein as diplomatically as possible.
Question: We've been following this saga online, and understand they tried a version without the cancer subplot. How would that even play? It's more like the whole plot than a subplot!
Kyle Newman: I think referring to it as a subplot was definitely trying to play down how important it was and almost the folly of changing it. The reactions I've been getting as people are finally seeing it are how could the movie have worked without it? What is their purpose? What's at stake? Otherwise, how do you get behind those guys? They're just criminals.
Q: Even mechanically did they just decide to take a trip for no reason?
KN: The motivation was stripped [out] of the movie so it was more like, "Hey, we're drunk. You wanna go break into Skywalker ranch?" And at the end, scenes where Linus was sick, he just fell out of the van and he had no problem. Then they're being told they need to go home because he fell out of a van. It didn't work. Unfortunately and despite all the efforts, it ultimately didn't work and that's why it, I think, came back to us, the original team to at least restore it as much as we could in the time given.
Q: You said restore. Why did they not just go right back to your cut?
KN: That is a good question to which I don't have an answer. I was given a window of opportunity to go retake their film and recut it as best I could into a version of mine. Luckily, I was on the ball and could achieve. I still think I've got the best version of the movie but it was definitely a race. When you have to recut a film in 36 hours for no reason known to man that has been shown to me, it's hard. It was hard but I think we went in, I spent weeks before mapping out, "I'm going to do this at this moment, this at this moment, this at this moment, this 36 second in." It was all strategic and I went through surgically and was able to kind of restore the best stuff of ours and take some of the cool things that are discovered in the new one, the previous version.
Q: When you make a little film and the Weinstein Company is interested -- you know Harvey had a reputation -- did that concern you going in?
KN: We knew Harvey's reputation but also knew Harvey has a great reputation for taking small movies and doing good things with them too. So in that respect, do you want this movie at a big studio or do you want it with somebody that is known for taking a smaller film and getting it out there? I think that was one of the attractive things about working with the Weinstein Company as well. They were brand new venture. We were one of the first projects they brought on to do so it was actually an exciting time to set the movie up with them.
Q: While these changes were going on, did your producer Kevin Spacey not have the clout to say, "Hey, leave it alone?"
KN: Oh, definitely Kevin was vocal about what was going on and he was very clear. He came down to Comic Con last year and was supporting this version of the film and supporting the fan support that was shown to us to put this cut on screen. Kevin was very vocal with Harvey and also in getting this version back and this proper storyline, the original storyline back to the screen. Yeah, he was definitely passionate about it and without him we wouldn't have been able to get to the place we are now.
Q: How must it feel to have another director do scenes for your movie?
KN: It's funny because I guess Steven Brill never saw Star Wars, he didn't know who Jabba the Hutt was. And he was working with the production designer and these different people and he was like, "Which one's Boba Fett? Which one's Jabba?" He was getting mixed up. He didn't know and he admitted he hadn't seen Return of the Jedi, Empire Strikes Back so it was a little bit scary. I'm like, "Oh my God, they've got somebody who doesn't respect this at all, who's casually just dismissing references."
Then obviously the online stuff he was writing towards fans, calling them losers and saying he was going to kill them and hunt them down. It was depressing because here we are. We made a movie that embraced the fandom and we were fans and we've gotten this great grassroots awareness online and good support. Then you have someone that doesn't respect it and that's pretty much ignoring their contract and opening their mouth and talking about it. So it was very disheartening. It was unnecessary.
If you're going to go in and recut someone's film even though you're not even a fan of the subject matter, just because you want a paycheck, you're not passionate about it, then do that. But don't go opening your mouth and alienating the core audience of that movie. I just thought that was the most low class thing that you could do, especially considering there are so many people that worked years and years and years on this.
Q: How did he even get the job?
KN: I don't know...I think there was a strike coming up and he wasn't working and his agent platformed for him to get a paycheck before strike.
Q: But if they wanted reshoots, why didn't they have you do it?
KN: Well, we talked for beforehand. They did the reshoots while I was on my honeymoon, so I couldn't have done it. I think they knew I wasn't going to jibe with putting nudity and things like that in the movie which they pursued and ultimately are not in there.
Q: How did you conceive of addressing the ultimate suckiness of Episode I without bashing it?
KN: See, I like Episode I and it's one of those films that I think the more you watch it, the more it grows on you. Yeah, definitely people in the production, producers and one of the writers didn't like Episode I. I never wanted to get into a fan discussion about the merits, the downfalls of Episode I, because no one would come out of that situation happy. So it deals with it with just the conjecture at the end. What if it sucks? It's the point where you're so wrapped up in this movement and all the spirit of Star Wars being back and the upswell of fandom, did you stop to say, "Well, is it going to live up to my expectations?"
Q: How do you personally defend it in those discussions?
KN: I think everyone projected what they expected out of the movie. They identify with Star Wars so personally that you expect Star Wars to age with you and evolve with you, but [George Lucas] was still going back I think to a very beginning, Act 1. It can't be the darkest, it can't be the most dramatic, it's just an entry point. I mean, the things I don't like about it are maybe Anakin should've been older. Why did he need to be that age? Why couldn't he be 14 and carry the same weight through the thing, or 15? But you know what? It's his story. He paid for it. He's like the ultimate independent filmmaker and I respect that. That's I think every filmmaker's dream to have the scenario he's created and the foresight he's had and the kind of career he's had.
Q: Do you like Episode II?
KN: Episode II is probably my least favorite in the series. I still enjoy it. I mean, I like all Star Wars. I look at them as one story and I had the opportunity to watch them all in a marathon in HD on the big screen with Lucas optimized sound. It was 14 hours and it was pretty stunning how well every nuance actually fit together when you sit and watch them. It's almost like a requiem. Things repeat and there were just notes that were hit. There's so many little subtleties and parallels.
Q: So you got the graphics for the title crawl but not the John Williams score? That doesn't seem like the area to chintz on the money.
KN: Yes. I don't think it was down to money because we wanted it. It was down to John Williams had a very specific stance that Star Wars music belongs on Star Wars pictures. I know they got it for Family Guy, but I think it had to do with Fox, based on Fox owns Episode IV: A New Hope stuff differently than they own the rest. We were looking for cues from different movies throughout too. So we had Mark Mothersbaugh trying to emulate it. That's still one of my least favorite parts of the movie, the opening. I didn't want the crawl and there's a joke at the end of the crawl which is not something I wanted in either, but after it gets going, I'm pleased with the way it uses the Star Wars feel to the music.
Q: You didn't want crawl at all?
KN: Not if I couldn't have John Williams' music.
Q: And there's an iPhone joke in a movie set in 1998.
KN: Yeah. Well, the crawl is commenting. The crawl is not set in '98. It's telling you about here's a story set in '98, but I know what you're saying. And also, the other spot where there's a crawl is when they're high and he looks up into space and he sees a crawl. Not my favorite either. That's just kind of jarring. Yeah, the crawl elements are my least favorite part of this film.
Q: Was that not the joke you were referring to that you didn't like?
KN: The last paragraph. "What do aliens think when they read this?" The whole thing. It should've ended "Little did they know their paths were about to cross again..." You scroll down and you meet the guys. It was just an unnecessary [adjunct] at the end.
Q: You also make some pretty astute Star Trek jokes for a Star Wars fan.
KN: I like Star Trek. In this, I took the stance of Star Trek, in these guys' world, Star Trek is the enemy so you have to embrace that. That's the way these guys are viewing Star Trek, these characters, spearheaded by Hutch, Dan Fogler's character. They're really antagonistic towards Star Trek. And Star Trek was a little bit difficult with us getting the rights so we went a little hard on them, but I still like Star Trek.
Q: It's nice to see you give props to Willow.
KN: Oh yes. I love Willow. We tried to actually do a Howard the Duck wing, like an abandoned hallway too, but we couldn't build that part of the set. Yeah, Willow, we wanted to get everything in there. A little bit American Graffiti, a little bit of Willow.
Q: How hard was it to get a 6 Days, 7 Nights billboard?
KN: We had Harrison Ford approve it, so we got the likeness and all that stuff approved, so it was great.
Q: Was it CG'ed in on the road?
KN: That was CG'ed in, yeah.
Q: Forget getting Lucas on board, how do you go to Harrison Ford?
KN: Once we had the Lucasfilm camp on board and all the other Star Wars actors and stuff were in the film, I guess they also had a relationship. They were making a movie with him at the time too, so I guess that conversation was easy. I don't know how it went about but I think they were making Crossing Over and that's when they had asked him.
Fanboys opens on limited release on Friday, February 6, 2009.
Set in 1998, the film tells the story of four friends who learn that one of their number has terminal cancer, and will die before he gets to see the long-awaited Star Wars prequel, Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Thus the gang scheme to break into Skywalker Ranch and steal a rough cut.
This celluloid tribute to Star Wars fandom was supposed to hit theaters in August 2007, but distributor The Weinstein Company thought they could turn it into a bigger event. They hired Steven Brill to reshoot scenes with more dirty jokes and nudity, and removed that downer cancer bit. After news of the new version leaked, a grassroots online rebellion was mounted, spearheaded by a group called Stop Darth Weinstein who helped get Newman reinstated to deliver his version of the film, albeit two years later.
The saga wasn't all bad for Newman. He met his wife, Jaime King, on the film. She plays a Las Vegas escort who plays Jedi mind tricks with one of the boys. The online support from fans who just wanted to see the original version also warmed his heart. However, the morning of his press junket in Beverly Hills, Newman was already visibly exhausted. The day was just beginning, but the journey to bring Fanboys to the screen was nearly over. All he had to do was keep his posture up on the sofa and answer questions about Weinstein as diplomatically as possible.
Question: We've been following this saga online, and understand they tried a version without the cancer subplot. How would that even play? It's more like the whole plot than a subplot!
Kyle Newman: I think referring to it as a subplot was definitely trying to play down how important it was and almost the folly of changing it. The reactions I've been getting as people are finally seeing it are how could the movie have worked without it? What is their purpose? What's at stake? Otherwise, how do you get behind those guys? They're just criminals.
Q: Even mechanically did they just decide to take a trip for no reason?
KN: The motivation was stripped [out] of the movie so it was more like, "Hey, we're drunk. You wanna go break into Skywalker ranch?" And at the end, scenes where Linus was sick, he just fell out of the van and he had no problem. Then they're being told they need to go home because he fell out of a van. It didn't work. Unfortunately and despite all the efforts, it ultimately didn't work and that's why it, I think, came back to us, the original team to at least restore it as much as we could in the time given.
Q: You said restore. Why did they not just go right back to your cut?
KN: That is a good question to which I don't have an answer. I was given a window of opportunity to go retake their film and recut it as best I could into a version of mine. Luckily, I was on the ball and could achieve. I still think I've got the best version of the movie but it was definitely a race. When you have to recut a film in 36 hours for no reason known to man that has been shown to me, it's hard. It was hard but I think we went in, I spent weeks before mapping out, "I'm going to do this at this moment, this at this moment, this at this moment, this 36 second in." It was all strategic and I went through surgically and was able to kind of restore the best stuff of ours and take some of the cool things that are discovered in the new one, the previous version.
Q: When you make a little film and the Weinstein Company is interested -- you know Harvey had a reputation -- did that concern you going in?
KN: We knew Harvey's reputation but also knew Harvey has a great reputation for taking small movies and doing good things with them too. So in that respect, do you want this movie at a big studio or do you want it with somebody that is known for taking a smaller film and getting it out there? I think that was one of the attractive things about working with the Weinstein Company as well. They were brand new venture. We were one of the first projects they brought on to do so it was actually an exciting time to set the movie up with them.
Q: While these changes were going on, did your producer Kevin Spacey not have the clout to say, "Hey, leave it alone?"
KN: Oh, definitely Kevin was vocal about what was going on and he was very clear. He came down to Comic Con last year and was supporting this version of the film and supporting the fan support that was shown to us to put this cut on screen. Kevin was very vocal with Harvey and also in getting this version back and this proper storyline, the original storyline back to the screen. Yeah, he was definitely passionate about it and without him we wouldn't have been able to get to the place we are now.
Q: How must it feel to have another director do scenes for your movie?
KN: It's funny because I guess Steven Brill never saw Star Wars, he didn't know who Jabba the Hutt was. And he was working with the production designer and these different people and he was like, "Which one's Boba Fett? Which one's Jabba?" He was getting mixed up. He didn't know and he admitted he hadn't seen Return of the Jedi, Empire Strikes Back so it was a little bit scary. I'm like, "Oh my God, they've got somebody who doesn't respect this at all, who's casually just dismissing references."
Then obviously the online stuff he was writing towards fans, calling them losers and saying he was going to kill them and hunt them down. It was depressing because here we are. We made a movie that embraced the fandom and we were fans and we've gotten this great grassroots awareness online and good support. Then you have someone that doesn't respect it and that's pretty much ignoring their contract and opening their mouth and talking about it. So it was very disheartening. It was unnecessary.
If you're going to go in and recut someone's film even though you're not even a fan of the subject matter, just because you want a paycheck, you're not passionate about it, then do that. But don't go opening your mouth and alienating the core audience of that movie. I just thought that was the most low class thing that you could do, especially considering there are so many people that worked years and years and years on this.
Q: How did he even get the job?
KN: I don't know...I think there was a strike coming up and he wasn't working and his agent platformed for him to get a paycheck before strike.
Q: But if they wanted reshoots, why didn't they have you do it?
KN: Well, we talked for beforehand. They did the reshoots while I was on my honeymoon, so I couldn't have done it. I think they knew I wasn't going to jibe with putting nudity and things like that in the movie which they pursued and ultimately are not in there.
Q: How did you conceive of addressing the ultimate suckiness of Episode I without bashing it?
KN: See, I like Episode I and it's one of those films that I think the more you watch it, the more it grows on you. Yeah, definitely people in the production, producers and one of the writers didn't like Episode I. I never wanted to get into a fan discussion about the merits, the downfalls of Episode I, because no one would come out of that situation happy. So it deals with it with just the conjecture at the end. What if it sucks? It's the point where you're so wrapped up in this movement and all the spirit of Star Wars being back and the upswell of fandom, did you stop to say, "Well, is it going to live up to my expectations?"
Q: How do you personally defend it in those discussions?
KN: I think everyone projected what they expected out of the movie. They identify with Star Wars so personally that you expect Star Wars to age with you and evolve with you, but [George Lucas] was still going back I think to a very beginning, Act 1. It can't be the darkest, it can't be the most dramatic, it's just an entry point. I mean, the things I don't like about it are maybe Anakin should've been older. Why did he need to be that age? Why couldn't he be 14 and carry the same weight through the thing, or 15? But you know what? It's his story. He paid for it. He's like the ultimate independent filmmaker and I respect that. That's I think every filmmaker's dream to have the scenario he's created and the foresight he's had and the kind of career he's had.
Q: Do you like Episode II?
KN: Episode II is probably my least favorite in the series. I still enjoy it. I mean, I like all Star Wars. I look at them as one story and I had the opportunity to watch them all in a marathon in HD on the big screen with Lucas optimized sound. It was 14 hours and it was pretty stunning how well every nuance actually fit together when you sit and watch them. It's almost like a requiem. Things repeat and there were just notes that were hit. There's so many little subtleties and parallels.
Q: So you got the graphics for the title crawl but not the John Williams score? That doesn't seem like the area to chintz on the money.
KN: Yes. I don't think it was down to money because we wanted it. It was down to John Williams had a very specific stance that Star Wars music belongs on Star Wars pictures. I know they got it for Family Guy, but I think it had to do with Fox, based on Fox owns Episode IV: A New Hope stuff differently than they own the rest. We were looking for cues from different movies throughout too. So we had Mark Mothersbaugh trying to emulate it. That's still one of my least favorite parts of the movie, the opening. I didn't want the crawl and there's a joke at the end of the crawl which is not something I wanted in either, but after it gets going, I'm pleased with the way it uses the Star Wars feel to the music.
Q: You didn't want crawl at all?
KN: Not if I couldn't have John Williams' music.
Q: And there's an iPhone joke in a movie set in 1998.
KN: Yeah. Well, the crawl is commenting. The crawl is not set in '98. It's telling you about here's a story set in '98, but I know what you're saying. And also, the other spot where there's a crawl is when they're high and he looks up into space and he sees a crawl. Not my favorite either. That's just kind of jarring. Yeah, the crawl elements are my least favorite part of this film.
Q: Was that not the joke you were referring to that you didn't like?
KN: The last paragraph. "What do aliens think when they read this?" The whole thing. It should've ended "Little did they know their paths were about to cross again..." You scroll down and you meet the guys. It was just an unnecessary [adjunct] at the end.
Q: You also make some pretty astute Star Trek jokes for a Star Wars fan.
KN: I like Star Trek. In this, I took the stance of Star Trek, in these guys' world, Star Trek is the enemy so you have to embrace that. That's the way these guys are viewing Star Trek, these characters, spearheaded by Hutch, Dan Fogler's character. They're really antagonistic towards Star Trek. And Star Trek was a little bit difficult with us getting the rights so we went a little hard on them, but I still like Star Trek.
Q: It's nice to see you give props to Willow.
KN: Oh yes. I love Willow. We tried to actually do a Howard the Duck wing, like an abandoned hallway too, but we couldn't build that part of the set. Yeah, Willow, we wanted to get everything in there. A little bit American Graffiti, a little bit of Willow.
Q: How hard was it to get a 6 Days, 7 Nights billboard?
KN: We had Harrison Ford approve it, so we got the likeness and all that stuff approved, so it was great.
Q: Was it CG'ed in on the road?
KN: That was CG'ed in, yeah.
Q: Forget getting Lucas on board, how do you go to Harrison Ford?
KN: Once we had the Lucasfilm camp on board and all the other Star Wars actors and stuff were in the film, I guess they also had a relationship. They were making a movie with him at the time too, so I guess that conversation was easy. I don't know how it went about but I think they were making Crossing Over and that's when they had asked him.
Fanboys opens on limited release on Friday, February 6, 2009.
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FANBOYS expands (again!) into it's largest release yet, adding 11 new cities for the weekend of February 27th! In total FANBOYS will be showing in 24 cities across the U.S.
The new regions include: Minneapolis, Baltimore, Miami, Pittsburgh, Orlando, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Providence RI, Greensboro NC, Memphis and Cleveland.
You can see the FANBOYS trailer and find show times (via the downloadable widget) at fanboys-themovie.com.