Entertainment - Media News Watch originally published at Entertainment - Media News Watch
On Howie Mandel’s podcast, Rob Zombie discussed the terrible experience he had working with the Weinsteins on the Halloween movies
Writer/director Rob Zombie has been very open about the fact that he didn’t enjoy working with The Weinstein Company on his remake of Halloween and the follow-up Halloween II – and he tells some great stories about the nightmare of working with the Weinsteins, particularly Bob Weinstein, on the new episode of the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast.
Zombie said he tries to make movies on a budget of $4 million or less now because he has more creative control on projects like that, executives don’t get involved as much. But the Halloween movies had higher budgets and executives that were very invested in making new entries in a popular franchise. Zombie told Mandel about the Weinsteins, saying, “crazy all the time. Like someone gives you definite note on Friday, but you know that by Monday, they forget about them.” I devised this trick ,…. They had your shooting schedules for the day. I made sure they were always a day behind my shooting. I don’t remember how I did it, but they said, “This is what we need done on day 10”, blah, blah, blah. No problem. I had already shot day ten and I was on day eleven when they started yelling about day ten. … (Their complaints were not) based upon dailies. It was based solely on crazy ideas. “I thought last night that it should be done this suddenly”. Sometimes the ideas were so crazy. The ideas would get crazy and I would think, “Okay, I must realize I’m dealing a crazy person, and then answer this way.” (Bob) was very cuckoo. We would have these big fights, and scream each other. He loved it. He liked to communicate in this way. It was terrible. Three years of this. I was a complete nutcase by the end because it was like living in Crazy World. It was done with constant negative energy. They would find ways to upset each actor. It was chaos. The basic mindset was that everyone in the town was stupid except us…. Bob called me after he watched the finished movie and said, “I hate every single frame of this film.” You need to fire your editor. He’s an idiot who doesn’t understand what he is doing. This was the case every day. You try to appease the situation, but it is impossible because it is so crazy. He wants to fire the editor who was doing a great job, so we hired another one. It’s not because I didn’t like him but I didn’t need him. We had another editor who was nominated for an Academy Award, but I didn’t need him. I put him into another room, and he just hung around doing things. He was making coffee and hanging around, all at a ridiculously high rate of pay. I continued to work with my editor. Bob called me at 10am on the day of the film’s release. He says, “It doesn’t seem good.” This thing is a f*cking catastrophe. It’s 10am. Are any theatres open yet? He calls me a few hours later to say, “We’re adding screenings.” This thing is going through the roof!” But then Harvey calls Bob, and says, “If you had listened, we coulda doubled!” So they start fighting. I’m not satisfied with the number one record-breaking week because some people in my office were saying, “Oh, it’s a real nightmare right now.” They’re fighting. They’re screaming at each other over why it’s not sixty million.’“
Zombie’s Halloween opened at $31 million over Labor Day weekend and held the record for having the highest September opening until 2021, when the record was taken by Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Zombie gave an example of the ideas Bob Weinstein would send in: “One of the best ideas he came up with… I was on set shooting, because he would call me the whole time I’m shooting, all night long, constantly. He said, “I think Michael Myers ought to have a necklace made of severed ears.” I replied, “I hate that idea. We’re so far into shooting. How do we get continuity? This is stupid on every level.” Where does he find them? How does he get them? They don’t understand that we’re shooting out of sequence, we shot that, left the set, and aren’t going back, so we tore it down. They don’t understand we’re shooting out of sequence, we shot that, we left that set, we’re not going back, we tore it down.’“
Another example was when Weinstein had an assistant bring Zombie several pages of shots he wanted him to get one day, in addition to those that were already on the day’s shot list. It would have been impossible to get Weinstein’s suggested shots because, “We don’t have any of these sets or actors or wardrobe, so I don’t know how he’s going to rise from a cemetery that doesn’t exist here at the mental hospital set.“
Zombie had such a bad time making Halloween, he only did Halloween II to make sure he wouldn’t have to work with the Weinsteins anymore beyond that. “I make the sequel which I initially refused to do because I wanted out of my deal because I wanted kill myself. I had a deal with the Weinsteins for three movies. A couple of years later, they fired twelve directors from Halloween 2 so i came back. I’ll direct if you’ll let me out of the 3rd picture. I don’t need to do three films. Bob shows up on the set and I shoot the scene. He’s showing me the trailer for my Halloween, as if I’ve never seen it, and he goes, ‘Every frame of this movie’s f*cking genius.’ This is the same guy who said, ‘Every frame in this movie I f*cking hate.’“
Before Zombie returned for Halloween II, the agents of other directors who were pursuing the job would call and ask what they could expect from the Weinsteins. Zombie replied: “Here is what you can expect: They’re going to hate everything you do, and they’ll fire you. I’m sorry but that’s the outcome. But first they’re going to reduce you to tears, unless you’re screaming, ‘F*ck you, motherf*cker!’ back in their face.“
So that’s how Rob Zombie felt about working with the Weinsteins. Click over to the podcast episode to hear more about this situation and many other interesting stories. Was it worth the trouble that the filmmaker went to? Leave a comment to let us know what you think.
Entertainment - Media News Watch originally published at Entertainment - Media News Watch
