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Designing Jim Henson's newest puppet fantasy epic
The making of a robot, the story behind Number 5
Shocking sequel looks like RAMBO in outer space
Comic book fantasy from the maker of STAR WARS
Filming the gut-wrenching designs of H.R. Giger
By Sheldon Teitelbaum
Considering the haste with which 20th Century-Fox mounted BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, the new John Carpenter film that is purportedly its biggest since HELLO DOLLY, there have been surprisingly few hitches along the way. Carpenter said the production, which opens July 2, has progressed as well as it has precisely because of this breakneck pace. Had the studio given him more time up front, he said, that might have actually doubled the overhead
Indeed, Fox was terrified that the production would create major overruns. That's why Carpenter got the job-—-who else in Hollywood could be counted on to shoot a $19 million picture as if it were a Bmovie? And so, Carpenter was allotted just 10 weeks for preproduction. The paint on John Lloyd's now legendary sets had barely dried when principal photography began. The trick, said Carpenter, was to make decisions you're happy with and to live by them.
But placid as the production scene was, there was a little trouble on BIG TROUBLE. In March, the Writer's Guild determined that W. D. Richter, the man who directed THE ADVENTURES OF BUCK- AROO BANZAI, and who reportedly had turned in a monster script for BIG TROU- BLE IN LITTLE CHINA, would not receive credit for his role in shaping the sereenplay. Sole sereen credit would instead go to two unknowns, Gary Goldman and David Weinstein. Groaned Carpenter, “Here we go again.”
Carpenter has good reason to be distressed. The Guild suggests that a pattern may be developing on Carpenter films, one in whicha writer inevitably gets stiffed. On STARMAN, Columbia had brought in writer Dean Riesner to deliver a rewrite of the original Bruce Evans/ Raynold Gideon script Though Reisner completed at least five rewrites, and had
tg Feouble in
it’s action, adventure, effects—and mon
James Hong as Lo Pan, a 2000 year-old businessman who rules a mystical empire beneath San Francisco's Chinatown.
replaced three-quarters of the dialogue, the Guild awarded the original writers final and sole screenplay credit. “They're a very strange group,” said Carpenter of the Guild. “They dislike people who get along well with the studios. Reisner’s script had as much resemblence to the original as to the Three Stooges!” Gary Goldman, a documentary filmmaker, did not get on famously with Fox. After his script was optioned by the studio, the first he had ever written, Goldman rejected Fox's request fora rewrite that asked for major alterations, He and his partner had written the film as a Western, and Goldman was appalled by the studio's decision to make the film contemporary. Consequently, the studio made it very clear that the writers were persona non
grata. The consultation clause in their contract notwithstanding, Goldman and Weinstein were shown the door
The writers found theycould live with this, but not with the studio’s decision to remove their names from the press releases dispatched by the media relations office, and from thescript itself. After haying told everyone he knew about writing BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, Goldman was made out to be a liar Worse, he was unable to translate his credit on the film intoa contract for a new project
Though a novice at script writing, Goldman was not new to the industry. His film DEGAS IN NEWORLEANS had been screened at Cannes Another he made for PBS, YES MA’‘AM, won first prize at the American Film Festival
Moreover, Goldman had worked as Louis Malle’s assistant on PRETTY BABY, and later spent several years working with Larry (48 HOURS, THE WARRIORS) Gordon. None of this, however, prepared him for what Fox was intent on doing
Goldman and Weinstein submitted the script to producers Paul Monash and Keith Barish during the summer of 1982. Goldman got the idea for it from some new wave martial arts imports he had chanced on. They were, he said, like nothing that hadever beenseen before by an American audience, These were light years beyond the FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH variety used tofill out “Black Belt Theatre.”
“I was stunned,” Goldman said. “There were these monks fighting it out on foggy, misty
Little China
script woes for director John Carpenter.
Kurt Russell, as adventurer Jack Burton, grapples with a supematural guard who bars the door to Lo Pan's subterranean citadel.
mountain tops, all sorts of weird actions and special effects, shot against this background of Oriental mysticism and modern sensibilities. Just unbelievable stuff!”
Contemplating a way to make the material accessible to American filmgoers, the ncophyte script writers envisioned combining the Chinese fantasy elements with the Western. Despite the fact that the Western had, by then, long been buried, and that period pieces were considered the kiss of death by Hollywood, Goldman and Weinstein felt they had come up with a volatile mix with enormous commercial potential.
Goldman didn’t see the film as a step beyond the TV show KUNG FU. Rather, he imagined BIG TROUBLE IN LIT- TLE CHINA as the start of a
new film genre, “the next step beyond STAR WARS and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.” Fox, however, did not share this boundless enthusiasm. What was needed was a big name writer to snare a big name director. Enter Richter.
Richter concurred with the studio that the Goldman Weinstein script had to be pushed into a modern setting. Getting the audience to suspend its disbelicf as to the authenticity of old San Francisco would be difficult. Adding the clement ofa strange fantasy kingdom under its streets would be one too many oddities indeed.
For Richter, rewriting BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHI- NA entailed a great deal more than merely updating the setting and the dialogue. According to one source who saw the
original script, “they had written a script that just didn’t work, it wasa real mess.” Richter concurred: “I realized at the start that I would have to lay the script aside and begin nearly from scratch.” His draft, in fact, took him 10 wecks to complete.
Richter recalled receiving a phone call from Goldman and Weinstcin, who were at that point distressed to learn thata substantial rewrite was in store. Goldman reportedly suggested to Richter that, asa fellow writer, he should not agree to the project. Richter informed him that this was not the way the movie business worked. Richter explained that he was not a novelist rewriting their novel. Richter himself had been rewritten, “I told them, “I'm sorry the studio doesnt want to goforward
with you guys, but my turning it down is not going to get you the job. They'll just hire someone else. And I like the idea of the movie, so it’s a legitimate task for me to take on.™
The studio's decision to bilk Goldman and Weinstein of either script or story credit, however, was certainly nor within the bounds of legitimacy. Goldman notes that he and Weinstein were awarded story credit only once—-when Fox announced its production slates to Variety and to The Hollywood Reporter. “That was the abberation,” said Goldman, “After that they went back to climinating us entirely in their press releases.”
The question, of course, is whether Richter was in on the plot. Goldman believes that Richter, at least passively, went along with the attempt to present BIG TROUBLE IN LIT- TLE CHINA as his original creation. “On the set, the suppression of our roles was so complete,” Goldman complained, “that no one knew that the script was a rewrite, | know of one editor who, when he was told about us, refused to believe it. He insisted that Rick Richter only does his own material. And this delusion was acted out in front of the entire crew,”
When asked why the studio had stricken the writers’ names from the pertinent material, Carpenter denied that this had ever been the case. Richter dismissed charges of complicity as “annoying” because, he said,“1 went out of my way to do the opposite of what these people said I did.” Indeed, Richter acknowledged in his contract with the studio that he was producing a rewrite ofa screenplay by Goldman and Weinstein. And Richter said that when he learned that the studio had removed their names from the script, he suggested that they be awarded some kind of credit. When asked in what guise, he said that the Writer’s Guild would ultimately decide, but that he thought story credit
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