“I penned the suckiest movie ever — sorry!”
At the recent Razzies, this happened:
Razzie voters also made worst-of-the-decade picks, with John Travolta’s science-fiction debacle “Battlefield Earth” winning worst picture.
Among all-time Hollywood dreck, “Battlefield Earth” is “like the 800-pound mongrel gorilla in the room,” Wilson said. “It’s one of my favorite type of bad movies. It’s so bad, it’s entertaining, in ways that the people who made it had no idea it would be.”
Well, one of the movie’s screenwriters J.D. Shapiro has written an ‘apology’ in the New York Post:
Let me start by apologizing to anyone who went to see “Battlefield Earth.”
It wasn’t as I intended — promise. No one sets out to make a train wreck. Actually, comparing it to a train wreck isn’t really fair to train wrecks, because people actually want to watch those.
— —
I met with Mike Marcus, the president of MGM, and pitched him my take. He loved it, and the next day negotiations went under way. A few days after I finished the script, a very excited Travolta called, told me he “loved it,” and wanted to have dinner. At dinner, John said again how much he loved the script and called it “The ‘Schindler’s List’ of sci-fi.”
My script was very, VERY different than what ended up on the screen. My screenplay was darker, grittier and had a very compelling story with rich characters. What my screenplay didn’t have was slow motion at every turn, Dutch tilts, campy dialogue, aliens in KISS boots, and everyone wearing Bob Marley wigs.
“The ‘Schindler’s List’ of sci-fi.” Best. Quote. Ever?
Shaprio ends his apology with this:
Once it was decided that I would share a writing credit, I wanted to use my pseudonym, Sir Nick Knack. I was told I couldn’t do that, because if a writer gets paid over a certain amount of money, they can’t. I could have taken my name completely off the movie, but my agent and attorney talked me out of it. There was a lot of money at stake.
Now, looking back at the movie with fresh eyes, I can’t help but be strangely proud of it. Because out of all the sucky movies, mine is the suckiest.
In the end, did Scientology get me laid? What do you think? No way do you get any action by boldly going up to a woman and proclaiming, “I wrote Battlefield Earth!” If anything, I’m trying to figure out a way to bottle it and use it as birth control. I’ll make a mint!
Here is the movie’s trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/v/h0R_FR9pD2k&hl=en_US&fs=1&