Oh geez, folks, it's showtime.
People say, good mind to see this movie. When they go out to a theater.
They want closed sodas, hot popcorn in. No monsters in the Projection.
Booth, Everyone for tend podcasting isn't boring. Got it off? Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth. I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, it is the return of Mark Edlet's. As I said during our interview, the last time we spoke was right around the beginning of the pandemic. I was on vacation right before that started and reading one of his James Bond books. You can hear that in the feed, and you can also hear us talk about one of his later books right
now as we discuss movies go forth. It is a fascinating concept where he's gone through a lot of series and looked at fourth films as well as fourth films that never happened and some fourth films that happened in very odd circumstances. Had a great time talking with Mark, looking forward to having him back on the show. I
hope you enjoyed this interview Mark Edletz. It is so great talking with you again, because the last time we spoke, I think it was before the pandemic, So it has been a little while, sir.
Oh my gosh, it's been that long. Because I listened to you all the time, I didn't necessarily notice the absence because I'm with you weekly. But I'm glad to be back in a different way.
Tell me about Movies go Forth. First off, we should probably talk a little bit about the concept for it, but I really want to know how you got the concept, what burst of inspiration hits you to say I'm going to make this book.
The book is called Movies Go Forth. Fourth films in fantastic franchises, and I look at the fourth film in popular movie series, to the fourth James Bond, the fourth Star Wars, the fourth Batman, Superman, Jaws, Halloween, on and on. I went for all the big franchises that I could think of that I could get a primary interview with a filmmaker, with a director or writer, casiquin actor, But mostly my interest is in directors and writers. And I grant you it's a weird concept for a book. Nobody
was asking for a book on fourth films. My family challenged my sanity in doing this, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. And I'll try to be honest with you or honest with myself about how the idea came about, but I'm not one hundred percent sure. But what I think happened is that I'm obsessed to fourth films. They are Superman four, Quest for Piece, Batman four, Batman, and Robin Joel Schumacher's film Enjoys the Revenge or Joys for.
Depending on and you slice it.
When you look at lists of the worst films of all time, those three films are always on it. Superman, Batman, Jaws. And I am so fascinated by these films that I think I backed up into the premise of the book by noticing that observation each kind of franchise is a case study where I'd pick a horror film, or action film or a comedy film. But then once I interviewed someone from Halloween four, then I thought Jason for Then
I thought Freddy four, so then Psycho four. So I didn't keep that kernel of each film is a case site for a specific genre. Just because I was curious about these other films. I think that's what got me into it.
If my listeners are like me, their minds are reeling right now, because that's when I first got your book. I was like flipping through the intro and I'm just like, oh my god, the fourth film. And I just had this huge flood of all of these fourth films that have been around for many years or some are still just popping up. It feels like only yesterday we had Scream four, but now we're up to what seven saw
four was probably a decade ago. There are franchises out there that are still just pumping them out, and some of them have been it's a tough road to get to that fourth film, and not a lot of them actually happened. I think you talk about some that weren't even made but were in the works, like a Spider Man for from Sam Raimi.
Yet that's a bonus chapter, and I'm so proud of that chapter because I was a big Sam Raimi Spider Man fan. I thought he did a great job, and he didn't seem to love his own work on Spider Man three from He felt forced into it, he said, and he wanted to end the series on his own terms. And there's been a lot of rumors about what the plot would have been, who the actors would have been with the villains would have been, and it was never
one hundred percent set in stone. But through the interview that I conducted, we know a lot about the casting and the plot and the arc of the character. And what I thought was interesting about Spider Man four is that Sam Raimi wanted to create an ending. He said, I know you're going to reboot this. I don't pretend that this is the end of Spider Man, nor do I want it to be the end of Spider Man. But wouldn't it be cool cool if I did my version of the end of a Spider Man series and
put out on a high note. And they were far along in the process before everything got pulled and went back to Andrew Garfield. And the thing about all these series is a trilogy used to be the sign of success when I was growing up. You think of the Indiana Joe and trilogy, you think of the Star Wars trilogy, and a trilogy is, of course a perfect storytelling structure or format. Beginning, middle and end. You introduce the character
as they get into problems, they resolve the problems. Act one, two and three, the exploration of the book is what do you do when the story is over and either the filmmakers or the studio want to continue with the series. How does that impact the series? How does that impact the characters? How does that impact your fans love for these characters? What is too much? What is not enough? Halloween? Write the thirteenth, We go on and on. The Psycho ended the series with four as it was meant to.
Jaws was not meant to end the series on four, but it was so reviled that they had to stop. And I believe that Spielberg's experience on Jaws, seeing his classic brilliant film get the synder each series was a little bit worse. I think that is why he was so involved with the Jurassic Park films, and then the fourth Jurassic Park film was the most successful of all time.
But the thing about Jaws which is fascinating is because I spoke to an actor on that Lance Guest who was in the Last Star Feet Fighter, and he said, as the director that they sincerely believed that they were making the best version of the premise of a shark getting revenge on another shark for another family, Which doesn't make sense because this shark is not getting revenge. The other shark was dead. But they bought the premise. They
thought they were making a thoughtful film. And I don't write about films that I don't have an affection for, and I don't take potshots at any of these. I write about them all with love, and when I speak to the filmmakers, I'm doing it with you know, my love for their movies in the way that I love them. But however, I do know that Jaws for is objectively doesn't work. But when you look at Superman four on paper,
it's a home run. Superman three was not good, even when I first thought as a kid, I knew that wasn't good. But it's strong because of Christopher Reeve and anything he's in, he's quite good. Superman four was an attempt, a deliberate attempt to go back to the foundation of Superman one. Superman the movie. They went to Donner and they went to Manquets and they said can you come back? And they're like, no, we're good, thank you very much.
But the writers and the director who took a crack at it, Sidney J. Fury, is the director who is a good director. They do a serious film. They do take the elements that we loved about Superman one and two and respect them and honor them. But in that case, there were lots of reasons why the film fell apart, including at the very basic level you don't budget.
Yeah, that is one thing I really appreciate about the book is that respect that you show these films, because you could just, oh, I'm armed Forbear, I'm going to go talk about Police Academy four. But yes, there is a great level of respect for films that inherently I would say ninety percent of the time they don't get respect because they're seen as being something watered down after
three movies. It's very rare. I mentioned a few franchises, and you've mentioned a few that have gone well beyond for I know that the last time we talked about James Bond and that you could almost say that there are many fours in that series just because of the different bonds that have come in, the changes in leadership,
the changes in direction. You can look at like the John Glenn years, is QUADRILLGIY or sorry, Quintology five films there, and then you can look at the fourth one of that, and then you probably could get very tripped up when it comes to Star Wars because the fourth is the first.
That was my for Star Wars, which I love, and I'm a Star Wars kid. I made a documentary called Jedi Junkies on extreme Star Wars fans. I've read so much as you have on Star Wars and watch so many videos and documentaries and talked about it so much. I wanted to come at it in a slightly skewed point of view, and so for Star Wars, I asked myself that question, what is the fourth film? For me? Is it Phantom Menace Episode one, the fourth one in
the Skywalker trilogy? Is it for some people growing up later? Is it Episode four? Star Wars and New Hope? Or And what I profered for this book, Movies Go for is could it be the e Wok movie that was released theatrically overseas? So if you were overseas, the fourth Star Wars film you saw in the movie theater was the Emock movie and for that audience, that was the
fourth Star Wars film. So I explore that one because I recognize that sort of a little bit a goofy approach, But you know, what are you gonna do?
Well, and I don't imagine because I would ask anybody else, oh, what themes did you find in these fourth films? But I imagine each one is a unique case. It's not like you can just use one brush to paint this. Even when it comes to I imagine the horror franchises which are famous for going well beyond four.
Yeah, there are similarities, but there are also huge differences. Like for Halloween four was an attempt to go back to the basics after Halloween three did not feature Michael Myers. It had to have Michael, and it had to get the franchise back to a Michael Myer centered story. But when I asked the writer of that, what would he do for Halloween five if he had his brothers, he didn't pick a Michael Mike Michael Meyers story. He wanted
to go in another way. He followed his own impulse outside of that or with Psycho four, it's both a prequel and a sequel. So it's a sequel to Psycho three and in the flashback to Young Norman Bags which they also use as the TV show, it's a prequel to Psycho one. Friday the Thirteenth Part four was the final chapter Ah, that didn't happen. Leprechaun was in space.
And then sometimes with these fourth movies, they're a passing of the Torch, like Highlander, or intended to be a passing of the Torch like Highlander was supposed to transfer the series from Christopher Lambert to the TV Guy, but that didn't work. Scream seemed to have to be set up to be a passing of the Torch movie, even though that was part of the twist of it is that it was your expectations of what a passing of the Torch movie is. Yeah, there are similarities, but there's
also huge differences. Similar tobodies are the fourth James Bond one Thunderball was the most popular for many years, the fourth Dirty Harry was the most popular for years. And then you also see how the characters change in the fourth film. When you have John McClain in Diehard one, you think of the scene where he's stepping on glass and he's pulling it out, and that's that's as much
as his character can take. And then you get to Diehard four and he's jumping from like a Harry or a jet to the ground and he's mostly okay or Ripley, who died in three, is completely changed in four. She is not herself. And then you get that where you have these ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances in Part one Ripley, John McClain. And you can't keep on doing that. You can't keep on putting these people in. It can't always be in the wrong place at the wrong time, Otherwise
it become silly. So you have to change it. And that's what happens. But how does the character change, How does the character that we love turn into something else?
In some of the fourth films are some of the best films of the series. Star Trek four and just how great that was. And again you're talking about breaking box office. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a major box office holder of the whole series for quite a while.
Yeah, so that's really interesting. With Star Trek, the fan favorite is generally perceived as Wrath of Khan. That's the one that most people try to go back to, and you see it in this series and they have been able to replicate it. But the fourth Star Trek one, where they try to deliberately go beyond the base, is actually the most successful for many years.
And then it goes off a cliff almost literally right after that. The poor reboot the jj Abrams films, they can never seem to get to that fourth one. So it is interesting that there's that distinction between the two areas of Star Trek. And I don't know if Next Generation managed to make it to a fourth I think they might have. And it depends on if you start with generations versus first contacts. And I would think first contact because you were talking about passing out the torch.
So here we are at theemicis insurrection generations and first contact like there you go, give the man a cigar.
With Star Trek. The writer told me he tried to seed a story in for part five, a work where a character would have gotten pregnant and you would have seen their child grow up, but that was written out or cut out. Really, And when you see certain series like Mission Impossible, is where that series found what it wants to be. Now, the first three each had its own identity, and then after fourth you understood what you were going to want watch each subsequent time. And Matt
Mack's the fourth one that's considered the best. But so part of why I was interview, why I was doing this research, there were all these fourth films that I never heard of. I didn't know that there was a Home Alone for which which was shot in South Africa in a ridiculously short amount of time, which is funny because it's a very American movie. I didn't know there was a Home Alone four. I didn't know there was a meat Balls four. I didn't know there was a
Porky's four. Now, let's briefly talk about Meatballs four and Porky's four. Porky's four was made in even less time than Home Alone for because it's something called an Ashcan property, which is to say, it is something which is created just to hold on to the rights. So that was a circumstance, which we've seen that with Spider Man movies to a certain extent, if you don't use your option to make another movie within a certain time, you lose
the rights. And so with Porky's Four, that's what happened. And the writer wrote it in a few days, and they shot it in a few days, and it was released as Himp and Peewee, not even Porky's four. But now, if you watch go On, you know to be or whatever it's for Meatballs four is another interesting story because I didn't know there was and I reached out to the writer director just out of a sense of duty. Figure, if I'm doing all these fourth movies, I should do
Meatballs because I see it exists. But he told me this really sad story about jack nance from a raserhead and him finding out a loved one of his died and the tragedy that snowballed after that. But he also told me a story saying that he didn't start Meatballs four as the fourth meat Balls film. He told me a story where he was in the middle of production of another film called Happy Campers, and one day the producer showed up and said, by the way, this is
now Meatballs four. Funny as one finds out what is working on the Bull's four when one didn't realize it the whole time.
I'm sure that has happened a lot where things of I remember Hackers Too was not Hackers Too. That was a whole different thing, cyber track, I think they called it at one point. I'm sure that when it comes to the fourth film, there are a lot of those stories where it's yeah, and now we've retitled I think House four if you remember the William cat film. Yeah, I think like the fourth one is an imported Italian film that they've slapped the House four label onto.
And then with Rocky four. I've always been fascinated with Rocky four because it's the most successful one in the series, but it's totally different from everything else. It doesn't fit in. And then during COVID, stallone went back and re edited four so that it was more totally closer to the rest of the series, and I thought this was a great idea in theory. So he took out some of the cheesy stuff he still kept in like the thirty
minutes of montages. There's a lot of montages, but he took out some of the joker stuff, he got rid of the robot, and made it totally closer to the rest of the series. However, in doing so, he somehow took away all the fun of what makes Rocky such a cheesy, over the top Americana extravaganza or whatever it is.
So I thought it was a great idea, but it was an example of how you could take away scenes, but the essence of what there was denied, and it was not as successful even though it doesn't work with the rest of the series. Obviously, I want people to buy the book, but can you share some stories with me as far as maybe some of the strangest fourth films? The Meatballs one has got to be one of those. Yeah,
I'm sure there's some other. Really. Oh, let me just briefly say, Joel Schumacher spoke to me about bat Batman and Robin.
Good. Wasn't he nice? He was?
Oh, my gosh, So this Joel Schumacher doesn't need to talk to me about Batman and Robin. There's no what good does that do him?
Right?
All he's been is beating over to the calls for Batman and Robin. There's no reason for him, ducmy, Yet we had this really sprawling conversation about Batman three and four and about what sort of didn't work as well in four that didn't three, because it's interesting it's the same creative team in both movies. It's it's the same director, it's the same writer, it's the same costumes, music, cinematographer, cinematographers, it's the same world. It's the same team doing the
same thing. Yet three is generally well regarded and fourth is not so what happens to an artist when they have the same goods but just fall short. And with him, I said, each character, like on paper, they each have their own arc, they each have their own story, they each have something to do, which seems like it would
be a great idea. And then he paused and he said, and he whispered this, maybe it was too much, And it was like where we were just having a discussion and he had a little realization about one of the elements that didn't quite work in that maybe it was overstuffed. And also totally it was very different than three. Three still had its foot in the Timberton camp, but by the time we get to four, it's a different kind of camp.
Oh yeah, yeah, so yeah, I loved Joel Schumacher. Again he didn't have to talk to me about falling down, but right so at that time and was so generous with this time and so nice. I just couldn't get over how sweet that guy was. Yeah, we really lost somebody special with that one. Who were some of the other folks that you track down for.
This spoke to a key creative figure from Superman four, Batman for James Bond four, Diehard for Rocky for Highlander, for Planet of the Apes, for Star Wars four, Star Trek four, Spider Man fur and the writer for what could have been Godfather for but wasn't. So Yeah, that's the funny thing about when you write a book like this, where at least for me, you want to and you do. This is the same where you want a key creative figure to explore that movie, and you make a rule
of yourself. If you don't get that key creative figure, you can wait some other time to explore that movie. But I got all the big movies that I wanted.
We were talking about how sometimes the fourth one is the best chapter. Now I would be hard pressed between the original Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, and Conquest, but Conquest is so frickin good, Oh my God, and another one that was marred when it really came out with that ending.
Yet they try to use the fourth originally film to end the series, and then it was just so popular that they said We're going to do it another one. Anyway. I know that goes against everything we just did, But we like making movies and we.
Like making money, even tracking down some of these as far as Meatballs four probably wasn't the easiest film, Thank goodness for two b For some of these, yeah, exactly tafically, Oh yeah, tracking down both the filmmakers and the films. I wrote a book on which we discussed last time, called How to Be a Superhero, in which I interviewed thirty five actors who played superheroes over seven decades. And that book because it took so long to track them down,
It really took ten years to write. That was a terrible idea of my part. Don't take ten years to write a book.
So this time I gave myself a two or three year timeframe to get it. And that's fun for me, is tracking down the filmmakers of the films, and some of them, like die Hard or Highlander for it, you could find fairly ease.
Was this your pandemic project? It sounds like it, doesn't it.
You know what? Big Or Judd wrote this book on comedy actors during the pandemic. I think the Bond book, The Loss Avengers of James Bond was my pandemic. Okay, everything is much together, though, I find a sense of the pandemic.
Do you remember when you wrote this or did you just wake up and it was on your computer.
It was definitely over the last few years.
Yeah, okay, yeah, would you know partially still pandemic.
Yeah, yeah, we're still in the.
I love the attention to detail. I love the passion around this. Basically, you write books the way that I like the podcast. Like you said, whereas I have to talk with these people, I have to find these details. I got to track down these scripts and all of these different ideas. James Bond books are very much the same way too, where you're just like, I got to dig and dig, and there's really sometimes there's no basement. You just keep on digging for this stuff.
And at some point you have to just say when, Yeah, that is the problem because there's an infinite number of Part four us. How many is too many? How many actors playing superheroes does one need to talk to in Wild's life? Yeah, And so you need to pull the plug on it at a certain point. And sometimes it's just when you go, oh, let me put all these chapters together and you go, oh, my gosh, this is several hundred more pages that I anticipated. Oops.
So what are you working on now? I'm so curious.
I have another book coming out which I think is going to come out by the time this comes out. I've been working on two other books, one both about James Bond, and they're both about the Continuation novels. Is anyone listening to this nos Continuation James Bond Continuation Novels a novel written after Infleming passed away. They've been going on the sixties till today, and there's scores and scores
of them. I wrote one book called James Bond After Fleming the Continuation Novels, where it's a follow up book called Keeping Seven Alive Conversations with James Bond Continuation Authors, and what that is is interviews with every single living James Bond author, asking them the kind of questions of how do you write it, what's it like working with the infloment publications and things of that nature, trying to understand again the business side versus the creative side of
creative creating something. And I guess that's what all these books are about. It's the movies Go Forth is about the clash between art and commerce and art what artists want with the project and what the studio wants with the project, and when you're dealing with the studio film. You don't own Superman, you don't own that Man. You surely don't own Rocky. Well, you could say you that's a bigger question who owns Rocky, which we'll say for
another time. But these are studio assets, and what film gets made when and whether Schwarzenegger's in Terminator for or not is based on contracts. It's based on what the studio thinks that the market demands are. And that's true with these franchise properties. These are much bigger than any filmmaker, and there's generally a rule that you have to return the toy to the toy chest the same way you found it. Occasionally you'll find you'll be in an environment
where you have more creative agency than other times. But you don't own these properties as a general rule, although I did interview the Hatchet Crowley guy for the Horror series and he doesn't own it. But those are again his characters, so it's interesting their sense of proprieed ownership of it versus with the studio things, and that's where.
The conflict is. I forgot that during the pandemic we had at least one fourth, which was the Matrix four, which I would consider a Legacy sequel, and then over the last few months we had ax LEF, which was the fourth over the Hills cop films. So yeah, fours are alive and well, I don't know if we'll get fives for either of those, but I think with axl F being as successful, I think a fifth is pretty natural. But I don't know if we're going to get a fifth Matrix, which I'm okay with.
Yeah, the Fourth Matrix was a meta commentary on sequels and series and franchises, so that was fun to have that out. While I was writing these things, were saying, scream and you know, with these franchise sequels, they usually want to have the actor in the poster and in some key scenes and then give the series to another actor who is younger and you pay less money too, and that's where you get Highlander. And that's always Now
we're going to go back to Sydney and scream. How far can you get away from what is the essential nature of the series? Is it the individual actor? You can't have a Dirty Harry film without Dirty Harry. One of the things that I really dug about interviewing the guy who wrote Dirty Harry. From addition to learning how he came up with these lines go ahead and make my day. But he wrote a sixth Dirty Harry film that Eastwood hoped to make one day and clearly isn't.
But he wrote the Once Upon in Once Upon a Time in the West esque Dirty Harry film, which is the Dirty Harry film to end all Dirty Harry films about the system and all crumbling and wrapping up that story. That's one thing that like, Ah, that sounds cool, Yeah, because that's a series that these days, in twenty twenty four, I don't think it's nearly as much love as it used to.
And some of those movies are just spectacular.
Yeah, it's interesting. Oh, when we're talking about this, you think about what characters are better suited to sequels, and Dirty Harry is well suited to SEQL because he's a cop. He could always catch another case, a spy could always go on another mission. So I think that's one of the reasons that some of those movies are pretty good, is because it's a natural progression of that character.
Yeah, those single one and done type things. Rather than to your point from earlier, too mission impossible. Each one is a mission. So we're off to the racist but when you come to your Star Wars films, it's okay, Well, now we are telling another epic story. So how are we going to do this? We now need to come up with three films, and judging from the last trilogy, I don't think they ever mapped it out because they were all so unevent.
Absolutely.
Yeah, So what is after watching all of these fourths, what are some of your favorites now?
I still like the Big Ones. I still like James Bond and Batman, Zuperman, Jaws, Rocky Islander has its charms, Planet of the Apes, but I now have a greater affection for those that like me Balls for where I never heard of but were really important to the people
who are making them and how to work under difficult circumstances. Yeah, it's got to be so different for one like that, where they don't start off as a Meatballs film versus something like even the Police Academy films where it's like the same people, with maybe the exception of Steve Gutenberg, with so many of the cast and the creatives coming back together must have been like a family for some
of these folks. The first Police Academy I think would be better remembered if we didn't get to mission to Moscow, or if we didn't get to ten or whatever they got to. I think sometimes and do you see less movie comedy sequels get to these big numbers. Pink Panther did. And I think that's in part because the when you get to the second airplane, it's literally the same jokes, and it holds up because the jokes are funny, and the cast is there and Shatner is beeping and blinking.
But you could only go so far before the element of surprise in a comedy is just completely gone. Mark.
I look forward to your next book or books, since you are always writing. I now need to go back and check out some of these other James Bond books that I've missed, so I will be downloading those via Kindle or buying a paperback from my local independent bookstore. So is there a good place for people to keep up with you in your work online?
I'm on the Twitter or x under Mark Edlins. These books take me a long time to write. I do them by myself, and I'm very grateful if anybody has the opportunity to check them out and read them. I don't take it for granted, and so I thank you and anyone who has gotten this far to listen and I hope to check it out.
Mark, thank you again, and I look forward to talking to you next time.
My pleasure and thank you do. That's that.
Then, about that boat that bo