Hello and welcome to Development Purgatory!
This is the podcast all about the movies that were never made, the scripts that were never
written, and the ideas that never even made it to the page.
My name is Daniel Kawka, and I'm Lexcee Riley.
Every episode, the room is just going to get darker and darker until we are podcasting
in pure darkness.
No!
Oh, okay.
No, no.
It's become a visual medium.
It's true.
No, we started off in pure darkness and then we've hit the light and then we turned it
down a little.
Yeah, we're just every episode, we dial it in a wee bit more.
Anyway, let's start off with who is your favorite Tom Selic character?
Richard!
Richard from France.
Right, the baby's probably don't know.
Did you know that Tom Selic and Henry Selic are not related at all?
And we are actually talking about the unrelated Henry Selic.
This is how you do it to me in this episode.
Talk to me all about Tom Selic and his summer shorts and his Magnum PI.
For no reason!
All for the swelopsy doodle.
Rude, it's weird as to what it is.
But we are talking about Henry Selic.
We're going to be talking about the movies that he almost made that he didn't make and
kind of his career in general because his career is quite a doozy and it is a lot of fun.
I like this.
It's cool to have a script that wasn't made, but there are so many movies and creators that
have more than one in the bucket that didn't happen and so I think it's fun to have a little
bit different trajectory of an episode.
Yeah.
I'm here for it.
Now I have told you what Henry Selic has made throughout his career and I just want to
ask you what is your favorite?
Coraline.
Coraline is your favorite.
She's a palimine.
Talk about Coraline.
I actually had seen all of my assignments which was a first and I was exciting to
kind of revisit these things because it was monkey bone, Coraline, nightmare before Christmas
and Wendell and Wilde.
And my favorite, James and the Giant Peach.
And James and the Giant Peach.
James and the Giant Peach was the first one I re-watched and it didn't.
I got a little bored.
I love that movie.
I just don't know if I've aged out of the wonder or I don't know.
I think it has to do with there was a mix of the live action and a mix of the stop
motion and trying to find the balance between the two.
The answer is great.
And we will dive more into that story when we get to the section of James and the Giant
Peach.
But before we do that, we are going to get into the peaches of these advertisements.
And we're back.
Probably all those peaches were yummy.
I will say every time I watch that movie I do want peaches.
That should have been an advertisement for peaches.
Even as a child I was like, they taste so great.
For something that you definitely know is inedible, they make it look delicious on screen.
Yeah.
And like the peach, slushy thing and like the icy cold mug.
Mm-hmm.
So good.
Actually I do want to ask you, what do you know about Henry Selik?
How old do you think he is?
I'm kidding.
I cheated a little bit.
I cheated a wee bit.
Okay.
He's 73.
I didn't even know that answer.
I'm sorry.
As you pulled that off.
I cheated a little bit because when I was watching Monkey Bone last night, I was like, God,
this movie is so dated.
But I was thinking about the fact that like we've gotten older and like we're in a prime
of our career and I was like, oh, wait, if this man was making these in the 90s and then
Wendell and Wilde is 2022.
I worked on it a little bit.
That's the only reason I know.
I just was like, wait, how old is this man?
If he is still talking about like projects he wants to do, so 73.
That's the answer.
He's a spry 73 years old.
Mm-hmm.
He's in the prime of life.
Let's really dive into who Henry Selik is.
Henry Selik is one of the greatest filmmakers.
Most people don't know by name.
He's best known for Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Coraline.
All properties are better associated and credited to the original creators.
He was born in November 30th, 1952, to Charles, Henry Selik, June.
73 years ago.
Yep.
Growing up in New Jersey, young Henry's fascination with stop-motion grew from watching Lutty,
Roenigers, the Adventures of Prince Ockman and any film featuring the animation of Ray
Harryhausen.
Do you know who Ray Harryhausen is?
I don't.
Do you know Clash of the Titans?
I don't.
Jason the Argonauts.
I don't.
You probably...
He is the guy who is behind like a lot of the famous like stop-motion in like those old
sword and sandals movies.
Okay.
Whenever you see the people like sword fighting skeletons.
Yeah.
That's Ray Harryhausen.
Cool, huh?
Yeah.
Always go to the skeletons.
Yes, he studied the science for a year at Rutgers University and switching to an
art major at Syracuse and studied at the Central St. Martin's College of Art and Design.
But what really changed the trajectory of his career is when he enrolled in Cal Arts as
one of the first students to partake in Disney's new character animation program.
Do you know about this?
About Cal Arts?
The Cal Arts Animation Program.
No, not in depth.
So this was an animation program that Disney had just started because it was a way for
them to kind of train a lot of their animators to...
What year is this?
Like he's a teen?
I think he's a college age chap.
This would have been around the 70s.
Okay.
Yeah, Disney had put together this program to kind of help with their animation department.
Instead of just getting animators and not really knowing how they're trained, they're like,
we can control how these artists can animate and do it in a Disney style.
And they actually brought in a lot of the old Disney animators to teach these younger folk
how to animate for Disney.
Aww, back when creativity really mattered.
So Henry Selik was one of those first people.
Amongst those in his peers, there was Jerry Rees.
He directed the brief little toaster.
There's Tim Burton.
We all know of Batman fame.
There's Brad Bird.
Help me.
The Incredibles.
Edna Mode.
Oh.
Well, he directed the whole movie by...
Yeah, I'm on board.
But he also did the Arnjoyant, Raditouille.
I love the Arnjoyant.
John Lasseter.
Toy Story.
Yes.
Michael Guillermo.
He was the art director of Polkhanus in Frozen.
Yeah, I knew that one.
Yeah.
Gary Truesdale.
He directed Beauty and the Beast in "Hunter Back of Notre Dame" in "Lantis."
Hell yeah.
Yeah, so like...
What class?
Within that room.
In that classroom, created the Disney Renaissance without even realizing it.
Yeah.
He was trying to think of cool kids from our class.
No one's listening.
And I'm looking at him.
We did it.
We're...
We're doing it.
Cool.
That's the class that Henry Selik comes from.
Could you imagine like the other kids in that class?
Yeah.
That's a lot of pressure.
So much pressure.
So after graduating, Selik then worked as an animator for hire, getting to start as a
in-betweener for Pete's dragon and the small one, he continued to work as an uncredited
animator for the fox in the hound, Winnie the Pooh and the day of Eor.
Tigger too.
I'm sorry.
There's Mickey's Christmas Carol, the black culldron, the great and the great mouse detective.
Oh!
There's not enough love.
I'm sorry.
I'm gonna get on a teeny tiny mouse-sized soapbox, but there is.
I forgot we are talking a lot about Disney.
I feel like we don't talk about mouse detective enough.
Mouse detective scared the butt Jesus out of me as a child.
It's so good and it totaled up.
Mm-hmm.
He was a storyboard artist for the very first tron that's one that came out in 1982.
Never seen it.
Return to Oz.
That's the creepy one, right?
Yeah, it's the really creepy one with like the rollerbladers with like hand stills.
Yeah, no thanks.
The stuff nightmares are made of.
The last credited thing that he animated for he was a in-betweener for who framed Roger
Rabbit.
Hey.
Yeah.
What a trajectory.
Yeah.
So outside of Disney, Henry would work on his own projects and begin directing.
While he was at Kellart's, he created two shorts.
There was phases and tube tails.
He later created his own short, C-Pige in 1982.
He directed a lot of stop-motion commercials for Rich Crackers in Pillsbury.
He animated a six-minute short for MTV called Slow Bob and the Lower Dimensions along with
a handful of the logo animations.
I don't know if you remember like between like music videos.
MTV would have like those claymation logos that would pop up like that was done by Henry
Selik.
I had thought about that recently because I watched a what a nerd as I say this out loud.
I watched a making of the new Apple TV logo.
Mm-hmm.
Like, oh yeah, yeah.
It's all practical.
Yeah, it's really cool.
It got me thinking about like practical logos of the past.
New Apple TV logo, if you've seen it, hunt the percent practical and I just am fascinated.
Apple sponsors us.
So.
So Selik would finally get his big break when he was asked by an old friend from Kellart's
to direct a little film about Christmas.
Nightmare Before Christmas.
That was actually based on a three-page poem Tim Burton had written while he was employed
at Disney Feature Animation.
The poem was inspired by Ranking and Bass Christmas Specials, How the Grinchdale Christmas, and the
poem A Visit From Saint Nicholas, which is better known as, "Twas Night Before Christmas."
Cool.
The intent was to adapt the poem into a TV special narrated by Vincent Price because
it's Tim Burton.
Yeah.
Tim Burton just wants Vincent Price and everything he does.
We all want Vincent Price and everything.
Mm-hmm.
If the TV special didn't work, they were thinking of making it into possibly a children's book.
With Vincent Price.
With Vincent Price, always.
After the success of Tim Burton's first short film, Vincent in 1982, Disney gave the green
light to develop the poem into a 30-minute holiday TV special.
In collaboration with Rick Henrich, they created Storyboards, Concept Art, and Sculpted Character
Models.
Henry Selic was shown their work in the progress while developing the special as the production
grew.
Disney got cold feet about the project stating that it might be too weird for the company.
Actually, if you ever look at the, like, I know Disney has, like, now owned it, but you
can even see it when Nightmare first came out.
They don't have the Disney logo at the very moment.
They don't.
Which is kind of like their distribution company that they put out to make it seem like...
You're going to feel out the waters with this logo.
Yeah.
If it doesn't feel like Disney, they're just like, "Touch snow and it goes."
Honestly, though, who cares?
Like, I'm all for, like, throwing a creative chance out there.
Yeah.
And look at it now.
Yep.
They changed one of their theme park rides for it every year.
So they shut down the production in Tim Burton.
The only problem is that Disney owned the rides to Nightmare before Christmas.
So it turns out Tim Burton, getting fired from Disney, was the best thing to ever happen
to his career.
After escaping the mouse, he made a deal with the rabbit at W.B. to direct a peewee-speak
adventure, Beeljuice and Batman.
Burton's success caught the attention of Walt Disney's studio chairman and this podcast
reoccurring character, Jeffrey Katzenberg.
They dug through the archives and found Nightmare before Christmas and they figured they
could have resurrected and hopefully cash in on some of that Burton's success that W.B.
was getting.
They also justified the project thinking that it could show off Disney's animation abilities.
What they did with Hoofram Roger Rabbit.
Walt Disney had a Tim Burton project lined up.
They unfortunately did not get the man himself because he was committed to W.B. to direct
Batman returns and Ed Wood.
Also Burton didn't want to commit himself through the painstakingly slow process of stop
motion.
Yeah.
There's a level of patience that comes to stop motion that I just, I was not born with.
Yeah.
You have to think very differently.
I don't even fully understand how they do that.
I get it and I think it's fascinating and it's one of those art forms that I hope never
dies out because it is truly an art form.
There's a museum in New York, which I'm forgetting which one it was now, but they had the
stop motion Pinocchio exhibit when we were there.
They had created like the frame by frame so you could see it.
It was so cool.
It made me want to watch the movie.
Burton was there during much of the pre-production.
He helped adapt to Paul and Burton approach then Beetlejuice writer Michael McDowell who
convinced him that this should be a musical in which Tim knew just who to call Danny
Hoffman.
No.
Oingo Boingo.
My brain was stuck on a Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Joe and I was like what?
Did you say Oingo Boingo?
Yeah.
Danny Hoffman used to be the lead singer of Oingo Boingo.
Well, I learned something new today.
Yeah.
I thought that was just common knowledge.
I guess not.
I think he won the song.
Oh, you knew the band but not a song?
Who does Dead Man's Party?
That's not Oingo Boingo.
Oh, yeah.
That's him.
It is?
Featured on the Gong Show.
Long time ago.
I really like Dead Man's Party.
It's a Halloween song, but I listened to it here around.
So yeah.
He called up Danny Hoffman to help with the writing the songs.
The two collaborated to create a rough story outline and wrote most of the songs.
Caroline Thompson, who wrote Edward Sizzarhands.
She was actually dating Danny Hoffman at the time.
She got a hold of the material and put everything into proper script format and she actually
fleshed out Sally's character.
Bless her.
Mm-hmm.
Like I mentioned before, Burton didn't have the time to direct Nightmare, but from the
sounds of it, he didn't really seem interested in doing the production and that's when he
brought in his buddy from Cal Arts Henry Selik to direct the film and he trusted him to
do the stop-motion animation style that very few people in the world knew how to accomplish.
After Selik was hired Peter Schneider, who is the head of Disney Animation, told him that
it's a gift to Tim Burton.
We don't really care whether or not the succeeds or not.
It's just a way to have him to come back to the studio.
Which is kind of an odd thing that Selik knew, but in a way it also kind of like relieved
a lot of pressure from him.
He's like, it doesn't have to be like a big movie, so if it flops.
We just want you to make something creative and have fun with it.
Is kind of a blessing in a curse?
But mostly they just wanted Tim Burton back.
I don't want to dwell too much on Nightmare just because there's a lot of material on the
subject, but we do need to know that Selik was the one that they're on set every single
day directing the movie.
Tim Burton, according to Selik, visited the set a total of maybe ten times.
Disney decided to title the film Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, about three
weeks before the film premiered.
My whole life I was always like, oh, it was directed and written like it was a Tim Burton
classic.
That's how they sold it.
Like they did really well with the marketing to be like this is a Tim Burton property.
From the imagination of Tim Burton comes The Nightmare Before Christmas.
And that is it.
No one else did this.
Well because that comes with a very certain aesthetic, and I feel like if they were like,
a top nope every time I had a Henry Selik film, people would be like, what?
And now whenever Henry Selik does any stop motion films, everyone looks at it and they're
like, oh, it's a Tim Burton film.
Yeah, I always thought when it first came out, I was like, oh, a Coraline's Tim Burton.
Yeah.
And kind of anything that's like through Leica now, like you look at that and you just
kind of assume like, oh, box trolls, that's Tim Burton, right?
Oh, I feel bad.
Yeah.
Whoopsie do it all.
Although this took the attention away from Selik's hard work, he ultimately understood why Disney
attached Burton's name to the title.
Surely everyone will know the name.
Henry Selik in the next film that he directs.
So after the success of Nightmare, Selik was asked to direct an adaptation of role dolls
James of the Giant Peach.
The idea of making the book into a film has been around since around the 80s and it was
pitched by Joe Rampft.
Joe was another alumni of the Disney character animation at Kell Arts.
He was, he was an animator for Disney and was one of the founding members of Pixar.
You may better know him as Hemlich, the catapillar.
Oh, and a Bruce Lee.
I'm a beautiful little butterfly.
I am a cute little Bamberbe.
You're right, come.
He's Weezy, the penguin in Toy Story 2.
Oh, oh yeah.
Mr. Shag looked in the toy box and found me an extra speaker.
Why, you're 12.
And he's a juck, the shrimp in Finding Nemo.
Clean the tank.
Well, he is clean.
At first he pitched the film to Disney animation, but it refused because the material was too
weird.
James in the Giant Peach was too weird after they just did...
Too weird.
And the logistics of animating the adaptation was going to be very expensive.
Yeah, that's fair.
When Pixar was going through their ideas of what their first film should be, Joe was
the one who pitched James in the Giant Peach before they decided on Toy Story.
Joe did, yeah.
Joe did share his love for the book with Selic.
And even though he liked the book, he understood the difficulties it would take to adapt the
novel.
Another obstacle was obtaining the rights for the book.
While he was alive, Roldall did not like most of the adaptations of his work, especially
Willy Wonka in the Chalk of Factory with Gene Walder.
Oh!
Part of it had to do...
I know why.
Do you know why?
It veers from the book.
It's not just that.
Like a lot.
So Roldall, when he was writing a lot of his novels, he was being asked to adapt a lot
of his stories for movies.
And he was actually asked to write the screenplay for...
And then Gene Walder was just like, "I'm not fun with it!"
No, it wasn't that.
It was a lot of the like executives who were just like, "We need to do a rewrite on
this."
And they got like an unknown writer, like the very first time that he did anything he didn't
know.
But the executives like kept them separate.
So...
Oh, sneaky.
So this guy was like rewriting Willy Wonka behind Roldall's back.
And then they used the rewritten script and said for the final production.
I have so many feelings on that because I really do love that movie.
But I remember when the reboot came out, everyone was like, "This is not the classic we
love."
No, probably because it was drawing up from the original book.
Yeah, it was actually much closer to the book.
It's understandable.
I wish that there was a way in the industry where it's like, "Hey, this idea is good.
I'm going to take a hard left and make it my own and be like, it was inspired by."
Like let's find a way to give everybody credit.
Yeah, which we'll see in a later.
No!
Selfic project.
Look at the accident on Segway.
Now the only adaptation that he truly liked, Roldall, was the 1989 straight to video animation
feature of the BFG.
Animated feature of the...
You have never seen this before.
No!
Barely anyone has ever seen this.
It's big, friendly giant.
Big, friendly giant.
Because that's never what I think it is.
No.
No, wait, I have seen this.
Not in like a repeated way, but there's some memory recall happening.
Yeah, it's definitely like on the bookshelves of...
Libraries across America.
That are just like cash in it on just like it being Roldall.
But yeah, it was just straight to the video.
But apparently it was very faithful to the story.
And that's the only reason why he liked it so much.
Good for them.
Now, after Roldall's death in 1990, his was...
I don't know, it was like when was it?
This is Oiphlicity.
She ran the estate and was left in charge of Dull's intellectual property.
And in 1992, she offered the rights to James and the Giant Peach.
And he got the attention of Steven Spielberg, Danny DeVito, and Disney.
We know that Danny DeVito goes on to do Matilda.
He does?
Yes.
Again, wonderful movie.
I don't know how close it is.
I've never actually read Matilda.
And then obviously, Celic goes on to do James and the Giant Peach.
Did Spielberg ever actually touch Roldall?
The BFG.
Oh, that CGI one was Spielberg?
That was Spielberg, yeah.
That was around the time that he did the Adventures of Tintin.
There's like a pocket of Spielberg that I missed out on.
I'm the JAWS-ETI, I guess, action movie.
Like I skipped our era of Spielberg.
I went from the classics to the modern day.
But yeah, that was around the time where everyone was kind of messing around with like
CG animation, exclusively.
And so Disney first hired Brian Rosen, who had actually finished-
Also, "Winds of Cal Arts"?
No, but he finished producing a little non-movie called "Ferngully."
[GASP]
Oh, "Ferngully" is like, might be my favorite animated movie of all.
Like above-tangled.
I love "Ferngully."
My name is Bette.
You know what's funny?
I hate for like, "You see?"
I love that that's in your notes.
I will say that around the house, randomly-
Unapologetically.
Oh, never gonna apologize.
Personally, my favorite Robin Williams role.
My name is Bette.
[MUSIC]
We're talking about James and the Giant.
Ferngully.
James and the Giant Beat.
To write the first draft was Dennis Porter, which Disney did not approve,
especially the part where the sharks were Nazis.
I'm sorry.
What was that?
The sharks were Nazis, you know, the usual.
There's Carrie Karpatsrick, the writer for "The Rusk of his Down Under"
and Bruce Droll wrote "Ghost" and "Jacob's Ladder."
They were hired to write separate drafts in which Karpatsrick's draft was chosen.
In the draft, he did some liberties to the adaptation from the book.
And James Aunts were not killed by the Rolling Peach, and they show up at the end of the film.
He removed the silkworm character and instead it used Mrs. Spider's webbing to capture the
seagulls.
And then to write the music for the film, Selik suggested Elvis Costello.
But Disney thought it would be too weird.
Everything's too weird for Disney.
So they went with a safer suggestion.
Did the most prolific composer for Disney, Randy Newman?
Randy Newman does James in the giant peach.
I pay attention to credits.
I watch them all the way through when I see a movie.
My brain does not lock away certain things.
Do you know what film he just finished with Disney?
Toy Story?
He did finish Toy Story with them just before going on to James in the giant peach.
What a ride.
Yeah.
Selik didn't want him for that exact reason.
The lead singer of XTC, Andy Patrick.
He actually wrote four songs for the film.
They were titled "All I Dream of" as a friend.
Let us bug you, Stinking Rich Song, and everything will be alright.
None of them were used for the final film.
I was going to say I don't want to play any of those.
Yeah.
Before filming began, there was a debate if the film was going to be a live action or stop
motion.
Both.
What's your hands together?
Originally Selik wanted James to be live action while the characters around him would
be stop motion.
Ultimately, they settled on what we have today.
With the live action, frames the film, and there's about 40 minutes of just stop motion animation
for James in the giant peach.
I have no notes.
I like that movie.
Of all the Henry Selik films.
That was the one that I grew up on the most.
That's the one that I watched the most over the nightmare.
I mean, Corline's my favorite, but that obviously didn't come to later for us.
I definitely am a James in the giant peach over Nightmare before Christmas, which I know
is like, people love Nightmare before Christmas.
And I get it, but like spooky insects on a big peach, I'm there.
Yeah, it's great.
There was a third film that was planned under Skellington Productions.
The production company was made by Selik Ann Burton for Nightmare and Peach.
What did duo?
Also, did you notice that Jack Skellington is in James in the giant peach?
Yeah.
He's one of the Ghost Pirates.
There's the cinematic universe I want.
So there was going to be another book adaptation.
This one was called Twits in the Upside Down House by Carol Hughes.
Good old tip.
Tim Burton was going to produce Disney was again going to distribute the film.
Henry Selik was hired to direct the film under the production company Miramax, who actually
he had signed a three-picture deal with them.
And the script was going to be adapted and written by Steven Soderbergh.
Do you know who Steven Soderberg is?
Demummy?
No, Steven Summers.
So confident.
Soderbergh is the social network?
Nope, still Steven.
Just tell me who Steven Soderbergh is.
Oceans.
Thank you.
I didn't know.
Magic Mike.
Logan Lucky.
You had me at Oceans.
Oh, yeah.
Anyway, at the time he was known as the guy who wrote Sex Lies and a videotape.
He wrote for King of the Hill, the Underneath.
And there was his first independent movie, Skitsopolis.
So the book was published the same year as the film was originally going to be scheduled
to be released in 1996.
I don't know much about the film or how it would have differed from the book, but I
did find a short snopsys of the book on Goodreads.
On Toots?
On Toots.
Just so we get an idea of like what Toots is about.
Toots can't remember her mother and her father has never been able to forget.
Since her death, he spent more and more time immersed in his stamp collection and less and
less time with Toots.
It is one particularly lonely afternoon when Toots is practicing handstands that she first
sees a fairy walking across the living room ceiling before she knows what happens.
Toots finds herself reduced to the size of a mouse and is in an upside down world where
hardworking fairies protect the house against evil sprites and anxious goblins.
Oh my God, what a beautiful stop motion story.
Toots must battle with Good and evil, both outside and inside herself before finding
her way back to earth and renewing her love for her widowed father.
Which is like, this is like, oh widowed father, I hope we to photo.
This is like right up Henry Selik's alley, which is like, and Tim Burton.
And Tim Burton is like normal ordinary person or child goes into a fantasy world and they
have to like find their way back home.
And like the upside down of it is actually really fun.
Like an upside down these days.
This would have been a really good movie.
Yeah, it still would.
Well, we're on this train of like children's entertainment.
Yeah.
I do think we're kind of lacking like minecraft was for the whole family.
But I often think when I like see an animated movie, it doesn't have the same like feels
they like, I don't need the dirty joke.
But they used to feel for like they were for the whole family.
And now it feels like you're either seeing an adult movie or a kid movie.
And I'm like, bring back the end between us.
I mean, that's kind of the idea of, especially Disney and the Renaissance era, which I still
think they're kind of doing now whenever they bring in big name actors in there.
They'll oftentimes bring in an actor that older audiences will know and recognize.
So for example, you have something like cars where you have Paul Newman as one of the voice
actors in there.
Yeah.
He was the car.
So Paul Newman was only really interested in racing cars at that time.
When you say he was the car, he was lightning McQueen.
No, he was, he wasn't ketchup.
No, that was good.
Good job.
I was going to say that's, that's Marley and me, the Wilson.
Luke Wilson's brother.
Oh, Owen.
Yeah.
I flip up, flop him.
That was him.
Oh, the wizard and say police car.
Yeah.
Which Paul Newman at that time in his career, he was only interested in racing cars.
He didn't know I want to do acting anymore.
And when Pixar came up to him, be like, do you want to be in a movie?
He's like, no, it's like, but you're a car.
He's like, tell me more.
Just kidding, sign me out.
And that was the very last role he ever did.
God rest him.
I was like, I don't know how to, may he continue off into the sunset?
Down Route 66.
So ultimately this film, Tuts, was canceled before it began due to the underperformance of
James and the giant peach in the box office.
James and the giant peach didn't do well in the box office.
No.
I guess to be fair, I don't remember seeing it in theaters.
I wonder what their VHS sales were.
Probably much larger.
Through the roof.
Or even like something that we don't have really nowadays is like rental blockbuster.
Yeah, like, just say it.
But no, not just blockbuster, but like, there was like an afterlife for movies to continue
to make money.
And it was later on like, it wasn't just the box office, but it was video rentals and home
ownership as well.
And for a long time, it was like just video rentals.
I will say having worked with children, rentals are still a thing.
Yeah, it's not as big as what it used to be.
But that was another way for like studios to kind of be like, well, it didn't do that
well in the box office, but there is still kind of a second life.
So Selig did pitch the film to Fox and was discouraged to go on making the film because Fox did
ask him to title the film Tim Burton's Toots and the Upside Down House.
Selig fought backsting that Tim Burton wouldn't have anything to do with the production.
And fortunately, the film did not proceed.
He's now forever cursed to be like, I'm the guy who makes Tim Burton stuff.
Like it's not even his stuff anymore.
It's like, right.
That's hard when you are trying to be a creative person of your own identity.
Yeah.
Selig moved on to his next project.
And out of nowhere, Selig was sneakily given a copy of the comic book Dark Town.
It was written by Kaja Blackley and was illustrated by Vanessa Chong.
Only one issue was published out of the 12 issues that it was originally planned.
There's only one issue to this day.
Supposedly, a fan of the book.
I don't know how credible this is, but they said that this was Tom Bags Sachi.
He was from the chasing dragons production and a member of the San Francisco animation
community who gave the book to Henry Selig's producer Denise Rodna, who then passed it
on to Selig.
Kaja Blackley, who is the author of Dark Town, had no idea that this was happening.
And before he knew it, Selig was seeking the rights to adapt the book into a film.
Selig loved the book.
And even wrote to Kaja stating, "I'd never felt any project was closer to my sensibilities
than this one.
The original plan was to stay as faithful to the book as possible and keep its dark serious
tones.
But the film eventually devolved into the film Monkey Bone."
What?
And we're going to figure out that mystery after these advertised bins.
And we're back.
Selig took the story and pitched it to Fox Studios.
It was Greenlit under Bill Mechanic, who is the chief executive officer of Fox Film Entertainment.
Now it's very rare that I like bring up like who approved all this, but I kind of wanted
to go down Bill Mechanic's career almost.
This guy was essential to the 90s into the odds, into film entertainment.
Because the stuff that he Greenlit, while he was there, he did castaway Titanic.
X-Men, Mulan Rouge, Independence Day, Ice Age, Entrapment, Big Mama's House, My Norder Your
Port, What Lies Beneath, Never Minkiss.
There's something about Mary Braveheart.
Boys Don't Cry, Mrs. Doubtfire, Speed, True Lies, Die Hard with Evengeance, The Full Monty,
Dr. Doolittle, The X Files Me, Myself and Irene, The Thin Red Line, Ever After Romeo,
Plus Juliet, Fight Club, and Star Wars, The Phantom Menace.
And that's just a few of the movies that he--
You never heard of any of them.
Like he really shaped cinema at that time.
So he looked at Monkey Bone and was just like, yeah, we're going to do this.
He took a lot of big swings and for many of those movies, like they succeeded and became
what they--
The 90s was a peak time for cinema.
I know that everyone will die on the hill that the 70s and 80s was like, when movies were
great.
If you listened to that list, they are all over the map.
It's no wonder that we grew up and were like, I want to do the hats.
Yeah.
Look out there just about the movies that came out solely in 1999.
I feel like '97 through '99 was formative for a lot of us.
Yeah.
'Cause Titanic is '97, which was formative for many of us, on many different levels.
Throughout the development of the film, a lot of silly and ridiculous ideas started to overtake
much of the serious ideas.
There were serious ideas in Monkey Bone?
They were serious ideas in the book, but the silly ideas started to take over.
Uh-huh.
Now at first, it seemed like a lot of studio notes, meddling in the creative inputs.
And Monkey Bone is what year?
That is 2001.
So we're post the mummy.
Kind of.
I don't fully know and maybe we can speculate on where this is in the timeline, because I'll
explain.
But it is around the mummy.
It seemed like the studio was meddling in it, but it actually is quite the opposite.
And there was an interview that I found with the film's writer Sam Hamm, who was the writer
of the first 1989 Batman for Starlogue magazine.
And he reveals that a lot of the divergence actually came from Selik and himself.
Quote, "We bounced around for a long time about the fantasy world population.
I should look like.
Are they people who can't sleep?
Monsters?
We had an inspiration where there were retired TV commercial pitchmen like Speedy, Elke
Selzer and S.O.
Tiger."
That reminds me of eternity.
All the characters flowing around in pop culture, mythology, who had been discarded by
their sponsors.
Then we realized getting the rights would be a total nightmare.
So we settled for using mythological creatures who were hybrid parts, animal and human parts.
So there is one character who looks like actual real life Joe Campbell.
So it seemed like they were still kind of in there.
More from the Starlogue magazine interview, Monkey Bone was a brand new creation.
The guy in the comic book didn't have a sidekick, and our concept was Nightmare-Shet first,
because Henry and I thought it would be a great, suspenseful horror story.
But the more we discussed it to flesh out the plot, the more we cracked each other up.
We finally realized we should just go with the impulse and see what we could get out of
in terms of comedy.
Now in the book, the main character is Jacques de Bredrock, not Stu Miley, which is the
Brendan Fraser character.
He's Smiley.
Yes, Smiley.
Smiley, which is Brendan Fraser's character in the movie.
More from the interview, it was about a puppeteer in a coma who becomes one of his own puppets.
His wife is going to pull the plug on him after 12 hours, and the series premise was that
each issue represented one hour of his life.
It was all about the stuff he does in the fantasy and other world, where he finds himself
reincarnated as a puppet.
We were entranced by the idea and of a guy in a coma trying to fight his way back to consciousness,
so we started investigating the rights.
We found out that Kaja had loosely plotted some stuff out, but had never gotten around
to doing the rest of the story.
Henry and I took the central premise and constructed the story around it.
So there you go, that's the idea of you take the original idea and premise and then you
just kind of like, farts and make it your own.
Throw a monkey at it.
Essentially, yeah.
Yeah, because that sounds so different than monkey bone.
It is very different.
I think I like dark town better.
And if you look at the art for dark town, you're just like, it is nowhere near what monkey
bone is.
I actually can see the like color space.
Like that looks like the bartender, but it's very canrycelic.
Another one from because I just really love this article from Starlog.
So we debated a long time that the character should be a bird, a mythical animal, and at one
point we're calling him a schmoll, half shrew, half mull.
A schmoll?
Should have gone with the schmoll.
We just wanted some sort of cartoony animal sidekick.
It wound up being a monkey because monkeys lend themselves best to parody and human behavior.
And monkeys are funny.
It seems that Henry Selik was fulfilling his wish that he wanted with James and the Giant
Peach in which James would be the live action character.
And this is kind of his chance to make like his Roger Rabbit movie.
Before Brendan Frazier was cast Ben Stiller was actually considered for the role.
Wow.
Yeah.
It was reported that he couldn't film due to scheduling conflicts with mystery men, but
Selik has stated in a later interview that Ben Stiller actually has a team of writers that
look over the script ahead of time and Selik was fearful of his movie being completely changed
had he hired him.
Another alternate casting was Paul Rubens for the voice of monkey bone, P.W. Herman.
Yeah, no, I know.
I think that actually would have been really good.
In alternate universes of monkey bone, there's not really a bad combo.
And the reason why Paul Rubens wanted to do this is because he was originally asked to voice
Roger Rabbit.
Oh, yes sir.
But wouldn't he be more helpful if I started to get along with you?
Because what if maybe you got to get a dissimilar score lock or something?
Oh, okay.
And he turned it down because he didn't think it was going to be a good movie.
And because he regretted that he's like, oh, I want to do this.
Whoopsie, dude.
But Paul Rubens was not cast as monkey bone.
Instead they got this I did not expect.
John Tatturo.
Woo!
Hi, for a little singing, a little dancing.
And of course some of the biggest bashing of my very own creator, Mr. Stu, Pete Muppie.
Yeah, I did Google who it was.
I did at one point think that it was Paul Rubens.
And then I was just like, didn't know the name, but I knew the face.
Yeah, John Tatturo, I did not expect.
No, not at all.
But he does a really good job.
I know they like pitched up his voice for sure and post.
Maybe not.
Maybe he can throw his voice like that.
Oh, that's true.
He is an actor.
There is also talk about making a full-sized Silicon Stu Miley for when he goes into the underworld
and then he would be stopped, motion two, giving him a distinct look between him and
the real world and then another world.
Glad they didn't do that.
How would have been a nightmare?
They clearly couldn't let the idea go though because there is the like one scene where he gets
like deflated.
Yeah, but I can also understand the studio.
This is around the time where like Brenn Frazier is one of the hottest actors in Hollywood,
which means to hire him like you are paying his full salary.
But okay, hang on.
Let's do the timeline math here.
If this was 2001, the mummy didn't come out till 1999.
George of the jungle.
George of the jungle was much earlier.
97, 98, right?
George of the jungle is 97.
Okay, so 97 is so he did George of the jungle.
What about Encino, man?
Was 92.
I'm just thinking of like his big hits.
This would have been after the mummy and around mummy returns because mummy returns as 2001.
I bet he shot this first given how long the stop motion was gonna take.
Oh, and he did be dazzled as well.
When was bedazzled?
2000.
Depending on when he was contracted, the producer brain in me is like, wait, he might not have
been crazy expensive yet.
Depending on when he was contracted.
When he does this, it's definitely between the mummy and the mummy returns or like around
that time because there is a significant post-production, but there is also another factor
which I'll bring up in just a bit.
So the film, if you're unaware, it costs the studio $75 million to make, which I mean,
if you ever watched the movie, like all that money you can see on the screen, like the
production value for it and like the costumes, the sets.
Some of the stop motion, it just looks like really good smooth.
Like the bartender is so reminiscent of James and the giant peach and the artwork you
just showed me where I'm like, okay.
His face in particular is really well done.
Even the blending of like both Brendan Frazier interacting with monkey bone is so seamless
and so good.
It's such a disappointment that this movie just got like got buried because like that is
even though the story is lacking, where you see the craftsmanship and like the dedication,
like you can really tell that they put a lot of time and effort into that.
There is a very specific thing that always tips me off in like heavy VFX movies where you
are interacting with a creature because you can tell that like no one's actually touching
a face.
You know, they're the actors doing the movement and they did something really great where
when he does interact with monkey bone, the shadows are right.
Like you don't get that artificial, like there's depth to it.
I'm like, was someone in a green suit like smushing his face?
Like just the inner, like you're right, the interaction is so good.
And I think a lot of that has to do with him coming from doing Roger Rabbit because the original
idea of doing Roger Rabbit was like you have to like shoot everything on a tripod, everything
needs to be still.
Then you can animate and put things into it and Richard Williams when he came on to do
Roger Rabbit and he's like, why are we having everything so still?
Like these are characters who live in this real world.
Like we should have camera movements.
We should have them interacting with things and we're going to plan ahead of time to be
like, we're going to have things move.
Fix it in pre.
We're going to have things like move as if the characters bouncing around and then we're
going to fill in the spot where that character is supposed to be.
So I think Henry Selik is taking those lessons from Roger Rabbit and be like, we can do this
with stop motion.
I know how to do it.
I've done it before.
But yeah, it costs 75 million dollars to make.
Mel Bill Mechanic was the CEO of Fox Film Entertainment.
He was the only one who was like really protecting Selik from the studio notes and when he left
which was around the time that Monkey Bone was in post-production, that's when a lot of
the executives began to see the movie and were horrified by what Selik and Ham had made.
And actually Selik was fired from the movie and the producer Chris Columbus, you know,
Discover of America, director of Home Alone, he actually had to step in to try and finish
the film.
Columbus attempted to re-edit the film to make it more marketable, but it was just really
not much he could do.
In fact, they did a test screening of the film that Chris Columbus had put together and people
hated it even more.
Yeah, I mean, Chris Columbus is a very good director, but that is not his wheelhouse.
Like he needs to be in control from the beginning.
Yeah, jumping in on a project.
It's not going to host like wolf.
No, they just told them that you need to be the adult in the room.
And he's like, I don't know what you guys did and we're going to just try to put this
together.
So did they hire Henry back?
Yeah.
Oh, there we go.
Oh, I was so excited.
Selik was then back to put the film back together.
He has stated that there was another cut.
That was about 15 minutes longer than he said that would have made the film a bit better.
I guess released the director cut.
I'm always curious to watch like both.
I think that's a fun film discussion.
I know there's a few deleted scenes that are in there, but there's also an alternate ending
as well.
I didn't watch it till recently.
I didn't watch it as a kid and I think part of it had to do with like how the cover art
for it was and someone had described it and I think this is the perfect way to describe
is like, it looks like an SNL movie in a bad way.
It does not start off in the most family friendly.
No.
It's not for children.
No.
I think that's part of it.
It starts off with a child getting turned on by his teacher's arm flaps.
Oh, boy.
I think that's the highest raunchy point in the whole movie.
I actually wonder if they would have cut that.
I guess you need it to explain the story of what he does, but I'm like, maybe re-shoot
that opening and I actually think you could have pitched it as more of a family friendly
thing.
Yeah.
That opening hard-know-them.
I think the opening is kind of there is like, this is going to be raunchy or
humor.
We might as well put that all up front to be like, well, this is what we're going to expect
for the rest of the movie.
But if you are an audience member that sets the bar and you assume, because of what we're
told our story structure works, the bar will only go up.
And I just don't know that it starts out on such a high that I'm like, hey, maybe we
take it down a step because I think the worlds are really fun and it's very creative, but
that beginning does stick in my head in like a like, it key way.
Yeah, I can see that.
I will say that because of the poster for the movie, they have Chris Kitan on there as
like one half.
And it seems like the movie is going to be like about Chris Kitan.
And no, he doesn't show up till the third act.
And it's not even till like the later part of the third act.
And he is brilliant.
I think they use him like the appropriate amount.
I bet they put him on there because this was really his peak.
It was like Korka Romano had just come out and let's talk about monkey bone in theaters.
When the film released, it flopped hard.
It was released February 23rd, 2001 and made seven and a half million dollars in the box
office.
Remember how much?
75 million.
About a tenth of the budget.
Yeah.
Ouch.
I will say that part of the blame might be the studio, debating on when to release it.
At first, they were going to put the movie in theaters during a major holiday.
They were thinking like Halloween or Fourth of July.
But instead, they threw it out in February as a way just like get it out there and decided
that it was going to be released about a month before it happened.
Right.
So your marketing is basically non-existent?
No, the cast didn't even get a chance to do any interviews to promote the film.
2001 is still early internet days.
The marketing and the promotions that we have now is just so much more.
We just didn't do that then.
She says sounding 100.
And we still do this now where actors go on to talk shows and they promote and talk about
the movies that they're going to do.
If you look up the promotions or any interviews with the cast of monkey bone talking about monkey
bone, it is non-existent because it never happened.
Whenever a studio doesn't seem to really believe in a movie or film, they'll just toss it
out in January of February.
That's the continuous joke, right?
Is that like if you have a January slot, it hurts.
If you have a February slot and you're not a romantic movie, it hurts.
In an interview on the YouTube channel, a double toasted, Selic reflected on the results
of the film.
I have a few feelings.
I don't think it would ever have been a big hit as it was.
They dumped the film with no publicity, not a single ad because they just said, "Well,
it's a failure.
We don't want to help it in any which way."
And so the funniest thing of all though, we did get rave reviews in the New York Times
in the LA Times.
The best, they said, "Best comedy of the year."
Like crazy good.
And then we got like entertainment weekly.
We got very good.
But then for a lot of other critics, they're angry about this film.
It was upsetting to them.
It made them mad.
So I've two thoughts that it would never have been a big hit.
It certainly would have done better if they'd advertise a little or if they took those,
you know how, if you have a really good review, you take those reviews, you post them in a
thing.
But I, okay, so it would have been more successful but never a big hit if they'd actually promoted
it.
How do you advertise for this movie though?
I mean, there are trailers out there for it, but like the fact that they didn't really
put it out there and they didn't really know who to market it to.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
I think it's a fun movie.
I don't know how I would have pitched it for marketing.
There is an IMDB fun fact that I don't think it is true, but it seems to be a fun fact.
It seems plausible.
It was that they put trailers for the Monkey Bone movie on Cartoon Network.
There were a lot of complaints from parents saying that this is inappropriate for children.
And so they started putting the trailer for the film at night and this ultimately led to
adult swim.
No.
I don't think it's true.
I think part of it sounds true.
It does seem true.
The leading to adult swim.
I don't know if it really is.
I can see people complaining about it be like this is inappropriate for children because if
you've seen the movie, yeah, a lot of it is inappropriate for children.
That's the thing.
It's not like deeply branchy enough to be like, this is an adult comedy.
It does not pick a lane, unfortunately.
No, it's not a family-friendly film.
It's a very raunchy, kind of in the tune of like South Park, which was big at the time.
But yeah, you talk about if they just advertise it a little.
He says quote,
"Still would like to do a director's cut because there's a lot of cool stuff that was removed."
My main lesson learned is, I don't really do well in the live action universe.
I love my world of stop-motion the animators.
The crew there, I like working with actors for the voices.
And that's really my strength.
So I went down a slippery slope to make monkey bone.
The film that came out is not my vision of what the film could have been.
And I just don't, I don't thrive in that world.
So it's kind of a lose for everyone where he is not in his wheelhouse for one.
He tried the best that he could given the resources that he had.
And the moments where you see him thriving the most is a live action interaction between
Brendan Frazier and Monkey Bone, where Monkey Bone is stop-motion.
You see it in the underworld, which is just called downtown in the movie.
But this underground world where everything is creepy and weird and amazing.
You're comical cocktail.
And just like the world just looks incredible.
It kind of resembles Halloween town from Nightmare Before Christmas in a way.
It does. His vision kind of reminds me of like an era of Picasso where it's such an intricate
and specific vision.
It's not going to work in every format.
I kind of applaud him though for going, I tried this thing and I learned it didn't work.
I mean, that's the beauty of movie making is not everyone is going to be fantastic.
But the reason that the highs feel higher because we learn why not to do.
Yeah.
Plenty of people adore Monkey Bone.
And after Monkey Bone was released around this time, Neil Gaiman was finishing his novella
core line.
Yeah.
And he gave an early copy to Selik.
Gaiman was a huge fan of Nightmare Before Christmas and was hoping Selik could adapt the
book into a movie.
After reading the book, Selik concluded that the straight adaptation would create a maybe
47 minute movie and he thought the story needed to be fleshed out.
Selik brought the idea to build Mechanic who actually was no longer working at Fox and
was actually just a free agent now.
Mechanic, he liked the idea and tells Selik to write the script.
Selik goes back to Gaiman thinking that Gaiman would actually write the adaptation just
because that's how he's done so in the past.
And Gaiman actually trusted Selik so much and told him to go ahead and just make the adaptation
himself and just expand whatever he needed to do to make it a full length feature.
Selik's major addition was the character YB.
YB, YB over.
YB?
Sure for Y-born.
Not my idea, of course.
Who in the novel is only mentioned as the boy who lived in the house before Caroline.
Whoa.
YB is like one of my favorite parts.
So, and that's all because of Selik.
See when he's in his lay me crushes him.
Mm-hmm.
He was primarily added so that Caroline had someone to talk to.
To help with the concept art, Selik hired a Japanese illustrator, Tata Hiro Yusuki.
At first he was there to design the characters but Selik liked his work so much he kept him
on to visually design the film.
In an interview with Animation World Network Yusagi talks about his time working with Selik,
quote, "I was told which images in the book I was going to translate into the movie, except
for that everything was basically up to me.
Henry's only instruction was design with your own ideas.
But we would like to see something we've never seen before."
Yeah, Caroline.
Yeah.
As the film was developing under Bill Mechanics approval, Bill actually had a contract with
Disney that didn't allow him to develop an animated movie.
So they had to pretend like this was going to be a live action adaptation and it was
rumored that Michelle Fyfer was cast as the mother and because of this clause, this put
the film into development hell.
If this was 2001 and we don't get Caroline to like, 2012?
I think 2009.
Yep, 2009.
So while Caroline was in limbo, Wes Anderson approached Selik to help him animate the fish
in the life aquatic with Steve Sizu.
Specifically, the Jackwater Shark.
It is beautiful Steve.
Yeah, it's pretty good.
Yeah.
I wonder if it remembers me.
After that, Wes Anderson asked Selik if he would be able to direct a film that he had been
developing.
Another role, doll adaptation.
Fantastic, Mr. Fox.
I really remember liking.
But you know when they released the like behind the scenes footage, all I ever think of
is seeing George Clooney eating the toast really fast.
So Selik agreed to work on the film, but he didn't want to be the director and ended up
being the animation director.
While in the middle of filming, Selik got word that Coraline got the green light and he had
to leave the production in February 2006.
To replace him was Mark Gustafon, who prior to did the stop motion animation for a clay
mission Christmas celebration, meet the raisins and the PJs.
He would later go down the road to co-direct Guillermo Dottoros Pinocchio.
Mark Gustafon was an animator that worked regularly with Will Viten Studios.
They were a stop motion animation studio hired to do animations for anyone who needed it,
like the animation sequences and returned to Oz, Captain Eo, Michael Jackson's speed demon
music video, the California raisins, Domino's pizza, the Noid, the M&M's commercial.
Their only theatrical film that they produce was 1985, which was the adventures of Mark Twain.
In the around the 90s, the studio received less work and started to run out of money.
And that's when Phil Knight, who is the CEO of Nike, stepped in as an investor and saved
the company.
He was personally invested because his son, Travis Knight, was actually an animator at that
studio.
Now, in 2002, Phil Knight fully acquired the company.
To help save the company, he pushed for feature-length films to be produced.
Their first IP they bought the rights for was The Book, The Wall in the Wing by Laura
Rudy, and they were plans to make it into a CGI movie.
To direct, they wanted Henry Selik.
Also lined up was the Tim Burton Warner Bros. feature, Corpse Bride.
And another one was Henry Selik's Coraline.
Yeah.
And it was around 2005 that Fightin Studios changed their name to Leica Entertainment.
It wasn't reported what happened to The Wall in the Wing, but Selik was given the green
light to start the production on Coraline.
Because it was now pushing to use CGI, there was an initial plan to make Coraline in CG.
Selik explained what was going to happen to the L.A. Times.
The world Coraline lives in is rendered in CG, and the magic world she escapes to will be
handmade and done in stop motion.
They did a screen test with the CG footage, and it did not look good, so they made the
call to make the whole film in stop motion.
But they still wanted to make a difference between the real world and the magic world somehow.
It's kind of subtle and hard to notice, but once you know it, you can't really unsee
it.
In real world, they built the sets with force perspective, meaning that they built the sets
at an angle, so they seemed like they would be flatter.
But in the magic world, they built the set as a full set, making the worlds feel more spacious.
And there's that one moment where you can really see where she goes down the tunnel thing,
and then the tunnel stretches out.
So that is your kind of indication.
The rules are different here.
The worlds are different.
The world is different even though it looks similar, and you can actually look up the set
pieces online.
You can actually look up the kitchen, the differences between the kitchen.
Maybe we'll put this onto the social media as well.
So you can actually see in the kitchen the force perspective one where it's like really
flat, and then you see the kitchen in the other world, the button world.
But you can see that world, that kitchen is like fully built.
Yeah.
I've always felt the difference and couldn't figure out why, and that makes sense.
And now that you know when you rewatch that movie, you killed the magic.
You can't unsee it.
I mean, it doesn't really kill the magic.
Like, no knowing that.
It's interesting to see how they did it, and you're just wondering, that's why I feel this
way.
That's why I feel like kind of claustrophobic in the real world.
Yeah.
I like when movies do that, when they play with perspective or color.
If you're using an element of filmmaking to tell the story, I think that always enriches
the story more.
Yeah.
Now, this movie was technically advanced, and this is just like me nerding about cameras
and whatnot.
This was the first film to ever be shot with the intention of it being released in real
3D.
Now some films before that, they were re-edited in post, but this film was actually photographed
with the intent that it was going to be in 3D.
Now, typically when you shoot in 3D, known as stereoscope, meaning that you have two cameras
actually shooting side by side representing your eyes.
The issues that you can run into is that even though those lenses can be the exact same
match, there are minor imperfections that can make the picture slightly off.
When they're put together in the final 3D effect, you may not see it, but sometimes you
can feel it.
That's why a lot of people, whenever they watch 3D movies, they feel like, yeah, "quizy."
So it's those minor imperfections in the lens that causes that.
Even though you can't sense it, but you can feel that it's all off.
Oh, yeah.
No, it gives me the same feeling of being on a boat or getting motion sick in the car.
It's just your equilibrium is off balance.
In the case of Corline, they did not shoot stereoscopy in the traditional way.
Instead they used one camera that would capture one frame, and then they would glide the camera
horizontally on the rig to get the second angle from the same camera.
Holy shit, how long did that take?
So every time that they set up the frame, they're like one picture, move the camera, second
picture, and there you go.
Oh my God, stop motion is so long process to begin with.
No wonder Corline's so beautiful.
They also were not limited to having two camera side by side.
They can actually measure the exact distance that better matches the distance, not between
human eyes, but actually the puppet's eyes.
See, I love when deep thought is put into a movie.
When some films are shot in 3D, these cameras can only get so close together.
And in some cases, they can get them even closer using a mirror system to achieve that, which
causes another factor of issues that can cause those imperfections.
My body go, bleh.
So that's why I think Corline is one of the most perfect 3D films ever made because it
had that intention in mind.
So that when you're watching it in 3D, you're not watching it as a human looking at miniatures,
you're watching it as if you were a puppet watching other puppets, which is really cool.
The cool thing about that Dan's camera fun back is that I obviously knew that every lens
is different and it dust or hair on the lens can kind of like, but that means that every
time you're shooting a story, depending on the lens, that adds to the uniqueness of a story,
not just focal length and all of that, but the actual physical piece.
If you're shooting on a lens that's really old, I sort of always thought about that, but
in this case, it becomes the story itself too.
So cool that they went through that process.
So Corline, that was a critical success, nominated for over 30 awards in winning 10, most notably
the Annie Awards for Best Music, Best Character Design and Best Production Design.
In the box office, Paul DeGarabitian, who is a film business analysis, compared the films
opening numbers to another successful stop-motion film, Wallace and Gromit, the Curse of the
Wear Rabbit.
Oh, I thought you were going to save my Mervo for a Curse.
Which it took in $16 million.
Corline was just able to surpass that with $16.85 million.
And what was the budget for Corline?
$16 million, actually.
$60?
$60.
And the second week in it took in another $15 million.
What the film did prove with that Leica was a studio that could make great movies.
Over time, the film did make back its money threefold through re-releases and its highest
grossing film for fathom events.
Heck yeah.
Corline did become kind of a cult classic.
It did.
But the thing you probably wonder in the most did Leica, who is owned by Nike, was their shoe
made for the movie?
And the answer is yes.
Wait, what?
And Nike makes shoes to tie in with all of their movies.
What?
And here's where our nerd brains combine.
Look at that.
That is the Corline Nike shoe.
Looks like a YB shoe, but sure.
Mm-hmm.
It's got the cat.
Oh.
Mouse?
Those are from the surface?
Fun.
Right?
That is the epitome of Selic style.
Mm-hmm.
Like you see the leasing in Nightmare, you see it in James and the Diamond Peach, you see
it in Corline and you see it in Wendell and Wilde.
I didn't mention it in the notes, but something that I do want to bring up is like the costuming
for Corline.
They had someone Africa who was and actually just watched a video this morning about
when the puppeteers, but he said like they went to someone who actually crocade thread
together to make her jacket.
Yeah.
Like it is all handmade and it is amazing.
The button eyes.
I know that that trope has been done a couple times.
No one's done it as well as Corline.
There is something about the like sheen and angle of like the way that they are that is
just so unsettling.
I mean, it's Terry Hatcher's best role as the other mother.
Yeah.
So after Corline, Selik worked at like a as a supervising director and helped with
Pair Norman, but Selik is looking for a new project and he narrows it down to three choices.
There was an original project, another Neil Gaiman book and another book adaptation.
And in 2009 Selik had left like a for an unexpected studio, Disney.
We went bad.
Selik had joined Pixar in Disney Studios in 2010 where he reunited with his old friends
and co-animators.
His mission was to start up a new stop motion studio called Cinderbiter Productions.
When Selik started at Disney, they greenlit Selik's original project, which was called Shade
Maker, later renamed to the Shadow King with the projected release date of October
4, 2013.
And he also optioned the rights to Neil Gaiman's The Graveguard book, which they planned for
Selik to direct after finishing Shadow King.
Selik did sum up what the Shadow King was about, saying the Shadow King is a deliciously
magical tale about a nine year old New York orphan, Hap, who hides his fantastically weird
hands with long fingers from a cruel world.
But when a living Shadow girl teaches him to make amazing hand shadows that come to life,
his hands become incredible weapons in a Shadow War against a ravenous monster bent on killing
Hap's brother, Richard, and ultimately destroying New York.
Dark?
Yeah.
Selik led a crew of about 150 people to put together the film, converting a closed chocolate
factory in San Francisco into a stop motion studio.
New Romano, who was hired as the production designer, he was actually the production designer
of the Incredibles.
He had also worked in the art department of Dexter's Lab, the Iron Giant, Monkey Bone, Powerpuff
Girls, Monsters Inc, and Up.
And two co-direct with Selik was Eric Leaton, who had worked with Selik on many of his projects
before, except for Monkey Bone.
But for all of the other Selik projects that he worked on, he was either an animator or
a lead animator.
This is the first time that he would actually be a co-director, prior to Eric was actually
a co-director for Disney's Denisaur.
Now you might be wondering yourself, who was cast in the Shadow King?
There was a few characters in there, Richard, who was played by Pamela Alden.
Hap!
Where are you?
What are you doing?
C'mon, bring me my cape.
Cape?
Ah, thank you.
Do you know who Pamela Alden is?
Nope.
She's a comedian.
She is probably most famously known for voicing Bubbie Hill.
That's my purse!
I don't know you!
That's her.
Okay.
There is Dars, who is gonna be voiced by Brendan Gleason.
Nice.
You found him the head.
You're called a kid, somebody with that pig bomb.
We were only trying to kill you.
And you, follow him right behind him, right?
And it's a shadow.
Lizzy Bell was voiced by Jeffrey Tambor.
Nice.
Neither the Hoppe, nor the Lamp, whatever seen again.
But the Shadowcaster continues to search for them to this day.
Miss Fern was played by Catherine O'Hara.
So, you're the rebel rabbit.
Interesting, so the Catherine O'Hara piece goes back to Nightmare Before Christmas.
But also, like, clearly she has a relationship with Tom.
Penry!
I'll never make shadows with these.
The thing is, there was a lot that was done for the Shadow King.
And if you want to, you can actually look up a lot of what it was going to look like.
Oh, wow!
Yeah.
Oh, wow!
So you can see, like, boom.
Oh, that's cute.
With the shadow here, over here.
I believe this was supposed to be Catherine O'Hara's character.
Nice.
We went into production in 2012.
And in September 2012, it was reported that Disney had canceled the Shadow King.
With the reason that it won't hit its 2013 deadline, and that they had already spent $50
million on production.
They also canceled Selik's Proceeding Production, the Graveyard Book.
The film was about 40% done, or was reported that it was 40% done.
Selik has later claimed that there was about five minutes of the film that was shot.
You can actually see a lot of the videos of the film on YouTube and on our social media.
I'm going to be posting videos of that as well.
The film rights were given to Selik so that he could option the production to another studio.
But no one gave him the green light.
During a press release for the European Film Market in February 2013, Selik stated that
K-5 International would pick up the film, but that deal didn't go through.
Part of the deal was when Selik pitches the Shadow King to another studio, that studio then
has to pay Disney $2 million just to acquire the rights.
Yeah, on top of the cost of the production, no one wanted to just outright pay Disney.
Selik went back to Leica with the Shadow King, but they did not go through.
It was leaked in a memo that Selik says Travis Knight, unfortunately, could not figure
out budgeting to pull this project and had to pass, and the Shadow King was no more.
I looked deeper into what may have been the real reason why I got cancelled.
And it ultimately seems like John Lasseter was the reason why the movie got shut down by
Disney.
There's a quote from Selik saying, "Pixar, have their brain trust, where they rip apart
ideas, they rebuild them, they rip it apart again and rebuild."
Lasseter really couldn't support my vision.
He thought he could make it better, and so we kept changing and changing and changing.
We hired a whole new crew.
We were actually into animation, and it was one of those things where the budget started creeping
up, creeping up, and a new guy came in, Ellen Horn at Disney, and they just felt like,
no, it's gonna go off the charts for the budget because of the constant changes.
It was shut down and it was a sad day, but it's also a huge relief because it's like taking
a kid to the playground, watching your kid get beat up every day and having to take your
kid home and wipe away the tears.
It really wasn't meant to be.
Do you know how Pixar, when they were developing, and even Disney animation, just in general,
how they put together their stories in production?
The way that it works is a script is never solid.
That's why whenever you're looking to unmade Disney animation films, there is no one script
that you can find or point to, and that's because a lot of times the way that they develop
the story in the script is they will lay out the whole thing either in storyboard or they'll
lay out in animatics and they will present it to the entire studio and everyone gives
notes.
Then through those notes, they can change things as they go.
If you're working with animatics, if you're working with storyboards, it's really easy to
change those.
In CG animation, you can have a whole sequence animated.
If you need to change something, you can go through the animation and be like, "Oh, we need
to cut this out, put this back in, and it's much easier to animate."
When it comes to stop motion, though.
No, because you have to redo it all.
You have to start from scratch.
If you are putting together a fully animated sequence for it to be looked at and for someone
to take notes and be like, "We got to change that part."
That arm needs to move.
It's like, "Well, now we need to go back."
And redo the whole set up again.
The cost for it is the same as when we first redo it.
You're basically doing a reshoot every time it's getting noted.
Like a full reshoot.
If a second takes a full day to do, it's going to take forever to do so.
It makes sense for him to enter into Pixar's world and for John Lasseter.
He has a point where Lasseter is the reason why Toy Story did so well.
My Pixar did so well and he found a system that works for that and he brings in Selik and
be like, "You're going to go under our system because we know it works."
It clearly has been working.
When we bring you in, that's how we're going to operate.
For Selik to be like, "Well, it doesn't work the same in this medium."
Yeah, those are two different.
You are comparing apples and oranges.
Not to put too much on Lasseter to be like, "He was the evil person in the situation."
No, not at all.
This is more like, "We have a system and he was just unwilling to change that system."
When you're doing these sort of studio notes and feedback, a lot of good can come out of
it.
It's very frustrating as a creator to be like, "Okay, back to the drawing board.
It's got to be tenfold more frustrating to go, "Okay, to really scrap everything we did."
Yeah.
Back to one.
That's a hard process for everyone.
That is a loose-lose situation on Allens.
Yeah.
I want to see that now with Spider-Man, with the Spiderverse, where the way that Lord and
Miller are operating is extremely frustrating to the animators.
And so many animators have been burnt out and have left that production to do other things
because the way that they operate is that they want fully rendered sequences first to
watch and review them before making any changes.
And really, all those changes and decisions should be made far ahead of time so that an
animator isn't there working overtime weekends for just a director to watch and review and
be like, "Mmm."
Yeah, I mean, with animation and visual effects in a lot of ways, these things take time.
Even though these mediums have been around forever since the dawn of time, I do think there's
still a large chunk of the industry in the world that does not realize how much effort
goes into each and everything.
Working at a studio and turning out VFX shots, sometimes you're looking at something that
is five frames and then you have 15 iterations of it and it's like, "Oh, we're still not
there."
But if you watch the episode or the movie, you don't really think about those five frames
unless they're the most beautiful frames you've ever seen.
But in the grand scheme of things, you're not thinking about how many people are literally
working on these things.
No.
That's why the credits are so long and they're still not even all encompassing.
This is this idea in Hollywood.
I forget who the composer is, but he had said, "You know you're a successful composer.
I wouldn't know when to really remember the music for a movie."
And even though he spent probably a year of his life working on it, no one's going to
remember what that score is.
And there's a lot of stuff that's done in post-production.
You mentioned that.
Goes unnoticed.
It's really made to be unnoticed.
The reason why you notice CGI in movies and TV shows is because oftentimes it's bad CGI.
And it's not even necessarily that it's always considered bad.
My very first producers said this thing that sticks in my brain forever, it's that it doesn't
fit in the world.
Sometimes you're going way too hyper realistic and that's just not what this is.
Sometimes you're not going realistic enough.
Someone put their blood sweat and tears into it.
It just doesn't fit in the world.
Yeah.
I had to say goodbye to the shadow king.
Another quote from him, "I got shut down and I was kind of down and I wasn't sure if I
was going to make another movie again."
But then the key and peel show started on Comedy Central and Kagan Michael Key and Jordan
Peel who kind of inspired me to do another film.
They inspired many.
In 2013 it was announced that Selik would be directing a live action adaptation of Adam
Gidwitz novel A Tale of Dark and Grim.
In 2016 it was reported that he was still working on the film adaptation.
Eventually the production evolved into a 10 episode CGI Netflix film that premiered on
October 2021.
In November 2015 it was reported that Selik was developing an original story with Jordan
Peel and Kagan Michael Key called Wendell and Wild.
Yeah.
Like finally got another win when Netflix picked up the film in 2018 and it was released
in October 2022.
Look at that great release time.
Yeah.
While he was down about the shadow king getting canned, he found comfort in watching Keen
Peel.
He loved the show and thought it would be great if he got to work with them.
The story of Wendell and Wild was inspired by a short story Selik was working on based
on his sons.
Sketch them as titular demon brothers searching their way to the land of the living.
Selik thought that the rapport between Keen Peel would be perfect for the brothers.
Jordan Peel says that their sketch prepared for the terries was the inspiration for their
characterization.
Oh my god.
Conference.
This was I was back there.
Certainly was.
I'm thrown right now as to who's going to be our calm rag.
You still hear you.
You didn't have to heart not a gumption.
It literally right next to me is.
Oh three.
Break.
Three.
And you watched that story.
I wonder how that was going to connect.
Uh-huh.
They're dynamic of like they're very confident and very dumb ideas.
Yeah.
I couldn't see it when I was I was like why are you making me watch this?
But now.
Yeah, that dynamic in that sketch is very much the dynamic in Wendell and Wild.
It really is.
Conference.
We can't raise the dead.
We do know how to lie.
I like that plan.
And after we work in the story, the leads shifted from an adult woman to a teen girl.
You may have noticed in Wendell and Wild that there is a line on each of the figure's
faces.
And what that line is is actually a detachment.
So whenever they would have to animate the mouths, like they would always feel frustrated
like working with the mouse because like you would have to like pull wires and like
writing screws and whatnot.
And what they ended up doing instead, it started off with the core line where they were
actually making molds and 3D printing different mouth shapes for like the characters.
And the way that they could animate it was like they could actually just pull off the mouth,
like the lower part of their face entirely.
Yeah.
And then replace it with something else.
And they could actually like work a lot faster that way.
But when it came to core line, they thought that the line was too distracting.
Yeah.
So they actually in post CGI, like just painted that out.
That is a 2D solution.
When it came to Wendell and Wild, they did think about like do we want to keep that in?
They sure did.
And ultimately they decided that they wanted to keep it in just to like show that this is
the process of making these type of stop motion animation films now.
That line is just part of that character.
The beauty of stop motion animation is that it is its own art form in a way.
And your painting each painting looks a little different and again aids to the story.
In core line, it doesn't work.
But in Wendell and Wild it adds to this sort of spooky feel of things.
It's a different spooky than core line, two different spookies.
Very different spookies.
So in June of 2024, Selic announced that he was working on another adaptation of a Neil
Gaiman novel, The Ocean and the End of the Lane.
But in August 2024, he said that development was now in limbo.
And if you know anything about what was reported on Neil Gaiman at that time, you probably
already know that a lot of other productions that involved Neil Gaiman also just came to
a halt.
Yep.
And that is where we'll leave that topic.
Yep.
And we will discuss no further.
The latest news that we've heard about the Shadow King is that he is still working on creating
a graphic novel based on the story.
I did find this interview of Henry Selic from back in 2013, which I think kind of like
sums up his mentality and I think is a good way to end this episode.
It was an interview at the Montreal Stop Motion Festival in 2013.
Selic had this to say about when the Shadow King got canceled.
He said, quote, "Let me just step back for the rest of the story."
And I hope for a second and say that I never set out to have a quote Hollywood career.
And whatever bad experiences I've had, which are plenty, the good ones outweigh them.
If I only got to direct Nightmare and Coraline, I'd be pretty damn happy because I got to
take stop motion places it had never been before.
It's easy to bellyache when things haven't worked out.
But honestly, I'm very grateful for the projects I've gotten to work on.
The success that we have had with those projects and the rest of it, it doesn't really matter
that much.
Look, it's great to be talking about a film I directed 20 years ago and still has life.
That's pretty wonderful.
Sometimes an artist is gone before their work finds a big audience.
I'm glad I'm around to appreciate this.
What a cool dude.
I like that response.
I needed that reminder today.
Yeah.
Henry Selic is after doing this, especially.
I think is one of my favorite filmmakers and artists.
I think his stuff is incredibly unique.
Okay, so we always do the thing.
Would you like to see this get made or not?
And I think we have two opportunities actually here, right?
Because we have Shadow King.
Yep.
But we got Toots.
We got Toots as well in the upside down world.
And honestly, like Toots, that sounds like a movie that's right up.
Henry Selic's alley of like, person goes into weird world.
And I love whenever Henry Selic is given the opportunity to make a weird world.
Yeah.
Okay.
So if you can only pick one.
If you are Joe producer and you can pick one of his films to make which one is in Toots,
is it Shadow King?
I think we kind of got Toots when we got Coraline.
It feels like he was able to scratch that itch when he made Coraline.
So I'm not so hell bent on rooting for that movie because I think we kind of got it.
Where the Shadow King was a completely different medium and because the way that it is put together
and it's we're not going to watch through all of it, but there's like one part in particular
where you can see his fingers.
Yeah, like right here.
Like you don't see something like that in a character.
So he's showing his elongated fingers.
He's pulling them out and he's practicing like shadow puppets with them.
And the thing that like is really underestimated with Henry Selic's movies is like camera movements
and the use of shadows.
Because when you think of stop motion animation, the only thing that you're really thinking
about is like how the characters are moving.
And Henry Selic is thinking about everything else.
Every now.
Where he's like it's not just about the characters moving.
It's about the other things that you can show.
And I think that with the Shadow King, this is something that has never been seen before.
And I think that's very interesting.
It is interesting.
I'm glad you just showed me that because I think my answer, it didn't change my answer,
but I'm leaning more to it's just because I think going off of watching Monkey Bone last
night, I think we often do stop motion animation with like a dark tone behind it.
To it's just talking about like the fairies and the upside downness.
And after watching Monkey Bone and the color play and knowing the color play in Coraline,
I think that there's like a more fun like whimsical, not so spooky side.
I know I'm asking for a non spooky, that doesn't make sense.
Honestly, both.
Because I was going to say to it's and I was saying it didn't change my answer, but like
that was really cute.
Yeah, it's fun.
And we're going to post it onto the socials so that you can see it as well and you can
determine for yourself should this have been a movie.
And now it's time for our favorite part of we don't love doing an episode, but we do
love recommending it.
It is much easier to watch things than it is to research things.
Yeah.
So what if you watch lately?
What do you want to recommend to our audience for them to see?
I started the pilot for L, which is the legally blonde prequel of--
It's the legally blonde prequel.
Yeah, to the famous musical.
To the famous musicals of the famous film.
But it's set in 1995.
Okay.
I mean, granted, I started it late last night and 100% fell asleep in the middle of it, but
I've really enjoyed what I've seen so far.
And it's got your girl, June Dine, or I feel--
I was-- I didn't even write notes.
You're just stealing my brain dots at this point.
It does have my girl, June Dine, as L Woods' mother.
And I think they've done a brilliant job at its core staying to the vibe of the story, but
the characters actually feel fresh and new and interesting.
L is played by a girl named Lexi, so I'm not partial at all.
But she is not trying to emulate Reese Witherspoon, which I think is the way you have to go about
these roles.
And then, Mug girl, June Dine has her typical level of snark, but this is definitely a different
angle than I feel like I've seen her.
But what she brings to everything, you absolutely need it in this story so that it doesn't feel
too saccharine or too camp.
Her level of snarkingness into motherhood actually keeps it very grounded to me.
And her lines are clearly catered toward her, which I love.
I've been on a rant, and I know that you've heard it, was that when Stranger Things ended,
we were going to pivot out of the 80s and into the 90s.
We are there.
This is the first thing I've seen where I was like, I told everybody that the 90s were going
to be so cool soon, just based on if you look at history and historical cycles, like Stranger
Things was going to be the end of that 80s love and going to the 90s.
Or if you go to Old Navy, and you know.
I mean, we say it in like back to the future where the 80s were just obsessed with 50s culture.
Right.
So we're now in that 90s cycle.
We are now old enough to experience that cycle.
It's really cool to see something like, oh, they're supposed to have money and be well
off, but I'm like, I don't remember people driving that car.
Like things like that, like to have that historical sort of context to things is fun.
But yeah, it's a fun time.
I will finish the pilot.
And I'm excited to see where it goes.
So my suggestion is completely hard left.
But it does relate to the episode.
I don't know how to relate things.
It is a movie called Mad God.
It couldn't be more hard left.
It is a stop motion animated movie, at least like most of it is stop motion.
It is about this mass character.
He has a gas mass.
He does like this makeshift hazmat suit has to go into like this post apocalypse underground
world.
And it kind of feels like metropolis where like every creature and being and person is just
like a cog in the wheel of whatever it is.
And nothing is precious.
You see these characters like just taken out like they're nothing.
They get crushed by this huge boulder thing or whatever.
I just go for that.
No one cares.
They're just like whatever just another day at work.
This whole mission is to set off a bomb that resets time to like bring things back to where
they were.
And it's really interesting.
But this is a film made by Phil Tippett.
Do you know who Phil Tippett is?
I know that name.
Phil Tippett he is a special effects.
Oh, I've seen this man.
Yeah, he does a lot of visual effects.
What he's known for is Star Wars.
Star Wars when Jurassic Park was originally being made, they were debating on using this new
CGI technology.
They're like, I don't know if it's going to work.
If that wasn't going to work, they were going to use Phil Tippett to actually stop motion
animate the dinosaurs when they were going to switch over to CGI.
They were like, we still need Phil to stay here and like help with the natural movements
of the dinosaurs.
He's there as like a supervisor for all that when Luke Skywalker is in the Millennium
Falcon to remember when he like.
It turns on.
It's not a chess board, but like that round thing and you see like those monsters fighting.
Yes.
That's Phil Tippett.
Yes.
This is a movie, Mad God, that he has been working on for 30 years.
This is like his own personal project.
Wow, that's so long.
I'm not saying like he spent 30 years straight doing this.
The whole movie, it looks like he had built and made these sets, these miniatures in
his garage.
This was like something that he did in his free time.
He did it as like a passion project to kind of tell the story that he wanted to.
This is definitely his vision because the movie is very gross.
It's the best way to describe it.
Yeah, all the pictures I just saw were mellow.
It's very like gross, graphic, bloody, slimy.
Essentially it's like everything that he was never allowed to do in the commercial
world.
He gave himself the freedom and the chance to like make something fun and interesting for
himself.
Like this is definitely his passion project.
Nice.
Yeah.
I like that you're finding a way to relate it and I'm just like, "Lagally blonde!"
A-m-c-plus is where you can watch it or you can rent or buy it.
If you're watching the vampire list set, I've been hearing this really good.
While you're there, check out Mad God.
And probably don't watch it in a public setting like I did by accident.
And you can find us on many various social medias.
On Instagram, in TikTok, we are at development purgatory on Blue Sky.
We are at Dev purgatory.
You can also help us out directly by going to our Patreon.
I forget to mention the perks of being on the Patreon.
The perks is ad free episodes and you get to see the full video recording.
Unfiltered.
Yeah, the full video recording of our sessions, check it out there.
I don't know if that's a good thing, but it's out there.
I don't think it is, but I'm sure people out there enjoy it.
I think the biggest perk is like getting the ad free episodes.
If you can't support us there, completely understandable.
There are other ways that you can do so.
You can rate and review our podcast on your pod catcher of choice.
And just tell your friends, family, anyone you know who is just wanting to know about film
history.
And I guess this season, stop motion history.
They may learn something new that they may have never known before.
I definitely learned a lot of new things whenever I do these episodes.
It's nice for two people who actually are very big film history nerds to learn, but also
it's fun to educate each other.
Thanks for coming along for the ride.
Yeah, thank you.
And we'll see you on the big beach in the sky.
Go watch your movie.
♪ Son your pony down in history ♪
(upbeat music)