Fool's Gold
"By Jeff Monahan. From around 1995 or 1996. A quirky western, but very compelling. Probably the best of the lot, but a hard sell. Nicky Katt (the actor) is working as a co-producer, and is simultaneously giving the script to actors and production/financing companies. He's devoting a lot of energy to it, and I have no doubt he'll succeed."27
Buffalo '66
From September 1996. A screenplay by Vincent Gallo, who was also to star. According to Gallo, "I had a director that I liked, the great Monte Hellman. And we started collaborating to prepare to do the movie, and I realized that my hero had become a stubborn, miserable, out-of-touch man. In a way that shocked me, because his earlier films, the ones I liked very much, seemed so inspired. He was very against cinematography. I had this whole idea of the reversal film, the film stock, and methodical storyboarding, and he felt that the cinematography should be unnoticed. That it was an insignificant part of cinema. The cinema was only about performance and characters. And I'm a very visual artist and I became deeply seduced by the visual part of cinema and we parted ways."28 In response to this, Hellman told me 'Vincent can't help himself. He's actually very fond of me, and I of him, but he's completely nuts.' Barry Cooper and I worked very hard on setting up Buffalo '66, and finally made a deal with Lakeshore. But it was too late for the kind of snow Vincent described in the script, so Lakeshore wanted to wait 'til the following winter. At this point we had spent several months dealing with abuse and threats from Vincent, who never had given us a contract, and was constantly making ultimatums. Anyway, Vincent had secretly been pursuing side deals which would allow him to direct instead of me, even though he swore I was the only director he could possibly let direct his baby. But Vincent only cares about money, and he would have taken the Lakeshore deal with me directing because it meant a bigger budget and more money for him, except for the delay. So he decided to go ahead with the lo-ball deal, even though there was no snow, I think it's unfortunate that Vincent saw my beliefs as a sign that I had changed. I've been consistent throughout my creative life in my admiration for the great theater director Arthur Hopkins. I'm certainly not against cinematography! I have chosen to work with some of the greatest cinematographers. But I'm against any element, including the acting and the directing as well as the cinematography, that calls attention to itself at the expense of the whole. To quote Hopkins: 'When manufacturing jewelers have an especially fine stone, a square cut diamond, or pear shaped emerald, they are careful to so conceal the setting that the stone shines alone in its unobstructed glory'."29 Buffalo '66, directed by Vincent Gallo, was released in 1997. Monte Hellman was thanked in the end credits.
Boom
1997. A remake of the Japanese film Baku! "From a story by a Japanese writer, originally for him to direct. Jones Clark did a new screnplay. Boom is about a young scientist who invents a 'bullet bomb' — a bomb the size of a bullet. He's kidnapped by some gangsters who want to use the invention to rob an armored car, etc. They run out of bullet bombs, and call his girlfriend to bring some more in order to save his life. She's caught in a road block, and forced to swallow the bombs to avoid detection. She becomes a human time bomb, at the mercy of anyone who has the detonator. Real comic book stuff."30
Spano
"About the relationship between a New York cop and a young black kid who either witnessed or committed a murder. I was working on this in late 1998, but finally decided I didn't want to do it."31
The Payoff
From mid-1996. A crime movie which Hellman describes as a "Western noir," to be shot in Texas. Jones Clark's screenplay focuses on Joe Don Home, a criminal defense lawyer (Luke Wilson) who becomes involved with beautiful young con artist Lucille (Leelee Sobieski) and a drug cartel family: "By coincidence, the opening scene involves heroin being smuggled inside dead bodies, which was the theme of The Typhoon Shipments. Jones Clark came up with the idea completely independently. I lucked out with Leelee Sobieski, one of whose parents is European, and both of whom were familiar with my work. And they could relate to a script that defied categorizing."32
In 2002, Hellman was briefly involved with some producers who wanted him to direct Night Shoot, a Paul Mayersberg screenplay that was to have been filmed in the Canary Islands: "Night Shoot disintegrated because of an unfortunate disagreement between the producers and writers. There are a few friends who are determined to see the next film by yours truly: Rick Linklater, Wes Anderson, and especially a young actor named Nicky Katt, who is a friend of Rick's. Nicky phoned me out of the blue, introduced himself, and also introduced me to some people who may be instrumental in helping me get one or another of my projects on. He has been tireless in his efforts, particularly to help get Fool's Gold cast and made. I also made a deal to produce, along with my partner Barry Cooper, Lost Dogs, a terrific script by a young writer/director, Scott Sampler, whom I've known since he was born. It's The Big Sleep, only Humphrey Bogart is a 21-year old rock drummer, and Lauren Bacall is a 19-year-old Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon. Aside from that, I was interviewed for the Reservoir Dogs 10th anniversary DVD, and Allison Anders will soon be interviewing me for a 5-hour oral history for the Director's Guild. And I'm continuing to develop The Payoff (with William Morris, Leelee's new agent, now helping with casting and finding a distributor), Dark Passion and Ghost of a Chance."33