WEEKEND SPECIAL: Thousands Of Fake Movies

How I Wasted My Time In Prison

Photo by Ines Kopu on Unsplash

I struggle with this confession I have to make.

During my time in prison, I spent a lot of time in the SHU, the Solitary Housing Unit, or Special Housing Unit, or Secure Housing Unit, or Super Horrible Unit. It’s a separate wing of the prison where inmates are placed to be kept away from general population. Often it’s because of their own safety, but most of the time it is for purposes of punishment. I can’t rightly tell you, but I believe I had seven separate stints in the SHU, which is a lot. One was regarding a fight, where I required medical treatment and thus needed to be taken out of the prison to receive surgery. And one was because I was being transferred to another facility. But the other times were for disciplinary reasons. Was I well-behaved? No. Did they punish me on fraudulent grounds that had nothing to do with my actual bad behavior? You bet.

The two longer stints in the SHU were both over three months long each. Overall, if it were to be tabulated, I spent about nine months of my time in prison in the SHU. When you are in the SHU, you remain in a cell all day, sometimes with one cellmate, sometimes alone. There are three meals, and you can receive mail, and every couple of weeks someone passes a book cart around. But a SHU is only your bunk and a toilet/sink area. You are escorted out of your cell three times a week, in cuffs, to go to the showers. Three times a week you are also allowed one hour of recreation, when they place you in cuffs, take you out of the SHU, bring you to an open-air area of the prison, and literally put you and a few other men in a cage. There is a law library but you have to sign up well in advance to gain access.

I want you to think about that, by the way. The average shower visit, I would be cuffed at the wrists and cuffed at the ankles. When I arrive in the shower, I am uncuffed so I may bathe, but when I am done, they place your wrists and ankles back in cuffs. Every time you have to step out of the SHU, you are cuffed-up similarly. During the average week in the SHU, I would be cuffed up about eight times. Which means I have been cuffed-up by officers close to one hundred times over the years since I was first arrested, counting the non-SHU moments when I supposedly required cuffs. That does something to a man. I’m afraid of what that is, because I’ll be the last to know.

I had access to very few books, and minimal paper with pens. I tried to spend the time reading and writing. I wrote screenplays, letters, short stories. After a while, I wanted to write things that were less demanding, because in a space like that, your brain goes soft, and mine was already pretty darn soft in the first place.I knew I wanted to write something about movies. But I had already tried a few scripts, and I had gotten through my own array of lists.

So I engaged in a thought experiment. What movies did I want to see made, what movies did I want at the multiplex? And the answer arrived pretty quickly – I would want to see movies that pleased almost no one, made by filmmakers I loved, with a blank check and carte blanche on subject matter. Which, you know, duh. But then I wondered, what if I had to please everyone else? Coworkers, talent, mainstream audiences, investors, theater owners? What if I legitimately ran these film studios and had to generate a slate of movies that could earn money, win awards, and please a world fascinated with YouTube and TikTok? 

It was in 2017 when I decided to create a fake movie schedule for 2019. I came up with full movie slates for Disney, Fox, Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros. and Lionsgate. Some films were based on IP, and a few were original. Each film was assigned to an appropriate director and fully cast, based on a master list of talent I had amassed (including several then-new directors whose work I hadn’t even yet glimpsed). I made movies that I probably wouldn’t watch, but I attached talent that I felt would make the best version of that movie. And then I gave all the movies release dates, trying to successfully maneuver each film to maximize its earning potential, and avoid scheduling problems between studios.

And so an entire 2019 of fake movies was born. This was, of course, during a time when I thought I wouldn’t be spending all that time in the SHU (you are never told how long you will be there). Naturally, time passed, and later, there was another SHU stay. Which is to say that, over the years, I created a fake 2020. And a fake 2021. 2022. 2023. And so on, and so on. By the end of my time in prison, I had reached 2035. I tried to keep it plausible – directors rarely worked more than once a year, and franchise entries were at least two years apart. Of course, time was fixed – I had to assume that, say, Channing Tatum would remain the same age from 2019-2035 for this to work. Younger actors I cast in ‘19 and ‘20 kept playing young roles in ‘30. Nobody died, but out of respect for certain actors, I stopped casting them when they passed away in the real world. Fox remained independent of Disney, and as years went on, I added more distributors like A24 and Netflix.

When I was done, or simply exhausted, I had created 1600-plus fake movies among sixteen fake movie years. Many of them were made from IP, so there isn’t much original about them, aside from my casts and directors. Some were totally original. But so many of them were made from what I remembered as legendary unproduced films proposed over the decades. It was, somewhat realistically, the best version of Hollywood I could conjure.

I figured I would share some of the completely stupid contrivances I dreamed up during this creative exercise. I’ve broken them down into different categories.

FRANCHISES:

In many cases, I ran wild with established brand names. I knew “Jurassic Park” would be a thing forever, so I had Gary Ross direct a sci-fi-centric “Jurassic Planet” headlined by Reese Witherspoon, Lee Pace and Christopher Walken, while also allowing for the human-less Werner Herzog-directed “Jurassic Park Expanse”, done in the format of a documentary. I found sideways entries back into “Terminator” and “Robocop”, the former with Bong Joon-Ho’s bureaucratic a.i. comedy “Skynet Industries” featuring Matthew McConaughey, Laura Linney, Asia Kate Dillon and Jonah Hill, and J.C. Chandor’s “Detroit Motors” was about a union strike against OCP’s use of automatons with Mike Colter, Edward Norton and Amy Adams. Jeymes Samuel, meanwhile, introduced Isaiah Mustafa as the new “Shaft” and Steven Soderbergh directed the first of a “Matt Helm” trilogy with Jon Hamm. And I did not hear of Hamm’s “Confess, Fletch” when I cast Danny McBride in Jody Hill’s “Fletch”.

I largely took horror series’ for a spin. Eli Roth directed a “Friday The 13th” with Jason running loose on Wall Street, while “Elm Street” was Simon Rumley’s gritty reboot with Robert Knepper as Freddy. Alexander Siddig was Ole Bornedal’s “Warlock” and “Helloween” pitted Pinhead against Michael Myers for Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury – the latter was soon followed by “Silver Shamrock”, a remake of “Halloween III: Season Of The Witch” that now incorporates Myers. Diego Luna stepped in as Rob Zombie’s “Coffin Joe” for a couple of films, and I gave the “Evil Dead” and “X-Files” franchises to Takashi Miike and Can Evrenol for prequels.

I guess I was imagining Denzel Washington was younger than he is, because he reprised his “Devil In A Blue Dress” role for a couple of new Easy Rawlings mysteries. I let Rupert Pupkin fall in love with Elizabeth Marvel in the sequel, “The Queen Of Comedy” and Mike Judge spun off “Idiocracy” with Terry Crews as “President Camacho”. Finally, I gave “Speed III” with Keanu and Sandra to Jung Byung-gil, and just said, “Figure it out,”

Also, somehow I predicted Michael B. Jordan would be John Clark in a “Without Remorse” adaptation, not sure how.

REMAKES

I remade pretty much anything that I thought could be viable today, from titles well known to obscure. Frequently I race-swapped, but a lot of times I gender-swapped as well, as I went out of my way to attach name female directors to big budget genre pictures. Among gender swaps, there was Aubrey Plaza as the new “The Jerk” for Jeff Baena and Charlize Theron leading Jane Campion’s “Videodrome” with Mahershala Ali, Logan Marshall Green and John Malkovich. Ursula Corbero was the titular “The Hitch-Hiker” against Riz Ahmed and Shia LaBeouf for director Brady Corbet, and Natalie Portman and Jada Pinkett Smith fought amongst bear attacks in “The Edge” costarring Ana de Armas and Dan Stevens. Viola Davis was “Ms. Majestyk” for diretor Alice Winocour, Sally Hawkins starts seeing “Harvey” for director Aisling Walsh, and I had Lexi Alexander remake “Die Hard” with Kathryn Hahn, which I turned into a trilogy, and then a crossover with John McClane AND Jack Bauer, and then finally John McClane “Die Hard” prequels that are closer adaptations to the book. Jessica Chastain, meanwhile, was Patty Jenkins’ “Bullitt”.

Jennifer Lawrence became my go-to in this regard. She headed up John Hyams’ “Face/Off” with Alicia Vikander, the Michael Moriarity role in Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s “Q The Winged Serpent” (with Alexander Skarsgaard and Forest Whitaker), and she led Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ “True Lies” with Channing Tatum in the supporting role. She was also the star of Brad Bird’s redo of Luc Besson’s “The Adventures Of Adele Blanc-Sec”, and she dueled with Jillian Bell in Amy Sherman-Palladino’s “Spies Like Us”.

I tried to retrofit a few lesser-known titles to be modern star vehicles. That’s how I got Jason Momoa and Frank Grillo to star in Walter Hill’s “Emperor Of The North Pole”, and James Mangold to do “The Seven Ups” with Don Cheadle, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jean Dujardin and Hong Chau. Mark Ruffalo and Denzel Washington showed up in Ryan Coogler’s “White Man’s Burden”, Tom Cruise finally acknowledged his age in Jonathan Glaser’s “Hardcore”, Jesse Eisenberg and Halley Feiffer reunited for Antonio Campos’ “Miracle Mile” and Sterling K. Brown was Gareth Evans’ “Remo Williams”.

In some cases, I race swapped just to race swap, and sometimes I did it to change the inherent nature of the project. So Daniel Kaluuya, Edgar Ramirez and Maika Monroe were in Nacho Vigalando’s “Body Double”, Mike Colter was Steve McQueen’s “The Running Man” (with Paul Giamatti, Hoyt McCallany, Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake) and Trevor Jackson, Wesley Snipes and Delroy Lindo were a part of Taylor Sheridan’s “The Rock”.

As far as bigger name remakes, Billy Magnussen was Damian Chazzelle’s “Popeye”, Nicolas Cage was S. Craig Zahler’s “Maniac Cop”, Frank Grillo was S. Craig Zahler’s Snake Plissken, Tom Hardy starred in Chris Nolan’s “Intacto”, Dwayne Johnson and Terry Crews were in “Demolition Man” for Joseph Kahn, Robert Pattinson was Jose Padilha’s “Dirty Harry”, Gal Gadot was “Fathom” for Joe Cornish, and Chadwick Boseman (R.I.P.) and Tom Cruise featured in Gareth Evans’ “The Killer”.

Sometimes I was just letting a cinematic voice run wild. Like Jim Hosking doing a comedic “Seven Brides For Satan” with Will Forte, Sofia Coppola directing Kirsten Dunst in “Carnival Of Souls”, Noah Baumbach doing a star-studded, actually half-serious “Caddyshack” (with Jeff Daniels, Danny McBride, Melissa McCarthy and Jeff Goldblum), Julia Loktev bringing “The Terminator” back to basics with Mike Colter, Kogonada letting loose on “Chopping Mall”, Cary Munion and Jonathan Milott directing Hugh Jackman and Salma Hayek in “The Gauntlet”, Tom Ford adapting “Danger Diabolik” with Armie Hammer (oops, didn’t know!), Karen Gillan, Lea Seydoux and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Wes Anderson adapting “After The Fox” with Sam Rockwell in the lead, and the Safdie Bros doing a half-serious “Bachelor Party” with Kevin Hart, Jay Ellis, Yvonne Orji, Joe Keery and Kevin Garnett. And look out for Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Rekall” with Mark Ruffalo, Emily Beecham, Delroy Lindo, Sonoya Mizuno and Ray Wise.

I allowed for a few bigger redos also, like John Woo doing “Seven Brides For Seven Brothers” with Tony Leung, Shia LaBeouf, Diego Luna, Seth MacFarlane, Ezra Miller (Again, I didn’t know!), Justin Theroux, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson, Katie Holmes, Fan Bingbing, Hailee Steinfeld, Rebecca Fergueson, Lady Gaga and Bjork. And Karyn Kusama’s “Cutthroats Nine” being Sean Penn, Michael Stuhlbarg, Byron Mann, JK Simmons, Jon Cena, Vin Diesel, Frank Grillo, Lennie James and Vincent Cassel. How about Jim Carrey directing himself in “The Bellboy” or Kanye West, SZA and The Weeknd in Hype Williams’ “Phantom Of The Paradise”? And lest we forget, Nnamdi Asomugha, Udo Kier and Boban Marjanovic in the only remake that matters, “I Come In Peace”.

TRUE STORIES

How would you feel about Edward Norton in a Wes Anderson biopic of Abner Doubleday? Ed Harris as Timothy Leary in a Bill Condon-helmed movie? George Clooney directing Bradley Cooper as Roy Cohn? Behn Zeitlin tackling Blackbeard the pirate with Jake Gyllenhaal? Angelina Jolie directing herself as Leni Riefenstahl? Alden Eisenreich as Steven Soderbergh’s Evel Knievel? Tom Hiddleston as Pablo Larrain’s Ian Fleming? Pat Healy as Bennett Miller’s Lee Harvey Oswald? Jillian Bell as Reality Winner for Nicole Holofcener?

In addition to standard issue biopics, I developed a number of real world stories. Like Ang Lee tackling an ensemble film about “Disco Demolition Night”, with Sam Rockwell and Tom Hanks as the Veecks, or Gaspar Noe telling the tale of Roanoke with Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Ruth Negga and Tilda Swinton. The complete story of Babe Didrikson was to be told in Karyn Kusama’s “The Babe” with Ruby Rose, while Matt Reeves would have dived down the rabbit hole with “MK-Ultra”. And, in breaking from reality, Tom Cruise would have re-teamed with Brad Bird to adapt that formerly-hot adventure script “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” and the Zellner Bros. would have featured Jake Lacy and Camila Mendes in the tabloid sensation of the 90’s, but now a musical – it’s “Bobbitt!”

COMIC BOOKS

Obviously, I kept Sony, Disney, Warner Bros. and FOX afloat with a succession of Marvel and DC movies, adapting pretty much anything that hadn’t seen the screen yet. I exhausted this enough (i.e. Rami Malek in Lodge Kerrigan’s “Morbius”) that I eventually built to a massive inter-company crossover between studios. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t fool around with smaller titles.

Aubrey Plaza was my new “Tank Girl” for Cathy Yan, with Awkwafina, Iko Uwais, Giancarlo Esposito and, as Jet Girl, Merritt Wever. Michael B. Jordan was Baz Luhrmann’s “Flash Gordon”, Karen Gillan was director Drew Barrymore’s “Barbarella” and Adam Beach was Paul McGuigan’s “Turok: Dinosaur Hunter”. For Joseph Kahn, the “WildC.A.T.S.” were John Cho, Jason Clarke, Sharni Vinson, Albert Brooks, Andre Royo and Olivia Cooke. I had a similar star lineup for Kathryn Bigelow’s “Copra”, which later rebooted from the studios to Netflix (Hollywood, why haven’t you jumped on Copra yet?). Dan Stevens was “The Phantom” for Gus Van Sant, and Eva Green was “Vampirella” for Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, while Antonio Banderas was “Dan Dare” for Alex de la Iglesia. Nicolas Winding Refn helmed a star-studded adaptation of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “The Incal”, while Bill Hader (who I just KNEW would become a director – he killed it on “Barry”) filled out the call sheet with Thomas Haden Church for “The Tick”. Finally, there was Paul Greengrass getting to do his contemporary “Watchmen” with Denzel Washington, George Clooney, Winona Ryder, Tom Cruise, Matt Damon and Jude Law.

TV ADAPTATIONS

I was really grasping at straws in trying to turn some shows into films. Often I went with stuff that wasn’t exactly huge at the time, which is how David Wain’s “Manimal” starred Paul Rudd, or why Ben Stiller got to direct “Lookwell” (based on an unaired Conan O’Brien/Adam West pilot) with George Clooney. Speaking of unaired pilots, Taika Waititi would direct “Heat Vision And Jack”, about an astronaut and the telepathic motorcycle that speaks to him, with Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Jenna Fischer.

As a big “Saturday Night Live” fan, I also went wild adapting sketches into full length movies, and damn the torpedoes if that would ever backfire on me. Dan Harmon doing “Dog Show” (Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon), Terrence Nance doing “Perspectives” (Tim Meadows), Anne Mumolo doing “Molecul-O” (Jon Hamm taking over for Conan O’Brien), Jim Hosking saving the late, lamented “Dieter” (Mike Myers), with Joachim Trier doing a melancholic “Simon’s Drawings” (also Myers).

And if you’ve ever seen the animated “C.O.P.S.”, why SHOULDN’T a movie be directed by Tim Miller with Anthony Mackie, Jack Reynor, Kate McKinnon, Gabrielle Union and Jason Clarke? (Other than it’s copaganda, but look at that animation!)

BOOKS

I adapted any book I read, and some I didn’t! So there were plenty of obscurities, like the bluesy talking animal tale “The Bear Comes Home”, directed by Richard Ayoade with Bill Murray as the bear’s voice, and Sam Rockwell and Ruth Wilson costarring. And Neill Blomkamp’s “All The Birds In The Sky” with Daisy Ridley and Jack Reynor, Lisa Cholodenko’s “The Animators” with Beanie Feldstein and Julia Garner and Darren Aronofsky’s “Melmoth” with Gal Gadot.

Among properties that did eventually get adapted, I was first! For “Shantaram”, I let Bradley Cooper run wild for director Peter Weir (who was once attached to a real version long before it became an Apple TV series). For “Dark Matter” (also Apple TV), I had Rian Johnson working with Hugh Jackman and Jada Pinkett Smith. For a time, Don Winslow’s pulpy novels were sought to be big budget films, but I had Chris McQuarrie and Tom Cruise reuniting for “The Winter Of Frankie Machine” (with Idris Elba, David Harbour and Tom Waits) and Michael Mann’s “The Force” with Edward Norton, Anthony Mackie, Rosario Dawson and Justin Theroux. I revived the scuttled “The Deep Blue Good-By” with Frank Grillo as the new Travis McGee for director Dee Rees. And I had David Robert Mitchell on “The Terror” – instead of an AMC series, this starred Daniel Craig, Ben Foster, Jude Law and Eddie Marsan.

I read several book series, and they became franchises in my mind. “IQ”, about a young streetwise detective, became a vehicle for Michael B. Jordan with Carlos Lopez Estrada, while Edgar Wright adapted the “Tokyo Suckerpunch” series with John Boyega, Rinko Kikuchi, Laura Harrier, Takeshi Kitano and Dolph Lundgren. And I figured Susanna Grant’s “V.I. Warshawski” could launch Rachel Bloom into stardom.

Boots Riley took a swing at Percival Everett’s incendiary “The Trees” with Lakeith Stansfield and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, while Panos Cosmatos tackled “Childhood’s End” and Lynne Ramsay tried “The Forever War” with Andrew Garfield. Mahershala Ali was Nemo alongside Adam Driver in Barry Jenkins’ “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”, and Brian DePalma had Denzel Washington and Tom Hardy go toe-to-toe in “The Matarese Circle”. Jennifer Kent’s “Flicker” would be adapting my favorite horror book with Lakeith Stansfield, Zoe Kravitz and Brad Dourif, while Olivier Assayas’ “Stranger In A Strange Land” would pivot around Isaiah Washington, Benicio Del Toro and Emily Blunt. Charlie Kaufman would adapt his own novel “Antkind” with Mark Ruffalo, while Richard Ayoade would helm Jim Carrey’s unhinged autobiography “Memoirs And Misinformation”. And for some reason, I thought Romola Garai would be a solid choice to adapt Lionel Shriver’s “Game Theory”, a population-control romance of sorts with George Clooney and Rachel Weisz.

ORIGINAL WORK

A lot of the original movies I “created” were based on already-existing abandoned projects. An old John Carpenter joint called “Riot” was resurrected by Jeremy Sauliner with Ryan Reynolds and Chadwick Boseman. The legendary script for “The Sky Is Falling” (which I heard got made in a butchered, unrecognizable form with a new title, someone needs to fill me in on this) fell into the lap of Sion Sono with Matthew McConaughey, Ryu Ishibashi, Robert DeNiro and Lakeith Stansfield. An old Carrey/Stiller project called “Used Guys” was repurposed for Dan Harmon with Donald Glover, Damon Wayans Jr., David Cross and Naomi Watts. I resurrected an old zombie soldier movie called “Shadow Company” that John Carpenter was going to do and gave it to S. Craig Zahler, with Kurt Russell, Jonathan Majors, Eamonn Walker, O-T Fagbenle, Asante Blackk, Gabriel Luna and Rockmund Dunbar. Charlie Kaufman also got the greenlight for “Frank Or Francis”. And I even did “Ricky Stanicky” (in fact, a two-film franchise) with Michael B. Jordan, Danny McBride, and as the title character, Michael Shannon. 

Aside from that, I just went nuts. How about Sullivan Stapleton and Aubrey Plaza in a Lynne Ramsay erotic thriller set at “Burning Man”? Or a genuinely hardcore “Santa Claus” origin movie from Sofia Coppola with Bryan Cranston? Kay Cannon directing “Mustache”, about a mustache-growing competition (this is a real thing) with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Kumail Nanjiali, Gael Bernal, Mary Louise-Parker and Terry Crews? Alejandro Amenebar doing a Mexico-set serial killer thriller “Cuerpo” with Benicio Del Toro? And what about a fencing film set in the 1800’s called “Trial By Battle” from Jane Campion, with Ryan Gosling, Nicole Kidman, Jason Isaacs and Jean Dujardin?

I had Jack White shift into directing for “A Little Pain Never Hurt Anyone”, with Margo Price (who I am just madly in love with) playing herself. “The Rubber Room” was a Lena Dunham ensemble piece about how New York City punishes teachers, with her, Jamie Foxx, Tim Roth, Tiffany Haddish, Gina Gershon, Hong Chau and Andre Braugher. “Escape From Farmington” was a female prison break movie from Cate Shortland with Charlize Theron, Constance Wu, Denise Gough and Debbie Harry. And I even had Alexander Payne try more broad comedy in “The Public Defender”, with Jake Gyllenhaal as an eccentric, broke lawyer who becomes best friends with his client Mark Ruffalo, and with Rosemarie DeWitt and David Oyelowo filling out that cast. I see a Formula One movie is being made, but I beat them to the punch with Duncan Jones’ “Formula One”, with John Boyega and Tom Hiddleston. I also ventured into gamer culture, with Jill Soloway directing Kathryn Hahn as a middle-aged woman who gets into competitive gaming after a divorce in “Gamer Girl”.

Sometimes I leaned more ridiculous. Larry Fessenden helmed “Herpes”, where Michael Shannon was a doctor who arrived to a small town and began to spread a disease amongst his patients, misdiagnosing them all with the title condition – sort of a riff on small-town anti-science attitudes that gives what I now admit is a pretty mixed message! Kimberly Peirce’s “Overreach” was really a chance to give Cate Blanchett a showcase role as a senator investing in a massive firearms company. “Punch Him In His S***” was Chad Stalheski and David Leitch getting to work with Jackie Chan, Tony Jaa, Jet Li, Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Scott Adkins, Iko Uwais, Andrew Koji, Jeeja Yanin and Liam Neeson, while “Marie” was a Randy Newman jukebox musical with Florence Pugh. “Bump Key” was a Chris McQuarrie suspense thriller about a small ecosystem of thieves and criminals in the city with Benicio Del Toro, Sam Rockwell, Naomie Harris, Ray Stevenson, Melissa McCarthy, Parker Posey, Alfre Woodard and Scott Adkins. And the legendary conflict reached it’s logical conclusion in Andrew Patterson’s “Hatfield/McCoy/Cyborg”, with Hugh Jackman, Olga Kurylenko, Jason Momoa, Frank Grillo, Daisy Ridley, Sasha Lane and Ashton Sanders.

That being said, don’t say I wasn’t open for collaboration. Whenever I had a cellmate in the SHU, I never let on that I was doing something so ridiculous. One day, one cellmate, an idle-minded sort, mused out loud, “What if… there was a wolf… on the moon?” He never followed up this train of thought, but it didn’t stop me from creating Doug Liman’s “Moonwolf”, starring Elizabeth Moss and Dan Stevens.

Thank you for letting me waste your time.