[IMG:L]Marc Forster and Paul Haggis had a chance to bond last week at the Los Angeles Film Festival just as they get ready to launch their next project, the latest in the 007 series. Forster (Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland) just signed on to direct the Bond 22, while Haggis (Crash) will write the script. It was cream and sugar, rather than shaken, not stirred, for the two who stopped by for the festival Coffee Talk series.
Their conversation, moderated by James Mangold (Copland, Walk the Line), was focused on the pitfalls of their past productions. In separate interviews, the duo shared their thoughts on the next Bond.
Forster‘s ouvre does not suggest big action, but he says he has tried to mount such a spectacle for many years. “I’ve been trying to look into it for a while and been looking for the right project,” he said. “I just haven’t found it until now so I always had the fascination. I just always enjoyed them very, very much, loved the whole Indiana Jones series, the old Bonds, all those movies.”
An acclaimed director with an Oscar-winning film under his belt, Haggis insists he never wanted the gig himself. “There are certain things you can write and there are certain things you can direct,” said Haggis. “I just felt that it takes a big commitment to direct a Bond film. It’s a 120 day shoot. It’s a two year commitment basically to do it. If you do that on top of writing, it’s almost a three year commitment. So I just didn’t want to dedicate that much time. It’s going to take me six months to get the script into shape as it is. I think I’ll do that and then I’ll go off into the next project.”
Both directors are still finishing their latest films, Forster‘s The Kite Runner and Haggis‘s In the Valley of Elah, so they have had little time to consider Bond 22. Forster has not even begun to approach the project.
“I’m just literally mixing The Kite Runner in July and then sometime in August or September, I start [Bond],” he said. “To be honest, I haven’t put any thought because really, my mind is in The Kite Runner and scoring and finishing that up. I haven’t really spent any time with that stuff. I wish I could tell you. Maybe in a later period.”
At least he has Bond girl auditions to look forward to. “Yes, I think finding Bond girls will always be an interesting task but again, not something I have dealt with at this point.”
Haggis was prepared to leave the Coffee Talk immediately at noon to continue writing the script, so was a tad further along in his work. Even though Casino Royale was a prequel, re-establishing James Bond, the next one will not be a direct sequel.
“I wouldn’t describe it as such,” said Haggis. “I think it’s going to stand on its own although it does follow right on the heels of Casino Royale.”
[IMG:R]Action is a necessity in a James Bond adventure, so part of Haggis‘s work at this stage is thinking of sequences to top the set pieces in Casino Royale, like the Bahamian construction site chase. “I didn’t come up with the chase sequence in the beginning. That was Martin Campbell who came up with that and it was presented to me. But just the stairwell scene and things like that, I’d come up with, so I’ve got a couple of those planned.”
The panel discussion was free of Bond fans digging for intel. There were far more filmmakers hoping for some helpful advice. For Haggis and Forster, it was a tremendous opportunity to give something back to a world that has allowed them to pursue their passions.
“Filmmakers don’t tend to spend too much time with one another and talk much with one another,” said Forster. “It’s fun getting together and doing something like that.”
“I just know what it was like for me when I was trying to break in in my early ’20s,” said Haggis. “I don’t know what people get out of it but there’s no way to tell ahead of time. You can say something to someone that’ll just change the direction of their work. You don’t even know what you said. Or you can blather on for hours and just be meaningless but I figure I should take the risk because it’s important. People who are trying to follow their dreams need all the encouragement they can get. Anything I can give them, or Marc or anyone else can give them to give a little step up or edge or something to inspire them is our job.”
Some of the helpful advice the filmmakers shared in their hour-long chat included Haggis‘ warning against well-wishers. Whether they are advisors urging you to stick to a genre, or test screening focus groups trying to give your film the best ending possible, they are all bad news.
“Don’t talk to those people anymore,” advised Haggis. “Honest to God, because those guys are really trying to help you and they can help you right into not having a career. The one thing you really have to be afraid of in this town are people who want to help you. When people want to hurt you, you see them, you know who it is. The ones who want to help you, like in testing, they really want to help you with the movie.”
Of course, Haggis was a successful television writer/producer before he made his first film. Forster represented more of the struggling artiste who had to cobble everything together from dust.
“Once I finished film school and I moved out here [to Los Angeles], I realized the only way I could actually ever make something happen is writing my own scripts,” said Forster. “Nobody’s going to offer you anything so I just was writing a lot. I had this one script which I felt I could shoot on digital video, everything together and do it in like two weeks for $100,000. That was my whole dogma, just make this movie for $100,000. Just let’s take a video camera and cast friends in it and shoot it and we did that and then we got into Sundance and that’s how everything started.”
That may sound like common sense, but it is surprisingly easy in Hollywood to rely on other people to deliver your dreams to you. “It’s so hard in this town because at that stage, people promise you things,” Forster shared. “Financing doesn’t go through. If you say, ‘I need two million dollars, I need a million dollars to make this movie,’ I said, ‘Forget you.’ That was the first two years. I threw that out.”
Forster‘s story prompted moderator Mangold to make the most controversial comments of the whole affair. He had previously been prompting the conversation between Forster and Haggis, but having made his first film, Heavy, the same way Forster made his, Mangold got passionate about do-it-yourself-ers.
“The people you keep seeing making movies are the people who don’t quit making movies,” Mangold began. “The people you keep seeing asking about how they get movies made are people who spend all their time asking. Stop asking. Make a movie. There’s never been a time when it’s easier and you have to always ask yourself, ‘Do I need to make a studio picture or do I need to make a movie? If I need to make a studio picture then I’m a fraud.’ Meaning that if you’re waiting for that eight million dollars and you can’t make it for less, then the world doesn’t need more of you. That’s like saying, ‘I need to be a senator and I want to have a lot of money from Galactica.’ Fuck you, we don’t need more people hooked on that. What we need are people with stories to tell.”
[IMG:L]Money is not the only weapon of seduction Hollywood has for corrupting artists. “The world of acting, directing and writing is filled with a lot of people who actually just want to be famous,” said Mangold. “They don’t have a story to tell. Instead of getting angry about the studios, you might get angry at the fact that there are so many people with completely hollow aspirations that are clogging it up. The people who really have a story to tell don’t ever quit, whether it’s a puppet show in a park. They find a way to tell their stories.”
Mangold‘s last words of wisdom were to stop reading Variety. He suggests The Art of Fiction by John Gardner instead. Forster agreed.
“I read the trades for a year and got so sick,” he said. “I was so depressed, I couldn’t take it anymore. [Headlines] like ‘Shopping Court Attendant Sells Script for a Million Dollars,’ I just couldn’t take it. It was poison to me.”
Between Mangold‘s questions and those from the audience, the featured filmmakers revealed their processes and problem solving methods. Perhaps those are the sorts of questions they prefer, rather than journalists trying to get movie scoops, but Haggis appreciated both.
“I like all questions because they make me think and they make me think of what I do,” he said. “I think it’s very important to continually question yourself.”
