[Released] Death Machine (1994) UK Director's Cut

[Pineapples101]

Agreed. And the UK DVD is pretty damn impressive, multiple commentaries, comes with the soundtrack and has a beautifully designed case and booklet.
Would be great to see all that ported over to a HD or 4K version.

[Pineapples101]

Okay folks, Stephen has replied to the questions asked at blu ray dot com

Questions in bold, Stephen's answers in Italics.

There's some in-depth info here, fascinating and yet still upsetting that these projects never got off the ground. I for one would have loved to have seen Stephen's take on AKIRA.



User - HipsterTrash asks:
I guess my ask is what happened to the rest of the projects he planned on doing after LXG. There was a WWII horror called Lost Patrol that sounded great. And he was attached to The Crow remake, Clash of the Titans remake, and an Akira adaptation. What happened to those and what was his vision for them at the time.

just as the (mistaken) adage says “time heals all wounds”, by approx 2007 I was starting to get bored of my Burning Man adventures so I called my ex-agent and some studio execs to investigate if there any projects that I might be able to develop, with an eye to direct – in hindsight I was victim to another cliché, looking again to Hollywood with “rose-tinted spectacles” – nevertheless, my ex-agent is a great guy and a total Hollywood power player - he was able to make development deals for me with Legendary (The Lost Patrol), Ed Pressman/Relativity (The Crow) and Warner Bros (Clash Of The Titans, Akira) – here’s the details:

THE LOST PATROL
second world war trenches action meets The Thing – there was no script, just a story idea – I wrote a script that added secret Nazi reality-bending science to explain the monsters – it became trench warfare versus The Thing by way of Nazi mind-warping science – the script was well liked but “needed a lot of work” (their opinion, not mine), producers came on board, we started working out costs, I did four drafts trying to please the execs, ultimately they didn’t feel confident, they were confused by the reality-bending stuff, wanted Guillermo Del Toro involved as exec producer, I chatted with GDT, he was uncomfortable with the Nazi tech stuff, it was too close to things he was developing, it didn’t work out so the project was shelved and everyone moved on

THE CROW
Ed Pressman contacted me and asked if I was interested in rebooting The Crow – I said no unless I can write a script that completely reinvents the character and story so It can be something from me rather than another episode of James O’Barr’s world – I expected Ed to say “get lost” because O’Barr’s Crow is a well-loved and valuable property – to my surprise, Ed said yes – I wrote four drafts of a wholly original story, based on the same basic story ideas (family killed by evil gang, father resurrected to seek revenge, violence and retribution ensue) - we started budgeting but each draft found less creative favour with Relativity (the financing company) - the wholly new material illuminated that, despite what had been said, what was really wanted was another episode of O’Barr’s Crow, not an original idea – ultimately three things killed it: Relativity wanted Mark Wahlberg to play the resurrected father (and Wahlberg hated my script), Ed Pressman employed Nick Cave (the rocker) to do a presumably “gothy” rewrite, and the budget came in too high ($45million) – the project had moved far away from my original idea so I quit and moved on – I don’t think the recent release has anything to do with my material

CLASH OF THE TITANS
there was a script by Lawrence Kasdan (Empire Strikes Back etc) – WBros wanted me to direct that script – I wasn’t interested, I said I would write a new script – WBros hesitantly agreed but didn’t really facilitate the process, in hindsight they said what I wanted to hear but hoped to steer me back to Kasdan’s script – Kasdan was annoyed that this no-name UK bloke wanted to jettison his script – I didn’t much care if I did the movie or not - if I was going to do it I wanted it to be something I thought was cool, with ideas and filmmaking that I sparked to – I did a audio-visual presentation to the execs – they were underwhelmed – I went on a long-planned expedition to the South Pole (seriously) – when I came back I found I’d been fired and replaced with Louis Leterrier – it was a good outcome all round – I didn’t have to do something I wasn’t interested in and the movie made $500million worldwide for WBros

AKIRA
for years this project has been looking for the right moment – I got involved for a short while, wrote a treatment that adjusted the story into something more US-centric, more straightforward – my version would have likely annoyed fans but perhaps would have been financially viable (ie: costs a lot but makes a lot because it’s mainstream, understandable and relatable to non-fan audiences - the fan audience is dwarfed by the non-fan audience) – ultimately, though, my approach made the execs uncomfortable, too different from the original, too expensive to mount, too much of a risk in their eyes – they were probably right – everybody moved on – WBros has since explored a few other approaches – looks like Taika Waititi’s version might go the distance

needless to say, those development experiences confirmed what I had previous concluded, that I wasn’t going to find a fulfilling creative life in Hollywood – and here we are

Does he have plans for making a grand return to the industry or is the aim to stay a true independent/one man band? Possibly any chances of branching into other mediums like comics?

no grand return but perhaps my new movie The Migrant will find some fans – yes, it’s a 98% one-man-band project (with three actors) but it’s a full-length feature and looks like it was made by a studio – small scale project, big sci-fi ideas, best experience of my life - not sure how I will release it, will see if streamers want to pay me for a 1yr exclusive license – if not, I’ll release it myself under Creative Commons license and get on with the next one (already written, ready to go, just need to finish The Migrant first)

no comics plans but I do have a 60% completed kid-centric reality-bending novel I wrote in 2003-5 – I still plan to finish it but have to get these DIY movies done first

And lastly, what's his views on the film industry and where he thinks it's going?

the film industry is going along just fine making tons of money while always pleading poverty – despite universal audience complaints about movies, streaming, TV etc, those big media corps are constantly making content, making money (because the complaining audiences are nevertheless still watching), developing risk-adverse material and turning big profits at the end of it all

very quickly AI will be used to create 99% of genre content from the big corps and (I’m guessing) 50% of non-genre content – soon it will be cheaper to use AI to create a movie like Avatar: Way Of Water rather than human crews – people will complain about AI being used but audiences will still flock to movies, TV, streamers, phones etc and the industry will still make big bucks – in other words, business as usual, just more computers

here in Norringtonland I really enjoy making real things, doing practical effects and going to amazing locations to shoot cool shots – it’s a life experience and I don’t much care if an audience likes my output - I’ll keep on keeping on making little analog films in the real world and having a laugh – but a decade from now big media will be producing most of its content in dark computer cubicles largely by way of prompts and AI focus groups

User - jess1581 asks:
I only have one pressing question.... unless it's been answered already. Can we please get an LXG 4K? Is that even a possibility? I know there are sore feelings about it, but certainly he knows the film has a fanbase. The blu-ray is ancient and could definitely use some TLC.

LXG is controlled by Fox which is now owned by Disney – I have not heard anything about a 4K release of the movie but I’m sure it will happen one day, especially if Disney senses that the movie has been re-evaluated by audiences and is now a cool relic from audience childhoods that might yield new money to Disney if they invest in a 4K release – as far as my involvement goes, I’d certainly like to orchestrate a director’s cut but I fear the improvements I’d want to make would be financially prohibitive to Disney - if they ask me I’d certainly discuss but I suspect they don’t care enough to spend meaningful money on that movie at this time in history – footnote: the first three reels of LXG were edited by the editor and me – the remaining three were edited by the editor under the direction of the Fox execs and perhaps a smidgen of Connery – this was because I bailed on the movie during post when it became obvious I was an obstacle to getting the movie finished in time for Fox’s desired summer release date (IMHO a horrible mistake, Autumn would have been better but, hey, it was Fox’s decision to make) – thus, any director’s cut would require a complete overhaul of at least 50% of the movie which would be a significant expense

User - systemrok asks:
What was the budget exactly? IIRC Stephen said $2m in one commentary but in the Ray Burdis interview he says $500k (which sounds impossible). I always thought scenes had been filmed on location because the office and vault sets are really quite amazing for a low budget film.

I don’t actually know exactly what the budget was beyond the number “two-point-five million” – that may have been dollars, may have been pounds, may have been the original number, may have been the final number – the movie went over budget so not sure where it ended up and in what denomination – I usually just say it was “2.5million dollars, or perhaps pounds” – it certainly wasn’t 500k! – but whatever it was, it was low budget and the entire crew achieved crazy impressive things in all departments for the meagre pennies they had available

[Pineapples101]

Stephen was good enough to reply to a few questions posted on blu ray dot com
Questions are in bold:

User: Resident Evil Labs asks: If you have the time, could you ask Stephen what his version of Freddy Vs Jason and Resident Evil would have been like? And does he ever want to get back into the studio system? Thank you

FREDDY VRS JASON / RESIDENT EVIL
I’m not sure how my name came to be linked to either of those projects – I was never approached to be involved and never did any development for either of them – another case of internet Chinese Whispers, I think – I did hear that Rob Bottin once was developing Freddy Vrs Jason – that would have been something to behold

RETURN TO THE STUDIO SYSTEM
I refer you to my previous answers

User Fat Phil askes: ”So, you and Sean Connery? Tell me evvverything."

NORRINGTON VRS CONNERY
sorry to disappoint, there was not much to this story – Connery didn’t like me and I didn’t like him because he didn’t like me – we did have a couple of loud arguments and I tried to quit the movie one time because I was “sick of it all” – but I wasn’t allowed to quit (legal action etc) so I stayed and we finished the movie

overall Connery was extremely professional, he was always available, always knew his lines, always treated everyone with grace and courtesy – I don’t know why he took a dislike to me, I think perhaps he didn’t like being told what to do by a greenhorn, didn’t like my brusque tone, didn’t like my getting frustrated at crew member friends of his, didn’t like feeling he was in the dark about what was going on, didn’t like my fast-paced shooting schedule (a combo of my energy and the movie being a bit underbudgeted by the studio), perhaps sensed I didn’t care about his status, I didn’t revere him, I just wanted to get the movie in the can and get gone

Connery made a number of negative public statements that, in combo with the production being affected by a big flood in Prague, became a media story about how the director was a madman and the movie was an epic disaster - true, the floods were a headache for the art department but for the shooting crew they were a positive in many ways, gave us two weeks downtime to reset, clear a backlog of second unit and we got an insurance payout that bought us more shooting time

the making of LoEG was essentially the same experience as you find on a lot of big movies (I’ve worked on quite a few as an effects guy): fun times, horrible times, easy work, stressful work, temper tantrums, gracious moments, fist-pumping successes, out-of-the-blue problems, big budget, penny pinching, studio descends in post (it’s their money after all), movie gets finished in one form or another, gets released, end of story – by the time LoEG was finished I had long gone, nothing to do with Connery or even Fox, everything to do with finding a better quality of life somewhere else

[Pineapples101]

And just as a follow up, I had mentioned to Stephen how much I enjoyed LoEG. And this was his responce:

glad you like League, I sense it’s being reevaluated a bit these days, it’s got a ton of good stuff in it and there’s a load more good stuff that didn’t make it into the studio cut – it would be great to fix it up but the obstacles are as I detailed previously – unlike indie movies, studio movies are much more at the mercy of cold-eyed business decisions – studio movies cost a lot to make and a lot to repair years later – I’ll be surprised if funds for a real director’s cut ever materialize but it will be cool if they do

[Pineapples101]

Stephen has been good enough to answer another blu ray dot com user question
Questions in bold, answers in italics
Chie Satonaka asked:

1. He's talked about big changes that were made to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. We're there any big scenes Cut from the film (besides the publicly released ones) that he felt would have made the movie even better? What are some of the things he would change in an edit to improve the movie?

actually it’s not that there were big changes made to League by the studio, it’s that the studio insisted on a different angle and intention and so my intentions were never realized – the issues I have are in four areas:

A) tone - my intention was darker, more character details and complexities, more story clarity and cohesion (all of which was shot but never used), studio intention was lighter, simpler, faster even if things got more superficial and the story became a bit incoherent

B) running time – my intention was to use as much time as necessary to flesh out characters and emphasize their complexities – studio intention was for the movie to run as short as possible

C) action – my intention was to include all the awesome action sequences we shot – studio didn’t like action sequences and was resistant to including all the action sequences even though we had shot them at great expense – so they never got used

D) vfx – there are some really great visual effects in the movie and some really horrible ones - I thought all vfx should be excellent, studio was happy to accept the bare minimum to get the movie released on time

the ABCD areas of disagreement were such that, to pursue my version I’d need to do epic battle with the studio and they’d have to move their release date which they wouldn’t do – because life’s too short I stepped away and they turned out the version you’ve seen

2. I know that there was a cut cameo of Morbius in Blade, there's a little of it on the internet, but was more filmed of Morbius? Like closer shots or dialogue? Did you have plans for the character if you had made Blade 2 (and the rights issues weren't a thing).

the “Morbius Cameo” wasn’t Morbius as far as I remember, it only became Morbius after the fact when writer David Goyer said that’s who it was – but I might be wrong, perhaps it was always supposed to be Morbius and I’ve forgotten – either way that one shot was all there was, it was just supposed to be an epic way to end the movie, the action’s all over but Blade’s “still got a job to do”, there’s still mysterious vampire enemies out there and Blade’s “back on the clock”, cut to black – for some reason the studio didn’t like that ending, too blunt, too ambiguous – we worked up the Moscow ending because New Line wanted to see Blade in Moscow for some reason - people seem to like the Moscow ending but it always seemed out-of-tone to me (as did the prophecy stuff), Blade to me was like a 1970’s city crime thriller - putting the character in Moscow smelled of tone-busting franchise building at the expense of the character’s authentic texture