Film Stories with Simon Brew

In the late 1980s, Kevin Costner - pre-Dances With Wolves - first had the idea for what became the Horizon movie saga. A hugely-ambitious series of westerns, that he'd ultimately star in, co-write, and direct. By 2026, two films had been made, only one released, and around ten minutes shot of a third. So what's happened?

For the second half of this episode, Simon is joined by director Andrew Stanton, chatting about his new film In The Blink Of An Eye. The pair chat science fiction, semi-colons, a fruity toy, John Carter, and a whole lot more...
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The plan was for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman to spend around six months in the UK for the filming of Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick had been mulling the film for decades, and considering a couple of other projects, too. But the shoot of Eyes Wide Shut would ultimately be his final film - and it's end up in the Guinness Book of Records.

For Ben Elton, he was keen to pursue making the film Maybe Baby, having enjoyed success with the same story in his novel Inconceivable. But his insistence on a particular piece of casting nearly derailed the whole project.

Stories of both are told in this episode. Please do like and subscribe and leave nice reviews!
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The art of movie testing isn't just about researching finished films. It's also testing the very concept of a movie, that can determine both whether it gets made, and what it gets made for.

In a special episode of the podcast, a man who you may not have heard of joins Simon. Yet Kevin Goetz has certainly had some impact on the films you watch. His new book - How To Score In Hollywood, written with Bob Levin - digs into this. And in this special chat, we uncover some of his work...
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It was very different times for Marvel when, in the 1990s, it struck an assortment of deals over screen rights for its characters. For the purposes of this tale, the Incredible Hulk, for whom Universal snapped up the rights.

The deal done then continues to have some ramifications now, but the first fruits of it? Ang Lee's 2003 movie Hulk, starring Eric Bana. Arriving the year after Sam Raimi's Spider-man, it turns out there was an early alarm bell that they might have got the tone a little wrong...

More on the film, and the ongoing sequel issues, in this episode...
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Brian De Palma's soaring 1987 crime drama The Untouchables nearly went in some very different directions. Jack Nicholson as Eliot Ness? Bob Hoskins as Al Capone? And what's more, the film's legendary sequence on the steps of Chicago's Union Station was pretty much made up on the fly.

The story is told in this episode, as well as the brief attempt to get a prequel movie - Capone Rising - off the ground as well.

If you enjoy this, please like and subscribe. Doesn't half help independent podcasts when you do that...
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