Hoot wrote: ↑

March 2nd, 2024, 2:34 pm

FloridaAggie13 wrote: ↑

March 2nd, 2024, 1:19 pm

Hoot wrote: ↑

March 1st, 2024, 9:12 pm

USU78 wrote: ↑

March 1st, 2024, 6:30 pm

Hoot wrote: ↑

March 1st, 2024, 9:56 am

NVAggie wrote: ↑

March 1st, 2024, 9:23 am

Hoot was cheering for the villains in Lethal Weapon 2. He may have been swayed had Val Kilmer played the part of Martin Riggs

Hahaha the Hoot family didn’t move to South Africa until after Mandela became president. Interestingly though my being a fan of Val Kilmer is directly related to South Africa.

{Pulling up a chair}

Spill!

I had to get special clearance to tell this story. For privacy sake I will be somewhat vague and not use any names directly.

Aunt Hoot worked in the film industry here in the US before moving to South Africa and finding work in the same industry there. (This was late 90’s for reference.)

She and my uncle befriended a local cop who had joined right after Mandela became president. He told them some of his experiences dealing with integration and everything that went on. Part of that was working with some pretty racist white cops.

Anyway she wrote a script based on some of his experiences. It is kind of a mix of Animal Kingdom and Training Day if I had to compare it off the top of my head. It was about a racist white cop who gets paired with a rookie black cop to investigate some crimes against a black neighborhood after Mandela became president. The perps turn out to be fellow white officers and the main guy basically has to pick between protecting his friends and the old ways or helping his new friend and moving forward. Thats a gross oversimplification but for the sake of time I won’t explain more except to say the ending is a top five heart breaking ending for me. It is a fantastic script and I admit I am biased but I’m far from the only one who loves it. It captured that era in great detail and really hit home for a lot of folk.

Anyway, as mentioned by Teton, the fighter pilot actor we all love had filmed the best lion hunting movie ever in South Africa. He had made some contacts in the film industry down there who had read the script and passed it on to him. He loved it and was really enthusiastic about doing it.

That kind of got the ball rolling as the script moved through Hollywood a bit. Some pretty big name directors looked into it and it ended up in the hands of a guy who was in the process of making one of the best detective movies ever who softly agreed to do it. A actor who was big in the late 80’s and recently starred in a big budget Spy movie was considered for the villain though it’s unclear how far talks actually got.

They also had the star of the second (possibly third) best shark movie ever and a future two time Oscar nominee who was making a movie with the dinosaur movie director. There was also a big time actor from down there who has done some marvel movies and the star of a certain extra terrestrial movie.

Scheduling conflicts and budget issues started arising, the fighter pilot had some personal issues and it got put on hold for a few years. And in the mid 2000’s things briefly started looking stable again. The director was available but the fighter pilot was a bit too old to play the lead now so he shifted to the villain role. They got an Australian who was a big star at the time and who had played a delta force operator, a spy, and a space elf to be the main lead. The rest of the cast pretty much left or had become too big to play their roles so they had to recast some roles and got a fleet commander who did not fear death to sign on.

That version also stalled out due to financial issues. A different writer was hired to rewrite the script and butchered it basically making it an American gang movie. At one point he even attempted to move the story to LA. Naturally it tanked.

In the early 2010’s after the success of Invictus, another attempt was made with the Australian guy and the fighter pilot again. But by this point the cast and director were fighting for the original script while the studio hired a guy to merge both scripts but it ultimately fizzled out again.

In the mid 2010’s there was one final attempt with a new director who had made a train movie and a famous one where the star had lost a lot of weight. At this point the Australian was working on new projects so they got the guy from the space conflict movies of the early 2000’s who was coming off a break in his acting. The fighter pilot was still in line to play the villain. They actually filmed about 20 minutes of test footage for this version which I have seen and it is fantastic.

Unfortunately around this time the fighter pilot started having health issues and was not able to act. The director moved on to a different project and the star wasn’t high enough profile at that point for the studio to continue the project.

It should also be noted that South Africa had changed drastically from the time production began to the time the third version was attempted. The South African police is not the most humane of organizations these days which really killed momentum for the movie. Also the death of Mandela was a big blow.

Anyway, the one constant throughout the whole process was the fighter pilot who was even willing to switch roles and did everything he could to keep the project going. For that, I will always be a fan.

I hope any of that made sense

Sounds made up.

Blue Sage wrote: ↑

March 3rd, 2024, 11:06 am

Had the opportunity to talk to him recently, he said his leg is doing well. He is such a class act really good kid.