oger Corman is turning 80 this year, and by all accounts it's a banner year for many reasons. He has marked a half-century in filmmaking, having produced more than 400 movies and directed more than 50, and throughout 2006 his film library will be distributed by Buena Vista Home Entertainment in special-edition packages with titles including Brain Dead, Big Doll House, School Spirit, Welcome to Planet Earth and Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds. The first wave of films coming out in the special editions, including Death Race 2000 and DinoCroc (which he made for the SCI FI Channel) were released in December.
His movies, which were once made for drive-ins and later for direct-to-video release, are now coming out on DVD for all to see, and they give him a chance to re-live the making of the movies when he does commentaries with the stars like William Shatner (The Intruder) and Angie Dickinson (Big Bad Mama). His films helped start young actors such as Jack Nicholson, Robert DeNiro, Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper, Tommy Lee Jones and Sylvester Stallone, as well as young filmmakers such as Joe Dante (Piranha), Ron Howard (Grand Theft Auto), Martin Scorsese (Boxcar Bertha), Jonathan Demme (Caged Heat) and Francis Ford Coppola (Dementia 13). And he worked with legendary stars like Vincent Price, Lon Chaney Jr., Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre in his "Poe series," based on Edgar Allan Poe stories, such as The Raven, The Pit and the Pendulum and Masque of the Red Death.
Among his other upcoming projects, Corman said he is working on Cyclops for the SCI FI Channel and that he is delving into the legend of a Mexican monster for a film called Cry of the Winged Serpent featuring a creature called Quetzalcoatl, which he cannot yet figure out how to pronounce. He is also overseeing special effects being added in the SF/horror film tentatively titled Saurian, directed by special-effects master John Carl Buechler and starring Michael Pare, Tracy Scoggins and Nick Mancuso.
On Jan. 22, at the 15th annual Producers Guild Awards, Corman will receive a lifetime achievement award along with Academy Award winner Clint Eastwood and TV producer Norman Lear.
Science Fiction Weekly interviewed Roger Corman by phone.
So congratulations on being honored by the Producers Guild on Jan. 22, along with Norman Lear and Clint Eastwood.
Corman: Hah, yeah. I guess I'm in pretty good company. I like their work.
The award you're getting, the David O. Selznick Achievement Award, has been given to Billy Wilder, Brian Grazer, Jerry Bruckheimer, Dino De Laurentiis, Bob Evans and Laura Ziskin, among others.
Corman: Again, pretty good company. Guess they ran out [of people] to give it to. I'm honored about the honors, and surprised. The first time they ever gave a lifetime achievement award to a producer at Cannes [Film Festival], they gave it to me. I got one from the Los Angeles Film Critics, the [British] Spirit Award, got nominated for a Saturn Award [by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, for Frankenstein Unbound] and others.
But not an Oscar yet?
Corman: No Oscar, no. [Laughs.] They honor folk who do a bit bigger-budget movies.
You're going to be 80 this coming April, and you're busier than ever.
Corman: Seem to be, no reason to stop. It's been 50 years.
And you've seen a lot change in the SF and horror genres. What do you think are some of the biggest changes?
Corman: A lot has changed since I started, but I've seen a few major changes. Some good, some not [so good]. In the horror and science-fiction genres, I think the biggest change has been the level of quality of the special effects, obviously. In DinoCroc we could get very long full-scale shots with computer graphics, and we used animatronics for the close-up of the head. I think it's great to have the new technology ... but we shouldn't depend on just computer special effects, and a mix of both is good. The CGI is so far superior than anything we had available, but I think the special effects are so good, and there's so much focus on it, there's no time spent on developing the characters.
So the special effects are taking over?
Corman: Seems to be, like a new toy. They're paying less attention to characters, and that makes the whole project suffer. They feel like they have it, so they have to use it. And that's why I think sometimes they go too far. I think some of the movies today are much too graphic and bloody for me.
I think people would be surprised to hear that from the man responsible for films with heads flying off of bodies and people getting run over by race cars!
Corman: It gets to be too much. I think the way we did it was with a bit of style.
You have a few projects with the SCI FI Channel—which owns our Web site—coming up.
Corman: Yeah, I did DinoCroc, for you guys, and I'm meeting with them for other things. I'm developing Super Gator, and I'm doing Cyclops for SCI FI, which is a big film. I'm working on doing DinoCroc 2; there's definite interest internationally for that one, but not for the SCI FI Channel. They don't want to do it [a sequel]. But the first one did well for them.
It must be fun to do these commentaries when you look back on your films.
Corman: You know, I don't like to prepare for the DVD extras. I think it's better to do [them] fresh. And when I do it with somebody else, it's a lot of fun. They're like mini-reunions or parties, you're sitting down and start blabbing and it's a reunion of sorts. ... I'm thinking of the great time I had with Bill Shatner for The Intruder or Angie Dickinson with Big Bad Mama. ... I hope that the good times we were having comes across on the screen.
In Big Bad Mama there's a full nude scene by Angie Dickinson, and I know you said she originally balked about doing it at first, but eventually did it. Did she talk about that during the commentary?
Corman: She talked about it a little bit in the commentary, and one time she said, "Oh, one of the nude scenes is coming up, I think I'm going to go and step out of the room." And I said, "You can go, but I'm staying here. I'm going to watch it!" She was a sport.
Have any of the actresses who were on their way up ever asked you to take out their nude scenes?
Corman: Well, we held the release of Fire on the Amazon, starring a then-unknown Sandra Bullock, for two years as she was slowly becoming a major star and doing [big-budget studio] movies. She asked to see the scene [before it was released] and said it was fine.
Have any of the actresses said they regretted doing nude scenes in your movies?
Corman: Never to me. I don't think so. They knew what they were doing when they did it, and they know I will never go X-rated. We don't do that.
For the Death Race 2000 release there's a great featurette you host called "Playing the Game: Looking Back at Death Race 2000," which includes interviews with actor Martin Kove, writer Charles Griffith and others, and you do a commentary with Mary Woronov (Calamity Jane), but there's no Sylvester Stallone. Was he embarrassed?
Corman: Oh no! He would have done a commentary on that, but he had a conflict. But, yeah, he would have done it. He's very good in it. He plays it very deadly serious, but he also plays it for humor, and he's very good in the role.
What about Tom Cruise's company doing the updated Death Race 3000?
Corman: I'm supposed to be executive producer of the project, but I'm not sure it will happen. Paul [W.S. Anderson, of Alien vs. Predator] wrote the first draft script, but evidently Tom didn't like the first draft.
Would you ever remake one of your movies, now that you have the time and the budget?
Corman: I generally see no reason to go back and remake them. I've been asked to go back and remake a number of films. But if I've done it, I've done it. I may like to take a crack at Death Race when the rights revert back to me, if they don't do anything. I may remake that, and I probably will remake Grand Theft Auto.
Did you see the Fantastic Four movie? Do you wish you could go back and redo that one?
Corman: I thought it was very good. I liked it. Great special effects. I thought what I did was a good little movie. That was such a strange deal.
Do you stay in touch with all of the protégés you've created? I suspect they will be there at the Producers Guild Awards.
Corman: Yeah, I see them; they are all fine filmmakers and would be even if they never met me. All I did was give them a chance, and maybe I taught them a little bit about the practical aspects of filmmaking—setting up a shot, composition, editing, use of different lenses, moving the camera and so forth, all that. The level they reached was due to their own ability.
Do you ever look back at one of your movies and cringe?
Corman: Occasionally I look at films and I cringe and say, "Oh my God, did I do that?" Sometimes it's painful. I recognize they were shot fast. I remember that I shot it on $50,000 or less and had six days to shoot it on. Then I look back on it and think I couldn't have done much better.
And is there a movie that will come up in this library of yours that you don't even remember making?
Corman: I'm sure there will be, but I don't remember any right now. I may come across one in this next year.
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