S3E8: “Demon Knight Payback”

The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast

It’s time for a little Demon Knight Payback! Who’s fired now, kiddies?

Thirty years ago, in 1994, alongside my creative partner at the time Gil Adler, I co-produced the now CLASSIC horror movie “TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS DEMON KNIGHT”. The movie opened on Friday, January 13, 1995. As often happens in the movie biz, as producers, we fired the original writers – CY VORIS, ETHAN REIFF & MARK BISHOP from the project. Unceremoniously. Thirty years later, Cy and Ethan will at long last get a little payback. In fact, they’ll finally get to fire back at us because we fired them! This monster movie features payback.

Now, Cy, Ethan & Mark’s script was terrific when we bought it. That’s why TALES FROM THE CRYPT’S executive producers (JOEL SILVER, RICHARD DONNER, WALTER HILL and ROBERT ZEMECKIS) bought it! And Cy and Ethan are top notch writers. They co-wrote KUNG FU PANDA and created shows like BRIMSTONE and SLEEPER CELL.

But, Is it ‘Crypt’ Enough?

But, the problem was, their script wasn’t “Crypt” enough. The point of the exercise wasn’t just to put out a movie with Crypt’s name on it. The movie needed to represent CRYPT’S BRAND in every way. One of the things we, as Crypt producers, felt at the time was that the ending in particular wasn’t “Crypt”.

And, so, because Gil and I were writer-producers on Crypt (one of my jobs on the show was to SAFEGUARD OUR FRANCHISE tenaciously), we took on the re-writing chores. That we were producers taking over the writing made Cy, Ethan and Mark even angrier. And then – because we put in a lot of legitimate work, we also sought shared credit for the screenplay. That would have meant shared residuals, too.

In the end, Gil and I lost the credit (and residuals battle). But, now, Cy, Ethan & Mark regarded Gil and I as not just assholes, but carpetbagging assholes.

Such is HOLLYWOOD.

But, in Hollywood, fired writers never get to fire back at being fired (except within their social circles and therapy sessions). Payback for writers? Not on this Planet Hollywood!

Good thing this ain’t Hollywood. It’s THE HOW NOT TO MAKE A MOVIE PODCAST!

And here, we laugh at Hollywood’s rules (sometimes we outright chortle)! With that in mind – and with Demon Knight’s 30^th ANNIVERSARY coming at us next year – we thought it was time to bury the hatchet.

Even if it’s in us!

A ‘Very Special Episode’ On Steroids

In this very, very, VERY special episode (on steroids), Cy and Ethan get an open mic opportunity to speak their minds. And Gil and I get a chance to shut the hell up and listen.

If you’re a fan of Demon Knight, you don’t want to miss this. It’s a very real piece of the behind-the-scenes Demon Knight story happening in real time! Will it, at long last, bring this circle around to a close? What sort of payback are we talking about here? Hell, writers are all crazy! Is it even possible for writers to forgive each other?

We wouldn’t dare ruin the TWIST ENDING for you!