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Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley Island of Dr. Moreau, is a documentary about one of the biggest movie trainwrecks of all time. It's funny, it's sad, and ultimately I think its very illuminating about why it is that Hollywood manages to shoot itself in the foot so often.
Richard Stanley began his career in high school, making a few award making films even before he graduated. From there he gained experience in the music video industry, and eventually made generally well regarded films which can still be seen today, Hardware and Dust Devil. Richard Stanley had long had a dream of filming ad aptation of the Island of Dr. Moreau. He was no hired gun selected by the studio. He started the project, and even hired artists with his own money so he could better show people his vision for the new film.
Eventually he convinced New Line to help him make his movie.
Originally the studio wanted to make a small movie with budget of five to eight million dollars, and Stanley was fine with that. All that changed when Marlon Brando announced he was interested in the picture. Brando signed on, and his presence signaled that many more investors were willing to jump in. He also said he wanted another director without ever having met Stanley.
Stanley insisted that he should at least have the right to meet Brando once, and in that meeting he managed to get Brando on his side. Having had to save his job once before filming had even started, he continued to sign people for his movie. Stanley then made his greatest mistake. He met Val Kilmer.
Originally Kilmer took a starring role, as someone would expect of his star billing. He said he didn't have time for the role, and demanded a role that was less important and would take less of his time.
They met on the set of Batman Forever, a Batman sequel that is as hated and reviled as any movie ever made. The movie had not yet been seen by fans, and so Val Kilmer's career had not begun its extraordinary decline.
A serious turning point occurred when Cheyenne Brando committed suicide. Cheyenne was Brando's daughter and Marlon Brando was understandably upset. It wasn't even clear at one point whether or not Marlon would come to the set.
When Val Kilmer showed up for his small role, he immediately had a problem with the script. He hadn't actually read the whole script yet, but he still had a problem with it. He wanted an actor removed from the first scene. He wanted changes made on lines, and he began to challenge Stanley at every opportunity, even trying to order him off his own set. He was quoted as saying “Directors are supposed to be behind the camera, not in front it.” He said this because Stanley walked forward to try and explain to the actors what their inspiration was.
Word soon got back to the studio that nothing was happening. People back at New Line felt that the star power of Kilmer was there best shot of making the money back. Whether or not the guy who had a vision for the movie was there was apparently irrelevant, so they fired him.
Actress Fairuza Balk was so upset at his firing that she walked off the set. They threatened her with legal action and told her that no actor could walk from a major motion picture and expect to walk again, so she eventually returned. They offered Richard Stanley his full pay if he would agree to leave the set and not return. They attempted to compel him to leave the Island but he simply disappeared from the set.
At this point, John Frankenheimer was hired to replace Stanley. Frankenheimer was a well respected Director, who unfortunately had not read the script before he had arrived. He also had not read the book it was based on. When Fairuza Balk asked him for his vision of the movie, he told her that visions were over-rated.
Frankenheimer was mainly hired to save the picture, but apparently the only reason he took the picture was because he wanted to work with Brando. Brando was only on set for two weeks, and by the time those two weeks were over Frankenheimer was over his desire to work with Brando.
Brando rarely wanted to work. He wanted to talk to all the extras, and all the people involved. He later confided to Balk that he had not yet read the script, and when asked if he thought that this might be a problem, she quoted him as saying, “I'm getting paid, you're getting paid, why worry?”
Frankenheimer told the people at New Line who were backing the movie that although he had worked with many difficult actors before, he had never worked with anyone like Brando.
At some point in production, Brando suggested that they shut down the production and write a new script which revolved around Brando wearing a hat through the entire movie. At the end of the movie, he would remove his hat, and you would see that he was in fact part Dolphin. He didn't seem to want to act in the movie, but evidently he was available to rewrite it.
Richard Stanley was interviewed for the documentary, and he confessed that he had gone to stay with a tribe of aborigines. Several of the prosthetics people heard rumours of a drunken man dwelling in the jungle, angrily proclaiming that Val Kilmer had ruined his life. Concerned, they found Stanley and suggested that he come back and watch what the raving lunatics currently on the set were doing with his movie. He said that if he did so he would be in violation of contract and could lose his pay.
The special effects team then offered to make him his own prosthetics rig so he could become one of the dog men on set, and would never be recognized. Soon he returned. He did not miss the irony of the situation. As a dog man, he was one of the beasts who would eventually run wild and destroy the Island. He was literally instructed by the Director who replaced him to burn down the set which he had planned years before.
From the moment that Richard Stanley was fired, his agent never returned another of his calls. He was never able to work as a director again.
Following the release of The Island of Dr. Moreau, Marlon Brando continued to treat the profession of acting with an incredible level of disrespect, so much so that despite his great reputation he made very few movies before his death. He famously refused to take a bucket off his head while filming the Score, because he wanted to force the Director to shoot him only in close up. Its hard to show the people you work with more contempt then that.
Val Kilmer got pretty much the career he deserved. His bullying of the other actors, and successful destruction of Stanley's career, so frightened other people in the industry that few people wished to work with him. After Batman and The Island of Dr. Moreau both bombed spectacularly, his name ceased to have the kind of box office draw it once had. He still makes movies very occasionally, but they are few and far between.
When the people at New Line were interviewed about the movie, they considered it a disaster, but the really sad thing was where they put the blame. They seemed to feel that the problem was that as a novice director, Stanley couldn't control big name talents in a big budget movie.
It never occurred to them that they were the ones who blew up their own film. When they fired Stanley because a big name actor demanded it, they were literally firing the only guy with a plan. They then replaced him with another Director who knew nothing of the project at all, and who was supposed to simply hit the ground running and make his own movie from scratch.
Both Kilmer and Brando were famous for being difficult and egotistical. Brando had been so difficult in fact, that even after his legendary performance in On the Waterfront, he'd gone for almost decades without work. Kilmer was already infamous for his on screen antics. Neither should have been hired in the first place. Had they never had to pay for those big names, it would have been extremely easy for the movie to at least make its money back. But that would not be the Hollywood way. Instead it lost money, and today its hard to find the adaptation anywhere. It is legend among all the flops of Hollywood.
Acting, directing, and writing are all professions that require mutual respect. Unfortunately, it's well known that most people choose what they watch almost entirely based on the stars involved, and that places all the power in the hands of a few actors. This does not lead to relationships founded on respect.
When Stanley was interviewed about everything which had happened on the movie, he was actually able to smile and laugh. He talked about how his life had progressed and years later he wanted to shoot smaller video's on his own again. The drawings of the creatures he had commissioned were luminous, brilliant, and stylish. I'd like to make something similar myself later.
I could tell he was very different man from myself. He believed in magic and had many eccentricities which aren't like me at all. And yet, I felt a strange kinship for him. I hope that someday he produces his own stories again, even if they are only for a small audience on youtube.
I would really like to see them.