Veteran sci-fi/horror director John Carpenter
© 1996 Paramount Pictures

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Ghost World: The John Carpenter Interview Part 3

In Part 2 of CINESCAPE's exclusive John Carpenter interview, the famed director discussed the process behind his unique brand of movie making. In the final installment of our coverage, the filmmaker looks into the future: what projects lie ahead, what projects he'll never make and how he's gotten to where he is today.

CINESCAPE: A new trend with DVDs is re-releasing old films and showing a whole new audience how great they were. The recent release of your BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA was excellent and the movie was crucified at the time of release. Everyone now seems to be re-evaluating it in lieu of the success of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, even though you tried doing something like that back in 1986. This seems to be a pattern with your movies. THE THING was the same way. Critics hated it when it was released, but now it's considered a modern day classic.

CARPENTER: I think I am probably seen as a really strange director that isn't taken too seriously at first and some people don't get it. If it's too unusual, they don't get it. They weren't sure if BIG TROUBLE was a comedy. They didn't get it, because their expectations were of an action film. That's what the studio thought. They thought of it as an action movie -- this is like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. That's exactly what they thought. They didn't get what I did and it was too offbeat and oddball.

John Carpenter's BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA

© 1986 20th Century Fox

CINESCAPE: And the poster didn't sell it right either.

CARPENTER: Oh, god no. And then if you play something really straight people laugh at it. They think it's like, "How can you be so corny?"

CINESCAPE: Will ELVIS ever hit DVD?

CARPENTER: I don't know what every happened with ELVIS. Dick Clark owns it, I believe. I don't know what he's done with it.

CINESCAPE: Are you preparing any other DVDs now?

CARPENTER: I am going to do GHOSTS OF MARS. Natasha and I are going to do the commentary together. And they are going to do one for THE FOG. They have a special edition of ESCAPE coming out. They are going to take the same narration that Kurt and I did for the laser disc and put that on there and a "making of." There's talk about Roddy and I doing a commentary for THEY LIVE together, which would be a real hoot sitting and talking about it. That's all driven by the divisions of these companies and the passions of these people in the division. You need someone who is your champion and who wants to put this DVD out because it's important to them.

CINESCAPE: Actor Peter Jason pops up in a lot of your movies. Is he your utility player?

CARPENTER: Yeah, that's it. He's a pal ... he's a friend. He always does a job for me that I can depend on.

CINESCAPE: Do you try to get him in every one of your movies?

John Carpenter directs the action/horror feature VAMPIRES

© 1998 Columbia Pictures

CARPENTER: If we have a role. I didn't have any role for him in VAMPIRES. And he said, "What can I do?" I said, "I just don't have a role for you." He brings a certain style, so if you got the role for him doing that then you've got it made.

CINESCAPE: What's the status of your Lovecraft movie?

CARPENTER: I have been trying to do that for years. Nobody gets it. That is something that an acquaintance of mine wrote. It's a great idea, it's just not ready to be a movie yet. It's going to be a graphic novel we're drawing pictures of it. It's just not ready to go. They won't make it. Nobody knows who Lovecraft is. The general public doesn't know and they probably won't get why he's scared. It's a made-up story about Lovecraft where everything he wrote about was real. That's what it's about.

CINESCAPE: Are there other projects offered to you by studios or do you just do your own stuff?

CARPENTER: I've read some stuff. Some of it is oddball. Some of the stuff I wouldn't do. The most recent project that was pitched by somebody was a zombie western type situation where confederate soldiers are brought back to life. It could be great, I don't know. I haven't seen the final script yet.

CINESCAPE: Did it help when BIG TROUBLE came out on DVD? Did they studios say, "Hmmm, lets give John a big comedy action film?"

CARPENTER: No, they don't think of me that way. First of all, studios aren't offering scripts anymore. They don't do that. You walk in with it. You walk in with a star and a budget and a screenplay and they decide to say yes or no. That dynamic has changed, although they do sometimes nurture a script along through regimes and then try and get a director. Sometimes, but everybody assumes I am going to do my own stuff.

CINESCAPE: That's a good place to be.

Ice Cube, Jason Statham and Clea Duvall battle evil Martian ghosts in john Carpenter's GHOSTS OF MARS

© 2001 Screen Gems

CARPENTER: It's all right with me. I don't mind. Do you hear me complaining? I am not complaining. I have no complaints.

CINESCAPE: So you have nothing else in the works?

CARPENTER: I am toying with an idea that I'd like to do. When you get to be my age, you have to slow down just a little bit. It's always harder when you are older ... everything is harder.

CINESCAPE: How old are you now?

CARPENTER: 53. That's a hard living 53, which doesn't help. Working as hard as I do, the stress doesn't help and neither do cigarettes. It doesn't make you refreshed all the time. You have to take more time off. My parents are still alive, but they are climbing in their '80s. It's not fun. Real life comes and stops you from doing certain things and you become aware of yourself a little more and you say, "I've got to slow down a little. I can't do it like I used to."

CINESCAPE: What's the status of your new company Storm King?

CARPENTER: We haven't really developed anything. I've never had too much success with that. I only want to work really hard if it's mine. Plus, I have this ethic about whoever is directing, it's his movie; it's not my movie. I don't want to get involved in that. I don't want to tell someone what to do. I had to once on HALLOWEEN 2 and I had to because Dino was saying, "Fix this." It was not fun. I didn't like it. I didn't like doing that. I don't like being that kind of producer. It's not my movie. If I am directing it is mine, then I'll do it, but I don't want to do it for someone else. I'm not good at it. A lot of scripts that I read might be good ideas but it's about, "Can I do this?"

Ice Cube gets down with his bad self in John Carpenter's GHOSTS OF MARS

© 2001 Screen Gems

CINESCAPE: How do you think you have changed as a director?

CARPENTER: I am a veteran on the sets now, so things don't throw me like they used to. When you are young, you are all scared. Mostly it's with actors. Young directors are frightened of actors. They don't know what to say to them. They don't understand them. Now it's just a lot easier in that sense, but it's more difficult because when you get older it's harder to withstand the stress both the emotional and physical stress of it because you work like a coalminer. You get up and you slog, slog and slog.

CINESCAPE: What do you still love about it?

CARPENTER: They're movies.

CINESCAPE: Reflecting back on your career, what is the greatest thing you've ever done?

CARPENTER: The greatest thing is that I've survived and had a career in this business. As many people that I know, friends of mine, people who I admired are gone. They have disappeared. Some really talented folks who never got a chance to keep going. It's weird. It's life.