Josh Hull - Underexposed!

Editor: Connor Leonard

Designers: Eli Mock, Deb Wood, and Jack Woodhams

Production Manager: Larry Pekarek

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020931056

ISBN: 978-1-4197-4469-3

eISBN: 978-1-68335-918-0

2021 PosterSpy Limited

Posters: Matt Talbot

Foreword Fred Dekker 2021

Cover 2021 Abrams

Published in 2021 by Abrams, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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My first movie has an easter egg in it. In the comic-con age of Marvel and Star Wars and a million nerd podcasts, producers and filmmakers love to plant hidden references (Easter eggs) to related movies, franchises, or characters. Its a way to let the fans feel like theyre in on something, like backdoor software or a secret club handshake.

But with all humility, I did it before it was fashionable.

The year was 1986. I was in production on my directorial debut, a horror-comedy called Night of the Creeps. The scene was a campus restroom where a character finds himself trapped by the titular creepsexperimental space slugs from another world. As our intrepid, handicapped sidekick leaps off the toilet to escape an extraterrestrial demise, we briefly glimpse graffiti on the restroom wall: GO, MONSTER SQUAD!

Clearly, this would have meant nothing to Creeps first audiences, but it was a sly wink that Id already set up what would become my next film. And like the early James Bond movies, which announced the next installments title in the end credits, it was with no small amount of hubris that I was touting my second feature before my first was even finished. I didnt appreciate it at the time, but the miraculous part was this: The Monster Squad was actually made and released the following year.

Now comes the sad part. While my first two films found a cult audience in subsequent decades, neither of them made any money at the time and my directing career was on life support as quickly as it had started. But before that happenedbefore The Monster Squad was even finishedthe company financing it was fairly enthusiastic about it and asked me what I wanted to do next.

As it turns out, this same company controlled the rights to my favorite childhood cartoon adventure show! So, we made a deal for me to adapt the animated series into a live-action feature for the big screen, which is why, if you look very carefully in The Monster Squad, youll see a poster for Jonny Quest. (Spoiler: Its on the wall in Eugenes bedroom.)

But alas, the box office failure of Squad was the death knell for my Jonny Quest movie, in addition to the beginning of my understanding that for every movie that gets made, there are hundreds, thousands, millions that dont.

Thats what this book is about.

As I was licking my wounds over the box office failure of Squad, my friend Shane Black (whod co-written it with me) asked me to help him rewrite a script of his ownhis first, in factwhich hed sold to Universal. It was an action-horror thriller called Shadow Company, with Walter Hill producing and John Carpenter directing. Things were looking up. We were given an office/trailer on the Universal backlot and, like Dr. Frankenstein, set about trying to apply the electrodes to bring Shadow Company to life.

Too violent, said the studio after we turned in the rewrite. The story involved a platoon of U.S. Special Forces found dead in Cambodia, killed during the Vietnam war. No sooner are their bodies shipped back to the U.S. for military burial than they rise from their graves as the walking (and heavily armed) dead, only to lay waste to small town America. A grisly metaphor for the karmic damage of war.

Too violent? Maybe. But also too political. Moviegoers dont want their noses shoved in the tragedy of Vietnam, we were told. They go to the movies to forget things like that! And so, we learned that while people may like chocolate in their peanut butter, combining action, horror, and metaphoric social commentary was a tough sell. Time for a new project, I sighed.

I wanted to write a Dirty Harry movie. There had only been two really good ones (the first two, IMHO), so I wrote a screenplay in which a criminal from Callahans past is released from prisonor escapes, I cant remember sand sets out to make Harrys life a living hell. I called it Ricochet, and when it was done, I gave it to my friend Joel Silver, for whom Id written the first episode of HBOs Tales from the Crypt.

Its the high school play of Cape Fear! he enthused, damning with faint praise. Lets give it to Clint! I had gone out of my way to change the lead characters name, just in case Clint didnt consider it worthy of his most iconic role. This, as it turned out, was the case. Too grim, was Eastwoods response.

Joel was undaunted and, to my surprise, asked if I wanted to direct it. In short order, Warner Bros. had bought the script and I was meeting with Kurt Russell about playing San Francisco Police Detective Nick Styles.

Im not certain what happened exactly, although I suspect I didnt win Kurt over (I think this should probably be my on my tombstone: HUSBAND-FATHER-DIDNT WIN KURT OVER). In any case, as happens with most movies, a new writer was hired, then a new director, and Ricochet starring Denzel Washington as Nick Styles eventually came to a theater near you in 1991.

When I saw it, I noted seven things that still remained from my original script.

The same thing happened around the same time with a script Id written called Teen Agent. Seeing the comic genius of Anthony Michael Hall in John Hughess early films inspired me to concoct a high-concept action comedy about a nerdy high schooler mistaken for an international spy whos tasked with saving the world while also not flunking his biology midterm.

I met with Mr. Hall. We made small talk and watched MTV, and eventually came to an agreement that Bruce Springsteens Im On Fire video was pretty rad. But Michael (as he was known) was apparently done playing nerds so Teen Agent was a no go for him, even though he wouldve gotten the girl and driven a red Lotus Esprit. Without Hall, I lost interest in the project. Cue new writer; in this case, my UCLA schoolmate and Sex and the City creator Darren Star. Amazingly, If Looks Could Kill starring Richard Grieco was released the same year as Ricochet, but to me, the fact that Grieco was a smoldering teen heartthrob somewhat negated my whole premise.