'Amistad' & 'Gladiator', Screenwriter, David Franzoni

0:08Jawad MirAnd I remember when Amistad came out, it was Spielberg's first film. Well, it was the second film since Schindler's List, because that same year I think, or the year before that, Lo… the Lost World came out. So I wanted to find out your, how did you, because you wrote the script, just kinda give me the genesis of the script first. How that came about. Was Spielberg sort of involved from the very beginning, or it was something that it caught his eye and it kinda went from there? If you can just tell me that in the story where that would be, that'd be fantastic.

0:44David FranzoniOkay. Let me see if I can, come up with a short version here.

0:47Jawad MirOkay.

0:49David FranzoniI had just finished, adapting The Mayor of Castro Street.

0:52Jawad MirOkay.

0:53David FranzoniRandy Shilts for Oliver Stone. And, excuse me. Let me have a quick sip of coffee here to clear my throat.

1:01Jawad MirNo problem.

1:04David FranzoniAnd, the script was, well-received and my agents were very interested in me getting involved with, you know, high-end projects. And I remember having lunch with one of my agents and saying that there were two projects I really wanted to do. One was Amistad, and there was a story I wanted to do about a gladiator. So they were really disappointed because I remember after I'd won the Oscar for Gladiator, my agent called me and said, "Remember I told you no one would ever make it." So they were, they were disappointed. But, you know, they wanted me to, you know, jump into these big dollar projects, action movies and so forth. So I had been talking with Quincy Jones about, Amistad. In fact, th… his company pitched it to me, along with a bunch of, you know, vinyl ideas, you know, record ideas.

2:01Jawad MirRight.

2:02David FranzoniNone of which attracted me. So I did a bunch of research on Amistad and went into sequencing, and I, he didn't like it. He didn't like the idea. He thought it... He didn't like the idea. So, I went out on my own. A… actually one of another, producer we were trying to put together. And, you know, it was difficult, but in the middle of... Cutting to the chase. In the middle of trying to put it together, I was, DreamWorks had me in to talk about projects.

2:39David FranzoniAnd they pitched Amistad to me. I said, "You know, guys, I've been wanting to do this, so, you know, let's definitely talk about it." And, you know, about a week later, it was on Valentine's Day, Steven was in town. He was, came in from the Hamptons or something, and we talked about it and I... There were a lot of, lot of issues that Steven could see making this project difficult. And I said, "Well, you know, I've been thinking about it for over a year now, and I think that the most important aspect is that Cinqué participated in his defense. This can't be white guy saves Black guy."

3:15Jawad MirYeah.

3:16David FranzoniIt defeats the entire purpose of the project, right?

3:18Jawad MirWhich is what I loved about the film at the most. There was just... I… it, even at that time, it was done really well, right? So.

3:25David FranzoniYeah. I thought, I thought, you know, it was, I thought it was pretty good. So, I thought Steven did a, you know, amazing job. And, anyway, so that's how it started.

3:35Jawad MirAnd, your sort of involvement, you know, being, you wrote a script. Was it... You know, normally a script goes through, like, a lot of, just like anything else, lots of drafts. Sometimes more write… different writers come on board for, you know, availability reasons and whatnot. But you were sort of involved from the get-go, and then, you know, the first draft that you gave to Spielberg, and he's, he knows obviously his stuff. That's why he's Spielberg, right? And what was his sort of... Like, did he want something different or he suggested something to you, "Maybe we should do this," or, you know, just kinda talking about that a little bit.

4:12David FranzoniWell, I think also, don't forget, I, believe Steven, if I'm not mistaken, had recently done Private Ryan.

4:20Jawad MirNo, that was after.

4:21David FranzoniOkay. Then

4:23Jawad MirHe had done, the film before that was, his last major film was Schindler's List.

4:28David FranzoniRight.

4:28Jawad MirAnd I think, that summer, if I'm not mistaken, just checking Amistad was released when, it was released in 1997. So that summer he was finishing The Lost World: Jurassic Park II.

4:42David FranzoniOkay.

4:43Jawad MirIt came out in theaters.

4:45David FranzoniRight. He was, multitasking, shall we say.

4:51Jawad MirYeah.

4:51David FranzoniRight? And, starting a new company, doing films for his company. And so, you know, we talked a lot about Amistad. Now, Debbie Allen was a producer.

5:05Jawad MirYep.

5:05David FranzoniYou know, the fun part was we'd take meetings with Steven, and then afterwards Debbie and I'd sit down and we'd talk about the Civil Rights Era… ... And try to find an organic way to make it alive, not…

5:20Jawad MirYeah

5:20David Franzoni... You know, not hitting it over the head with a hammer. There was a production rewrite done on it. I, you know, it, they went, they basically went back to my script. There were changes. Obviously there's always changes, but

5:35Jawad MirYeah

5:35David Franzoni... They went back to my script. And the main driving reason was that, again, goes back to the idea that Cinqué has to be in charge of his own destiny. He cannot just be, you know, lugged around by a bunch of well-meaning white guys.

5:50Jawad MirRight.

5:51David FranzoniAnd also, the other thing that was slightly more subtle was, now Morgan Freeman was, an abolitionist, and Cinqué was a free man. And I saw that as them being different in that respect.

6:10Jawad MirRight.

6:11David FranzoniThere's no way that an abolitionist, no matter how well-meaning, can understand what completely, and especially if an a… an abolitionist had been at one time a slave. There's no way they could understand who Cinqué really was. And the weird part I thought that sort of worked was that John Quincy Adams having come out of, you know, the Revolution and that he c… or he could, you know, I mean, obviously his ancestor, but he could understand as best as any non-slave or, you know, not Black free person could what that meant. And I... The thing that was important was that he understood that if they won, it might cause a civil war.

6:56Jawad MirRight.

6:57David FranzoniSo he had to, Quincy Adams had to, like, be able to stand up to that terror, to the idea that winning this case for this free Black man may cause America to be torn in half. And, you know, his, ultimately his decision was then let it be. If that's the case, let it be so. So between the two of them, I think that there was a partnership in putting together Cinqué's defense, and I love the idea that they're so different and yet both essentially radicalized for different reasons. Anyway, blah.

7:37Jawad MirNo, that's, that's, that's a, that's a good answer. And I, and I thought that the film, like I said earlier, you know, w… with what's been happening in the world in the last year, I mean, not even though, you know, to my memory, the first s… maybe, like, a self-aware thing that I saw was the Rodney King riots, you know, when I was, like, 13, 14 in 1991. And I think at that time it was probably at a conscious level I realized the whole, you know, the Black versus white race, like the racism element.

8:10David FranzoniRight.

8:11Jawad MirAnd it kind of, it went away but, you know, just like in music, kinda kept coming back. But I think one of the things that I loved about, Amistad was it, like you said, is it just, it just did not deal with the white man saving a Black guy. And, you know, even though it was President John Quincy Adams and, you know, and all that. And for me, the most pivotal moment in the film, which, you know, was aside from the John Williams music, was when that baby is sort of risen, you know, from the, from the shackles of the ship. And that sort of humanizes the whole thing, you know, even if it was made during the civil rights movement or in the 1800s, so which was, which was fantastic. Going on to my next question, how in... When the production began, and I've read at different places with Steven, he sometimes has writers sort of there on the, on the set during the production or part of the production. Were you involved in that during the production or were you there physically at most of the time, if at all?

9:16David FranzoniNot most of the time. I was there a couple of times. That was about it. We weren't out of touch.

9:22Jawad MirRight.

9:23David FranzoniBut, you know, 'cause I was talking with Debbie Allen, and, she's always talking to Steven.

9:28Jawad MirRight.

9:29David FranzoniBut no.

9:30Jawad MirSo was there ever, like, sort of like a, okay, you know, if Steven emailed, not emailed you, or phone c… emailed you or phoned you, called you, that this is something we're doing, what do you think we should do with this? Like, was there a moment and an example that you can remember where he was kinda…

9:43David FranzoniWell, there was a, there was a moment, when Debbie Allen called me one night, and she was, having some problems with the direction that the script was taking. Now, this is before they started shooting, so this is the, this is the time to, you know, put up or shut up, right?

10:02Jawad MirRight. Right.

10:03David FranzoniWe had a discussion, and again, I kept saying, "Look, in my opinion, as long as we stay on the direct path for Cinqué being in charge of, a man in charge of his own destiny, no matter how that's translated within the script, then we're okay." I mean, no matter how that's done.

10:24Jawad MirYeah.

10:24David FranzoniIt doesn't have to be done the way I did it.

10:26Jawad MirRight.

10:26David FranzoniAs long as it's gonna be done. And so that was, that was really about it. And I, and I heard from her, you know, I'd hear from her often during the shoot, and, that was about it. I mean, the, for me the most fantastic thing about the movie was when we showed it, in Washington, DC to the Clintons and

10:49Jawad MirOkay

10:50David Franzoni... You know, that was, you know, it was pretty, that was pretty amazing. Primarily because you had these two s… sort of genres of human beings, the Hollywood genre people and then the heavy hitter political genre people…

11:05Jawad MirYeah

11:06David Franzoni... You know, sitting side by side in the audience. But there are also some, like, you know, very well-to-do African American people who were watching this, and when we had the scene with the slaves being thrown off the boat with chains around their legs, they're, you know, they just broke into tears. And that's when I realized it works.

11:29Jawad MirYeah.

11:29David FranzoniThe movie says what it w… what it set out, what it set out to say, it says.

11:34Jawad MirThat's, that's, that's, that's great. I'll, I'll come to that White House part, screening in a bit, but going back, you said you were there on the set a couple of times, once or twice, or? Was there, did you ever see the rushes or if not, then where, was there a, is there a memory that sort of sticks out what scene was there, was being filmed when you were there, and how that hit you?

11:57David FranzoniWhen they were shooting a scene, it was a, it was a scene where, Morgan Freeman goes onto the, Amistad to, You know, we see the chains. We see people living. And I think what's important about that, again, going back to what I said before about him, was this is a well-meaning abolitionist coming face to face with the reality of slavery in like the most primal form it could take. Now, on the, on the pa… the, plantations, things were horrible, just horrible.

12:35Jawad MirYeah.

12:35David FranzoniBut we didn't, you know, we weren't filming that. But that moment to me was, it w… it was... I just remember that moment. Sticks in my head, because of what it was looking for.

12:47Jawad MirGot it. And was there,.. I mean, since I thi… I genuinely think, and correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I was not aware of it at the time, I don't think there were that many movies, if any at all, about slavery before Amistad. Like, you know, after that we had tons, like 12 Years of s… you know, Slave. Tons of them came out over time. Was there anything at the time, before that, or was it the first one of its kind?

13:13David FranzoniI don't recall. I mean, when Quincy Adams people, Qu… Quincy Jones people, sorry. Quincy Jones people brought up the idea of doing Amistad, I had... Was familiar with Amistad. And I went, "Oh yeah, let's do that." I mean, I don't wanna do movies about crooked music recorders. I mean, I just don't have…... Sandwich for that stillness. But it jumped out of my memory.

13:37Jawad MirYeah.

13:37David FranzoniBut no. I mean, I'm doing a project right now on Lafayette.

13:42Jawad MirOkay.

13:43David FranzoniAnd Lafayette worked very closely with several Blacks. And, but the thing that's inter… the most... Okay, one of the things that I wanna do in that, in this movie that I'm, that is actually a series that I'm writing…

13:58Jawad MirRight

13:58David Franzoni... Is I want to revisit the Black identity during the American Revolution, because a Ger… It's always, it's always appeared to me that the South rewrote the reality of the African American presence in America. And into like, you know, "Ah, a couple of guys," and you know, whatever. But a German mercenary, I just found these texts, a German mercenary who was fighting with the French was at Yorktown when, you know, Washington took the surrender…

14:31Jawad MirRight

14:31David Franzoni... From Cornwallis, right? And he said 25% of Washington's army was Black. Now, that's very different from all these lame-ass paintings you see of these buffed white guys in perfect uniforms fighting to save America.

14:48Jawad MirYeah.

14:48David Franzoni25% of those people should be Black.

14:49Jawad MirThat's, that's a big number. That's a big... I mean, there was a, there was a movie made about that too, with Morgan Freeman, and I think it was Denzel's first movie too, Glory.

14:58David FranzoniWas this, Glory?

14:59Jawad MirYeah. It was 1989, I think, if I'm not mistaken. But it wasn't specifically about what you're saying, but it had that, you know, element of the African American/ you know, Black people in the army.

15:10David FranzoniDifference is that we didn't ha… the Wa… Washington didn't have Black regiments.

15:14Jawad MirYeah.

15:15David FranzoniThey were just integrated.

15:16Jawad MirYeah.

15:17David FranzoniPeriod. It wasn't like, "Oh, yeah." I mean, the British had a Black regiment, blah. The Civil War, they were, you know, segregated Black regiments. In the American Revolution, they were just guys and girls on the line fighting, period. And that's what I love about it. And, I remember when Lafayette came back to America after all the Founding Fathers had died, he's an old man, and America embraced him. He saw the, African American that he used to work with Washington in the crowd, and went down to him and embraced him. And he, the Black guy, introduced his son as Lafayette.

15:54Jawad MirOh, okay. Okay. That's, that's, that's, that's pretty cool.

15:58David FranzoniI think that the story from Cinqué, you know, I... The story of Blacks in America, we haven't told the story yet.

16:06Jawad MirYeah.

16:07David FranzoniThat's what I guess I'm trying to say.

16:08Jawad MirI agree. I agree. And I'm kinda going all over the place and, if you don't mind me ask you, asking you is that, you know, a… as storytellers, we all are attracted to story that's somehow, at a conscious level or subconscious level, attached to our past or our present. Like, you know, just something that kinda comes out. Like, I'm, I'm a, I'm a filmmaker myself. And you know, there's something that sorta sparks and connects with you that you don't even know what it is. With Amistad and the story of, you know, even though Quincy Jones people approached you and everything, was there anything that you sort of before you even wrote Amistad that sort of had hap… you had seen in your real li… you know, in your li… life that sort of maybe has sparked that at all, that you're aware of?

16:54David FranzoniWell, I mean, look, I'm a, I'm a product of the '60s.

16:59Jawad MirCivil Rights. Right.

17:01David FranzoniYou know, civil rights, you know,.. I mean, nothing, I'm, I'm trying to, I'm going through my vacant mind right now trying to find that specific thing, but the thing, I grew up in Vermont.

17:14Jawad MirOkay. Okay.

17:15David FranzoniThe thing odd about Vermont was, of course, one of the main…

17:18Jawad MirRight

17:19David Franzoni... You know, underground railway conduits. But one other thing about Vermont was, it seems weird, like, th… when I grew up, I, there were, there were no Black kids in my high school. And the interest, and like, okay, well it's hell of Vermont, it's this white state. But the thing that was interesting about that is I also wasn't fed prejudice. I mean, nobody really said.

17:42Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

17:43David FranzoniAll us and these Black guys, we just got along great. I mean, it was no... In fact, one of them came up to me and said, "You know, Franzoni, you need to have somebody to hate." I said, "Let's find someone for you to hate." But it was like, these were just my, they were just my friends.

17:59Jawad MirYeah.

17:59David FranzoniAnd then when I began seeing how some of them were being treated and so forth, so I, that's all I can probably reference.

18:05Jawad MirNo, that makes sense. That's all good. You know, what was the first time you saw Amistad in its completion, or was it a rough cut? And if you can talk about that, what was your reaction from a screenwriting point? You know, it's ama… it's, it's, it's a tough thing to take someone's words and put it on the screen and, you know, how you sort of reacted to that, if you can share that story. Whether it was at White House or somewhere else

18:29David FranzoniI mean, I thought it was great. You know, I can't... I think I saw a rough cut, and then I saw the finished cut. I just, you know, I, look, immediately embraced it. I thought it was fantastic.

18:39Jawad MirBut was there something that stood out for you from a standpoint of how you may have... You know, when you're writing, you're visualizing something a certain way. And…

18:47David FranzoniThe beginning

18:48Jawad Mir... So it was pinpoint to the way you sort of envisioned it, or was there a certain moment?

18:52David FranzoniIn the beginning, I had written this thing balls out.

18:57Jawad MirYeah.

18:58David FranzoniYou know, Cinque with a nail, and Steven shot it balls out. And I just, you know, from that moment on I was there. It was, you know... He did, he did not back away from dealing with that reality.

19:16Jawad MirAnd that's, that's one of the things I loved about three of his films, and I always considered them as sort of a trilogy. You know, Schindler's List dealing with the Holocaust, Amistad dealing with the slavery issue, and Munich dealing with the Israeli and Palestine conflict. And I, and I ge… you know, in all of those three films, even in the one that you wrote, you know, there's even the antagonist is sort of shown in somewhat of a, you know, they have some sort of a character or some sort of an, a mission, whether it's right or wrong. And he really balances it out really well. In Amistad, you know, I think the... To me personally, the antagonist was the way people were, the Blacks were being treated. There was not one specific antagonist, but it was like the history, the, you know, the American politics and whatnot. Did you sort of come at, when you wrote that, was that, what was your objective? Not to have…

20:13David FranzoniThere were two points of view at the time.

20:15Jawad MirRight

20:16David FranzoniI guess it was Hobbes and somebody else. One point of view that the South embraced was that mankind was just plain evil, and the natural state of mankind is barbarism. And if left alone, they'd eat each other.

20:29David FranzoniNow, this is from a philosopher.

20:32Jawad MirRight.

20:33David FranzoniObviously for the abolitionist, there was an entirely different point of view. But this, I remember meeting af… afterwards, the Writers Guild set up a meeting with a few members of Congress who wanted to meet me and talk about the movie.

20:49David FranzoniAnd this came up, and because, you know, these guys in Congress, they're way smarter than they come off, right? Anyway, so but that had always fascinated me, was that there was this, you know, huge philosophical divide between what would become the n… you know, the North in the Civil War and the South in the Civil War. And so for anyone who said to... And I'm, I, by the way, I'm a direct descendant of General Slocum.

21:20Jawad MirOkay.

21:21David FranzoniThe Slocum family.

21:22Jawad MirOkay.

21:23David FranzoniHe, not only was he, you know, very helpful at Gettysburg, but he was, put in charge of Sherman's left wing when they did the March to the Sea. And he was in the war because he hated slavery. None of this state's rights crap. None, it just, it was, he didn't wanna hear about it. He hated slavery, and he was one of the few generals who actually took in Blacks who he liberated, rather than just saying, "Okay, you know, take off." He took them in, fed them, kept them with the army, and took care of them. So I knew that there was this sort of, a deeper way of looking at the Civil War than we have sort of been fed.

22:08Jawad MirRight.

22:08David FranzoniAnyway, so that's why we brought up the whole thing with Hobbes versus

22:15Jawad MirYeah

22:15David Franzoni... Whoever else, I guess, anyway, was that, look, here's the situation. There are people who claim to believe in this completely, vastly terrible vision of mankind, and the only way that you can justify slavery is to have a terrible, vastly horrible view of mankind.

22:34Jawad MirYeah. No, well said, and pinpoint. And, you know, in, it, last question, about Amistad, unless you wanna sort of add something else, is, I always have a hard time pronouncing his name. Djimon Hounsou?

22:51David FranzoniYeah, Djimon.

22:52Jawad MirYeah. Djimon Hounsou. It was his first film.

22:56David FranzoniYeah.

22:57Jawad MirRight? And, then…

22:59David FranzoniNo pressure.

23:00Jawad MirYeah. No pressure, but, you know, even I'm sure he knew English in his, in his own life, but as a character he didn't play, he didn't speak English at all, which I think was fantastic because it made him... It sort of spoke to what you were saying, the white saving Black. Like, he doesn't have to speak English to make people understand. Like, even if they had no subtitles, you would understand what he's saying 'cause his performance and his delivery was phenomenal.

23:27David FranzoniYeah.

23:27Jawad MirAnd i… in terms of the casting and, you know, I know you as a writer you don't really have much say in that, but fr… from what you saw, it was point on, like, you know, how you envisioned it?

23:38David FranzoniOh, it was, it was perfect. I mean, look, Dj… Djimon and I still see each other. I mean, you know, obviously we... Sorry, that's my dog.

23:48Jawad MirThat's okay.

23:49David FranzoniLet me close my door.

23:51Jawad MirNo, c… no problem.

23:52David FranzoniHe's on his way out. You know, we... No, he obviously, you know, he did Gladiator too, but…

23:58Jawad MirYeah

23:58David Franzoni... We just, I don't know. He was perfect. He was perfect. You know, when he said, "Give me free"…

24:06Jawad MirYeah

24:06David Franzoni... You know, that's it. That's as articulate as you need to be.

24:10Jawad MirYeah.

24:10David FranzoniYou know, it's, he was great. You know, Steven chose well as usual.

24:16Jawad MirYeah, no, he was, he was amazing and, I mean, the whole movie, like I said, you know, and John Williams' score is just, you know, the theme, it sticks out like a knife in the chest. Moving on to Gladiator, when... So Gladiator was, from what I've seen in terms of the credits,... David, is that it was, the writers involved was yourself and John Logan. But if you can sort of give me the genesis. Were you the person who sort of started it, or just the same thing, like just the genesis of how Gladiator came about as a film, as a screenplay?

24:49David FranzoniGenesis?

24:50Jawad MirYes.

24:53David FranzoniYou asked for it. When I was 25 years old, I drove a motorcycle from West Berlin to Australia.

25:00Jawad MirOkay.

25:01David FranzoniAnd when I was in... So as I'm leaving Europe, now I spent a lot of time in the w… you know, in the f… in free Europe.

25:09Jawad MirYeah.

25:09David FranzoniThen I went to communist countries, and r… almost everywhere I went there were coliseums. And even as you went east, you know, Turkey, and so there were still coliseums.

25:23Jawad MirYeah.

25:23David FranzoniI'm thinking, "You know, this must..." I suddenly realized this was a huge franchise. This wasn't one coliseum in Rome, this was like out there.

25:33Jawad MirYeah.

25:33David FranzoniWhen I got to Baghdad, I was camping on, you know, on one of the rivers. I can't remember which one. And, I traded a book, which I wish I still had, on the Irish Revolution, which I have not been able to find again, this is brilliant, with an Australian girl who had a book called Those About to Die by Daniel P. Mannix, which was this crazy, tawdry, wild, you know, this sort of book about the Colosseum. Well, what was fantastic about it was it hardwired in my brain the absolute similarities between who we are and who we were.

26:11Jawad MirOkay.

26:12David FranzoniSort of talking about, oh, the Romans, they, the Greeks did this, the P… it was like, "Oh, we did this."

26:18Jawad MirYeah.

26:19David FranzoniSo I literally vowed at that time that if I ever got to be a screenwriter, I'd try to get a movie made about that idea. I mean, I came up with the idea for Gladiator then, right? And, so when I was writing Amistad I was in Rome. I had a great apartment in Trastevere. It had a library, fortunately in English, and so I began reading through the Augustan histories and gathering the information I needed to pitch it to Steven.

26:47Jawad MirGreat. No, that's something that I never knew. That's great.

26:54David FranzoniSorry. I'm sorry you know it now.

26:56Jawad MirNo, it's good. It's, it's, it's, it's interesting, right? Like I said earlier, like stories sort of come to you from the most strangest places, and sometimes you don't even know where they come from, and you never find out, but they do, it just kind of connects with you somehow.

27:08David FranzoniRight.

27:08Jawad MirAnd you know, you wrote the g… you wrote Gladiator, and was it around the same time when Amistad was coming out? Because Gladiator came out in 2000, I think, and Amistad came out in 1998, which was like a year and a half apart, that you took the script to DreamWorks or, you know, and how did that sort of start, from, you know, getting Ridley Scott involved and, you know

27:32David FranzoniSo, I wanna... Steven knew I wanted to pitch him something, and, he called over to my agency and said that we had, there were two days during the week when we could get together and have a meeting. I told my agents, "Don't tell him what it's about."

27:56Jawad MirRight.

27:56David FranzoniI wanna start from scratch. Of course they told him what it was about, so like, you know, all good agents. So I met with Steven, and I fir… and I first talked with Doug Wick about it, the producer.

28:08Jawad MirOkay.

28:08David FranzoniAnd, so in the end I brought Doug Wick over with me. But I pitched it to Steven, I s… okay, so I c… I pitched it to Steven. I go into the office…

28:18Jawad MirRight

28:18David Franzoni... And S… Steven goes, "I hear you wanna do a movie about a gladiator." I said, "Yeah." He said…

28:24Jawad MirRight

28:25David Franzoni... "You mean in ancient Rome?" I said, "Yeah." He says, "You mean in the Colosseum?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Okay." So I said, "Yeah," three times. That was my pitch, and that was it.

28:36Jawad MirThat's, that's, that's fantastic. And then how did, Ridley become involved? Was it, was it more of like a Spielberg's pick, or it was some…

28:46David FranzoniOkay

28:46Jawad Mir... It was pitched?

28:47David FranzoniI'm sorry. How did Ridley get involved in all that?

28:49Jawad MirYeah. Like, was it more of like Steven kind of went and... You know, Steven has a knack of picking people for everything. Like, was it his choice or...?

28:57David FranzoniNo, this was all... You know, I got the first draft done. We met at Steven's house. He immediately sent Bran… Branko Lustig out to start scouting locations. And, I remember we met with Russell, and then we met with Ridley, and, you know, we were on our way, you know. Period.

29:17Jawad MirSo it was Steven Spielberg's first sort of preference to have Ridley Scott get involved in this, from what…

29:23David FranzoniYeah.

29:23Jawad MirOkay.

29:23David FranzoniYeah.

29:24Jawad MirOkay. And Russell Cr… Oh, sorry, go ahead please.

29:27David FranzoniNo, go ahead.

29:28Jawad MirNo, I was just gonna say, Russell Crowe, I think just before that film came out, he was in the Inside Man? No, The Insider. The Insider.

29:36David FranzoniWell, it was the one that we sort of hired him from.

29:38Jawad MirYeah.

29:38David FranzoniHe was doing The Insider…

29:40Jawad MirYeah

29:40David Franzoni... With Michael Mann, but I think that was still shooting.

29:43Jawad MirYeah, which was, which was an incredible film as well. But you know, one of the things that I'll tell you about Gladiator, it had such a huge fan base. I don't know if you knew this, but at the time when I had my website at the, you know, at the highest level in terms of traffic and everything, we... It was so popular that I had to open up a dedicated message board…... For Gladiator, and I'm not kidding with you. If I show you the screenshots, because, you can go to the Internet Archive and look it up, you know, these were like majority, I would imagine the demographic was based on my interaction were, you know, women 40 plus, and, you know, Russell Crowe fans. And there was like 60, 70,000 posts in just a span of like, you know, three months, and this is before social media. So Gladiator, the story of Gladiator is so simple… You know, a man, you know, taking revenge for the loss of his family, and that's pretty much the layer of it, and that's what sort of spoke to people, I think.

30:45Jawad MirBut in the fashion that it was done, you know, in Ridley Scott's typical fashion a… and the performances, and you being involved as a producer, how involved were you in the film? Were you on location? You know, were you... Can you, can sort of s… speak on this?

31:01David FranzoniYeah. Okay, so yes, there was, there was a problem. We were in the middle of a rewrite that was problematic, and... But they were still gonna shoot the film.

31:12Jawad MirYeah.

31:13David FranzoniDidn't seem to bother anybody. So, Ridley invited, made me just, you know, "Come on, come aboard." So I was with him in Surrey. We shot, you know, they shot the scenes with the, barbarians in Surrey.

31:28Jawad MirOkay. The opening, the opening scenes.

31:30David FranzoniRight.

31:31Jawad MirYeah.

31:31David FranzoniAnd then, we went to Morocco for the provincial arena and all that. And so I showed up, and basically I started, you know, putting the script back more or less the way it was before we went through the rewrite. And now... Okay, so the tricky thing here was that I was being paid to do a rewrite, even though another writer, John Logan, was, working on the script. And John was a great guy who we were in contact. And I,.. So I finished my rewrite, but there was nobody to read it.

32:11Jawad MirOkay.

32:11David FranzoniThey forgot about it. So that was the script that basically I was reintroducing into this mix, was the re… the polisher, the rewrite we're gonna call it, of my first draft. Now, the fun part of th… this insane process…

32:29Jawad MirYeah

32:29David Franzoni... Was that Ridley's shooting the thing in, I think, pretty much in sequence, because…

32:33Jawad MirOkay

32:34David Franzoni... Yeah, nuts. It's nuts. And I remember this, there's times when Russell and I are sitting on the ground and we're drawing pictures in the sand, and he's saying, "Oh, we want this." "Okay. So you got that?" "Yeah." And then you go back and erase the sand. It was a really fantastic organic process. So at 3 in the, 3 in the morning I had hand Ridley the pages, he'd go off and shoot, then we'd meet for dinner with cigars afterwards. I go back and, you know, from the notes I took at dinner, blah, 3:00 in the morning, hand him pages. It was my... And my family was on the shoot, too. So it was great. It was, like, fantastic, you know? And…

33:14Jawad MirThat's, that's, that's actually interesting that you mentioned it was, it was shot in, you know, se… basically in the order that it was written. Do you think, as a writer, I mean, I know that's not true all the time, it can't be, but the... One of the reasons, aside from everybody's performances, direction, music, everything, and the writing as well, is that because when you're filming everything in a, in sequence of the script, you know what is going, you know how you can sort of fill in the gaps and do you think that's one of the reasons it may have worked, aside from all the other reasons?

33:48David FranzoniI, you know, like, I'm trying to remember ex… how exactly in sequence it was shot. But I mean, yeah, but then we went to Malta, where we were gonna shoot the

33:56Jawad MirColiseum stuff, right?

33:58David Franzoni... Coliseum.

33:59Jawad MirYeah.

33:59David FranzoniI mean, and it, yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm guessing…

34:05Jawad MirThat's okay

34:05David Franzoni... I'm guessing it was good for the actors' heads.

34:08Jawad MirYeah, because you're in character and the progression of the story and how it's gonna... Yeah.

34:12David FranzoniIt's not like you wake up in the morning and you're dead, and then the next morning you're alive. You know. It's…

34:16Jawad MirYeah. Okay. No, that's, that's actually something new. I never, I never knew that. And, you know, being on the set, all the time, Da… David, like, if you can maybe share three things with me, and I can repeat them one after the other once you're done with one, is, you know, s… maybe something that went wrong on the set and, how it was sort of, you know, brought back, recover, how you kinda recovered from that. And, maybe, like, a f… a funny story involving yourself or Ridley or any, you know, Russell or Joaquin or anybody else. A… anything that sort of comes to memory?

34:52David FranzoniWell, sure. You know, so I arrive on the set and Ridley and Russell and I sit down. And, you know, I guess they'd been having some discussions about the script, which, anyway, so, you know, Russell has this idea, "Why don't we... Well, it's a democracy, so we'll vote on what we'll do next." And I go, so I said, "This is great, so I either get to vote against the director or against the lead actor." I said, "Why don't, why don't we just take a look at the script?" But I mean, you know, the, it wasn't... It was done with a certain amount of humor. It wasn't like, you know…

35:31Jawad MirYeah

35:31David Franzoni... People were dead serious. But there was a, there was always a tension, because Russell, was convinced that this was gonna destroy his career. It was terrible.

35:42Jawad MirReally?

35:43David FranzoniWell, and,.. But what's great about Russell, to give him huge credit, this is why I was so happy won, when he won the Oscar, is that he put all that angst into his character, and he used it. He, you know, he did his job. He was a pro. So I remember Ridley and I were in a car, we were driving up. Russell, we were all staying at the Berber Palace Hotel in Ouarzazate. And Russell was, had a mansion somewhere in the desert. And there were all these mansions that were owned by military personalities, right?

36:13David FranzoniAnd they usually weren't there, so they just rented them out. So we're on our way there and we're intercepted by this Jeep, and it's the son of some general. And he was just beside himself. Anyway, the famous quote was that he wanted Russell removed from the area because he had, quote, "Violated every tenet of the Quran."

36:34Jawad MirReally?

36:35David FranzoniYeah. Wish someone said about me.

36:42Jawad MirThat's, that's funny

36:43David FranzoniThen we had one night where we went out to have dinner with Russell, and way, it's way out there. It's like near the Algerian border or something ridiculous. And Russell and Ridley got into an argument, and Russell threw us out. Now, we didn't have a car, and our cell phones did not work, so we helped ourselves to the rec room of one of the general's abandoned mansions and played, and Ridley's assistant was there, so the three of us played ping pong and pool all night until we were rescued by his assistant.

37:17Jawad MirOh, wow. That… that's…

37:19David FranzoniThe other, the fun thing was I remember we were shooting the, provincial arena, and Ridley taps me on the shoulder and he points to a monitor and says, "Check this out." And I look there, and there's, Oliver Reed standing up there cheering and all, and he's got a cigarette in his mouth.

37:36Jawad MirSpeaking…

37:36David FranzoniYou know, Ridley's, Ridley's a totally, obviously a complete pro, so he saw that it's funny rather than, "Oh, my God, we have to reshoot that moment." So it was…

37:47Jawad MirYeah. One of the things I've sort of… I've seen Ridley's interviews and behind the scenes stuff on a lot of different films, and that he comes across as a type of filmmaker who just kind of goes with the flow. Like, you know, he… he… he's not…

37:59David FranzoniHe's… he's not gonna get bent out of s… you know, s… by Oliver Reed smoking a cigarette

38:03Jawad Mir... Yeah

38:04David Franzoni... You know? It's not

38:05Jawad MirI mean, ha… had it been, of course, Stanley Kubrick, the late Stanley Ku… Kubrick, I mean, it would have been a different story. But

38:11David FranzoniOh

38:11Jawad Mir... But, you know, speaking of Oliver Reed, how far was in production, that the, w… that he passed away? And I know there was some digital stuff that had to be done. And how did that create the mood on the, on the production?

38:28David FranzoniWell, it w… it was very close to the end. I mean, you know, in Malta. I was no longer on the set.

38:37Jawad MirOkay.

38:37David FranzoniI'm like, I'd spent a certain amount of time in Malta, but I'd come home by that point. I believe, yeah. Anyway, you know, every… everybody was bummed out 'cause he was such, he was a great guy, you know? He just had a great mood. And, you know, before the night they were gonna shoot the, some of the gladiators, first gladiator sequences, he had a party for all the gladiators. And he was just into it, and he'd almost convinced me to move from Malibu to the, you know, the outbacks of Ireland, and then with a couple of hunting dogs. I mean, that's how persuasive he is, right?

39:16Jawad MirYeah, he… he certainly has a character, even presence on the, on the screen, you know, even as a…

39:20David FranzoniYes

39:20Jawad Mir... As a human being certainly.

39:22David FranzoniWell, they didn't, they did, they shot that one, they did that one digital thing, but here's the, here was the big issue was sort of like is Russell going to live because he's the hero? See, it isn't just that this was a revenge film.

39:40Jawad MirYes.

39:41David FranzoniRussell was set out to get revenge. Russell was just trying to get home.

39:45Jawad MirHome. Be with his family.

39:48David FranzoniRight. And the only way at the end that he could be, that he could get there was to sacrifice himself. So…

39:55Jawad MirSo... Yeah, go on.

39:56David FranzoniGo ahead.

39:57Jawad MirNo, I was just gonna ask you, was that never written in the original script, or was it kinda like an iffy thing till the end of the production?

40:03David FranzoniNo. It was absolutely, I mean, I, no, I mean, I is, I have, I was of the opinion that Russell should die always.

40:12Jawad MirOh, okay. Okay.

40:13David FranzoniAnd the events sort of, you know, and Ridley, you know, felt that way too, obviously, because he killed him. So, but I think that part of it was the way the rewrite, had it, I believe Oliver Reed was gonna survive as well. So I think when he died, I mean, I just, I don't know. I don't, it, look, it just became what it became. But the real issue of the script was this isn't a revenge film. This is a m… a movie about a man who wants to get home. It's like Maximus is, you know, one of those guys who helped keep the Roman Empire alive. He's a big general and reckon all these people. He's, you know, a friend of, Marcus Aurelius. But then when he's offered the job of being the emperor, he declines. And so he's now condemned to live the underbelly of that same empire that he so…

41:14Jawad MirYeah

41:14David Franzoni... Kept in place. So it's like, you know, there's a, he sort of deserves it in a way. And that, you know, the, you know, the hero goes into the underworld, and he emerges a changed person and ready to make the great sacrifice, and he does.

41:33Jawad MirYeah. No, and I think one of the reasons, is the fact that his character dies at the end, the film became very successful. I genuinely believe that, you know, because he sacrificed himself. And speaking of, speaking of characters, to, for me, the antagonist, Commodus, played by Joaquin Phoenix, was an incredibly well-written character. And o… on top of that, Joaquin just did a, you know, such a phenomenal job. And I kind of, I don't know if you have seen the new movie of his, which, Joker by Todd Phillips.

42:05David FranzoniOh, sure. Of course. Yeah.

42:06Jawad MirYeah.

42:06David FranzoniIt was a great…

42:06Jawad MirAnd I, which was an amazing film. It wasn't even a superhero film, and I can't stand superhero films.

42:12David FranzoniOkay.

42:12Jawad MirAnd he, I saw a lot of similarities in his character, not that in any way it was trying to be a rip-off, but that broken character that he was in Gladiator and Commodus in Joker as well. And for you, besides Russell Crowe, you know, being the protagonist, how did, how did Joaqui… was it satisfi… satisfying for you for Joaquin to sort of bring that character to life the way he did?

42:39David FranzoniOh, no. The cast of Gladiator was one of the best casts of all time You know, David Hemmings. You know, and it's like you have, all my heroes from the '60s, right?

42:50Jawad MirRight.

42:51David FranzoniJust Oliver. You had, you know, Der… you know, what's his name? The guy…

42:58Jawad MirLaurence

43:00David FranzoniJacoby

43:02Jawad MirYeah

43:03David FranzoniThe guy who was in, I, Claudius, who played Claudius. It's like it had... You know, and what's his name? Richard Harris. It had…

43:12Jawad MirRichard Harris. Right

43:13David Franzoni... Vast landscape of deadly serious actors. And so it's, it, you know, it obviously elevated it just…

43:24Jawad MirYeah

43:25David Franzoni... Just because of that. So yeah, Joaquin. Well, the thing is when they sent us Joaquin's

43:31Jawad MirAudition

43:32David Franzoni... Tape, which I still have, we thought, "You gotta be kidding me. Joaquin Phoenix?" And we watched the tape and went, "Unbelievable. He's Commodus. No question."

43:44Jawad MirThat's, that's awesome. Wait. I… is that audition tape anywhere on the web?

43:49David FranzoniNo. I don't, not that I know of. I didn't put it on the web, so.

43:52Jawad MirOh, okay. Okay. Okay, great. No, that's, that's good. And I, my favorite scene, of Commodus is, when he, when he sort of, I think it was in the middle of the film, when he, stands in the same room with, Connie Niel… Nielsen's character, Lucilla, and how he is trying to be a strong, you know, king, but his voice is shaking so much…

44:23David FranzoniRight

44:23Jawad Mir... 'cause he's scared inside. And I think that's, that's what people, you know, in terms of antagonists, that's what people sort of like. Like, you don't have like a, you know, a villain that has no fear or anything. And he had everything. He had anger. He had fear. He had hate. He had jealousy. He had every single, you know, characteristic that you can imagine, which was, which was really well-written, I thought. So I just wanted to give you kudos on that.

44:47David FranzoniWell, it's not, you know, not just me. Look, you know, John Logan came…

44:50Jawad MirJohn as well. Sorry. Yeah

44:51David Franzoni... John as well. And, like, I think that the... But the thing about Joaquin was that he could just bring all those colors…

45:00Jawad MirYeah

45:00David Franzoni... To the camera. I mean, it's one thing to write them. It's the other thing to do them.

45:06Jawad MirOf course.

45:08David FranzoniHe was amazing, so.

45:09Jawad MirAnd he was because I kinda felt sorry for his character even though after all that he did, the way he delivered himself is that you actually felt for this guy regardless of all the crazy things that he was doing, which is, which is great. And you know, kind of moving on to the film, completion of the film, when it came out, I remember, it was in May of 2000, I think. And how, when was the time that you saw the first cut or the final cut, and how did you sort of take that in? Were... I don't think there were any reshoots, right? There were no, any pickup shots or anything?

45:49David FranzoniI don't remember any pickups or anything. I mean, I, you know, quite a bit earlier, I saw the rough cut.

45:56Jawad MirOkay.

45:56David FranzoniOkay. So I remember the, I remember it well. We're at DreamWorks, and, you know, sort of everybody, you know, everybody who's involved with like doing the mechanical work on the film is there. And I'm watching it, and of course, it's rough and it's got, you know, in… incorrect music and, you know, it's got, you know, it's just, it's just, it's a very rough cut.

46:20Jawad MirYeah.

46:21David FranzoniAnd so we had this meeting afterwards to talk about it, and I'm just laughing and be… about, you know, what do we need to fix. And I said, "Look, you guys can release this now with like the Bee Gees doing the music in the background, and it'd still be a hit." I mean, I just knew it was, "This is a deal, done deal. This is a hit." And one of the things that really got my attention was, they, on the internet, they were, the fanboys were posting the theaters and the times when the trailer for Gladiator was gonna be shown.

47:03Jawad MirI remember that.

47:05David FranzoniPeople paid to see a movie that you don't wanna see just to see the trailer for Gladiator.

47:10Jawad MirI was, I was one of those people, so. No, I specifically remember that, for sure. No, it... And even with the music, you know, Hans Zimmer's score, oh, I still listen to it. You know, I still listen to the, to it to this day when I'm, I'm on a run or anything else. It's just an amazing, especially the Now We're Free track.

47:32David FranzoniYeah.

47:32Jawad MirBeautiful the way it sort of wraps up. And since we're on the music topic, were you in any sort of pro… in… involvement with Hans Zimmer or the music process at all? Or was it mostly Ridley?

47:44David FranzoniNo, that was the Ridley. This is Ridley's realm. I mean, and probably Steven too, but.

47:48Jawad MirYeah. Okay. Great. And sort of g… going back to, Gladiator, and I, and I've r… read on news reports and I think on IMDb, I don't know how, what's the truth to it, so you tell me. Is there a Gladiator 2 happening?

48:07David FranzoniI don't know. I mean, I'm a producer on it, but, I have no idea what's really going on. I mean, they, look, they have to get the script right. I mean…

48:18Jawad MirYeah

48:19David Franzoni... You know, I'm sure the, I'm sure that the script they've got right now is very good. I mean, but that's all that, I mean, I don't know.

48:25Jawad MirBut you're not involved, as a, as a writer on the second one?

48:29David FranzoniNo, not at all. I mean, I think,.. I mean, the issue becomes, you know, w… how do, how do you do it? I mean…

48:40Jawad MirYeah, it is a t… it is a tough thing to pull off with the way that it ended, right? It's like what do you…

48:45David FranzoniWell, okay, so the, initially we started talking about… Or, you know, like sort of within a couple of months after Gladiator was released about a sequel.

48:54Jawad MirRight.

48:55David FranzoniProblem was that if we did a prequel, which meant that the... Okay, the good news about a prequel was that Russell would still be alive.

49:06Jawad MirYeah.

49:08David FranzoniBad news was he never went to Rome.

49:10Jawad MirThere was no Gladiator.

49:11David FranzoniThere's no way. So it's like...

49:16Jawad MirYeah. No, it's, it's... Okay, so that's, that's good. Were you, being at DreamWorks for production, you know, for Amistad and Gladiator, did you sort of see the studio... This is more of, like a studio question than the film, films that you worked on. Did you sort of see the studio kind of come to life as you were working on Amistad and visiting there and, you know, back and forth or working with Steven?

49:45Jawad MirOr was that just sort of, like a side thing? I mean, you don't have to answer, it's fine. I'm just kind of curious.

49:52David FranzoniThere was a, very special, and all I can tell you is there was a very special vibe about going over there… ... And working with Steven and, you know, there was something, it was a very special vibe that couldn't be duplicated anywhere else.

50:07Jawad MirYeah.

50:07David FranzoniSteven, you know, Steven's sure of what he's doing. You know, look, we hand the script in and he starts scouting locations. How often does that happen, right? It's just, you know, "Okay, good. You got the script, then let's make this damn thing," you know?

50:21Jawad MirYeah.

50:22David FranzoniSo that was, you know, a lot of good memories.

50:25Jawad MirYeah, no, especially nowadays, I mean, you know, the way the film industry is sort of shifting now. You know, unless it's like a superhero franchise, most likely the film is not gonna go to the theaters, and now with coronaviruses, that's gonna make it becoming, you know, more of a trend too.

50:43David FranzoniYeah, we'll see. I have no idea. We'll, we'll see what happens and, yeah, we'll see.

50:50Jawad MirSo you wrote King Arthur, which I really liked too. And since then you've had, from, if I'm not mistaken, you really haven't written anything. Was that more of a personal…

51:01David FranzoniWell, it's not that I haven't written anything. It's, you know, there was

51:05Jawad MirOr written to get made. I know how you, everybody writes scripts where it never gets anywhere made.

51:10David FranzoniI mean, look, I'm, I'm, in one respect I'm my own worst enemy. I like to take on difficult projects. And, yeah, I'm doing, I'm doing a sh… I'm working on a show right now with, Robert Rodriguez and, Rene Echevarria…

51:31Jawad MirOkay

51:31David Franzoni... On the Aztec.

51:33Jawad MirOkay.

51:34David FranzoniAnd like, okay, so they brought, they brought this project to me, the producers, and it was like intercutting between Spain and, you know, Mesoamerica, Tenochtitlan. And I'd been offered a couple of those conquistador movies in the past, and I never wanted to do them. But this time I figured out why I didn't wanna do them, 'cause I fucking hate the Spanish. I mean, I hate the conquistadors. I mean, I don't wanna do a movie about these pigs, but I did wanna do a movie about the Aztec.

52:06David FranzoniSo that's what we're doing. We're, we're, we're going back away from the conquest and, you know, recreating the world of, Tenochtitlan.

52:16Jawad MirAnd that's, that's gonna be a series you said?

52:19David FranzoniIt's a s… it's, yeah, we're doing, we're, we're conceding it as a series. We had it originally set up at Hulu, and, you know, this w… was less to do with me than, we're, we're, we're partners with A&E, and A&E pulled it from them. I think it was the right decision. I didn't understand what their notes meant. But then, you know, anyway, I don't wanna go there, but…

52:40Jawad MirYeah, that's fine. No, I wasn't trying to stir any controversy. I was just…

52:43David FranzoniNo, it's all right. I mean, it's a great project and, you know, Robert wants to build a, you know, a great, you know, the, you know, Maya pyramid on his set down in Austin, Texas.

52:53Jawad MirOh, okay.

52:54David FranzoniWhich would be awesome, right? It's like, you know. I was working on a project with Mike Medavoy about the Ostenberg list, and that, you know, which I still wanna do. But, you know, there were issues with, you know, that are hard to overcome. These projects... Now, there is a project I'm doing that my son brought to me, and we're, we're, we have three interested parties right now. And so we're negotiating, you know, trying to put this deal together. I can't tell you what it is because it's…

53:30Jawad MirNo, that's fine.

53:31David FranzoniBut it's a fantastic, it's a fantastic project and, you know, but it's gotta be these, you know, these... Look, here's the, here's the thing. When you're working with Steven, stuff gets done right.

53:41Jawad MirYeah.

53:42David FranzoniThat's hard to duplicate elsewhere.

53:44Jawad MirWell, Steven is a filmmaker/businessman, right? Like, you know, with everybody else, you go to, go to the studio. They j… they just don't see the art. They see numbers, right? That's all they see, which is good and important, but still.

53:59David FranzoniWell, yes. On the other hand, one must recall that while we were making Gladiator…

54:05Jawad MirYeah

54:05David Franzoni... People were laughing at us because they thought, "Well, Steven's finally lost it. He's doing a sword and sandal movie." And, there's no Italians in it, but, I mean, the arrogance of the know-it-alls sometimes is, you know, staggering.

54:23Jawad MirIs the great, is the greatest motivator too, because I mean, look what happened after Gladiator. Troy, you know, Games of Thrones, King Arthur, and bunch of, bunch of other movies came. I think that sort of started a whole trend. Clash of Titans, they remade it. And if it wasn't for Gladiator, it wouldn't have happened, because I think to my knowledge, the last movie that, about the Romans was, you know, way long ago, like in the '60s or the '50s I think they made.

54:51David FranzoniYeah. They called them sword and sandal movies. They were, you know, Demetrius and the Gladiators, and you know, just… You know, Hercules and the Mole Man or something. I mean, th… these movies were like what? They were a joke. But that's why my pitch to Steven was me saying, "Yes," three times. 'Cause he already knew he wanted to do it. He knew it was time.

55:16Jawad MirYeah.

55:16David FranzoniYou know, he had Steven's, you know, perfect instinct, his antenna. He knew it was time for a film like this considering what we could do with effects, blah. Get people in there who could really act. And because look, the story of the gladiators is,.. Yeah, it's pretty profound.

55:33Jawad MirIt is definitely. And just a couple of parting thoughts, D… David. Your advice, and I know this is probably, like, the most cliche question. Your advice to, like, upcoming screenwriters, you know, especially nowadays where for me at least, I feel write… you know, writing is kind of, kind of going away but kind of coming back at the same time. I don't know if that makes sense.

56:04David FranzoniI, my son and I talk about it all the time. I mean, when I first came out here, I was in my 30s, right?

56:10Jawad MirYeah.

56:10David FranzoniAnd I came back from my motorcycle trip, and I just came here. I... While I was in India riding my bike, I decided, yeah, I'm gonna be a screenwriter. So I came out here. Now, my background's Fellini, you know, Antonioni, that kind of stuff, right? Truffaut. Not Roger Corman. A little Roger Corman. And, so th… my mantra back then was I'm tired of seeing movies about movies people have seen. I wanna see movies about a life someone has led.

56:42Jawad MirYeah.

56:42David FranzoniAnd you know, that, but given that people are in a hurry and can't actually find time to have a life, the most important advice that I can give is don't be afraid of doing what you think is right irrespective of how wrong everyone says you are. You know, just forget that. You know, because look, you're either gonna be a human typewriter or you're gonna be a writer. And if you're a writer, you gotta have a point of view. You gotta have, you know, you gotta have a reason to write besides just the paycheck.

57:23Jawad MirYeah.

57:23David FranzoniSo you gotta find your voice, and you gotta trust it.

57:28Jawad MirAnd it's spot on what you said, David, because I'm, I have been a full-time documentary filmmaker for the last six, seven years. And, I have always struggled with finding... You know, in the beginning it was like let's just make a film because, you know, you just, you just wanna make movies. Who cares about what the, you know, what the story might be, if it's powerful or not? But after my first film, you know, it was, it was pretty, it was pretty decent. It wasn't anything groundbreaking. I realized that, you know, I need to be, like you said, you need to be bold. You need not to be afraid. And that does pay dividends from both from a personal standpoint and, you know, as a career standpoint. So, but you're, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. No, this is great, David. Thank you so much. Anything else you wanna add or anything?

58:16David FranzoniNo, not really. I think that,.. Look, I, let's put it this way. Just a little bit, like, if you look at the landscape of streaming right now, it's, you'd be hard-pressed to find something original. That's my opinion.

58:37Jawad MirYeah.

58:37David FranzoniI mean, it's... But you're also gonna be hard-pressed to find somebody who wants to do something original.

58:45Jawad MirYeah.

58:45David FranzoniNow, it can be done, and that's what I'm, I'm focusing on right now is like, okay, I'm gonna cl… I'm gonna give into the whole streaming world. I'm gonna find... I've got a show. You know, we... We're negotiating a show. I've got another one I'm going out with. We have lots of attachments. I've decided, look, let's just give in to the format, but not give in to your personal point of view.

59:11Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

59:12David FranzoniSo.

59:13Jawad MirWell said. Well said. Well, thank you, David. I appreciate your time. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Don't forget to subscribe, like, share, and comment, and do come back for another episode. Until then, have a great day.