CraveOnline: I read in an interview that you didn’t talk to, for example, Bob Gale before the comic came out. Now that the publicity has gone out and everything, have you heard anything from him or about what he might think of it?
David Guy Levy: Not Bob, no. I wouldn’t even know how to, and you probably read that I also felt creepy approaching people like, “Hey, I’m doing this thing about you, without you knowing.” After a while, it was too far gone for me to even feel comfortable with that. But since it started coming out, Stephen Clark, whose interview inspired the whole idea, contacted me on Facebook and said, “I love the comic. Thank you for including me.” I was like, “Oh, this is fantastic.” And then, Claudia Wells who played the original Jennifer Parker who replaced Melora Hardin was like, “Oh, this is so cool!” on Twitter. I was like, “This is so cool she’s heard about it.”
And then Melora Hardin, on like, day three of its release chimed in and said, “This was fantastic.” And she was the one who, since the beginning, I was nervous about her reaction. So, in 2001, I was like, “What is she gonna think of this, if this ever comes out?” And she liked it. She was the one, if anyone, Eric Stoltz, Michael J. Fox, Bob Gale, they all got to have at least a part of this experience but Melora never even got to make it to set. Melora was fired before she even started shooting and she was devastated and got the opportunity taken away from her. I was a little confused about how I felt about including her but she was so necessary because of the history and the story of it all so I did, but finding out she liked it was a relief, for sure.
You didn’t mention him, but I’m really curious to see what Eric Stoltz is gonna think of it because I’ve always wondered, does it eat at him? Because he’s doing okay, but that’s a big, life-changing experience, especially considering how much of it he shot.
It is. It’s funny, too, because he’s had such a great career but you know, anyone could argue that his career would have gone in a different direction had these movies come out and were successful. Today, if you look at people who are different but also really successful… I look at Shia LaBeouf and Ryan Gosling, they have two different attitudes. Ryan’s more like art house chic and Shia’s more like Transformers fun, you know? That’s almost like, I feel like if Shia replaced Ryan in something, what would happen? It’s why I wrote the story. It’s a provider of What If’s, you know?
Do you think, if this does well, there is a possibility it could one day be adapted into a movie? They’ve done stuff like that before. Obviously, George Lucas In Love, but they’re also making a film about the making of Star Wars, from the perspective of Chewbacca. These things are possible.
Wow. I didn’t know that. I’m up for it. I would be so shocked, but I think it’s something I’m open to, of course. That’s what it was born as. I would love it to be a video game, for sure. That lends itself to more possibilities because you can just design that whole world. I wouldn’t mind it being an animated movie, because you can keep the likenesses. Everyone would really have to be on board, on such a massive level. I’ve never seen such a perfect storm of things clicking. At least Being John Malkovich, all they needed was one piece.
Wes Craven’s A New Nightmare is another one.
Yeah. So, you know, we’ll see. [Laughs] It’s doing well, though. It’s making some money. It’s only been out for a few days, but it’s selling every couple minutes. I’ll check and it’s been few more units sold, so every couple minutes on the site. I’m happy, and hopefully, it’ll make a respectable amount of money for the foundation and it’ll have done its job.
Tell me about the foundation. Tell me about this charity tie-in.
Yeah. Well, I started writing this with no commercial aspirations, I started drawing it with no commercial aspirations so by the time it was done, I didn’t really know what to do with it. I was gonna give it away because I figured if I gave it away, more people would read it. I just wanted to get this story out there. So I was gonna do that and someone was like, “Why even do that? At least give it away for a good cause.” I thought, “Now that’s a great idea.” And at the same time that someone told me that, I had been trying to get involved with The Young Storytellers Foundation. It goes to art-support communities with underserved public school systems and mentors kids to write their own short plays. All the ideas are the kids’ and nothing comes from the mentors, they just sort of oversee the writing process, and help guide them and with answers to their questions. And at the end of the program, they’ll bring in professional actors to act out the plays in front of the whole school. Recently, they’ve had casts from “Glee: and “SNL” cast members. Everyone who’s come in, it’s always so impressive to see some kid’s favorite sitcom character reading his words to his classmates and seeing their eyes bug out of their head.
I had wanted to mentor and be one of the guys in the room, and be one of the guys mentoring them for a while but it’s such an intensive program, my schedule never really gave me the full amount of time that’s required. So, for like, two years I kept missing the chance to mentor. Then, when I knew I wanted to do it for a good cause, I thought it was sort of a perfect fit because this is a story I started writing as a student, and I just wanted to tell for the sake of telling it, and I was now gonna get to bring it out to the world and if I could do that with The Young Storytellers Foundation, that would be great because they constantly take people’s stories and get them on paper and bring them out to life. It sort of just had this perfect fit [and] feel to it. I called them up and told them what I’d done, how I was just giving away the comic. Maybe I could give a couple issues and then the final issues would go to them. They were down for it and we talked about it for a few months and then we started to do it. So I finally get to, in one small way, support the organization when I couldn’t give my time. But at least what I did give my time for, it’s to go to help them, you know?
Yeah. Now, last time I talked to you, we had you on our podcast for Would You Rather, which was great and it was a lot of fun.
That was a lot of fun. I really liked that.
Thank you. Now that that movie’s been out for a bit, how was the reaction to that movie and do you think there’s any chance to turn that into a franchise? I think there are so many places to take it.
I would love to and I’ve been talking with Steffen, who wrote it, constantly. We’re trying to figure out a way that if we do it, we don’t want to do it again around a dining table. We wanna open it up and really expand the world of it but we don’t have an idea how to do that yet, so we’re throwing ideas back and forth. We’ll joke, and then we’ll realize we’re ripping off Human Centipede 2. So like, I had an idea it would be a support group for Brittany Snow fans who were traumatized by the movie, and then we realized that’s the same as Human Centipede 2, so we can’t do that without looking like a complete asshole. [Laughs]
One thing I was thinking about was about how Shepard Lambrick is such a rich and important guy, and a part of me was always wondering, does he have political influence? And does he ever do this for Congressmen who need donations to keep their political career going?
Oh, totally. That’s a great idea.
You can use that, if you want.
Well, if we do, you’re getting some credit. That’s a great idea.
Oh, sweet. Thank you.
Oh, of course. I’ve always felt like, showing the Lambricks’ influence on society was important to me. We nod to it, but we never actually show their influence in that film.
Another thing you could do, you could actually use him as… Oh god, what do you call it when there’s a special interest group and they have no influence in Washington, so they go to someone one and they wine and dine the congressmen?
Lobbyists.
Lobbyists! Like, you could use Shepard Lambrick as a lobbyist for all these special interest groups that are just trying to save the whales, or help immigration reform or whatever, and one of them will get their legislation passed.
Oh, I love it! Yes! Oh, that’s a good idea. I like that already.
If you want, I will leave that out of the interview.
No, it’s a fun fact if it was in an interview and we used it. I think it would be fun, too, if we get someone like Hayden Panettiere for the sequel, because she has such a big love for dolphins. She’s in that movie, The Cove. Get her playing herself, just going there to support the dolphins.
Okay, who do we know who knows Hayden Panettiere?
Someone’s gotta know. [Laughs]
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
