By
J. D. Nguyen
The Executive Producer of the RING remake from Dreamworks
Pictures is a pretty busy guy these days. Not only
is he flying half away across the world to attend
film festivals and watch countless hours of foreign
cinema, but he's hanging out with some of the most
important directors to ever make an impact in the
international film world: from the MY SASSY GIRL director,
Gwak Jae-Young, to the visionary director of VERSUS,
Ryuhei Kitamura. Roy Lee is the man with the master
plan in Hollywood who is contributing to the Asian
Cinema phenomenon in America by bringing the significant
films of Korea and Japan and sharing their beautiful
and thought-provoking stories for US Audiences in
the form of film remakes.
Roy
Lee invited me to hang out with him at his office
in the Miramax building and chat it out like film
buddies that never ran out of things to talk about.
It was the first time I ever really met anyone who
worked behind the scenes as an Executive Producer
and it completely changed my mind about the stigmas
of Hollywood businessmen in general as Roy was friendly
and knowledgeable about the films he loved, sharing
with me some of the coolest anecdotes about the Hollywood
folks he's come into contact with. Heck, he even took
me out to a hip and trendy restaurant called SWINGERS
where we ate chocolate covered fudge brownie sundaes
till it hurt
Oh
yeah, I could get used to hanging out with this guy…
[J.
D. Nguyen]: Tell me about RING and how
you came upon it.
[Roy
Lee]: RING was shown to me by a person
who runs film festivals, actually it's the one I'm
going to this month, the Puchon International Film
Festival, a fantasy, sci-fi, horror film festival
where it won BEST PICTURE three years ago I think.
Last year, TURN, another film I'm doing won the DIRECTORS
AWARD for Hideyuki Hirayama. And this year, two movies
that are in competition are films I'm already producing.
And so that just seemed like the best area to find
movies that would be good for US remakes.
[J.
D. Nguyen]: How were you able to get Naomi
Watts and Gore Verbinski to attach themselves to the
project? Both seem to be pretty hot in the Hollywood
scene at the moment, especially Watts for her turn
in MULHOLLAND DRIVE.
[Roy
Lee]: It's Just the matter of showing the
film to the right people.
[J.
D.]: Definitely a big deal since DREAMWORKS
is behind it. Probably the biggest Japanese remake
to ever hit the international spotlight since SEVEN
SAMURAI with THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.
[Roy]:
Have you heard the remake news of CHAOS (Hideo Nakata)?
[J.
D.]:
No, not at all.
[Roy]:
We've got Jonathon Glazer directing along with Robert
De Niro and Benicio Del Toro.
[J.
D.]: Amazing, I loved SEXY BEAST! Jonathon
Glazer's directing is pretty intense. So what are
the other films you're executive producing?
[Roy]:
The Japanese films are TURN, The RING Series, and
DARK WATER. The KOREAN FILMS are MY WIFE IS A GANGSTER,
IL MARE, MY SASSY GIRL, and I'm currently working
on two others right now, NO BLOOD NO TEARS and FAILAN.
[J.
D.]: NO BLOOD NO TEARS? Man, I've been
wanting to see that forever? I love Ryu Sung-Wan!
Have you seen DIE BAD?
[Roy]:
Yeah DIE BAD's really good. I'm actually supposed
to send over a treatment to the Korean Production
company to tell them what's going on with NO BLOOD
NO TEARS. The writer of BRINGING DOWN THE HOUZE, Steve
Martin and Queen Latifah's new movie, wrote up the
full outline of how the US version is going to be.
[J.
D.]: (He shows me the treatment and I notice
the name JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT.) Jennifer Love Hewitt's
going be in it?
[Roy]:
He's going be pitching it to her and Demi Moore, because
of the older woman, younger woman thing…
[J.
D.]:
Like in HEARTBREAKERS.
[Roy]:
Yeah, like in HEARTBREAKERS, except this one is going
to be an action movie! (Roy flips through the treatment.)
One of the things I want taken out is… ah! (Begins
reading an excerpt.) "Demi and Jennifer meet.
Demi is in. What does she have to do? This is where
we have the first lesbian scene between the two leads."
Ah no, we're not going to have a lesbian scene in
this movie, especially not between Moore and Hewitt!
[J.
D.]: That's crazy! (We share a laugh)
[Roy]:
That's definitely going to be changed.
[J.
D.]:
Tell me about Vertigo Entertainment.
[Roy]:
Vertigo Entertainment is a production company with
my partner, Doug Davison, who handles more of the
development and working with the writers in developing
any ideas for film, it doesn't necessarily have to
be remakes in general, adaptations from a novel or
a short story and remakes and develops them with writers
to come with the US version of the stories. For example,
for MY WIFE IS A GANGSTER, it would be all about figuring
out how to change the setting from Seoul to New York
City and it's like working with writers on all the
cultural changes to work as close as possible with
the US versions.
[J.
D.]: What is your association with Miramax
Films?
[Roy]:
It's a FIRST LOOK DEAL with Miramax, Dimension films
actually, which is sort of like the Genre Division
of Miramax. My contract with them essentially means
that any movie I want to produce I have to show Dimension
first.
[J.
D.]:
Before Vertigo, you worked for Benderspink Management
with Chris Bender (AMERICAN PIE) and J.C. Spink (CATS
& DOGS).
[Roy]:
I was more of an independent Producer with them. Benderspink
is a Management Production Company and I wasn't really
a manager as much as I was just looking for projects
to produce. And even before that, I was with Alphaville
Entertainment.
[J.
D.]:
A Producer for them as well?
[Roy]:
I was the Director of Development where I looked for
feature film project ideas, looking for scripts. I
never really looked for remake titles actually when
I was there. One of the things I had gotten early
was TOMB RAIDER, which we ended up not doing, because
the producers there didn't like it, and basically,
I was doing what I do now, but more for looking for
scripts at that point.
[J.
D.]:
During your stay at Alphaville Entertainment, you
started a website called Script Shark (www.scriptshark.com),
a company that dealt with helping major studios and
producers find new projects in unrepresented writers
through the internet. After what seemed like a lucrative
idea at the time, why did you and your partner, Ed
Kashiba of Scott Free Productions (Tony and Ridley
Scott's Production Banner) sell it to IFILM (www.ifilm.com)?
[Roy]:
I wanted to move on, but more so because they offered
me money. They wanted a first look at all the projects
that came out of it.
[J.
D.]: (Laughs) I thought they were going
under?
[Roy]:
Now they are, and that's only because they overspent
their money.
[J.
D.]:
Before you got into all of this, what was the first
thing you did when you got to Hollywood?
[Roy]:
Alphaville was the first job I landed in fact. I had
moved here to Los Angels from Washington, D.C. where
I was a Lawyer.
[J.
D.]:
Are you originally from D.C.?
[Roy]:
Actually I was born in New York, my parents are from
Korea.
[J.
D.]:
What made you move to entertainment?
[Roy]:
It seemed interesting to do. Basically, I just fell
into it. I just knew how to negotiate deals with the
companies, most importantly, the remake rights, going
through contracts and option purchase agreements.
I also knew the way Hollywood worked in those terms.
It has been good working with Korean films, because
no one in Hollywood had been doing so.
[J.
D.]: Yeah, the past few years the Korean
film industry has just exploded and they've been making
a name for themselves on the International scene.
[Roy]:
The films they've been producing have been great,
I mean, have you seen most of them?
[J.
D.]:
I'm pretty much caught up on my Korean films. I really
love them, they are just so flawless, new stories,
cinematography is beautiful and it's great to find
a new crop of actors to love and embrace. Has MY SASSY
GIRL gone in production yet?
[Roy]:
The script is being written right now. It should be
finished in about 4 more weeks.
[J.
D.]: I'm pretty excited about that as well.
Now that's big in my book.
[Roy]:
It's definitely going be a fun movie. Actually it's
my favorite foreign film.
[J.
D.]:
Yeah, yeah! That has to be on my top 5 for sure.
[Roy]:
You ever seen that show MAD ABOUT YOU?
[J.
D.]:
Yeah.
[Roy]:
The head writer, Victor Levin, is now writing the
screenplay. They want it in a very light tone, but
he loved the film so much, he's keeping it structurally
the same.
[J.
D.]: I've always thought the story worked
really well universally.
[Roy]:
I met with the director of MY SASSY GIRL (Kwak Jae-Young)
and it's funny, because when I was with him, he got
hit by a car-
[J.
D.]:
What?
[Roy]:
I mean, his foot was run over (laughs)… he was
telling me things about the movie I had no idea of,
like the old man underneath the tree was supposed
be Geon-Woo from the future.
[J.
D.]:
Yeah, isn't there there's supposedly a flying saucer
in the background?
[Roy]:
Exactly, and he's also in the train where the girl
first throws up. Not the old man she throws up on,
but somewhere in the car, it's supposed to be him
coming back to see himself meeting her for the first
time. And then there are like 5 identical brothers
throughout the film, all the same actor playing the
different roles.
[J.
D.]:
Oh yeah, when Gyeon-Woo first reads about it in the
news article in the motel room. I thought it was really
cool how it was somewhat based on a true story, a
guy writing about this girl he fell in love with.
It's a really endearing film.
[Roy]:
The only change they are really making to the remake
is the soldier scene at the amusement park where the
soldier kidnaps them. Now it's like they're eating
at a restaurant and a guy comes in and holds them
hostage because his ex-girlfriend works there and
wants her to come back to him.
[J.
D.]: The original Korean theatrical release
had the soldier scene shortened, but I particularly
thought it was one of the more meaningful scenes of
the film. The whole idea of how her life in some contrasting
way paralleled the soldiers' and him killing himself
to get his ex to regret what she did to him foreshadows
everything you find out later about the lead girl.
[Roy]:
What did you think about IL MARE?
[J.
D.]: God, that's the last film I can really
remember getting all emotional and teary eyed over.
[Roy]:
They just sent me this new script, THE CLASSIC by
the MY SASSY GIRL writer, it's another film about
destiny over two time periods about a daughter and
a mother talking about their relationships and it
jumps back and forth and how both of their lives are
similar in terms of how they met their boyfriends.
Something like the mother doesn't want her daughter
to be with this guy because she wants her to be with
a better type of person, and at the same time it's
a related situation to the mother when she was younger.
It should be a good movie.
[J.
D.]: I've been looking around your office
and you seem to have a lot of scripts around. Are
these the films you've been a part of?
[Roy]:
These are for whenever I need samples of work, these
are to help me find type of writers that I may want
to attach to certain projects. Mostly, these are writers
I like a lot
[J.
D.]:
What are some of your favorite movies?
[Roy]:
My favorites in general are probably BLADE RUNNER
and TRUE ROMANCE, which is funny since they are both
directed by the two different brothers
[J.
D.]:
Ridley and Tony!
[Roy]:
I'm very excited about the new Version of the TRUE
ROMANCE DVD with 30 minutes of additional footage!
[J.
D.]:
I swear I've been waiting years for a special edition
release of that. So you must be a big DVD collector,
eh?
[Roy]:
Oh yeah, several HUNDREDS.
[J.
D.]:
I'm really admiring your widescreen television behind
you.
[Roy]:
Cineclick Asia sent me the whole thing.
[J.
D.]: They just gave it to you? Wow! There
are a lot of perks, lots of fun stuff to get, huh?.
[Roy]:
Yeah, this whole trip I'm taking to Korea, they paid
for it, too.
[J.
D.]:
Lucky you! So you're just going head to the film festival
and check out all the films, buy some rights and kick
back?
[Roy]:
Pretty much. I've already seen all the movies, but
it's good to just meet the filmmakers and everything.
Most of the things I'm concentrating now are Asian
titles; all the films I've picked up now are all recent
films. I haven't gone back to the older films yet,
which I will when I run out of the new ones, if that
ever happens.
[J.
D.]: The backlog of Asian films is pretty
damn tremendous, obviously, especially the Hong Kong
ones, I doubt you'll ever run out of things to watch
and remake.
[Roy]:
FLY ME TO POLARIS I would love to remake, but every
studio says it's so close to HEAVEN CAN WAIT.
[J.
D.]: They deal with the same themes and
ideas but both are executed differently. And plus,
HEAVEN CAN WAIT is pretty outdated now. Man, that
was made back in 1978, right?
[Roy]:
Paramount remade the film I think, 2 years ago…
DOWN TO EARTH.
[J.
D.]: The Chris Rock one? That's hilarious,
I never knew that.
[Roy]:
I don't know how I'm going to catch up with the older
films, but I plan to.
[J.
D.]:
Ultimately what does it take to do what you do? Do
you need a good background in Law?
[Roy]:
No not at all really. You just have to have the ability
to find the movies, the good movies at least. Like,
another one I'm working on is THE EYE, the Pang Brother's
film. I actually found out about that in the news
column of KFC Cinema.
[J.
D.]: (Laughs) Awesome, man, just awesome.
I loved BANGKOK DANGEROUS!
[Roy]:
The guy who wrote THIR13EN GHOSTS really wants to
adapt it. Actually I'm supposed to meet him later
today to talk about how he wants to approach it.
[J.
D.]:
So you could basically say that watching movies is
your job? Must be a real trip for you, huh?
[Roy]:
Yeah. I really can't believe there weren't enough
people doing this before. I guess it's tough to get
into at first, but since I've been doing it, everyone
is trying to get into it now.
Roy
Lee
July
8th, 2002
SPECIAL
THANKS
Roy Lee
Brent Hopkins
Joseph Wilks
Javier Lopez
RELATED
LINKS
Dreamworks SKG
http://www.dreamworks.com/
Miramax
Films
http://www.miramax.com/
Dimension
Films
http://www.dimensionfilms.com/
Script
Shark
http://www.scriptshark.com/
Script
Shark
Ring World
