Now really, now, hello again everybody, I am Jason Owens and I'm still Peter Children. Still you want to stay with it? Anyway? I really know? Really, today is what is it? Imagine this is your situation. Now you get asked to spend what's probably going to be ten years of your life to work on several sequels of a movie really that was made twelve years ago, and to break even it has to make two billion dollars in the theaters. Really, no, really, if someone comes to you with that proposition, you got you know what, I got other things on my plate. I got things to do. You know what I say, I got another franchise. I don't need you say. What do you say? They're betting against James Cammeron really really discard did an alien? He did a Terminator? Sure, he did the first Avatar, which made a good zillion dollars. Who bets against this guy? Either he the genius of the century or we finally see a guy who is able to make a deal with the devil because nobody has those percentage were both so we're both so I'm in So today we are joined by a man we both know that's the lovely guy who this, this couple along with his wife, who is smart enough to not appear on our podcast smart and he's either fifty percent of a couple, half of a couple, or one eighth. We don't I think. I think Rick does the typing, but I mean she dictates paces and Rick gos yes, way, hello, slow it down till one of the co writers of Avatar two three, four, eight, five, seven, six, seven, nine and eleven, and let me just say yeah to say Avatar the Way of the Order has overtaken. Titanic is the third highest grossing movie of all times. An amazing thing about this is to write a movie that's global in this way. In China it did two hundred and forty two million dollars, in Germany one hundred and thirty five million. But the thing that's the most fascinating, yeah, is it is the highest grossing film of all time in France, Germany, Australia, Bulgaria. This is the number one movie Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia. Surest places that don't have water, Slovakia, well, they don't have movies either, so it's high um Cambodia, Mongolia. The last thing they saw highest grossing film in Mongolia. I would not have seen in the movie before the music New Zealand, Colombia and Puerto Rico. Mister Rick Java is here with us. Congratulations. Did you know all of those stats, by the way, that the movie was that big in like Slovakia and did you get the grosser like, yeah, the only man on the planet, I know Slovakians. So you sitting in the writers room, you go, oh, this kills and sis joke killing Slovaskia. They definitely kill there. Wow, congratulations. I didn't know those stats though I know this. I know that the Ukrainian distributor called John John Landau to say that it was going to be the highest grossing film of all time and you crane and evidently he was saying that the people really need it. When the lights come back on, you know, in electricity comes back on, people who are going to the theater to see the movie. So you're saying, even through the war, they are still getting access to that film and people are coming out and seeing it in numbers. That's what I've been telling that is spec Yeah, that's amazing. Congratulations and thank you. So I everybody have to be with you, I'll never forget this, because you know I'm prepping. I read a lot about this stuff. And he said that Cameron gave the co writers. He started with a thousand page, single spaced document and it got it down to eight hundred. And we were talking about this earlier. We were with Rick the night shortly after you got the assignment, and you said to me, I heard the fax machine going starting at like eight o'clock at night, and I heard it at twelve, and then I heard it at three, and then I heard it. It just kept going and going. And you said, I think you said. He even described like the bolts on the ounce side of the lab thing that holds the water. Everything was so specific to make sure you were up to speed on the world that he created. Yeah. Well, the story was that I emailed him right after our deal. First of all, I'm approximately one half. I know he's smarter, and it's going to become more obvious. I'm not coming from but I'm listening anyway. I emailed Jim just said, hey, our deal's clothes were really excited. Is there anything he want us to do to prepare because the room wasn't going to start for like three weeks and that's when within that's all I said, And within I don't know, twenty minutes, I got like a three three page single space to response with attachments. The first attachment was called Pandorapedia, which was by the way, available online and just anything you'd ever want to know about Avatar Pandora, and that described the flora, the fauna of the of the planet, but also the rivets in the and the shuttles, and it was it was so unbelievably specific. And uh so, what happened was is that I just hit print. I didn't even look at it. I just hit print. And that's when the machine started going. And it was in the days when the wheel would expand the numbers would go, and at like eighty, I started to get concerned. I had three hundred and fifty. I thought, there goes my marriage, you know, I was really concerned. That was But let me say though, that was just the beginning. A PA came over like almost with the truck and dropped off books and movies, the things he wanted to read and watch, and once we got into the room, that's when he shared with us. I think that he had like fifteen hundred pages of his own personal notes going all the way back to middle school. And he didn't make us go through all of those, but he read to us and we read with him. Probably seven hundred page was it? So? How much of it was character different? How much of it? How many rivets on the side of a thing? Yeah, because I would imagine, even even with his melodious voice, seven hundred pages of the rivets. That's a little. It was depends on what the thing, because I'm listening totsything. It was both. It was both. I mean, he came in saying, I want to build a family saga. That was kind of his first introduction to us into the room. I want to build a family saga. But before we get there, let's do our homework. So James could pick anybody to do this avatar thing. You picked two other writers and you and your wife. What was it that you saw on you and your wife? What piece of work where you went? I think I want to work with these people. We had actually written a draft of Fantastic Voyage, which was on development for a long time at We were kind of like long middle relievers on that project, and so he and John were producers and so that was our first introduction to those guys, but plant and it was Rise to the Planet of Apes. Really that got him excited. And then when we met with him, he said to me later, he said, look, I it was important. It was important to him that the room be collaborative and open and in good listeners. And he said he figured that if Amanda and I could be together, you know, thirty years and collaborate and still be married, that we must have mad collaboration skills. I'm I'm in the macro. I'm interested in I'm interested in romantic couples life, couple partners that are able to take that partnership into their work, because you are. You know, it's hard enough to navigate a relationship sometimes, but to navigate a working relationship and a personal relationship. So I'm interested in that. But I'm also in the room, which we get is collaborative. Everybody's got an open voice. But do you in Amanda tend to present ideas as a unified team or is she's got something her idea, You've got your idea. It gets worked out in the process. In the avatar room, we were never huddled together and then come up with an idea and consented because we were sitting there as a unit. Jim, Yeah, it was Jim, Amanda, me, Josh Friedman and Shane Siller and uh and so as a team. We we tried to build this family saga out originally over three movies. But uh, but um, we would just contribute individually. But you under then Amanda and I though obviously would go home. On the way home, unless we were too tired to think, you know, we would talk and then a lot of times we would work things out together and one of us would present it. It didn't really matter whether it came from her, from me or you know, there was never anything like, you know, we we cooked this up. What do you guys think? It's just an idea? And what if you're not on the same page with an idea? Yeah, does go? Well? It never happens. But because flamming doors, no, I'm not talking to you, I just say yes to everything. Well, and that's that's the key, that's that says what that's what makes the horse he's riding all right really true? Do you find for the most part that the way to navigate both of those realities is is to kind of let her take the lead or or or is there a moment? Look, I vehemently disagree we have to go this way. The thing is is that what's kept at working all these years is that we just have really and it has definitely helped our marriage. But we just really listen to one another. I mean really listen. So we don't we don't listen in order to respond. You know, it's not a ping pong match, you know, it's really listening and understanding where Because even if an idea comes and you don't like it or you don't think it's right, it's coming from something. And this is a person, I mean, Amanda, you know, someone I respect as much as anyone on earth, so in terms of her creativity and her smarts and all. So I really listen. It's like, where's this idea coming from? You know why I'm screwed? Ask me Sat Peter, why are you screwing? Why are you screwing? Because when my wife listens to this episode, when it gets to this point, I'm going to here from the other room. See See he listens. He's not expecting an answer, he's not just he just sometimes you just need to let me talk, not have a solution. That's gonna happen. That's gonna happen. You know what I was gonna say is he was describing really the relationship you and I have because we listen to each other talk, what don't what's your anyway? Listen what I was gonna say, We do. We do, We actually listen to but we we have a very different thing because we more often than that, we are on other sides of an idea. It's a negotiation that involves threats and oh, we've had the great thing and I can say this, we have had. We have one in front of our crew where they get uncomfortable and we're going at it. And the great thing about him and our friendship is a lot of people say when it's over, it's over, but it's not. They hold a grudge. I don't have. I have zero, zero, It just goes away. It's just it's been thirty years and now he's the fact that I'm usually right helps a lot, because the delusion is why bother? Why try to explain to somebody who doesn't get it? You know, they don't get it. They don't get it. So I gotta ask you, Jim Cameron. I've been around Jim's Carment a little bit. Yeah, he's scary. He scares me. I heard if a phone goes off on the set, he takes a nail gun and nails it to the wall. Um, I heard what I just that's the landline, right, Schwartzenegger, I wanted the movie terminators had to go to the bathroom, but he was in the costume and Jim went no, no, no, no, no, no no, no no, you don't go to the bathroom right now. And Schwartzenegger, I think, relieve himself on Jim or whatever. Is he that tough? And and part of that is I'm also blown away because he feels there's a thing that's successful people do, and it's called certainty. They come at it with certainty. You don't doubt it. Larry David on Seinfeld, Jerry and Steinfeld. They didn't take any No, they didn't want notes. They listened, but there were certainty they said, no, we're doing this in at one Jimmy looks like he used the poster board for certainty. So when you're dealing with that, that's a little bit intimidating. So is he scary? I mean, your friends, now you've worked with him, but he's a daunting figure. It was more so in the very beginning. You know, we were all a little nervous and intimidated. I think. But the thing about about Jim in terms of the writer's room is that you have to remember he's a writer also. I mean you think of him as a director or this technological genius and it's bigger than life character. But in a writer's room, he's just one of the writers, one of the guys, as it were. And he wanted us all to be really comfortable. Also, because I'll go back to the family saga of it all, when we got into the room, it required being open and telling a lot of personal stories and opening up not just about our kids, but my relationship with my brother, you know, who had passed away a year before we got into the room. And so if if we all had felt intimidate, I think Jim realized, if we'd felt so intimidated, it's like, am I gonna really talk about my brother? Am I really gonna suggest this dynamic? Because it was the way it was for me of growing up or its like that. So it felt like a very safe room. So we never saw any of those kinds of behavioral things. I'm sure they're true, by the way, I'm sure they are. But we we we you know, were fortunate. We never saw it where there did get a couple of times like when we would start to argue. You know, there was one time we were he and I were arguing story point and Shane at the end of the table just leans down the table. He says, stay down, Luke, stay down if he if you pitched goes Yeah, I think so, I mean it is it is it? Can you change his mind or is it sort of certain? And yeah, usually you can't change his mind in the moment. A lot of times, though, the right idea finds its way and it will become his idea. You know. But that, by the way, well that's us, that's right, that's but that's that's sure. Now that's human nature. So that's that's a big part of our job, me and Amanda is to a lot of times introduce things that then can become panning the seed. And and it wasn't ever apples to apples. It wasn't always apples to apples. Sometimes you'd suggest something and it would become you know, Jim's banana and what were the movies he sent you into prep. What was he everything from Emerald Forest, I mean things with indigenous characters, things that work, things that didn't work. But he was influenced by Star Wars and you by James Bond, right, isn't that is not kind of the Yeah, it's funny we did. We did bring up all that stuff in the room. Um for some of those underwads. So funny with some of those underwater scenes. I said, there was this great moment in Thunderball, and so we can maybe it goes. Let's go watch that, and of course we do it. It didn't hold up at all. It just was so slow, you know. But but you know, honestly, when you're designing how you're gonna how you're gonna get a movie like that, which is so much underwater acting, right, do you ever think, well, I gotta get my actors up to ninety seconds in order to get this sequence. We were at one point in the room and we were deep into the room. We had probably designed the first and second film already. I asked Jim, I said, have you figured out, like how are you gonna do performance capture underwater? And he literally said, I don't know, but I'll figure it out. Studios notoriously fidgety and upset. I'm guessing when they can't see it, and it's four hundred million or five hundred million bucks in the cedyard, it's going to come later. And you just got to believe what I'm saying. Yeah, he has no studio has no say in this. They don't look at the script, they can't approve nothing, they don't talk. They just let him go and pray. They sit and pray the whole time. And it's all, well, there were you know, they were regime changes throughout these number of years, so things were handed down. But Emma Watts, who was running Fox at the time, did read the scripts and she did give a handful of notes. I think, how does that depends on what the nuts you guys actually stood fast against. I think it was probably studio notes Unrise the Planet of the Apes, because it was your idea that the protagonist in that film had to be Caesar, and they kept saying, though, it has to be the humans, and how did you and they basically dismissed you from the project for two or three times. Yeah. Well yeah, they they said to us, let's be clear, we'll never have we'll never make the movie if the ape is the protagonist. And we said absolutely yes, you're absolutely right, and we just kept writing what we knew to be right and true. And so then we got fired. And the thing is that we were producers on it, so when we sold them the idea, we insisted on being producers for moments just like this one. So we'd be fired and then another writer would come on and then we'd be sitting there in the room with the other writer. Thing. Then we tried that already, that doesn't really work. You may want to try it this way. So that happened. So I guess we got fired three times off of that, and we just, I don't know, we just kept It's kind of like the Bobby Kennedy Missiles of October thing. We just pretended we didn't get We remember that the letter from cruise. We didn't get letter, So it's kind of like that. Richard Gear told me the same thing. I'm pretty woman, he said, I said, what do you do if if the director gives you a note and it just doesn't feel right? He's like, uh huh uh huh yes, and then they shoot another take and I do what I want to do and then the director comes over and he goes, no, no no, no, What I meant is da da da da da da da. And you go yes, oh, yes, yes, and then you do exactly what you do. When he goes after about four takes, they'll give up. They'll go he's stupid, but you'll never do something, you know, that's for us. We learned this from Curtis Hanson, you know, who was the first director who directed our first movie. And he would he would say to us, he would go to these uh notes meetings and he would always be so thin and so calm, and he'd say to us, look, even if it sounds like the stupidest note you've ever gotten, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. The notes coming from something. So if they're saying this moment isn't playing an act too, then maybe the setup an act one isn't clear or precise enough. And so we never really dismiss It's easy to say, oh, the studios are full. They're not idiots. I mean they know it's a tough job and they have a job to do. And so again it's listening, it's like, well, where is this note really coming from? Yea, And sometimes and sometimes it actually, you know, you can find it something really. My wife, who's a painter, says something very similar. Someone will say the face isn't quite right, the face isn't quite right, and she'll look at it and she goes, well, the face is right, and she'll say, what it is is the thing next to the thing isn't right right. It's not that the face isn't right. The hair is off. The hair is the wrong chroma and it's throwing off and she goes, So sometimes, and I've tried to take that in when when I have any kind of creative control, sometimes it's the thing next to the thing, or or as you say, the set up and act one is telling the story. Yeah, and sometimes too, as a writer, do you think, oh man, you crazy, don't you see it? But it's not really clear. Sometimes it's clear to you. And the good thing about us as a team is that it's got to get through two filters before it gets to the studio, so it's fewer times and something's not clear. But even so a lot of times it'll get past both of us and we'll think no, no, no no, that moment's playing. But then you reread it and you think no, okay, it's it's really nice. We're gonna be really honest. It can be clearer and and then sometimes too we write it as if we're writing, you know, screenwriting for dummies kind of a thing. It's just really spell it out. You know, the king is dead, right? I think I read camera The camera said eighty percent of this movie is X it's digital. Did you have a sense that this was going to be this insane box office? But also do you when you know that it has to be this insane but you have to hit two billion dollars in order to break even? Do do you sit there and go, oh, that's that's madness. You can't. We can't go forward. We can't. I mean, is there a panic when you know? Luckily no one ever told us that. We didn't hear that until, you know, maybe three or four months before it came out. We were starting to hear those kind of quotes. Jim is that he was misquoted in that, by the way, but uh, but I don't know. I never read that quote. I'll tell you what. We were intimidated though, by trying to write a sequel to the most successful movie of all. Yeah, and not only that, it's a great movie and it works on all these different cylinders, and it played all over the world and it's like that was that was a little scary. Yeah, and uh but once once we kind of got to know the family and got to know the different characters, and it really it doesn't you know, we never really think that way. How about and get then listen it's just us. Nobody listens to podcast, so you're not going to give away any secret. When when they say to you Stephen Lange has got to be in the next film, and you look at the first film and you go, he took a spear the size of the top of the Empire State building right through the heart. How is he coming back? Is it just because Cameron really likes Stephen Lange, goes, I like him on the set. I want to have him around him to go you know what would be great if Stephen Lane's character came back? What was the chicken? What was the egg on that? Yeah, he came in with the with the I wouldn't say idea, I'd say the decision that Lange would that you know, Chorritz was going to come back, And was that purely because I see the story or was that I really like im by the way, both as legit or is it just like I really did Stephen Lange and I want him back on my movie. Yeah, well again you'd have to ask Jim that question. But I know that he was not going to this thing. We have to ask you. Well, I'll tell you this. He is, uh, he loves Stephen Lange. Sure those guys are you know, brothers, And he loves him and so I don't know that that. And he also loves the character of Korridge. Yeah, so I don't know in terms of those two things, which was the chicken and egg. But he came in and said, we're bringing back Chorridge and we say, you know, we didn't. We weren't quite as articulate and vocal as you just were. It was more like a silent pause. Yeah. And I don't know which one of us. I said, it's I kind of work, Yeah exactly. And he's he pitches this whole idea he had about a soul drive and this and that, and and I was always kind of the guy in the room and says, well, man, I don't know people canna buy that or you know, and and are there no consequences on Pandora. In other words, that you can die, but you can come back, and yeah, so yeah, I'm in the tree. If I if they hooked me up to the tree before I died, I'm alive in the tree. All these possibilities for people living and coming back into these movies, And yet you all in five ape movies, and now what's gonna be four Pandoras. I'm not a navvy, I'm not an ape. I worked with an orangutan. I know how to do orangutan. I just did a movie with mo Cap. I know how to do mo Cap. What do I have to Who do I have to talk to to be a nabby? You don't see a little bold running around. I can. I'm gonna work up to a fish. And you know, raw, what keeps me from hold my breath? What do you need forty eight seconds? I can do forty eight seconds at the stretch. I'll get there, please, he says, Ever since we knew your every day, you think he's gonna put me in a movie? Oh my god, I can do it. First of all. And this man writes movies with holes. Caesar was a chimp. There's a gorilla standing right next to the how come the gorilla never went, Oh, you're tough guy. Huh, you're a tough guy. Come here, let's arm wrestle. How come the gorilla never did that with the chimp? Can I tell you? Yeah? In the first one, I can say exactly give me yeah. So Buck the Gorilla, Yeah, was based on a guy I knew in high school who played fullback for the football team. And I made friends with him as a freshman. So nobody pick on me, sure right, yeah, And so we patterned Buck after this, after this guy I grew up with protect So yeah, So that was their relationship. All right, all right, you shot me right? Listen. Can I go back to the Soul Drive thing for a second please. The thing is is that you talked about certainty before, yeah, And Jim has a way of presenting an idea. He was like, they're gonna buy it. The audience is gonna buy it. It's gonna work. And then you don't argue because he's absolutely certain. And there were there was a lot of things even as we saw cuts of the films and we'd say, would give him notes and he would listen, and I think he did, you know, he just and I think he incorporated some of our notes, the other things. He's like, don't waste your breath. I'm not changing the frame. You know, he's very big on the audience is gonna buy it? Which is gonna take me to Titanic for a minute. Now, I know you, I know you didn't work on Titanic, so none of this isn't And I know he just he did a thing. He had scientists come in and they determined there's very little chance if they both got on the door that they would have been they would have been below the water. And he went out of his way to prove that the decision that he made for the end of that movie was the right. But we need you to call. He's not going to tell you. I've been talking about this for years. Right, he did it wrong. Right, he did it wrong. It's still wrong. It's still wrong. And he's testing the wrong things because the first thing is I love you, Jack, I love you, I'll always love you. I love you, two Rose, You're gonna live, You're gonna make it, blah blah blah. By right, right, and why didn't Jack ever say you know what? I love you two Rose? Listen, how about this if I could just get my testicles out of the freezing water for twenty minutes, how about the buddy system twenty minutes, we switch off, we tag up. If nothing else, maybe you're on the thing, Maybe you stay, get up on your knees, look for another piece of debris. Maybe if you float on And if and if all of that, he save a whole of that fails. At least the last line should be asked before he goes in the water. He goes, Okay, Rose, I'm not gonna make it, but you are. And you know what, that little pendant I gave you, that's worth about eight billion dollars. Use it in, don't do any more stupid with it, to make a donation, make a foundation in my name. Hold it close to you, Rose, Never let it go. I shouldn't even say this you with that? Yeah, he's testing whether they can both float on a door. These are the wrong questions. See, that's what I'm the beautiful thing about that is when did that movie come out? Eighteen forty six? Eighteen forty six and we're still talking about it? Yes? Yeah, still ye playing. So do you know what? Because Jack, people still have this argument all the time. Bett listen the movies I make beause people are arguing about it thirty minute, thirty years later, I can make a lot of movies. By the way, let me ask yourself. You were a big muckety, but you're a big agent most pictures. William Morris, you de sign Oh, I don't want to be in power anymore. Who've got to be the writer? Who doesn't you learn anything about show business? You become a producer, you become a director, you become an executive. Who becomes the writer? Did you learn nothing? Yeah, that's a really good point. Are you, by the way, on the set? Are you on the set every day with rewrites and stuff? Definitely? Not for Avatar? I mean with Avatar. Uh, we didn't really spend any time on the set it. After a while, it just became Jim's movie. So when you see it, are you are you as just blown away by what you're seeing as anybody would. Yeah, it's a funny thing with our movies and that you see lots of cuts with people running around in great leotards, you know, and it's it's it takes a certain leap to see it, and then it's every one of our films. We are always worried about it right up to the I mean just really worried and oh my god, is it going to work? And we've been so blessed because every time we're sitting there for the first time in the theater at the premiere usually and it's like, oh my god, it's they're going crazy. They love it. They're laughing, they're screaming, they're you know, they're crying or whatever it is. And uh, it's a weird thing. It's like we worry about it until the day it comes out. And did you get anything, by the way, like when you hit a billion dollars? Did you drop a car at your house and go look outside, muffins and it's two billion? Two billion? Got what? Oh? Sprinkles? Wow? The Friends cast got like cars? Yeah? You anything? Oh yeah, we got We got a signed copy of the test results saying it'll never work. You're working for another couple of years on the avatars, right at least were shot already. So I think any work we do will be just watching cuts and talking to Jim and so so that begs my question, what what don't you want a man to want to do? Is there a story you guys? Have always wanted to do that you just haven't been able to get to, or that you haven't gotten anybody to sort of give it the green light, because I would imagine, right, I mean, everybody thinks with success, you have autonomy and you can do whatever you want. But is there something is a passion project you'd love to get to. There's a couple of ideas that we haven't quite figured out, you know that that we'd like to we'd like to figure out and try to set up. But so speaking of that, before you go, we knew you're free now and we were worried could you have the downtime? Even Amanda, we have a couple of pictures that I think are really I mean, don't be embarrassed to love these. You can ask about Patrick projects because I think captive Bunny as we'll pitch please be honest, honest, but listen, open mind, and I'm gonna tell you ahead of time. They're all sequels because you do very good is what you do the next We're not stupid. We have you win because you're the sequel. You've done amazing sequels. Here we go, Here we go. I'll give the title and Jason, we'll tell you what it's about. Wizard of Our sequel, Home again, the Kansas years. No scarecrows, no lions, no just Dorothy, no place like home and now foreclosed drought, you know, And that's bow. It's sort of ad where he go. I'm just trying to make the thing. Yeah, alright, what do you think scale of one to ten possible? Doable? Yeah? No, I think it's a ten plus. All right, there we go. I think it's good. Wait, I almost I almost don't need to pitch the restaurant, if we may wait until he hears it. All right, we go. Feel the dreams the next five years, the pandemic version. Nobody's coming. That long line of cars, they're all gone. They all came. Now there's no corn Fiel, there's no crop. The little girl swallowed another hot dog. The red headed kid wasn't there to save her. There's no ghosts. Now you're stuck with a with a baseball field in the middle of nowhere and barely dreams, and and somebody saying, you know, if you scrap it, you'll get paid. There's a voice in the field that goes, if you if you plow it under, you'll get paid. At least for the land. Amazing, right, what is that? Well? Maybe yeah, one of those like intros on t it terror classic movies, you know, one of the short films. Oh, short film? Okay, he liked The Wizard of Us better, Right, I can read. I can read the room, all right, But that's okay. We got two more, we got two start. Yeah. Ridget Jones. Ridget Jones, not the Diary X Files, Ridget Jones, the obituary. She's dead. Everybody else is writing about her. She's not writing about anybody. They were all writing about her. She was a nut nick, she was a pain. You know, I don't even know why I'm reading my birthday she she you know you've seen it. You've seen it. Yeah, no, I'm trying to worry. Yeah, he's the wheels. This may be more of a project for Amanda. We may be pitching and wait, just our favorite one because you like action and heart. I think this has got This is the one. Yeah, this is the one. You're gonna say, Rick, how do I get involved in this car? You're aging? Right? And I would say, okay, but I don't have an aging. But here we go. Taken four? Taken four, what's it? Called taking four. I just went upstairs. I just went upstairs for a minute. Right. It starts with Liam Neeson goes upstairs to shower, grandchild is gone, and now the whole movie it's a twist. It's not Liam Neeson looking for the grandchild. It's fom Key Jensen looking for Liam Neeson. He doesn't going to come out. I can't do this and make sure she takes. Nobody in his family knows how to take care of themselves. Like, what am I have to be all the time? I'm not doing it. I think the only one he bought was in the room was the Wizard. I like taking And listen, if you don't want to work on any of these, it's fine again. I can be blue and I can be an ape. That's all I want to say. I might. I can be a blue ape, the great Blue Ape. Whatever you need. Okay, you know I'm here. Yeah, I'm sure. Here's what I heard. Because I tie into empathy of people. Yes, Rick, up until this moment was the partner of the writer. Sure, he just became the agent for a second. I saw that. Yeah, yeah, I love it. Let's run it up and I can see the eyes different yea, yeah, you haven't felt that in a long time. Yeah, now I know. I quit Rick, Thank you, thank you. And by the way we see you do any of these ideas were soon You're right, thank you, bring me have it on tape. So what do you think that this is? Uh So, if I came to you and I said, we're gonna make a movie, a sequel of anything, and it needs to make two billion dollars. But I got James Cameron, you in oh are you? I'm not betting against that. You know. My take on this, my takeaway of how many times can he do it as many times as he wants? Do you really think? So? Look at the movie set even no, I understand, I get it, But do you this guy knows something and knows how to do move story and character in a way that other Globally The numbers don't lie. All of his movies have been big global successors, and they of ecology, They have connection, human connection, They have so many moving parts and these did it look simple? It's blue people doing no no, no, no, no. It resonates because it's really like he said about family. You're absolutely But I want to ask a question. I want you get anything would I want the honest answer you on it, okay, because I know you and I know you can't sit still from what thin twenty minutes at a time. Have you seen the movie? I have not seen the movie. You know why did see the movie? And why are you laughing? I know why you didn't see them as the movie. Here's why I didn't see the movie. You couldn't sit through a three minutes. That's not the reason. If you would trapped on an ass, you'd be out of the way. The reason, what's the reason? I had COVID twice. That's the perfect time to see them all. I was gonna then I got better going to see the movie and thought, you know what three hours and fourteen minutes in a room with people coughing, or after I just got better from COVID, I can wait a little long. So we just did an episode about the success of a movie you haven't seen. I know the whole story, but you have what everybody did. What was the most moving part that they didn't you untanium again, that they said drop that it's stupid? What was the most fantastical creature? Who gave the best performance? These are Come on, Come on, mister reach. You're talking with your hands now and it's like you're tossing a condition paper. Wow, I didn't go. You went to the premiere because you were invited two different times, and I got COVID. The God was saying to me, you're not going yet. You're not going yet. So there you go. That's why what Rick and Amanda have been making and what Cameron have been making. What's so exciting about going to the movies, going to the movies is that they're creating worlds. Yeah, these are trends. These are not just stories. There you're transported and you cannot watch. You cannot watch the Avatar film on a TV screen. I don't care if it's any five inch screen. You cannot do it. That world is so big. And as he says, when when you're talking about what are the rivets made of the detail the attention. I've seen the original Avatar. I think I've seen it six times. I watched Way of Water at the premiere and I was I did not feel that time. And even in there are parts of the film where there isn't a lot of storytelling happening. There's a lot of come visit this world, Come be part of this world. It's almost like an experiential segment. And I was I could have gone and gone and gone and gone. It was, it was. I'm cractuous. I'm curious to see what it's going to do screaming. It's gonna be fascinating to see in this new world. It's environment. What the streaming is going to look like for this movie too? Who behind? What are we doing here? What are we miss? What we do wrong? A couple of things. Stephen Lange, who played Miles Goorch, has said that James Cameron came to him years ago, saying that his character would be resurrected. Current was not a new idea for mister Cameron. Also, the whole you know, would Rose and Jack? Could they have survived on the door? There was an episode of MythBusters they were able to find a way for them both to survive, But it sounds pretty intricate that you might not be able to figure that out when you're half frozen to death. And the last thing, The Wizard of Oz probably doesn't need a prequel what it is based on a book series of eight volumes, so maybe go to the any of them. The Kansas Years the Kansas years. Now, what happened to Dorothy's mother and father? Do any of the books talk about that? Why is it? Auntiem and uncle Henry? But she seems perfectly content with by the way, now drop of remorse about oh my mother, no song about somewhere my mother lies happy Daddy's sweet deathing. It's all, Oh, hey, am, mini am, what happened to mister and missus Gale? How I'm about the song? Now I gotta get a job. Now I get a good job. What am I gonna do on that tree for anything? Certainly not in Kansas was a concussion. I mean he was gonna hire meat. So the longest that was already made, it was turned. Yes, we don't talk about that. It's like we don't talk about Bruno. Hey, everybody say, I'm just hoping that, you know, two billion dollars made in the box office. If we get half that many downloads, whoa, because it could have him. Oh my wife is calling. Well that's it got up thanks to the next episode of Really While I Be Home. As soon as Peters says the episode stop staring, stopped talking, the episode of the episode is officially over. Goodbye, everybody. I think it was Walladay. Now now, Jason and I have to thank screenwriting legend Rick Jaffa and there's absent better have for bringing us entertainment such as the classic thriller The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, for being the only two people in this planet that knew how to revive the Jurassic franchise with their Jurassic World, and of course those amazing Apes films which they re envisioned with Rise of the Planet of the Apes to the forthcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Thank you Rijafa and Amanda Silver, and thank you Rick so much for showing up and being on the podcast. Of course, you can find us online at really No Really dot com. We are also now on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok At Really No Really podcast. We have full episodes on YouTube, so please check those out, hit the subscribe button and tick that bell so you're updated when we release new videos, and for questions and suggestions, you can of course message us on Instagram, and most of all, thank you for listening, subscribing, and sharing the show. We released new episodes every Tuesday. To make sure to follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Really. No, really, there's a production of iHeartRadio and lauz Enter Cam

Now really, now, hello again everybody, I am Jason Owens and I'm still Peter Children. Still you want to stay with it? Anyway? I really know? Really, today is what is it? Imagine this is your situation. Now you get asked to spend what's probably going to be ten years of your life to work on several sequels of a movie really that was made twelve years ago, and to break even it has to make two billion dollars in the theaters. Really, no, really, if someone comes to you with that proposition, you got you know what, I got other things on my plate. I got things to do. You know what I say, I got another franchise. I don't need you say. What do you say? They're betting against James Cammeron really really discard did an alien? He did a Terminator? Sure, he did the first Avatar, which made a good zillion dollars. Who bets against this guy? Either he the genius of the century or we finally see a guy who is able to make a deal with the devil because nobody has those percentage were both so we're both so I'm in So today we are joined by a man we both know that's the lovely guy who this, this couple along with his wife, who is smart enough to not appear on our podcast smart and he's either fifty percent of a couple, half of a couple, or one eighth. We don't I think. I think Rick does the typing, but I mean she dictates paces and Rick gos yes, way, hello, slow it down till one of the co writers of Avatar two three, four, eight, five, seven, six, seven, nine and eleven, and let me just say yeah to say Avatar the Way of the Order has overtaken. Titanic is the third highest grossing movie of all times. An amazing thing about this is to write a movie that's global in this way. In China it did two hundred and forty two million dollars, in Germany one hundred and thirty five million. But the thing that's the most fascinating, yeah, is it is the highest grossing film of all time in France, Germany, Australia, Bulgaria. This is the number one movie Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia. Surest places that don't have water, Slovakia, well, they don't have movies either, so it's high um Cambodia, Mongolia. The last thing they saw highest grossing film in Mongolia. I would not have seen in the movie before the music New Zealand, Colombia and Puerto Rico. Mister Rick Java is here with us. Congratulations. Did you know all of those stats, by the way, that the movie was that big in like Slovakia and did you get the grosser like, yeah, the only man on the planet, I know Slovakians. So you sitting in the writers room, you go, oh, this kills and sis joke killing Slovaskia. They definitely kill there. Wow, congratulations. I didn't know those stats though I know this. I know that the Ukrainian distributor called John John Landau to say that it was going to be the highest grossing film of all time and you crane and evidently he was saying that the people really need it. When the lights come back on, you know, in electricity comes back on, people who are going to the theater to see the movie. So you're saying, even through the war, they are still getting access to that film and people are coming out and seeing it in numbers. That's what I've been telling that is spec Yeah, that's amazing. Congratulations and thank you. So I everybody have to be with you, I'll never forget this, because you know I'm prepping. I read a lot about this stuff. And he said that Cameron gave the co writers. He started with a thousand page, single spaced document and it got it down to eight hundred. And we were talking about this earlier. We were with Rick the night shortly after you got the assignment, and you said to me, I heard the fax machine going starting at like eight o'clock at night, and I heard it at twelve, and then I heard it at three, and then I heard it. It just kept going and going. And you said, I think you said. He even described like the bolts on the ounce side of the lab thing that holds the water. Everything was so specific to make sure you were up to speed on the world that he created. Yeah. Well, the story was that I emailed him right after our deal. First of all, I'm approximately one half. I know he's smarter, and it's going to become more obvious. I'm not coming from but I'm listening anyway. I emailed Jim just said, hey, our deal's clothes were really excited. Is there anything he want us to do to prepare because the room wasn't going to start for like three weeks and that's when within that's all I said, And within I don't know, twenty minutes, I got like a three three page single space to response with attachments. The first attachment was called Pandorapedia, which was by the way, available online and just anything you'd ever want to know about Avatar Pandora, and that described the flora, the fauna of the of the planet, but also the rivets in the and the shuttles, and it was it was so unbelievably specific. And uh so, what happened was is that I just hit print. I didn't even look at it. I just hit print. And that's when the machine started going. And it was in the days when the wheel would expand the numbers would go, and at like eighty, I started to get concerned. I had three hundred and fifty. I thought, there goes my marriage, you know, I was really concerned. That was But let me say though, that was just the beginning. A PA came over like almost with the truck and dropped off books and movies, the things he wanted to read and watch, and once we got into the room, that's when he shared with us. I think that he had like fifteen hundred pages of his own personal notes going all the way back to middle school. And he didn't make us go through all of those, but he read to us and we read with him. Probably seven hundred page was it? So? How much of it was character different? How much of it? How many rivets on the side of a thing? Yeah, because I would imagine, even even with his melodious voice, seven hundred pages of the rivets. That's a little. It was depends on what the thing, because I'm listening totsything. It was both. It was both. I mean, he came in saying, I want to build a family saga. That was kind of his first introduction to us into the room. I want to build a family saga. But before we get there, let's do our homework. So James could pick anybody to do this avatar thing. You picked two other writers and you and your wife. What was it that you saw on you and your wife? What piece of work where you went? I think I want to work with these people. We had actually written a draft of Fantastic Voyage, which was on development for a long time at We were kind of like long middle relievers on that project, and so he and John were producers and so that was our first introduction to those guys, but plant and it was Rise to the Planet of Apes. Really that got him excited. And then when we met with him, he said to me later, he said, look, I it was important. It was important to him that the room be collaborative and open and in good listeners. And he said he figured that if Amanda and I could be together, you know, thirty years and collaborate and still be married, that we must have mad collaboration skills. I'm I'm in the macro. I'm interested in I'm interested in romantic couples life, couple partners that are able to take that partnership into their work, because you are. You know, it's hard enough to navigate a relationship sometimes, but to navigate a working relationship and a personal relationship. So I'm interested in that. But I'm also in the room, which we get is collaborative. Everybody's got an open voice. But do you in Amanda tend to present ideas as a unified team or is she's got something her idea, You've got your idea. It gets worked out in the process. In the avatar room, we were never huddled together and then come up with an idea and consented because we were sitting there as a unit. Jim, Yeah, it was Jim, Amanda, me, Josh Friedman and Shane Siller and uh and so as a team. We we tried to build this family saga out originally over three movies. But uh, but um, we would just contribute individually. But you under then Amanda and I though obviously would go home. On the way home, unless we were too tired to think, you know, we would talk and then a lot of times we would work things out together and one of us would present it. It didn't really matter whether it came from her, from me or you know, there was never anything like, you know, we we cooked this up. What do you guys think? It's just an idea? And what if you're not on the same page with an idea? Yeah, does go? Well? It never happens. But because flamming doors, no, I'm not talking to you, I just say yes to everything. Well, and that's that's the key, that's that says what that's what makes the horse he's riding all right really true? Do you find for the most part that the way to navigate both of those realities is is to kind of let her take the lead or or or is there a moment? Look, I vehemently disagree we have to go this way. The thing is is that what's kept at working all these years is that we just have really and it has definitely helped our marriage. But we just really listen to one another. I mean really listen. So we don't we don't listen in order to respond. You know, it's not a ping pong match, you know, it's really listening and understanding where Because even if an idea comes and you don't like it or you don't think it's right, it's coming from something. And this is a person, I mean, Amanda, you know, someone I respect as much as anyone on earth, so in terms of her creativity and her smarts and all. So I really listen. It's like, where's this idea coming from? You know why I'm screwed? Ask me Sat Peter, why are you screwing? Why are you screwing? Because when my wife listens to this episode, when it gets to this point, I'm going to here from the other room. See See he listens. He's not expecting an answer, he's not just he just sometimes you just need to let me talk, not have a solution. That's gonna happen. That's gonna happen. You know what I was gonna say is he was describing really the relationship you and I have because we listen to each other talk, what don't what's your anyway? Listen what I was gonna say, We do. We do, We actually listen to but we we have a very different thing because we more often than that, we are on other sides of an idea. It's a negotiation that involves threats and oh, we've had the great thing and I can say this, we have had. We have one in front of our crew where they get uncomfortable and we're going at it. And the great thing about him and our friendship is a lot of people say when it's over, it's over, but it's not. They hold a grudge. I don't have. I have zero, zero, It just goes away. It's just it's been thirty years and now he's the fact that I'm usually right helps a lot, because the delusion is why bother? Why try to explain to somebody who doesn't get it? You know, they don't get it. They don't get it. So I gotta ask you, Jim Cameron. I've been around Jim's Carment a little bit. Yeah, he's scary. He scares me. I heard if a phone goes off on the set, he takes a nail gun and nails it to the wall. Um, I heard what I just that's the landline, right, Schwartzenegger, I wanted the movie terminators had to go to the bathroom, but he was in the costume and Jim went no, no, no, no, no, no no, no no, you don't go to the bathroom right now. And Schwartzenegger, I think, relieve himself on Jim or whatever. Is he that tough? And and part of that is I'm also blown away because he feels there's a thing that's successful people do, and it's called certainty. They come at it with certainty. You don't doubt it. Larry David on Seinfeld, Jerry and Steinfeld. They didn't take any No, they didn't want notes. They listened, but there were certainty they said, no, we're doing this in at one Jimmy looks like he used the poster board for certainty. So when you're dealing with that, that's a little bit intimidating. So is he scary? I mean, your friends, now you've worked with him, but he's a daunting figure. It was more so in the very beginning. You know, we were all a little nervous and intimidated. I think. But the thing about about Jim in terms of the writer's room is that you have to remember he's a writer also. I mean you think of him as a director or this technological genius and it's bigger than life character. But in a writer's room, he's just one of the writers, one of the guys, as it were. And he wanted us all to be really comfortable. Also, because I'll go back to the family saga of it all, when we got into the room, it required being open and telling a lot of personal stories and opening up not just about our kids, but my relationship with my brother, you know, who had passed away a year before we got into the room. And so if if we all had felt intimidate, I think Jim realized, if we'd felt so intimidated, it's like, am I gonna really talk about my brother? Am I really gonna suggest this dynamic? Because it was the way it was for me of growing up or its like that. So it felt like a very safe room. So we never saw any of those kinds of behavioral things. I'm sure they're true, by the way, I'm sure they are. But we we we you know, were fortunate. We never saw it where there did get a couple of times like when we would start to argue. You know, there was one time we were he and I were arguing story point and Shane at the end of the table just leans down the table. He says, stay down, Luke, stay down if he if you pitched goes Yeah, I think so, I mean it is it is it? Can you change his mind or is it sort of certain? And yeah, usually you can't change his mind in the moment. A lot of times, though, the right idea finds its way and it will become his idea. You know. But that, by the way, well that's us, that's right, that's but that's that's sure. Now that's human nature. So that's that's a big part of our job, me and Amanda is to a lot of times introduce things that then can become panning the seed. And and it wasn't ever apples to apples. It wasn't always apples to apples. Sometimes you'd suggest something and it would become you know, Jim's banana and what were the movies he sent you into prep. What was he everything from Emerald Forest, I mean things with indigenous characters, things that work, things that didn't work. But he was influenced by Star Wars and you by James Bond, right, isn't that is not kind of the Yeah, it's funny we did. We did bring up all that stuff in the room. Um for some of those underwads. So funny with some of those underwater scenes. I said, there was this great moment in Thunderball, and so we can maybe it goes. Let's go watch that, and of course we do it. It didn't hold up at all. It just was so slow, you know. But but you know, honestly, when you're designing how you're gonna how you're gonna get a movie like that, which is so much underwater acting, right, do you ever think, well, I gotta get my actors up to ninety seconds in order to get this sequence. We were at one point in the room and we were deep into the room. We had probably designed the first and second film already. I asked Jim, I said, have you figured out, like how are you gonna do performance capture underwater? And he literally said, I don't know, but I'll figure it out. Studios notoriously fidgety and upset. I'm guessing when they can't see it, and it's four hundred million or five hundred million bucks in the cedyard, it's going to come later. And you just got to believe what I'm saying. Yeah, he has no studio has no say in this. They don't look at the script, they can't approve nothing, they don't talk. They just let him go and pray. They sit and pray the whole time. And it's all, well, there were you know, they were regime changes throughout these number of years, so things were handed down. But Emma Watts, who was running Fox at the time, did read the scripts and she did give a handful of notes. I think, how does that depends on what the nuts you guys actually stood fast against. I think it was probably studio notes Unrise the Planet of the Apes, because it was your idea that the protagonist in that film had to be Caesar, and they kept saying, though, it has to be the humans, and how did you and they basically dismissed you from the project for two or three times. Yeah. Well yeah, they they said to us, let's be clear, we'll never have we'll never make the movie if the ape is the protagonist. And we said absolutely yes, you're absolutely right, and we just kept writing what we knew to be right and true. And so then we got fired. And the thing is that we were producers on it, so when we sold them the idea, we insisted on being producers for moments just like this one. So we'd be fired and then another writer would come on and then we'd be sitting there in the room with the other writer. Thing. Then we tried that already, that doesn't really work. You may want to try it this way. So that happened. So I guess we got fired three times off of that, and we just, I don't know, we just kept It's kind of like the Bobby Kennedy Missiles of October thing. We just pretended we didn't get We remember that the letter from cruise. We didn't get letter, So it's kind of like that. Richard Gear told me the same thing. I'm pretty woman, he said, I said, what do you do if if the director gives you a note and it just doesn't feel right? He's like, uh huh uh huh yes, and then they shoot another take and I do what I want to do and then the director comes over and he goes, no, no no, no, What I meant is da da da da da da da. And you go yes, oh, yes, yes, and then you do exactly what you do. When he goes after about four takes, they'll give up. They'll go he's stupid, but you'll never do something, you know, that's for us. We learned this from Curtis Hanson, you know, who was the first director who directed our first movie. And he would he would say to us, he would go to these uh notes meetings and he would always be so thin and so calm, and he'd say to us, look, even if it sounds like the stupidest note you've ever gotten, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. The notes coming from something. So if they're saying this moment isn't playing an act too, then maybe the setup an act one isn't clear or precise enough. And so we never really dismiss It's easy to say, oh, the studios are full. They're not idiots. I mean they know it's a tough job and they have a job to do. And so again it's listening, it's like, well, where is this note really coming from? Yea, And sometimes and sometimes it actually, you know, you can find it something really. My wife, who's a painter, says something very similar. Someone will say the face isn't quite right, the face isn't quite right, and she'll look at it and she goes, well, the face is right, and she'll say, what it is is the thing next to the thing isn't right right. It's not that the face isn't right. The hair is off. The hair is the wrong chroma and it's throwing off and she goes, So sometimes, and I've tried to take that in when when I have any kind of creative control, sometimes it's the thing next to the thing, or or as you say, the set up and act one is telling the story. Yeah, and sometimes too, as a writer, do you think, oh man, you crazy, don't you see it? But it's not really clear. Sometimes it's clear to you. And the good thing about us as a team is that it's got to get through two filters before it gets to the studio, so it's fewer times and something's not clear. But even so a lot of times it'll get past both of us and we'll think no, no, no no, that moment's playing. But then you reread it and you think no, okay, it's it's really nice. We're gonna be really honest. It can be clearer and and then sometimes too we write it as if we're writing, you know, screenwriting for dummies kind of a thing. It's just really spell it out. You know, the king is dead, right? I think I read camera The camera said eighty percent of this movie is X it's digital. Did you have a sense that this was going to be this insane box office? But also do you when you know that it has to be this insane but you have to hit two billion dollars in order to break even? Do do you sit there and go, oh, that's that's madness. You can't. We can't go forward. We can't. I mean, is there a panic when you know? Luckily no one ever told us that. We didn't hear that until, you know, maybe three or four months before it came out. We were starting to hear those kind of quotes. Jim is that he was misquoted in that, by the way, but uh, but I don't know. I never read that quote. I'll tell you what. We were intimidated though, by trying to write a sequel to the most successful movie of all. Yeah, and not only that, it's a great movie and it works on all these different cylinders, and it played all over the world and it's like that was that was a little scary. Yeah, and uh but once once we kind of got to know the family and got to know the different characters, and it really it doesn't you know, we never really think that way. How about and get then listen it's just us. Nobody listens to podcast, so you're not going to give away any secret. When when they say to you Stephen Lange has got to be in the next film, and you look at the first film and you go, he took a spear the size of the top of the Empire State building right through the heart. How is he coming back? Is it just because Cameron really likes Stephen Lange, goes, I like him on the set. I want to have him around him to go you know what would be great if Stephen Lane's character came back? What was the chicken? What was the egg on that? Yeah, he came in with the with the I wouldn't say idea, I'd say the decision that Lange would that you know, Chorritz was going to come back, And was that purely because I see the story or was that I really like im by the way, both as legit or is it just like I really did Stephen Lange and I want him back on my movie. Yeah, well again you'd have to ask Jim that question. But I know that he was not going to this thing. We have to ask you. Well, I'll tell you this. He is, uh, he loves Stephen Lange. Sure those guys are you know, brothers, And he loves him and so I don't know that that. And he also loves the character of Korridge. Yeah, so I don't know in terms of those two things, which was the chicken and egg. But he came in and said, we're bringing back Chorridge and we say, you know, we didn't. We weren't quite as articulate and vocal as you just were. It was more like a silent pause. Yeah. And I don't know which one of us. I said, it's I kind of work, Yeah exactly. And he's he pitches this whole idea he had about a soul drive and this and that, and and I was always kind of the guy in the room and says, well, man, I don't know people canna buy that or you know, and and are there no consequences on Pandora. In other words, that you can die, but you can come back, and yeah, so yeah, I'm in the tree. If I if they hooked me up to the tree before I died, I'm alive in the tree. All these possibilities for people living and coming back into these movies, And yet you all in five ape movies, and now what's gonna be four Pandoras. I'm not a navvy, I'm not an ape. I worked with an orangutan. I know how to do orangutan. I just did a movie with mo Cap. I know how to do mo Cap. What do I have to Who do I have to talk to to be a nabby? You don't see a little bold running around. I can. I'm gonna work up to a fish. And you know, raw, what keeps me from hold my breath? What do you need forty eight seconds? I can do forty eight seconds at the stretch. I'll get there, please, he says, Ever since we knew your every day, you think he's gonna put me in a movie? Oh my god, I can do it. First of all. And this man writes movies with holes. Caesar was a chimp. There's a gorilla standing right next to the how come the gorilla never went, Oh, you're tough guy. Huh, you're a tough guy. Come here, let's arm wrestle. How come the gorilla never did that with the chimp? Can I tell you? Yeah? In the first one, I can say exactly give me yeah. So Buck the Gorilla, Yeah, was based on a guy I knew in high school who played fullback for the football team. And I made friends with him as a freshman. So nobody pick on me, sure right, yeah, And so we patterned Buck after this, after this guy I grew up with protect So yeah, So that was their relationship. All right, all right, you shot me right? Listen. Can I go back to the Soul Drive thing for a second please. The thing is is that you talked about certainty before, yeah, And Jim has a way of presenting an idea. He was like, they're gonna buy it. The audience is gonna buy it. It's gonna work. And then you don't argue because he's absolutely certain. And there were there was a lot of things even as we saw cuts of the films and we'd say, would give him notes and he would listen, and I think he did, you know, he just and I think he incorporated some of our notes, the other things. He's like, don't waste your breath. I'm not changing the frame. You know, he's very big on the audience is gonna buy it? Which is gonna take me to Titanic for a minute. Now, I know you, I know you didn't work on Titanic, so none of this isn't And I know he just he did a thing. He had scientists come in and they determined there's very little chance if they both got on the door that they would have been they would have been below the water. And he went out of his way to prove that the decision that he made for the end of that movie was the right. But we need you to call. He's not going to tell you. I've been talking about this for years. Right, he did it wrong. Right, he did it wrong. It's still wrong. It's still wrong. And he's testing the wrong things because the first thing is I love you, Jack, I love you, I'll always love you. I love you, two Rose, You're gonna live, You're gonna make it, blah blah blah. By right, right, and why didn't Jack ever say you know what? I love you two Rose? Listen, how about this if I could just get my testicles out of the freezing water for twenty minutes, how about the buddy system twenty minutes, we switch off, we tag up. If nothing else, maybe you're on the thing, Maybe you stay, get up on your knees, look for another piece of debris. Maybe if you float on And if and if all of that, he save a whole of that fails. At least the last line should be asked before he goes in the water. He goes, Okay, Rose, I'm not gonna make it, but you are. And you know what, that little pendant I gave you, that's worth about eight billion dollars. Use it in, don't do any more stupid with it, to make a donation, make a foundation in my name. Hold it close to you, Rose, Never let it go. I shouldn't even say this you with that? Yeah, he's testing whether they can both float on a door. These are the wrong questions. See, that's what I'm the beautiful thing about that is when did that movie come out? Eighteen forty six? Eighteen forty six and we're still talking about it? Yes? Yeah, still ye playing. So do you know what? Because Jack, people still have this argument all the time. Bett listen the movies I make beause people are arguing about it thirty minute, thirty years later, I can make a lot of movies. By the way, let me ask yourself. You were a big muckety, but you're a big agent most pictures. William Morris, you de sign Oh, I don't want to be in power anymore. Who've got to be the writer? Who doesn't you learn anything about show business? You become a producer, you become a director, you become an executive. Who becomes the writer? Did you learn nothing? Yeah, that's a really good point. Are you, by the way, on the set? Are you on the set every day with rewrites and stuff? Definitely? Not for Avatar? I mean with Avatar. Uh, we didn't really spend any time on the set it. After a while, it just became Jim's movie. So when you see it, are you are you as just blown away by what you're seeing as anybody would. Yeah, it's a funny thing with our movies and that you see lots of cuts with people running around in great leotards, you know, and it's it's it takes a certain leap to see it, and then it's every one of our films. We are always worried about it right up to the I mean just really worried and oh my god, is it going to work? And we've been so blessed because every time we're sitting there for the first time in the theater at the premiere usually and it's like, oh my god, it's they're going crazy. They love it. They're laughing, they're screaming, they're you know, they're crying or whatever it is. And uh, it's a weird thing. It's like we worry about it until the day it comes out. And did you get anything, by the way, like when you hit a billion dollars? Did you drop a car at your house and go look outside, muffins and it's two billion? Two billion? Got what? Oh? Sprinkles? Wow? The Friends cast got like cars? Yeah? You anything? Oh yeah, we got We got a signed copy of the test results saying it'll never work. You're working for another couple of years on the avatars, right at least were shot already. So I think any work we do will be just watching cuts and talking to Jim and so so that begs my question, what what don't you want a man to want to do? Is there a story you guys? Have always wanted to do that you just haven't been able to get to, or that you haven't gotten anybody to sort of give it the green light, because I would imagine, right, I mean, everybody thinks with success, you have autonomy and you can do whatever you want. But is there something is a passion project you'd love to get to. There's a couple of ideas that we haven't quite figured out, you know that that we'd like to we'd like to figure out and try to set up. But so speaking of that, before you go, we knew you're free now and we were worried could you have the downtime? Even Amanda, we have a couple of pictures that I think are really I mean, don't be embarrassed to love these. You can ask about Patrick projects because I think captive Bunny as we'll pitch please be honest, honest, but listen, open mind, and I'm gonna tell you ahead of time. They're all sequels because you do very good is what you do the next We're not stupid. We have you win because you're the sequel. You've done amazing sequels. Here we go, Here we go. I'll give the title and Jason, we'll tell you what it's about. Wizard of Our sequel, Home again, the Kansas years. No scarecrows, no lions, no just Dorothy, no place like home and now foreclosed drought, you know, And that's bow. It's sort of ad where he go. I'm just trying to make the thing. Yeah, alright, what do you think scale of one to ten possible? Doable? Yeah? No, I think it's a ten plus. All right, there we go. I think it's good. Wait, I almost I almost don't need to pitch the restaurant, if we may wait until he hears it. All right, we go. Feel the dreams the next five years, the pandemic version. Nobody's coming. That long line of cars, they're all gone. They all came. Now there's no corn Fiel, there's no crop. The little girl swallowed another hot dog. The red headed kid wasn't there to save her. There's no ghosts. Now you're stuck with a with a baseball field in the middle of nowhere and barely dreams, and and somebody saying, you know, if you scrap it, you'll get paid. There's a voice in the field that goes, if you if you plow it under, you'll get paid. At least for the land. Amazing, right, what is that? Well? Maybe yeah, one of those like intros on t it terror classic movies, you know, one of the short films. Oh, short film? Okay, he liked The Wizard of Us better, Right, I can read. I can read the room, all right, But that's okay. We got two more, we got two start. Yeah. Ridget Jones. Ridget Jones, not the Diary X Files, Ridget Jones, the obituary. She's dead. Everybody else is writing about her. She's not writing about anybody. They were all writing about her. She was a nut nick, she was a pain. You know, I don't even know why I'm reading my birthday she she you know you've seen it. You've seen it. Yeah, no, I'm trying to worry. Yeah, he's the wheels. This may be more of a project for Amanda. We may be pitching and wait, just our favorite one because you like action and heart. I think this has got This is the one. Yeah, this is the one. You're gonna say, Rick, how do I get involved in this car? You're aging? Right? And I would say, okay, but I don't have an aging. But here we go. Taken four? Taken four, what's it? Called taking four. I just went upstairs. I just went upstairs for a minute. Right. It starts with Liam Neeson goes upstairs to shower, grandchild is gone, and now the whole movie it's a twist. It's not Liam Neeson looking for the grandchild. It's fom Key Jensen looking for Liam Neeson. He doesn't going to come out. I can't do this and make sure she takes. Nobody in his family knows how to take care of themselves. Like, what am I have to be all the time? I'm not doing it. I think the only one he bought was in the room was the Wizard. I like taking And listen, if you don't want to work on any of these, it's fine again. I can be blue and I can be an ape. That's all I want to say. I might. I can be a blue ape, the great Blue Ape. Whatever you need. Okay, you know I'm here. Yeah, I'm sure. Here's what I heard. Because I tie into empathy of people. Yes, Rick, up until this moment was the partner of the writer. Sure, he just became the agent for a second. I saw that. Yeah, yeah, I love it. Let's run it up and I can see the eyes different yea, yeah, you haven't felt that in a long time. Yeah, now I know. I quit Rick, Thank you, thank you. And by the way we see you do any of these ideas were soon You're right, thank you, bring me have it on tape. So what do you think that this is? Uh So, if I came to you and I said, we're gonna make a movie, a sequel of anything, and it needs to make two billion dollars. But I got James Cameron, you in oh are you? I'm not betting against that. You know. My take on this, my takeaway of how many times can he do it as many times as he wants? Do you really think? So? Look at the movie set even no, I understand, I get it, But do you this guy knows something and knows how to do move story and character in a way that other Globally The numbers don't lie. All of his movies have been big global successors, and they of ecology, They have connection, human connection, They have so many moving parts and these did it look simple? It's blue people doing no no, no, no, no. It resonates because it's really like he said about family. You're absolutely But I want to ask a question. I want you get anything would I want the honest answer you on it, okay, because I know you and I know you can't sit still from what thin twenty minutes at a time. Have you seen the movie? I have not seen the movie. You know why did see the movie? And why are you laughing? I know why you didn't see them as the movie. Here's why I didn't see the movie. You couldn't sit through a three minutes. That's not the reason. If you would trapped on an ass, you'd be out of the way. The reason, what's the reason? I had COVID twice. That's the perfect time to see them all. I was gonna then I got better going to see the movie and thought, you know what three hours and fourteen minutes in a room with people coughing, or after I just got better from COVID, I can wait a little long. So we just did an episode about the success of a movie you haven't seen. I know the whole story, but you have what everybody did. What was the most moving part that they didn't you untanium again, that they said drop that it's stupid? What was the most fantastical creature? Who gave the best performance? These are Come on, Come on, mister reach. You're talking with your hands now and it's like you're tossing a condition paper. Wow, I didn't go. You went to the premiere because you were invited two different times, and I got COVID. The God was saying to me, you're not going yet. You're not going yet. So there you go. That's why what Rick and Amanda have been making and what Cameron have been making. What's so exciting about going to the movies, going to the movies is that they're creating worlds. Yeah, these are trends. These are not just stories. There you're transported and you cannot watch. You cannot watch the Avatar film on a TV screen. I don't care if it's any five inch screen. You cannot do it. That world is so big. And as he says, when when you're talking about what are the rivets made of the detail the attention. I've seen the original Avatar. I think I've seen it six times. I watched Way of Water at the premiere and I was I did not feel that time. And even in there are parts of the film where there isn't a lot of storytelling happening. There's a lot of come visit this world, Come be part of this world. It's almost like an experiential segment. And I was I could have gone and gone and gone and gone. It was, it was. I'm cractuous. I'm curious to see what it's going to do screaming. It's gonna be fascinating to see in this new world. It's environment. What the streaming is going to look like for this movie too? Who behind? What are we doing here? What are we miss? What we do wrong? A couple of things. Stephen Lange, who played Miles Goorch, has said that James Cameron came to him years ago, saying that his character would be resurrected. Current was not a new idea for mister Cameron. Also, the whole you know, would Rose and Jack? Could they have survived on the door? There was an episode of MythBusters they were able to find a way for them both to survive, But it sounds pretty intricate that you might not be able to figure that out when you're half frozen to death. And the last thing, The Wizard of Oz probably doesn't need a prequel what it is based on a book series of eight volumes, so maybe go to the any of them. The Kansas Years the Kansas years. Now, what happened to Dorothy's mother and father? Do any of the books talk about that? Why is it? Auntiem and uncle Henry? But she seems perfectly content with by the way, now drop of remorse about oh my mother, no song about somewhere my mother lies happy Daddy's sweet deathing. It's all, Oh, hey, am, mini am, what happened to mister and missus Gale? How I'm about the song? Now I gotta get a job. Now I get a good job. What am I gonna do on that tree for anything? Certainly not in Kansas was a concussion. I mean he was gonna hire meat. So the longest that was already made, it was turned. Yes, we don't talk about that. It's like we don't talk about Bruno. Hey, everybody say, I'm just hoping that, you know, two billion dollars made in the box office. If we get half that many downloads, whoa, because it could have him. Oh my wife is calling. Well that's it got up thanks to the next episode of Really While I Be Home. As soon as Peters says the episode stop staring, stopped talking, the episode of the episode is officially over. Goodbye, everybody. I think it was Walladay. Now now, Jason and I have to thank screenwriting legend Rick Jaffa and there's absent better have for bringing us entertainment such as the classic thriller The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, for being the only two people in this planet that knew how to revive the Jurassic franchise with their Jurassic World, and of course those amazing Apes films which they re envisioned with Rise of the Planet of the Apes to the forthcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Thank you Rijafa and Amanda Silver, and thank you Rick so much for showing up and being on the podcast. Of course, you can find us online at really No Really dot com. We are also now on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok At Really No Really podcast. We have full episodes on YouTube, so please check those out, hit the subscribe button and tick that bell so you're updated when we release new videos, and for questions and suggestions, you can of course message us on Instagram, and most of all, thank you for listening, subscribing, and sharing the show. We released new episodes every Tuesday. To make sure to follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Really. No, really, there's a production of iHeartRadio and lauz Enter Cam