Q: You guys are involved in a whole bunch of projects.  You guys are busy people, so can you talk about things that you’re currently…and I know you made a film.  Could you talk about future things that are going on?

Rick: You want to go first?  So Faces of Death which you know a lot of people remember as the 80’s sort of films that you weren’t supposed to watch.  We’ve got a story, we’ve got a director, we’ve got a writer, J.T. Petty, did a couple of indie films.  He’s coming in and he wrote a script.  We’re sort of taking a look at the in the world of Saw and Hostel, who are the people who actually go watch these movies?  So we kind of tied that in with Faces of Death, we have a narrative story which the originals never had and we also nod for the fans—fans—I use that real loosely, for guys like me who watched it as a kid, who snuck away to watch these things.  We have a few nods to those original films, so we’re putting that together.

Don: But it’s interesting because it’s a horror film that asks in today’s society when you could just go online and see Al Qaeda beheadings. What’s horrifying anymore?  Why do people—I guess they didn’t see Hostel 2-but why do people like Hostel and did they like Hostel for a while there and Captivity and these kind of torture films? We’re kind of doing the opposite of that like what kind of person obsessively goes on the internet and watches killings and …

Susan: And what is that fascination.

Don: And what is that fascination we all have with stopping at a traffic accident.  So it’s kind of cool.

Susan: My project is a very, very low budget film which I just directed with Kim Basinger which I also wrote.  It’s a survival movie about an ordinary woman who kind of looses her temper and leaves a nasty note on the wrong car and it then comes back to haunt her when she has to fight for her life against 4 thugs. She’s got a toolbox and they’ve got a gun and a flashlight.  If she doesn’t kill them all she’s not going home to her little children.  So it’s quite a violent film because it’s very hyper-real and Kim’s amazing in it.

Q: What’s the name of it?

Susan: While She Was Out. It’s like an everyday situation and we’ve all done it.  Flipped somebody off, left a nasty note and just showing how a situation like that can spiral out of control.

Q: It also sounds like a great thriller premise where it’s her, these 4 guys, these things that are available to her.  I mean, how do you milk everything you possibly can out of that situation?

Susan: Well, it’s using all the tools in the toolbox.

Q: When will that be released?

Susan: Well, I’m still editing it just now.

Don: It’s executive produced by Guillermo Del Toro, Kim Basinger, Lukas Haas and we’re finishing it up and it’s you know it was kind of a nice situation we were able to get a financing situation that she could go make her movie final cut—everything so when it’s done we’ll find a distributor and not before because we don’t really want anyone’s opinion.

Q: With that cast and very sellable premise, it’s not going to stay a small indie film for long is it?

Don: The way she shot it looks like a $40 million movie, so it’s pretty cool.  It’s pretty fun. And then there’s any number of projects we’re trying to put together pre-strike because everyone’s racing to get films done before June so you know our personal favorite is one Susan brought to the company. You probably know Grant Morrison the comic book writer, he also wrote the screenplay.  It’s called We Three.  It’s the most insane mash-up you’ve ever heard.  It’s the Incredible Journey meets The Terminator. There are 3 animals, a dog, a cat and a rabbit who’ve been turned into Terminator cyborgs by the government and they get loose and they just want to get back home and the government is doing everything possible to stop them but they’re very heavily armed killing animals.

Susan: It’s very beautiful as well.  I mean it’s a real tear jerker if you can imagine that.

Don: So we’re this close to having a director sign onto that which hopefully we’ll make and all kinds of other things. Fincher still wants to do Torso the script came in really great and we just have to cast it and see if there’s time before the strike.

Q: What are the thoughts at this point for Transformers II?

Don: The facts are that everyone’s saying there will be one and lots of ideas are being pitched around.  I suspect there will be one but again the strike thing kind of confuses everybody.  It’s like when would we have to start this, there’s no script; how would we be done by the end of June.  But there will be a sequel. 

Q: I don’t think even Michael didn’t want to rush into a sequel so I mean…

Don: I think he’s still talking about Prince of Persia or something, so we’ll see.

Q: But if the strike happens would you still be able to continue development through that or does that go on hold to?

Don: Well, what we’re all expecting in my eyes I mean the 3 of us and pretty much everyone in Hollywood, the writers guild is up in October and they will just magically elect to push to June which is when SAG is up and so they’ll all go on strike together.  So if there’s no writers, you can’t do anything.

Q: I’d like to ask a question but it’s not about that.  A lot of people thought the comic book movies were going to be this short little fad you know it started a number of years ago…X-men, Spider-Man and it’s been getting bigger and bigger and bigger.  Do you see it slowing down like that kind of movies or why do you think they’re so popular still?

Susan: I think there’s just so much material in comic books like I can’t see it slowing down. I mean, there’s just so much great material to take and turn into a movie.

Don: Plus CG has gotten so good that pretty much things you couldn’t even dream of when X-men one came out you can now do, you know.  We like to do things you’ve never seen before.  If we can pull off the killer robot animals, that’s what you’ve never seen before, Shoot ‘Em Up you’ve never seen before.  Michael did a great job on Transformers, so did the actors but the star of Transformers was the ILM guys who made those things look like the trucks and the transformations and the 10,000 moving pieces with Optimus Prime work, you know. You hadn’t seen it before.  I really believe that’s why it did so well.  So, I think a lot of the super hero movies and things that are coming out—comic book movies that are coming out are all again, things that people haven’t seen before and this is an interesting summer because the three-quels have all done well, but I think it’s by upping the ante. We just saw the Bourne Ultimatum.  It was probably more tense than the Bourne Supremacy which I couldn’t imagine it being more tense. 

Q: Susan, are you still involved with John Carter of Mars?

Susan: No.

Don: We were all trying to do that.  The deal never closed.

Q: Well, it’s a Pixar now, so I didn’t know if they…

Susan: Sometimes they don’t work out.

Q: I was curious if you had an idea for a running time in your film?

Susan: In While She Was Out?  It’s going to be like a tight 90.

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