Hey, remember that Dragon Quest III remake Square Enix announced back in 2021, then never spoke about again? Well, it still exists. In celebration of Dragon Quest Day on May 27 (the day in 1986 when the first game in the series released), Square Enix finally posted a Dragon Quest 3 update that already has fans hyped.…
George Lucas is part of the 70s class of filmmakers who reshaped movies. Lucas and his peers — Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola — have been back in the spotlight as of late. While Scorsese and Coppola have resided on the less commercial side of films for the majority of their legacy, they have also been the ones who have famously come out against the long-running popular genre of comic book superhero movies in recent years. Scorsese would not completely count out the entertainment of Marvel films, but the Killers of the Flower Moon director would make his statement that Marvel isn’t cinema. Coppola, however, would be less diplomatic about the matter and not only agree with Scorsese’s statement but also refer to them as “despicable.”
This year, at the Cannes Film Festival, George Lucas would be honored with a Palm d’Or for his contribution to film and the Star Wars creator shared his own opinion on the Marvel debate with a very broad definition. World of Reel reports that while Lucas spoke at Cannes, he indicated,
Look. Cinema is the art of a moving image. So if the image moves, then it’s cinema. I think Marty has kind of changed his mind a little bit.”
Star Wars was George Lucas’ attempt at recapturing his own nostalgia for Flash Gordon shorts, as well as the Westerns and Samurai films of his youth. His brand expanded well beyond his first 1977 film into its own universe, which mirrors the scope of the Marvel universe. Both franchises reside under the umbrella of Disney and while Lucas sold his rights to the studio, he would continue to contribute his ideas even if he wasn’t involved in development. Disney would opt to go their own route and Lucas says his vision “sort of got lost.”
Lucas explained, “I was the only one who really knew what Star Wars was…who actually knew this world, because there’s a lot to it. The force, for example, nobody understood the force. When they started other ones after I sold the company, a lot of the ideas that were in [the original] sort of got lost. But that’s the way it is. You give it up, you give it up.” Then, he added, “I’m a stubborn guy and I didn’t want people to tell me how to make my movies.”
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The sixth and final season of the Paramount Network series Yellowstone is currently in production, aiming for a November 2024 premiere – but the franchise is going to end with the series finale of the flagship show. There have already been reports about a sequel series that may end up starring Matthew McConaughey and Michelle Pfeiffer, alongside returning Yellowstone cast members. Apparently Paramount had a bumpy time getting those returning cast members on board – a couple months ago, it was reported that they were holding out for bigger paydays – but it looks like the deals have been signed now. According to Puck, Cole Hauser, Kelly Reilly, and Luke Grimes are officially on board to reprise the roles of Rip, Beth, and Kayce on the Yellowstone sequel series.
When asked if Kevin Costner might show up in the final season of Yellowstone, Puck wrote, “I still have a feeling Costner will end up in the series finale—the incentives for him, (series creator Taylor) Sheridan, and Paramount are too great—but as of now there’s no plan. In better news, as I predicted, Yellowstone breakouts Cole Hauser, Kelly Reilly, and Luke Grimes have ended their standoff and are wrapping up deals to return for the sequel series. No movement on Matthew McConaughey or Michelle Pfeiffer, both of whom will need to be satisfied with the creative direction before signing on.“
Puck had previously said that Hauser and Reilly were asking to be paid $1.25 million per episode, which would make them some of the highest earners on television. It’s not yet known if Paramount is putting up that much cash, or if the actors met the studio somewhere in the middle.
According to an official press release from Davis Glasser at 101 Studios, one of the production entities involved with the show, the sequel series has the following logline: “The Dutton story continues, picking up where Yellowstone leaves off in another epic tale. We are thrilled to bring this new journey to audiences around the world.”
Are you glad to hear that Cole Hauser, Kelly Reilly, and Luke Grimes are coming back for the Yellowstone sequel series, and might be sharing the screen with Matthew McConaughey and Michelle Pfeiffer? Share your thoughts on this news by leaving a comment below.
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Have you been wanting to jump into the second game in the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy but decided to wait for the price to go down? Well, you’re in luck, friend. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is currently discounted from its usual $70 PlayStation 5 game price tag, and will now run you $55 instead.
Have you been wanting to jump into the second game in the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy but decided to wait for the price to go down? Well, you’re in luck, friend. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is currently discounted from its usual $70 PlayStation 5 game price tag, and will now run you $55 instead.
There aren’t many movies like Cry Baby, just like there aren’t many directors and writers like John Waters. Both are unique and unlike anything that has come before or since.
Cry Baby hit screens at the beginning of a new decade, 1990, and celebrated a time many decades prior. It was skewering of teenage delinquent movies of the 50s with a healthy dose of weird, transgressive and musical theater. The overly dramatic time of a teenager and how rebel films of the 50s took that angst and upped to off the charts.
John Waters grew up with those films, and Cry Baby was his unique and amazing spin on that genre. Cry Baby tells the story of Wade “Cry Baby” Walker and his bizarre family and gang of Drapes. These are the weirdos and outcasts of Baltimore, the ones Waters himself would identify more with than the Squares of the story. The Squares are the clean-cut, Pat Boone types who are proper and dignified.
When Allison, a pretty young Square falls in with Cry Baby’s gang and in love with Cry Baby himself a star-crossed love affair begins and so does the music.
The film is one of my favorites of Water’s library (one he’s having a hard time adding to these days) and was an opportunity for Johnny Depp to break free from a teen dream image by mocking that very sort of ideal. It would happen even before his turn the same year as Edward Scissorhands, showing a determined Depp didn’t want to be trapped in the role of heartthrob. Along with Depp, Waters brought together a cast that only he could. Iggy Pop, Traci Lords, Susan Tyrrell and Amy Locane were just a few of the names. These were joined by the likes of Troy Donahue as well as Joe Dallesandro who was known for his work with Andy Warhol, Patty Hearst, Mink Stole, and Willem Dafoe in a brief but memorable role.
The soundtrack was fantastic, even though a decision was made to not have Depp’s voice used in the singing numbers (something now which seems extremely odd given his turn in two musicals and being in the band The Hollywood Vampires.) Instead, the Rockabilly and 50s songfest that included Cry Baby himself was the voice of James Intveld. Intveld is still recording and releasing music, but at the time he wasn’t credited for the singing in the film until later.
TODAY, Kino Lorber is releasing Cry Baby in glorious 4K with new extras and includes the Theatrical Cut as well as The Director’s Cut of the film. The extras include a new audio commentary with John Waters, new interviews, and a new Featurette called Bringing Up Baby. It also includes the documentary It Came From…Baltimore! along with deleted scenes and trailers.
John Waters took the time to chat with me about the film and he did not disappoint.
JD: I did want to start this off by saying you have one of my favorite quotes in the world, which was basically, If you go home with someone that has no books don’t have sex with them.
JW: I think I said, Don’t fuck them.
JD: That’s true.
JW: If they’re cute enough, I’ve made exceptions. The other angle to that is if you go home with somebody and they have books in the bathroom run. That’s even worse than having no books.
JD: That is also true.
JW: If they have jokes by the John next to the bathroom, the lowest genre of literature there is, which almost I was offered to do one, and it almost made me want to. That is the lowest possible form of literature.
JD: That’s true too. Well, sir, thank you again for taking the time to speak with me. I’m very excited to talk to you because Cry Baby is one of my favorite films you’ve done.
JW: Thank you.
JD: I love the fact that it’s getting the 4K treatment because it’s just one of those beautiful films that needs to pop off screen more. That’s one thing about it that as I’ve watched this movie so many times, and as I’ve watched, it seems like in parts of it, it reminds me of almost a cartoon, and other parts of it remind me of almost a stage play. What was your design process for the look of this and putting this together?
JW: Well, I give looks a lot of credit to Dave Insley, who was my DP, who started with me as a student on Female Trouble and did, yeah, I give him great credit for that. He did Hairspray, too. Both those things you say, cartoonish and stayed play, would usually be thought of as a negative thing. But cartoonish, I always plead guilty to that because I myself always wanted to be a cartoon, in a way, am one now in real life. I plead guilty to that. And a stage play, yeah. In the beginning, my movies were way more like that. I mean, this, we had coverage and different cameras and everything. In my early movies, they really were a stage play because they were shot with single system camera. You couldn’t cut back and forth. So we did long takes, where people would have to memorize three pages of dialog and get it right in one take. I think it was thought of more as trying to be an Elvis movie and satirize a genre I love, which was juvenile delinquent movies and musicals.
JD: Well, and it did that perfectly.
JW: Many, many young people say to me that the first movie they saw of mine was Cry Baby, and it gave them a hint that there was another life that they could find.
JD: Exactly. Yeah. Well, it almost seems, too, that with this movie, it was absolutely a perfect film for Johnny Depp.
JW: Especially at the time, especially at the time, because he was a teen idol and hated being one.
So he chose me, the opposite of a big Hollywood commercial director, to make a movie that made fun of being a teen idol.
JD: Well, the other one, the same year, you beat Edward Scissorhands by five months before.
JW: Well for Edward Scissorhands, he (Tim Burton) came and looked at a footage of Cry Baby before he hired him. Definitely, he knew he wanted Johnny, too, but he didn’t know really what he was going to be like. I think Cry Baby really helped him get that part. He certainly went on from me to have a very distinguished career, never making… I mean, he made some, God knows, commercial hit movies, but I don’t think they were ever the movie that he was trying to get away from where he was just like a teen idol or that kind of thing.
I’m the one who wants to be a teen idol at 78.
JD: You are. That’s the best part of it.
JW: (laughs)Thank you.
JD: You totally are. I agree with that. You are a stunning man, and I think you’re beautiful.
JW: Thank you. That’s called gerontophilia. Attraction to old people. Wrinkle Queens.
JD: I have it. I know this.
JW: Wrinkle Queens.
JD: I have it. I’m I am totally guilty as charged on that. I was curious, when you went for Johnny Depp for this film, was there any convincing to the studio that this was the right guy?
JW: They wanted him big time because I had just made Hairspray. For once, I was conceived as somebody that could make a hit movie and get good reviews. It’s the only time ever that happened to me in Hollywood, but it was that time. Starring Johnny Depp, everybody wanted to make a movie starring Johnny Depp at the time.
JD: I love that you got him for this. It’s so great. Now everybody’s like, Oh, yeah, now that makes sense.
JW: Well, I think it did make sense for him to do it. I think he got the film, finance a movie probably, I don’t know, for whatever had been made without Johnny. But he was attached right from the very beginning. It really helped and made everybody know it was my Hollywood movie. And they let me do it pretty much the way I wanted. So they were on board with it.
JD: Well, and jumping around a little bit, I was curious. I know that he lip-synced his song for the film, but he played the music and did all of the moving around and choreography. Was there ever now with his band, like with the Hollywood vampire, and then knowing that he did two musicals, what was the basis for that?
JW: I mean, always In the beginning, he wanted to sing, and I guess just everybody was unsure about it. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I should have let him sing, except the guy that does the voice is absolutely fantastic.
JD: Oh, he is.
JW: The real Cry Baby in real life. I don’t know. I understand why today, even, he wishes he had sung, and now he can sing, and certainly, he probably could have done it very well. But at the time, no one knew at all if he could sing or anything. I don’t think anybody wanted to take that chance. Probably me either at the time.
JD: I just was curious. Were there any audio recordings of it at all?
JW: No, he never did it, that I remember, no.
I mean, he’s lip syncing it constantly through the whole thing. When you do that, you almost do sing along with it. But no, I don’t remember that he ever tried that hard. I mean, it was never an issue where it was, Listen, let me do the song. I don’t I don’t think that ever happened.
JD: I just was curious if there was ever a chance of them being found because it would be neat to hear it. But the guy who did it was great.
JW: I don’t think there was. We probably would have exploited that already.
JD: That is an extra feature. One thing that I love about this movie, too, is while it’s a teen comedy, you managed to sneak a lot of things into this that are implied heavily, maybe a little bit of incest in there. There’s some interesting bits and pieces. I was curious, was there anything that you would have liked to include it in this film that got left out because the studio was like nooo.
JW: I’m trying to think where the incest is.
JD: Well, you’ve got Ramona and Iggy Pops character, the uncle and they are a couple.
JW: Is that incest? I forget.
JD: I think they’re related?
JW: Oh, maybe. Yeah. That’s not incest. That’s just Baltimore. They weren’t mother or father or anything. They weren’t like that. I forget. Maybe did they say they’re cousins or something? I don’t even remember that. That wasn’t some point I was, I’m not an incest. I’m not an incest militant.
JD: I thought it was funny, though. I was like, Oh, Okay. No, that’s hilarious.
But one thing that always stuck out for me, too, within this, because I grew up… I didn’t grow up in the Baltimore or the Maryland area, but I grew up in the sticks. I grew up in a little town in Southeast Missouri, Southern Illinois area. It’s funny to me that in this film, the Backwoods yokel group that you have with the drapes are really the more connected and loving family than these supposed good guys.
JW: In my films, the villain and the heroine in regular movies are always reversed. Yes. The crazy people in my films are always more well-adjusted than the judgmental others, which are not. I think Johnny Depp, Cry Baby, had a better upbringing than Allison did. She had a loving one, too, but still, both their parents were killed, so they had that bond.
JD: Well, and also just the look good, don’t touch, can’t hug. There’s a lot of physical affection being shown within the other. I thought that was always such a great showing of that.
JW: Yeah, and then everybody’s saying how great you look, even when society is saying you don’t.
Yes, Ramona Anna and Iggy and the Iggy pop character were very supportive of their family’s rebellion. They did stuff together. They did everything together.
JD: Yeah, they were a family, and a lot of them weren’t blood-relation, too, which I thought was fantastic.
JW: Well, everybody formed some family.
I mean, even the people I made films with, we were a kind of family. I mean, I’m not saying they didn’t have real families, but all groups of people become families. I think that’s what friends are.
And they outlive your family, too, usually.
See I was lucky, I had a very supportive, functional family. I grew up very much how Allison did in that world. I mean, I had parents. It wasn’t like my parents were killed in a plane crash. But I had to go to those dance schools and all that stuff. That gave me rage and the rebellion. But my parents really tried to understand everything I did right from the beginning, which was never easy. I look back on it and realize how supportive they are because nobody said what I was doing was good for 20 years. They were horrified. I got arrested for doing it. They were horrified by what I did, but supportive of me doing it.
JD: That’s great. And that’s great to hear. And that rolls into what I was going to ask about this film needed to have a cohesive group to sell Cry Baby and his Gang. And I was curious, can you talk about bringing that group of misfits together in this and how everyone bonded together?
JW: Well, I think that everybody at the time had been through something. Patricia Hearst, she didn’t want to be a kidnapped victim. Tracy Lords had escaped adult films. Nothing good happens to you if you’re in adult films underage. All those films are illegal, kiddie born. She survived well. She’s doing great today. I think I helped with that. We all bound together there. Everybody got along. It was different misfits from high society, from the lowest form of juvenile delinquency, and everybody got along. We made a movie that was a Hollywood movie that mocked the very idea of one. It was a safe way for many of the cast to be bad.
JD: I absolutely loved Susan Tyrrell, and I wanted to ask you about working with her on this and having her be the mother figure for the group because she just was such an icon.
JW: She just- Well, to be honest, she was a nightmare. She was drunk for the whole movie, and Iggy had just gotten sober and had to do every scene with her. She even told me one day her mother died, and it wasn’t even true. But I liked her, and she gave a great performance in the movie, and that’s what counts.
She was a difficult woman, but she was a colorful woman.
What you see, that is what she’s like. She was a team player, and she was a definite rebel. God knows she’s had another hag in a history of a career filmed with me playing hags. She was right. She could play a crazy hag better anybody in the world. In real life, she purposely acted like every person I would introduce her on the movie, she’d say, Hi, they call me Susu, and I have a pussy of a 10-year-old. That’s what she would say every time you introduced her to people.
JD: Oh, my God. That’s hero level.
JW: I said, Don’t say that to my mother. I don’t think she did. But I also am not sure it was true. But still, that’s what she said when you would introduce her to anybody on the set every day.
JD: That’s all I could ask for and expect with the legend of Susan Tyrrell. Oh, my gosh. Well, and this is something I actually really wanted to ask you about, and It pertains to a number of your films, in the past but I would say, anything in the future as well. Right now we’re in this PC versus acceptance time of filmmaking and art, where we’re seeing a lot more acceptance in film for LGBTQ across the board. We’re seeing that and just that representation. But we’re also getting into what is super PC.
JW: Yeah, that’s the whole thing my spoken word show, The Devil’s Advocates, about that, the whole new revolution, everything. I have never been hassled by PC people because technically, and I say things that really push the edge there. I am PC. If you technically get into it, I don’t say anything that’s politically incorrect. I make fun of the rules that we live by. I always made fun of the liberal rules because I am a liberal. I made fun of hippies in the ’60s. Multiple Maniacs was a film that glorified violence in the hippie years. We always made fun of the values of the counterculture culture, but that’s who came to see it, and they liked that.
JD: I grew up with Blazing Saddles. I love that movie. That movie was spot on what it was making fun of. It did it without really any boundaries. But today, I don’t think you could get a movie like Blazing Saddles made in any way, shape, or form. And that’s sad.
JW: Well, all comedy is political. It always has been. But in the same way, my films do better than they ever did. God knows, in hindsight, some of the stuff is politically incorrect in it. Incorrect, but by strict standards of the humor impaired today. But I don’t seem to have that problem. Even Pink Flamingos was chosen by the government as a great American movie and has singing assholes in it. I mean, mother-son sex. It has the most politically incorrect things ever in it, but yet it’s humor. So somehow, I think it liberated people, and that’s how I have gotten away with it. I don’t think I’ve really gotten away with anything, but I have been able to continue a career that makes fun of liberal rules because that’s what I am.
JD: Yeah, that’s why we love You do it well.
JW: Well thank you.
JD: And just my last question for you, John, again, I’m just an honor to get to chat with you about this. I was curious what it was like for you to get to see Cry Baby for the first time in 4K.
JW: Well, it was great because I hadn’t watched it in a long time. The only thing that always happens is you’re sad at the people that are no longer with us. It’s like going to a high school reunion, you find out who died. To me, it was always a little bitter sweet to watch old movies, and I never sit around and watch my old movies, but I did watch this to see how it looked and everything, and I was thrilled, and I thought, How did we ever make that movie? God, it looks so hard. How did we ever do that? Then you think, Well, that’s what youth does. You can make things that you think today you could never do. No, I’m proud of it. I’m happy with all the people that were in it. It’s a film that was not a success when it came out, but it has certainly lasted. People know the film today and treat it way better than they did when it came out.
JD: Well, John, thank you again. I hope you keep creating.
JW: Well thank you, I’m keeping on as much as I can
The post Interview: John Waters on Cry Baby hitting 4K Blu-Ray appeared first on JoBlo.
On May 28, Nintendo and Lego unveiled a new Legend of Zelda set based on the franchise’s iconic Great Deku Tree. The new Lego set, out later this year, features two different versions of the famous old tree, as well as a Zelda minifig and three different versions of Link.
On May 28, Nintendo and Lego unveiled a new Legend of Zelda set based on the franchise’s iconic Great Deku Tree. The new Lego set, out later this year, features two different versions of the famous old tree, as well as a Zelda minifig and three different versions of Link.
Back in October of 2022, it was announced that legendary filmmaker John Waters, who has brought us such films as Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, Cry-Baby, Serial Mom, Cecil B. Demented, and Pecker (among others), was teaming up with Village Roadshow Pictures for an adaptation of his “craziest” novel, Liarmouth. We’ve since heard that Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) is up for the lead role in the film, which would mark Waters’ first time directing since 2004’s A Dirty Shame… but if you’ve been wondering why Liarmouth still hasn’t made it into production a year and a half after it was announced, Waters gives an answer in a new interview with IndieWire: he hasn’t been able to get funding for it.
When asked for a Liarmouth status update, Waters said, “I’m not going to… [Starts to laugh.] Every time I comment on that, some article comes out that causes me hell, saying we’re making the movie. I’ll say it one more time, and there is no scoop here, there’s nothing new I’m telling you, but… [Village Roadshow] optioned the book, I wrote the script, they liked it, Aubrey [Plaza] likes the script, wants to be in it, I want her to be in it, and every person said, ‘No, we don’t have a penny of the budget.’ That is where it is today. Hopefully that will change. But the answer as of today? That’s it.“
Waters’ novel (pick up a copy HERE) has the following description: Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She’s smart, she’s desperate, she’s disturbed, and she’s on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her Liarmouth―until one insane man makes her tell the truth.
What do you think of the fact that John Waters can’t find funding for Liarmouth? Are you hoping to see Waters get the chance to direct a new movie twenty years after A Dirty Shame? Let us know by leaving a comment below. I think it’s a very dirty shame that Waters would have trouble getting a movie made.
The post Liarmouth: John Waters can’t get funding for his latest movie appeared first on JoBlo.
Even the best filmmakers in history take big, ambitious swings and completely miss the mark at times. In the case of Brian De Palma – the supremely talented New Hollywood director behind such all-time great classics as Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Scarface, The Untouchables, Carlito’s Way, and more – many consider his most glaring cinematic blemish to be tone deaf adaptation of The Bonfire of the Vanities in 1990. However, if general moviegoers and De Palma fans knew about the crushing production woes relating to the ending of his uneven 1998 crime thriller Snake Eyes, perhaps they’d reassess their opinion.
Indeed, the original ending of Snake Eyes is so drastically different than what transpires at the end of the theatrical cut that it’s nearly impossible to judge the movie’s intentional merits versus the final product. Of course, the grand irony about the brutally botched ending of Snake Eyes is that most people only remember the captivating opening of the film, which features a hypnotic 20-minute Steadicam shot, as only De Palma could orchestrate.
Although the sweeping Steadicam opener largely remains beyond reproach in 2024, the real question becomes: What happened to the ending of Snake Eyes? What was the original conclusion meant to be and why was it so dramatically altered to the point of requiring reshoots and a completely overhauled ending? It’s also worth wondering if the altered ending affected the movie’s critical reception and commercial performance at the box office. After all, De Palma was still hot from Mission: Impossible, and Nicolas Cage was still fresh off his Academy Award win for Leaving Las Vegas. So what the hell went wrong? Well, from the breathtaking beginning to the head-scratching ending and everything worth exploring in between – it’s time to hit the felt, roll the dice, and figure out once and for all – What Happened to Brian De Palma’s Snake Eyes!?!
The first thing about Snake Eyes worth discussing relates to casting. While Nicolas Cage was always intended to play Atlantic City Police Detective Rick Santoro, the role of Commander Kevin Dunn, played by Gary Sinise, was originally offered to Al Pacino. Of course, De Palma and Pacino made cinematic history together in Scarface in 1983 and Carlito’s Way in 1993. However, Pacino turned down the role of Commander Dunne. The part was then offered to Will Smith, who agreed to star opposite Nicolas Cage in the film. However, when Smith asked for $12 million to star as the second lead, Paramount Pictures declined to pay such a hefty fee and Gary Sinise was cast instead. Smith would go on to star in Tony Scott’s Enemy of the State, another political thriller centered on the assassination of a high-ranking government official.
Now here’s a funny casting aside. While Sinise’s character is named Commander Kevin Dunne in Snake Eyes, the real actor Kevin Dunn also appears in the movie as the pay-per-view announcer Lou Logan. The identical names caused massive confusion on the set of Snake Eyes. At one point, the actor Kevin Dunn was put up in a glitzy penthouse suite in a luxury hotel while filming. When the production team realized they had accidentally given Gary Sisnise’s hotel to Kevin Dunn mistaking him for his character’s name, Kevin Dunn was forced to leave the penthouse and was sent to a modest chain hotel room where he stayed for the remainder of the shoot. Oh, the first-world problems of well-paid Hollywood actors!
Speaking of the film shoot, principal photography for Snake Eyes began on August 4, 1997, and was completed on November 2, 1997. Although principal photography wrapped two weeks ahead of schedule, reshoots were required to film a new ending. The three-month filming schedule was divided between Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Montreal, Canada locations. Believe it or not, only two weeks were spent on location in Atlantic City and Egg Harbor Township in New Jersey, with most of the footage capturing interior and exterior shots at the Trump Taj Mahal Hotel & Casino. John Heard, the actor who plays the Millennium Powell Casino owner and director Gilbert Powell in Snake Eyes, is directly modeled after Donald Trump. With only two weeks spent on location in Atlantic City where the story takes place, the rest of Snake Eyes was filmed entirely on studio sets and soundstages in Montreal. The Montreal Forum hockey stadium was also utilized for interior shots of the Casino depicted in the movie.
Now, it’s impossible to talk about Snake Eyes without mentioning the tour-de-force Steadicam shot that appears to be a single, unbroken 20-minute take. First off, the shot was filmed by top-tier Steadicam operator Larry McConkey, the same man responsible for the iconic Steadicam shot through the Copacabana nightclub in Goodfellas, among others. For Snake Eyes, the complex choreography of the Steadicam sequence begins with Santoro’s perspective before shifting to the viewpoints of heavyweight boxer Lincoln Tyler, Commander Dunne, Julia Costello, back to Santoro, and finally, an omniscient God’s eye view from above.
While De Palma has made a living out of unparalleled tracking shots, split screens, and unbroken takes throughout his decorated career, the opening sequence in Snake Eyes features at least eight hidden edits to make it appear as if it’s one continuous shot. Most hidden edits come during the rapid whip pans across the arena during the sequence. However, reports claim that at least 12 minutes of the 20-minute opener were filmed in one single take.
Even with the covert cuts buried in the sequence, the opening of Snake Eyes remains one of the most ambitious, well-executed, and impressive single-take shots in cinematic history. It’s right up there with the opening shot of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil and that unforgettable tracking shot in Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men. Not just from a technical standpoint, but thematically as well. The kinetic movement of the opening sequence in Snake Eyes establishes the camera as a vital character in the movie, an unreliable one that cannot be trusted to tell the unfiltered truth at any given moment during the story. Although it’s easy to read Snake Eyes as a reference to the cold-blooded Commander Dunn and Gary Sinise’s beady reptilian pupils, the title of the film also alludes to how the camera slinks, snakes, and slides through the Casino in a serpentine fashion throughout the movie to provide a grand spectacle.
Interestingly enough, in real life, snake eyes lack eyelids and remain open at all times, somewhat similar to the visual effect created continuous Steadicam shot the movie opens with. Moreover, instead of having eyelids, snakes protect their vision through a specialized scale known as “a spectacle.” Therefore, the camera in the movie functions as Snake Eyes, with De Palma using all of his cinematic tricks to enhance the spectacular effect. As for the shifts in perspective and the repetition of events seen from different points of view, it’s no surprise that De Palma cited Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon as having a major influence on Snake Eyes.
Okay, now it’s time to address the elephant in the room. The original ending of Snake Eyes was meant to feature a massive tidal wave that destroys the Atlantic City Boardwalk and floods the Millennium Powell Casino, causing even more chaos and pandemonium as Santoro chases down Dunne through the submerged wreckage. In the original ending, Dunne is killed by the tidal wave rather than commit suicide as seen in the theatrical cut. The tidal wave results from Hurricane Jezebel, the tropical storm mentioned throughout the movie, beginning with lighting strikes heard as the Paramount logo first appears. The climactic tidal wave was an expensive FX-driven spectacle created by Industrial Light & Magic. All the references to Hurricane Jezebel in the movie were meant to slowly build momentum for the tidal wave to deliver a devastating knockout punch in the third act.
According to De Palma in the Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow documentary of the same name:
“My concept was, when you’re dealing with such corruption, you need God to come down and blow it all away. It’s the only way. It’s the only thing that works. That was the whole idea of the wave.”
Sadly, Paramount did not support the idea, with De Palma adding:
“And nobody thought it worked. So we came up with something else, which I never particularly thought worked as well as the original idea.”
It’s interesting how De Palma evokes God and the notion of a deus ex machina in his conceptual idea. Cutting the original ending of Snake Eyes robs the movie of its deliberate Biblical subtext, a thematic throughline that often goes unnoticed in the movie. Note how the name Santoro translates in Latin as Saint or someone born on All Saints Day. Santoro and Dunne also went to the same high school in Atlantic City, where Sea Devils are the school mascot. The tidal wave meant to destroy the boardwalk and casino in the original ending can be read as a kind of Sea Devil.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Jezebel is named after the Biblical siren who seduced the Saints into idolatry and sexual immorality, something Santoro grapples with in the movie. Santoro idolizes Dunne and his status as a Navy Commander and cheats on his wife and girlfriend with his mistress, Julia. The tidal wave at the end was meant to wash Santoro’s soul clean as a kind of spiritual ablution while ridding the city of its foul corruption.
Alas, when Paramount screened the original ending to test audiences, it was received so poorly that the studio demanded De Palma reshoot a new ending. De Palma came up with the idea to have Dunne fatally shoot himself in the chest after being cornered by authorities. The movie then picks up the original ending, which features the heartfelt discussion between Santoro and Julia on the boardwalk. Even so, several references to the original tidal wave ending can be seen and heard throughout the movie. For instance, the movie opens with a reporter in the rain outside the Casino addressing the tropical storm. Then, around the 36-minute mark, Lincoln Tyler says to Santoro: “You hear that storm out there? I wish it would blow this whole town away,” directly foreshadowing the originally conceived ending.
Later, an ambulance rushing down the coast to the casino during the finale is nearly hit by a massive tidal wave before the shot abruptly cuts away. During their boardwalk discussion, Santoro also mentions to Julia how all he can dream about is being underwater in the tunnel below the casino and how he drowns this time. Without the tidal wave ending, this dialog makes zero sense. The point is, that so much planning went into the climactic tidal wave that even when the original ending was removed, vestiges of the wave can still be felt, seen, and heard throughout the movie.
Speaking of the painstaking tidal wave planning, ILM visual FX supervisors Eric Brevig and Ed Hirsh were put in charge of the ambitious spectacle. The two leaned on their experience creating FX for Paramount’s Twister two years prior and were put in charge of depicting the tidal wave breaking, crashing into the Atlantic City boardwalk, and producing tons of seafoam as a result. According to ILM FX artist Habib Zargarpour, the computer-generated tidal wave was designed and animated to break in a controlled manner and then shaded with fractal composites. The challenge was to avoid making the CGI wave appear like dirt and dust and more like natural water. According to Zargarpour:
“The key was in pRender, the particle-rendering we had for Twister, where you could cheat the size of the particle from the light POV, from each light. So, the trick for making them look like water was to take the key light, or backlight, and make the particles look really small from that light’s point of view. That made the light go through and scatter. Otherwise, it’s going to look like chunky ice cream.”
Miniature models and 3D blueprints were utilized to capture the crashing tidal wave. The miniatures were used to create splashing effects, while the 3D models were used to depict the pier and boardwalk. Yet, despite all the time, money, and effort spent on the showstopping finale, it all went for naught thanks to a tepid response from a fickle test audience. Even Steven Spielberg, who previewed a rough cut of Snake Eyes for his old friend De Palma for the last time, was unable to convince the powers that be to retain the original vision for the pulse-pounding pinnacle. The reshot ending completely alters the tone and tenor of the movie’s primary intention and completely robs moviegoers of the Biblical underpinnings the movie was conceptually founded on.
Despite Paramount’s unwise decision to compromise De Palma’s vision, the original tidal wave ending of Snake Eyes can be seen on YouTube. The epic FX-driven sequence lasts much longer than the ending featured in the final cut and depicts the tidal wave crashing into the Millennium Powell Arena and knocking Dunne to the floor as Sontoro and Julia take cover. The giant metallic orb that serves as the logo for the Arena rolls into the casino and crushes Dunne to a pulp, leaving the storage area of the arena submerged in several feet of water. Dunne getting destroyed by the insignia of his corrupt co-conspirator would have added a delicious slice of poetic justice to the ending of Snake Eyes. Alas, as it is now and forever, Dunne’s awkwardly filmed, tacked-on suicide is far less satisfying and feels like a cheap and rushed last-minute addition that benefits nobody. The lesson learned? Never make creative decisions based on the response of a fickle test audience, especially for a movie directed by such a tried and true artist like Brian De Palma.
Although Snake Eyes turned its pricey $73 million budget into a $103 million global moneymaker, the movie lost money at the domestic box office. Snake Eyes grossed just $55 million in North America, a disappointing haul for Paramount and De Palma after their runaway financial success with Mission: Impossible two years earlier. Yet, looking back at Snake Eyes in 2024, it’s easy to ascribe the critical and financial failure of the movie to the abandonment of the climactic tidal wave spectacle. By witnessing the originally filmed ending online, it’s clear that De Palma’s intention for concluding Snake Eyes works much better than what is ultimately presented to viewers in the theatrical cut. At the time, the film drew criticism for revealing the killer too soon, something De Palma took umbrage with, telling documentary filmmaker Mark Cousins:
“There’s a lot of discussion in Snake Eyes about why we reveal who did it so soon. Well, the problem is that it isn’t about who did it. It’s a mystery about a relationship, two people, and how finding that out affects their relationship … those kinds of procedural movies are extremely boring…”
As for further criticism, much has been made about the dazzling Steadicam shot that opens the film and how the story tends to follow apart afterward. The irony is that the badly botched ending of the movie is what ultimately tells the story of Snake Eyes’ purgatorial fate. Although the movie as a whole is better than people remember it for and deserves to be recommended for De Palma fans, Snake Eyes could and should have functioned more dramatically had the original tidal wave ending remanded intact as a showstopping spectacle. That, dear friends, is more or less What Happened to Brian De Palma’s Snake Eyes!
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