The movie tromeo and juliet
They needed to go back and study Shakespeare. I thought that movie sucked and didn't know what they were saying. But then the Baz Luhrmann version came out and was such a big hit, suddenly we started getting into more theaters. Kaufman: When Tromeo and Juliet came out, we couldn't get it into any theaters. Because Tromeo and Juliet was the cool version and Romeo + Juliet was the cheesy MTV version. So I think in that way it worked to our benefit. But at the same, Romeo + Juliet wasn't a cool movie. How did you feel about Romeo + Juliet being released later that same year? I know the guy was a classic rock star, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a bad person. Then, he went around the set saying he re-wrote everything. He didn't want to say the words I'd written-but he got drunk, so I had what I'd originally written on cue cards, because he hadn't memorized his lines. He came on set and wanted to have alcohol and women around him. I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but the guy was a total dick.
I read that you didn't have a great time with Lemmy on set. We can't pretend that words mean nothing, because they do mean something. At the same time, words and language can hurt people, and that's something that should be respected. It's a very complex world, and we have people who have a lot of simplistic answers, whether they're on the conservative side or the "unquote" side. I think we live in a world that is overly PC. That was stuff that was a great phase to go through, and I'm not ashamed of it in any way-which is why I'm doing this interview now.Īt the same time, I don't come from the same place today. I was such an angry human being, and anger covers up a lot of other emotions that are there. When I worked in a system where you can't do that stuff, it allowed me to get to a deeper type of storytelling I wasn't able to get to before that. Being completely honest with you, I feel there was a certain amount of it that was just a crutch. Gunn: I think I could probably do that stuff again if I wanted to, but I'd probably have a different sort of career. Some of the best scenes came from me and James bantering back and forth in rehearsal.ĭo you think the film could be made today with how not-PC it is? Do you miss being able to work within that framework? The young people needed to improvise and shoot in sequence. Lloyd Kaufman: Sometimes you have to because the cast and crews we work with are inexperienced-you have to keep things fresh on set. I'm the polar opposite of Lloyd when it comes to directing: pretty much every shot is figured out beforehand. Lloyd had people around from a production standpoint that he didn't usually have. We had problems that you have-a location backed out or something-but overall it was a pretty fluid process. He had his own ideas about how things should work and I was harsh with him at times. I battled a lot with the cinematographer. I knew what Troma movies were, but I also wanted to step outside of what a Troma movie had been up until that point.Ī lot of times, Lloyd handled the camera and I took care of the actors. At the end of the day, he offered me $150 to rewrite Tromeo and Juliet, which was a fucking mess-basically just Romeo and Juliet transcribed with dirty words thrown in. He said, "Maybe you can write Tromeo and Juliet," or "Maybe you can do The Toxic Avenger," or "Maybe you could do some other film." I would have preferred to do some other film at the time The Toxic Avenger and Tromeo and Juliet both sounded so cheesy and terrible to me. I went into a meeting with Lloyd because I'd gone to Troma to get a job filing papers in the office or something-but he knew I went to Columbia and that I had a reputation for performing on the Lower East Side.
I was able to watch it with an audience and think about the parts that worked, as well as the parts that didn't. A lot of what I learned about filmmaking was in that film, especially the test screening. I can't believe how much time has passed-but, really, I can, because everything in my career really started with Tromeo and Juliet. We spoke to him and Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman separately about the making of their cult film.Ĭan you believe it has been 20 years since the initial release of the film? The film was also a jumping off point for Gunn's career, cementing him as one of Troma's most successful alumni. Tromeo and Juliet stands apart from much of Troma's other work, in that it focuses less on supernatural fare and possesses more of a romantic core.