by David Hughes
Another factor working against the film was the fact that, at the time, the historical epic was a moribund genre; rather than reviving it, Braveheart (1995) was seen as the exception that proved the rule. Nevertheless, in February 1999, Variety announced that Schwarzenegger was in “serious talks” to revive Crusade with producer-financier Arnon Milchan – the man behind such hits as Pretty Woman, Under Siege, Falling Down, LA Confidential and some fifty other films – under his company’s deal with 20th Century Fox. “Long considered one of the best unproduced scripts of recent years,” Variety noted, “the Walon Green-penned Crusade has a fascinating history that ended up with Schwarzenegger himself owning the project. Schwarzenegger long has been expected to play the hero, Hagen, a reluctant warrior who begins the film as a prisoner set to die... It’s unclear who Schwarzenegger and Milchan would choose to direct,” the report went on, “though Paul Verhoeven is interested, five years after he nearly directed Schwarzenegger when the film was to be financed by Carolco.” A year later, during publicity duties for The 6th Day, Schwarzenegger confirmed that Crusade was still in active development, and that he hoped Verhoeven — then busy making Hollow Man — might shoot it sometime in 2001.
Then came the events of September 11: an attack by Islamic fundamentalists against a Judeo-Christian economic stronghold, to which the US government reacted by targeting two Islamic nations with spurious links to the attacks, Afghanistan and Iraq. As Verhoeven pointed out to DVD Monthly, “Even the word ‘crusade’, which was used by George W. Bush in the beginning... when he said, ‘This is a crusade against terrorism.’ He had to take the word ‘crusade’ out of the speeches, because [the Arabs remembered it] and the slaughterhouse that the Crusades were. Of course,” he adds, “Bush, not knowing what happened in the year 1100, thought the Crusades were something great, and that’s why he used it at the beginning of his campaign. But somebody in the government, to my great astonishment, knew a little bit more and decided that it wasn’t the greatest way to approach the Arab world.” Nevertheless, in November 2001, the staunchly Republican Schwarzenegger told Cinescape’s Beth Laski that he was still pursuing the project: “We have to bring it up to date, which means rewriting and then finding the right studio, someone who believes in it. We’re negotiating with Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer,” he added, “and we’re very well on our way.”
In some ways, the post-9/11 period was both the best of times and the worst of times to make Crusade. On the one hand, with the world’s largest Christian nation (America) waging war in, or on, some of the smaller Islamic countries (Afghanistan, Iraq), warnings of insensitivity may be valid. On the other hand, what better time for an intellectual, politically astute filmmaker to bring to an audience the idea that there is a millennium-old precedent for the ongoing strife in the Middle East, and that then, as now, there are political and economical reasons behind the slaughter, rather than fundamental religious ones? Indeed, in a February 2002 story entitled ‘Now Showing: The Flag’ and subtitled ‘Hollywood is Storming Out of its 9-11 Foxhole with a Barrage of Patriotic Flicks’, The Washington Post reported that studio head-turned-independent producer Mike Medavoy — who produced Schwarzenegger’s The 6th Day — had optioned the rights to Warriors of God, James Reston Jr’s book about the Third Crusade, in which the principal characters are the Christian warrior-king Richard the Lion-Hearted and his noble Muslim nemesis, Saladin.
“At its core, it hearkens to what’s going on today,” Medavoy commented. Reading the book, he said, “it’s like the light bulb goes off and you go, ‘Wow, here’s an interesting approach to what’s going on in the world, but at a different time.’ How similar things are. And it’s about humanity, about how human beings can help each other.” The same article noted that even Crusade might be revived as a direct result of the current climate. “In the end, you see the stupidity of the Crusades,” original Crusade screenwriter Walon Green was quoted as saying. “The theme is about the danger and amorality of war anytime you attach a holy aspect to it.” Thus, he added, “It’s absolutely the right subject for now.” Verhoeven agreed. “The story of the Crusades is the murderous attack of the Christians on the Arabs and the Jews. Do you think that’s a politically interesting situation?” Says Goldman, “[Before 9/11], the word ‘crusade’ was a dead word — it had no connotations. It was a historical period that had no relevance. Now the Crusades are incredibly relevant.”
Certainly, 20th Century Fox seemed to think so. A month after The Washington Post’s story, Variety announced that director Ridley Scott — who had single-handedly revived the historical epic at the turn of the century, with the DreamWorks/Universal co-production Gladiator — would join forces with Fox on Kingdom of Heaven, scripted by William Monahan. “The Crusades, which began in the 11th century, will provide a highly visual canvas for a drama featuring armour-clad warriors who bore red crosses on their breastplates and battled with spears, swords and shields,” the report stated. “It’s a movie I’ve been thinking about for twenty years,” Scott told The San Bernadino County Sun. “It’s going to take place in the middle of the Crusades, around 1130, 1136, and feature Saladin, a Muslim, who was the wisest of all the knights, a trustworthy man of his word... I don’t want the movie to be about knights in armour and chaps charging around with red crosses and waving swords and hacking off heads. It really should be a fundamental discussion between the two religions and not only that, but the actual misrepresentation of the Holy Roman Empire by the Catholic Church, which was in those times seriously corrupt. When they got down there, the people the church regarded as infidels had a faith that was as strong, if not stronger, than the fundamental rules of Christianity.” Speaking at a press conference for Matchstick Men, he added: “The subject has to be dealt with in such a delicate fashion. It’s one giant misunderstanding.”
Kingdom of Heaven’s failure to repeat the critical and commercial success of Gladiator may have sounded the death knell for Schwarzenegger’s Crusades project; even in 2004, as the actor was beginning to channel his energies into his political aspirations, he was already too old to play the leading role as scripted. “Hagen is a rogue,” Goldman explains, “and you don’t have fifty-year-old rogues, you have young rogues.” Nevertheless, he adds, “Arnold’s never given up on the project.” Neither has Verhoeven, who says he’d still love to direct the film if it was ever made. “I think it’s a great script. I don’t know if Arnold wants to do it, or if he still wants to do the same part. I’ve heard rumours that he might want to change the script a little bit, because of course he’s older than that now. He might have to adapt it a little bit so he doesn’t have to play a thirty year-old. But I think that it can be adapted, and I fully agree it’s one of the greatest scripts ever written. But on the other hand the cost of a movie like that would ultimately be higher in my opinion than Terminator 3, which must have been close to the $200 million mark.”
Even with the digital multiplication used in films like Gladiator, Verhoeven doubts that the film is financially viable. “Don’t forget that Gladiator was a limited situation of gladiators in an arena,” he points out, “and here you might need a couple of thousand people to shoot it and then multiply it by ten, so that you get the twenty thousand people that there were — at least to get the feeling for the audience, because it was an enormous army. Even with digital multiplication and digital people in the background, you are still looking at a couple of hundred horses that are very difficult to digitally paint, because they’re too complex, so you have to shoot them. Even the digital shots would still be in the order of a hundred, hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a couple of seconds.”
Besides, he adds, “I’m not so sure that anybody can shoot in the Arab world at the moment. It might be dangerous.”
TRAIN WRECK
Despite the best efforts of Ridley Scott, Joel Silver, Sylvester Stallone and Roland Emmerich, the ‘Alien on a train’ movie Isobar never left the station
“It was sort of like Aliens combined wit
h Alien — a shameless rip-off.”
— ISOBAR’s second screenwriter, Steven de Souza, on early drafts
Sometime around 1987, emergent independent production company Carolco Pictures purchased a script for a futuristic science fiction/ horror hybrid described as “Alien on a train.” The script, entitled Dead Reckoning, was written ‘on spec’ by future Fight Club screenwriter Jim Uhls. “It was a sci-fi action thriller,” he says, “set in the future, in which an altered form of life gets loose on a high-speed runaway underground train. The creature was a humanoid with a genetically-altered brain that was intended to be used as the ‘hard drive’ in an artificial intelligence project.” The setting was near-future Los Angeles, which Uhls describes as “a traffic-infested dystopia, with wide shots of freeways and streets — even residential streets — completely jammed with non-moving, honking cars. And billboards that admonished, ‘Did you allow yourself three hours to get there?’ There was reference to a new law, just passed, outlawing horns on vehicles in LA County. The super-subway was the only viable means of transportation.” The script was bought by Carolco, with Joel Silver, producer of the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard films, climbing aboard as producer.
At the time of its purchase, Carolco had yet to score big with the science fiction milestones RoboCop, Total Recall and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Nevertheless, Carolco bosses Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna saw Dead Reckoning as the perfect vehicle for Ridley Scott. Although the Alien director had sworn off science fiction following the dismal critical reception and commercial performance of Blade Runner in 1982, his most recent films — the fantasy flop Legend and the neo-noir thriller Someone to Watch Over Me — had nudged him from Hollywood’s A-list, and he perhaps saw Dead Reckoning as a way to recapture his former glory. According to Uhls, Scott came aboard as director in 1988, accompanied by production designer Norris Spencer, with whom he would later work on Black Rain, Thelma & Louise, 1492: Conquest of Paradise and Hannibal.
No sooner had Scott coupled himself to the project than he contacted H. R. Giger, the Swiss artist with whom he had collaborated on an aborted adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic science fiction novel Dune and, more successfully, Alien, for which Giger had won a special Academy Award. “Sometime in 1988, Ridley Scott telephoned me and asked me if I would like to make a science fiction movie with him,” the artist wrote in his book Giger’s Film Designs. “For me, there is nothing greater than this. I was enthusiastic about it and immediately accepted, because a remarkable movie always originates from a director like Ridley Scott.” Scott seemed equally enthusiastic at the prospect of working with Giger again. “I have come close to working with Giger on a number of projects since we did Alien,” he commented later, “and it is my strong hope that we can work together again in bringing something special to the screen.”
At this early stage, Giger noted, there was no agreement between Scott and Carolco: “he told me to just think about the project and to capture my ideas in sketches. He would negotiate a contract with Carolco in the meantime.” Giger set to work with his customary enthusiasm, without discussing the project further with Scott or signing a contract with Carolco, producing many colour and black-and-white sketches for the project, under the new working title The Train. “If somebody is telling me something I am always so enthusiastic that I don’t wait until the contracts are done, otherwise I will lose interest,” he explains. “I have to do it when I have the spark.” Giger worked for almost nine months, between the summer of 1988 and the spring of 1989, working up numerous bizarre designs for trains, stations, passenger compartments — even a radical new kind of emergency exit in which passengers are ejected into a spontaneous ejaculation of soft foam.
During this time, Giger was frustrated by his inability to reach Scott by telephone, and unaware that the director had already moved on to direct Thelma & Louise for MGM. “Shortly thereafter he telephoned me late in the evening,” Giger recalled, “and disclosed to me that he had already gotten out of the project, three weeks before, because he would have been given too little artistic freedom.” Says Uhls, “Ridley Scott left the project, seemingly out of some disagreement with Joel Silver.” Giger continued, “He promised me that he would still negotiate with 20th Century Fox,” referring to the film’s proposed distributors, “and that if he would be able to deal with them, he would of course take me on.” As a result, he says, when the project derailed, “I never got engaged and I never got paid.” Nevertheless, Giger was able to exploit some of his unused designs for The Train when he was engaged to work on designs for ‘Sil’, the beautiful but deadly alien at the centre of the science fiction horror movie Species. “I had an idea about Sil dreaming about a ghost train,” he explains, “a train which comes and picks up people who are waiting in the station, [and who] she eats to get power. I worked on this train, and I put a lot of my own money into it,” he adds. Giger went as far as building a three-dimensional model of the train, which he filmed in action in the back garden of his home just outside Zurich.1
Following Scott’s departure, producer Joel Silver set about re-working the script in earnest, starting with the title: instead of Dead Reckoning, Silver preferred Isobar, defined in The Oxford Modern English Dictionary as “a line on a map connecting positions having the same atmospheric pressure at a given time, or on average over a given period.” One problem was that Isobar happened to be the title of a script which another screenwriter, Jere Cunningham, had written for Silver and fellow producers Lawrence Gordon and John Davis around 1986-1987, described by Cunningham as the story of “a mutant professional fighter in a future world, on a quest to discover the truth of his origins.” According to the writer, Arnold Schwarzenegger was interested in playing the role, but the actor’s $5 million asking price proved too rich for 20th Century Fox, and he signed to star in Total Recall instead. “A year or two later,” Cunningham reveals, “Joel Silver called and said he wanted to use my title for another project because he loved the word ‘isobar’. I said, ‘Whatever, Joel, it’s cool.’” Explains Uhls, “He wanted the name, so it had to be made to work.” Uhls dutifully came up with an explanation for the title with an acronym — Intercontinental Subterranean Oscillo-magnetic Ballistic Aerodynamic Railway. “It was basically a magnetic levitation train underground that was a subway connecting the entire world,” he explains, “travelling as fast as a commercial jet plane, in a vacuum.”2
The new version of the script was set in a more distant future, with the surface of the Earth rendered uninhabitable. “The creature was changed to be an evolutionary leap,” Uhls recalls. “A super-adaptive humanoid that was caught thriving outside, in the environment that’s hostile to humans. It is put onto the train to be transported to a special lab. It breaks free, then it must adapt faster and more dramatically to stay alive inside the train. It requires massive doses of adrenaline to do this, so it kills people to get it.”
Uhls continued to work with Silver as German-born director Roland Emmerich and his producing partner Dean Devlin came on board. “I had worked with Roland on Moon 44,” the producer says, referring to Emmerich’s first science fiction film, “and based on that movie, Mario Kassar brought Roland in to direct the picture. Roland came in, read the script, and wanted to do a major rewrite, and asked me if I’d rewrite it. So I said, ‘Sure.’” While Devlin worked on his draft, he and Emmerich were surprised to learn that Joel Silver had hired another screenwriter. “Roland and I read in the paper that Joel Silver had hired Steven de Souza to do a rewrite, and Roland said, ‘Well, you’re about to get a new draft in two weeks, why are you hiring someone else?’ And Joel said, ‘Oh, Steven did Die Hard with me, he’s the best writer in Hollywood — trust me.’ So they never read my draft, they waited for Steven’s draft, and when that came out, Roland said to Joel, ‘I don’t want to do that, but I’ll do Dean’s draft,’ and Joel said no, so Roland baled out of the project.”
At the time, Emmerich and Devlin were some years away from delivering their science fict
ion blockbusters, Stargate and Independence Day, and Silver evidently had no qualms picking de Souza, the writer of Die Hard, 48HRS and The Running Man, over two relative unknowns. Says Devlin, “I think the biggest change which Steven made in his draft, which we didn’t do, is that he gave it a kind of uplifting feeling at the end, a kind of E.T. thing. And also Steven came up with some amazing characters that weren’t in the original drafts. That’s really the direction he went — it just wasn’t what we were going for. We were going for something much more like Alien.”
Certainly, Silver’s decision would have been endorsed by action star Sylvester Stallone, who had previously met with de Souza to discuss a potential rewrite of his 1993 science fiction film Demolition Man, and had been impressed with the writer’s ideas. “They wanted a total reinvention of the script,” de Souza says of ISOBAR. “The original script was one of these usual dystopian, post-apocalyptic futures, and the movie was a complete rip-off of Aliens. It was sort of like Aliens combined with Alien, with a squad of guys assigned to catch this monster and bring it in for study by ‘The Company’ — a shameless rip-off. But then they had to get the train to its final destination, which made no sense at all.” After all, de Souza reasoned, if The Company wants to keep the existence of the monster secret, and has reason to believe that it may be dangerous, it would be more prudent to land the creature closer to its final destination. “Plus, if they’re going to take it to some military facility where they’re going to study it, wouldn’t they have an airstrip there? So from page one it made no sense.”