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Darkman
188 Plays3 years ago
Sam Raimi has just returned to the world of directing superhero movies, so this is the perfect time to take a look back on his first foray—1990's Darkman! Indie comic creator Fish Lee is the guest this week to talk about his work in the industry, his upcoming project Greenzone: Life in the Blocks, and then we dive into all things Darkman. We discuss the sheer wealth of talent in this film, with then-future stars like Liam Neeson and Frances McDormand, the chaos behind the scenes, and how well this film holds up over thirty years later!
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Transcript
Transformation and Identity of Dark Man
00:00:19
Speaker
Don't look at me. I want to look. You perfect the skin. You make it work. It doesn't matter.
00:00:44
Speaker
Julie... Don't you think I told myself that? Night after sleepless night? It's just a burn, skin deep, it doesn't matter. And if I covered it, hidden behind a mask, you could love me for who I was inside. Without pity. But a funny thing happened. As I worked in the mask, I found a man inside was changing.
00:01:13
Speaker
He became wrong. A monster. I can live with it now, but I don't think anyone else can. I want our life back.
00:01:46
Speaker
Peyton. Peyton is gone.
00:02:33
Speaker
I'm everyone and no one. Everywhere, nowhere. Call me Dark Man.
Introduction: Perry Constantine and Fisher Lee
00:02:50
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cenophiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and welcoming a new guest today and a fellow creative as well, and that is Fisher Lee. Fish, how you doing today?
00:03:01
Speaker
I am doing great, man. I am super excited to be here. I'm super excited for what we get to talk about tonight. I'm super excited because my first Kickstarter just closed minutes ago and we sailed past six grand on it. I'm super happy about it. I can't wait for people to get the book. This is my night, baby. I'm excited. Good. Yeah. And before we jump into the movie and all of that, why don't you tell people a little bit about yourself?
00:03:29
Speaker
I am Mr. Fish. Mr. Fish comics on all the social media. You can find me. I am. I call myself the fastest working man in indie comics. I have done over 30 books in the last three years, most of them as the pencil or anchor colorist and letterer. I just now.
00:03:49
Speaker
just ended the Kickstarter for my book Green Zone Life in the Blocks, which is the first one in four years that I wrote and illustrated and everything. And it's going to be an ongoing series from our publisher Freestyle Comics. And I am super excited. It's following this group of superpower genomes on their first shift on the police forces. They try and earn their citizenship back in a world that hates them just for being born. They view everybody with superpowers as a potential supervillain waiting to happen.
'Green Zone': Themes and Influences
00:04:19
Speaker
So if you want a better life to get out of the slums of the green zone, then you've got to prove that you're one of the good ones and risk your life for five years. And we're following a group of people that are very ill equipped to be police officers on their first shift on the police force. And we're going to follow them through this time and see what happens to them. It's such juicy storytelling. I love it. I get so excited talking about it.
00:04:45
Speaker
Sounds really cool. I'm not sure if this is comparable at all, but I'm getting some of what you said. I'm wondering, were you influenced at all by things like District 9? I think there was that Netflix movie. I never saw it, but Bright, I think, had some similar ideas in there.
00:05:02
Speaker
I mean, it's kind of similar. I mean, it's in a it's in a fantasy setting. There's racism and stuff between like the humans and the orcs and all this stuff. Like, I mean, it will definitely hit on very similar themes. To me, it a lot of it came straight from a dream I had like 10 years ago. And so much of the story came right out of that dream. Like so many of the characters that are still in the book now came out of that dream that night. And
00:05:28
Speaker
And really, a lot of my views on like, what would it really be like if we had mutants in the world today, like if the X-Men were real, I don't think we would treat them as nicely as we do in the movies. Like, if you vote for a different political party, we treat you like you are a soulless monster with no redeeming qualities. And you know, there's no even talking to you because you just you're a monster.
00:05:51
Speaker
And we're doing that to other humans that just voted differently. Like if if you actually were an eight foot tall lizard monster like Virgil in the book or covered in razor sharp quills all over your body like Bellamy, I don't think we would treat people better than that. Like I think it would be bad. And we get to see what that's like. And
00:06:13
Speaker
The amazing thing is like when I put my experiences of like growing up living with a neurological disorder like Tourette syndrome and ADHD and autism, it when I apply stuff I've been through growing up to this fantastical setting, everybody gets to see themselves in it because it is such a fantastic setting. When you've got an eight foot lizard monster going through this stuff, anybody can identify with him and say, oh,
00:06:39
Speaker
You wrote this about me. And that's been the most amazing thing about it is the people that read it see themselves in it. And the fact that anybody that's ever felt other than or less than or like an outsider can identify with the way these people feel and how the deck feels stacked against them. That's an amazing thing to me that people can identify with it and be touched by these stories is is humbling and amazing.
00:07:04
Speaker
And I love it. It's it's an unexpected, amazing part of writing this story. Well, that sounds awesome. And congratulations on the Kickstarter as well. How did you get into comics in the first place?
Fisher Lee's Comic Journey and Inspirations
00:07:20
Speaker
I've always loved comics like they've always been around my brother and sister read comics I you know my mom would buy them for me if I was a good kid at the doctor and you know didn't cry when I got my shots and so like they had always been around and I was always a pretty good artist as a kid, but
00:07:40
Speaker
My love of engineering and designing and stuff all got wrapped up in the Goonies when I watched it as a kid, and I freaking wanted to be Data. I wanted to be him so bad. I wanted to build that coat with the punching glove and the camera and the, you know, darts that shoot out of the oil slick shoes. I wanted the whole nine yards.
00:08:00
Speaker
And my mom smartly said she was not going to take me to the junkyard to get parts for my coat, unless I had detailed plans of what I was going to build, because she knew I'd bring home every cool thing I found in the junkyard.
00:08:13
Speaker
I started drawing out detailed plans, and that made my artwork jump significantly. And the jacket got bigger and more complicated. And then I got into like Inspector Gadget. And now I had to figure out how to strap a lawnmower motor to my head to be able to fly around and all this stuff. And then it became an Iron Man suit. And then it kept growing until I had created this world's full of costumes and villains and stuff. And I'm just writing all these stories.
00:08:43
Speaker
It just all fell together and became what I do. And I've always been a natural storyteller anyway. So being able to combine my love of telling stories and stuff with my artistic ability was just amazing. Comics is the perfect medium for that. Yeah.
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was Warren Ellis once said that comics, when you break it down, it's words and pictures and you can do anything with words and pictures. That's a really, really cool story. I don't think I've ever heard of someone who had a story quite like that where they came to art through an interest in engineering. That's really fascinating.
00:09:23
Speaker
I totally wanted to be an inventor. I wanted to build all kinds of things and, you know, build spaceships and all kinds of stuff. And now I get to draw all of this stuff. But you can see, especially when I get to do sci-fi sometimes,
00:09:38
Speaker
that I put a lot of thought into this stuff. And I think through how these things are built and how they're engineered. And, you know, like if I'm designing an alien race, I'm thinking, how do they get their clothes on? How do they zip them? What do their ships look like when you have three legs? You know, what does a cockpit look like? All this kind of stuff. And, you know, I get carried away, but I enjoy it. That's really cool. And I know from my own artwork, you know, I just kind of like tried to approach it as like,
00:10:04
Speaker
How can this look cool as opposed to thinking about how would this practically work? So that's really that's really cool. And that has that has secretly given me an extra degree of cool to my stuff that people enjoy when I think through the costumes and I think through, like, how would she get this thing off? Then suddenly you get seams in places and you get buckles and things that people are like, oh, man, your costumes are so cool and they're so intricate.
00:10:30
Speaker
But it's because I'm thinking through all this stuff, you know, like, how does this tape attach to her? If she doesn't have some magic material made from an alien planet? You know, how does she keep this thing on and stuff like that? And that has made my costume so much cooler, just because I'm thinking it through a little bit more, which was an awesome unintended side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how long have you been working professionally in comic sound?
00:10:55
Speaker
I have been making money professionally paying my bills for three years now and doing comics. I've done like I said, I've done over 30 books in that three years counting tonight with my Kickstarter. We've raised over sixty seven thousand dollars.
00:11:12
Speaker
for these books. I mean, it's all small press indie stuff that's mostly going out to 200 readers or so. But it keeps my lights on. It's fed my kids all through the pandemic. I thought for sure, drawing muscle men in their underwear beating each other up was going to be like the quintessential non-essential job. I thought I was going to be out of work in a heartbeat. I had just built
Indie Comics and Pandemic Success
00:11:35
Speaker
this indie career out of nothing again, after years of being
00:11:39
Speaker
disabled by my Tourette syndrome. I just finally got my freelance career going. I was like, Oh, this is it. I had paid work all through the pandemic. Every time a stimulus check came out, people start hitting me up for commissions. I'm like, you know, that was supposed to pay your rent, right? But I will gladly pay my rent with it. I'm happy to pay my rent.
00:12:00
Speaker
And so I stayed busy the whole time and it's been amazing. It's been absolutely amazing. But we also realized people were starving for entertainment during the pandemic. And so this was a really good job to have at the time.
00:12:14
Speaker
really cool. So would you have any interest in working for like bigger presses at some point? Are you satisfied doing the there are like there are some odd characters at the big guys that I would really love to work on. I mean, if they offered me a job drawing like Batman or something like I would take it because it's awesome. But like, I my love would still be my own
00:12:39
Speaker
my own independent stuff. I always wanted to be an independent comic book artist as a kid, you know, because like the black and white independent comics was where all the weird stuff happened, like turtles and stuff that ended up taking over the world. The Walking Dead and you know, like that's where the neat stuff was.
00:12:55
Speaker
And that's what I wanted to do as a kid. So the fact that I get to do that now is awesome. The fact that I'm getting to move over to not just doing other people's books, but hopefully, if everything goes well with Green Zone and the next couple of issues are received well next year, I will be doing just my books, which is awesome. If it fails, I go back to doing everybody else's books. So that's a great second place. I'm not knocking that at all. Yeah.
00:13:21
Speaker
But I mean, but if if I could get the chance to do like Kite Man for DC, I got some ideas for Kite Man that I think would make him so freaking awesome. I'm trying to figure out a way to use these ideas in case I don't ever get to do it. But oh, I think he has so much potential to be so much richer and cooler than he is right now. And I dig him as he is. But
00:13:45
Speaker
Oh, I think he could be so
Exploring 'Darkman': A Unique Superhero Film
00:13:47
Speaker
awesome. And I would love to do that. I'd love to take a crack at Stiltman at Marvel, too. And just it's such a weird character that I would love to do something with him and really, you know, make him interesting. But yeah, that's one with your engineering interests is probably a lot you can do with like redesigning them and all that kind of stuff. Oh, yeah, that would be so much fun.
00:14:08
Speaker
But anyway, today, we're talking about a small probably mostly forgotten movie. But this was really kind of kind of a groundbreaking movie in a lot of ways. And that's a dark man from 1990. And I think a lot of people probably
00:14:27
Speaker
probably don't really remember this movie or probably haven't really thought about it in a while. But as I was watching it last night, and as I was thinking about it, unless you count something like RoboCop, which we did in our last episode, and we actually made an argument for why we think it's a superhero movie. This is, you know, if not the first, one of the first R-rated superhero films that ever came out. And it was also Sam Raimi's first stint at directing a superhero movie too.
00:14:55
Speaker
And the thing that really amazes me is like, it's a unique idea for a superhero, which you don't get very often. Usually you're working off of very played out material and trying to find a new spin on Batman or Superman or Spider-Man. But this was just like, you know what, we don't have anything to work with. Let's just make something up. And an original idea that made it to a decent budget Hollywood movie
00:15:22
Speaker
freaking blew my mind as a kid, you know, that it I had no idea who dark man was going to be. I didn't know his backstory. I didn't have 50 issues of the comic in my collection. And I was so excited when it came out because you got to remember the time that it came out in like we had Batman and that was it. It had been forever since the you know,
00:15:44
Speaker
Christopher Reeve, Superman movies, like we didn't really have a lot of superhero stuff. Batman had just shown that you could do this and it could be awesome and it could be cinematic and you could make something that the last time we saw it on screen was kind of silly and campy and make it cool and dramatic and dark. And so then they do dark man and he's this new character and he's not rich and he doesn't have, you know,
00:16:13
Speaker
a secret bat cave full of super expensive like he has to cobble his stuff together out of trash. He's blown up. He's injured. He's like, he's going crazy, which is one of the things that I love the most about dark man is that he's crazy. He's homeless. I mean, he's a homeless superhero years, several years before spawn came out. Yeah, yeah. And
00:16:35
Speaker
I just absolutely loved it. It felt it is so over the top now going back to watch it. It is so Sam Raimi a movie. He is Sam Raimi at his Sam Raimi in this movie like it is so over the top.
00:16:51
Speaker
But I freaking loved it when it came out. It just it spurred my imagination. It got me thinking in all kinds of new directions. Like I have I have come up with so many ideas for characters since then that live in like dumps and things like that because of Dark Man, because it inspired me as a kid.
00:17:12
Speaker
So many people that are injured and burned and suffering more than, you know, it always seemed kind of unfair that Batman could do all this stuff and then put on a suit and go around to be Bruce Wayne and be all beautiful and and not have his teeth broken out and his eyes bulging and blacked and, you know, scars all over his face. And, you know,
00:17:35
Speaker
dark man suffers and really goes through it in the movie. Oh, I loved it. I want to talk a little bit about how we first came to it because I came to this movie actually in a really kind of roundabout way because
00:17:48
Speaker
So I was too young to see this when it came out. I was born in 83, so I wasn't even 10 years old at this point. So I didn't see it in the theater, but I think I first found out about this, strangely enough, through the promotions for the Mantis TV show.
00:18:07
Speaker
Do you remember that? Because I remember the commercials and they said from the writer of Batman and the director of Darkman. As a kid, I'm like, Darkman, what's that? And then I eventually, they had it at the, I think it was at the library where they had the VHS copy and I rented it. And it was just really weird and strange. And I can't remember how, I think I had to have been about maybe 11 or 12 when I had first watched it.
00:18:35
Speaker
then I didn't see it again for years. And then I found it at a DVD store, probably when I was in like high school or university, and watching it again and realizing, holy shit, Sam Raimi directed this, because this is after Spider-Man, and then holy shit, that's Liam Neeson. And holy shit, that's Frances McDormand. And it was a really weird experience to go back and see all these
00:18:59
Speaker
you know, these like Oscar caliber actors in this, you know, basically cult superhero horror film that was directed by now the guy who at that time directed the biggest superhero movie ever.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, and you can definitely see hints of what's to come, like in the music in the score in some of the shots. Like it's very Sam Raimi, all the way back to like Evil Dead and stuff like I mean, you've got a lot of camera shots from the angle of bullets and the angle of rivets being shot through the air. You've got lots of women screaming directly into the camera, lots of weird lighting and, you know, lots of little funny bits thrown in in places and stuff.
00:19:44
Speaker
It was so chaotic to me as a kid. And I did not know. I didn't know who Sam Raimi was when I watched it at 15 in the movie theater. Like I love the Evil Dead movies. But to me, those were Bruce Campbell movies. They weren't Sam Raimi movies. I didn't realize until a couple of years ago, the connection between, you know, all these movies that I enjoyed as a kid that were all Sam Raimi movies.
00:20:10
Speaker
I just took all the crazy shots and the lighting and stuff as showing how chaotic it was in his mind. And I love the points when dark man snaps and either goes into a rage or goes into a chaotic dance or something.
00:20:26
Speaker
really trying to show how much he is sanity was breaking down from the fact that he can't feel anything anymore. And like it was such an original idea for a superhero to me, because he doesn't become a superhero because of what he gains he didn't
00:20:42
Speaker
get bit by a spider or get a fantastical metal suit or get bathed by an asteroid or something. He lost so much. He got burned. They severed his nerves so that he can't feel pain anymore. And that causes like his adrenaline to go through the roof and he's going crazy.
00:21:01
Speaker
But it takes off all the brakes, you know, he doesn't have to stop because it hurts. He doesn't have to stop because he jumped off a building and it hurts or, you know, lifting somebody is too hard because he's losing it. Yank him up. Sticking through the manhole cover. Yeah. And that's that's one of the interesting things about a lot of superheroes is when they try to do the
00:21:22
Speaker
the tortured hero thing with a lot of superheroes, like Spider-Man is probably the most obvious example, where it's like, you know, you're trying to show them as, you know, struggling and all this, but at the same time, and yeah, and I'm not knocking those stories or anything, but at the same time, there's always a part of me that's thinking, I'm like,
00:21:40
Speaker
Dude, you've got superpowers. What your life's not that bad. Are you really struggling that hard? Yeah. Like, I mean, yeah, Batman, your parents are dead. But you're also a billionaire. Like, you could go out partying all day, you could go pay for therapy if you want to do, or you can dress up as a bat and spend billions of dollars on gadgets and you know, beat up crazy people in alleys. That's fine.
00:22:05
Speaker
But like dark man, like didn't have that, that I don't get it aspect that that whole, like, I never understood how you could be the Batman vigilante and still pull off being Bruce Wayne, like I did one of those would have to go by the wayside, you would not be doing both of them convincingly, I don't think.
00:22:27
Speaker
And, you know, that part always bothered me but dark man is always dark man he doesn't get to quit doing this he is brutally scarred like he has no lips anymore. He's, you know, burned in this explosion.
00:22:42
Speaker
you know, and he goes nuts. And he's looking for vengeance. And unlike because it's an R rated movie, which I loved at the time, he didn't have the limitations of you know, like where Batman has machine guns on his Batmobile that can cut through a door, but nobody ever gets hurt. And he has machine guns and stuff on the batwing that can shoot into a crowd, but nobody ever gets hurt. And you know, everybody comes out okay in the end, except for the Joker, I guess. And
00:23:11
Speaker
But here, Dark Man, he's taking people out, whether he's doing it himself or he's tricking them into doing it. And, you know, that was amazing to me because we actually got to see like an anti hero that was actually like putting a stop to this stuff.
00:23:29
Speaker
which, you know, and we're just coming out of the 80s with all the gritty comic books and the Punisher and all this stuff. And, you know, we're loving the gritty anti heroes. And now, you know, having this dude that's just dirty hearing his way through his vengeance list for the people that hurt him. And I loved it. And one of the things you mentioned in there, too, was not that one, but but earlier you were talking about the concept behind the character and
00:23:57
Speaker
It just goes to show you that necessity is the mother of invention because Sam Raimi, what he wanted to do was he wanted to do the shadow and he was trying to get a shadow movie made and the studios would not let him do it. And funnily enough too, he also, after
00:24:18
Speaker
I think after Schumacher's, after Batman and Robin, Sam Raimi also made a pitch to Warner Brothers for resurrecting the Batman films. And they turned him down because they thought he was a nobody director. And then he goes on to do Spider-Man. And by the time this episode comes out, it'll already be out. But we're just on the verge of him coming back to superhero movies with Doctor Strange and in the multiverse of madness, which I just saw the latest trailer for that last night. And I can't wait.
00:24:45
Speaker
And it's funny to see that all of this happened because they thought he was a nobody director who couldn't handle a property like the shadow. And then so then he creates something that is very clearly influenced by the shadow, by the pulp heroes, by also Batman and all that kind of stuff. But it's also influenced very heavily by his love of horror. Like you can see the horror influences all over this.
00:25:14
Speaker
like the way the cloak looks just like it's very evocative of you know the Phantom of the Opera or he can get his face too right the way the scarring works only the only clean part of his face is where the one patch yeah oh i love that
00:25:31
Speaker
Oh man and like how his hands were so burned and scarred that like you know in that one scene where they're you know it's like uh stop motion to do that hand while he's typing because it's so damaged but like and that's a brilliant thing like having him be so damaged
'Darkman': Themes and Performances
00:25:49
Speaker
lets it make sense when he can put on this, you know, artificial skin, masks and gloves, and he's not suddenly looking 40 pounds heavier than the guy that he's supposed to be imitating. Right. You know, when you don't have lips, you put a mask on and look exactly like that.
00:26:05
Speaker
And that was a brilliant, like you said, move of kind of necessity and stuff to make it work and make sense. And I, oh, I love everything about it. I love the tortured hero. I love him being crazy. I love him having to scrounge his stuff out of the trash and trying to make it work. I love him trying to, you know, get his life back together and realizing that, you know, he's never going to be who he was and has to be okay with this now. And
00:26:35
Speaker
And it's a weird movie. It is weird. And it's a thing of its time. And like, you know, some of the stuff you look back at now, you're like, Oh, my mercy. But, oh, man, it was it, it spurred my imagination as a kid. And
00:26:50
Speaker
Like one of the characters that's going to end up in the background of Green Zone is a superhero that I made up like in the 90s, probably late 80s. And he started out as an analog for Captain America, you know, like the kind of hero that, you know,
00:27:06
Speaker
was the national hero, but he was much more of a punisher field to him and the media spends all the time trying to cover up what he does and make him a hero, even though he's really not. And, but he's been doing it for so long, like, eventually in my mind and in the storylines that I've been working on.
00:27:25
Speaker
he became a lot more like dark man, because he's been doing this for like 40 years. So he's been burned and cut and scarred so much that underneath his suit, he's Freddy Krueger now. And there's no point in ever taking the suit off. There's no point in ever trying to have a secret identity, because he just looks like a monster outside of his suit. And so it's as much for his protection as it is for anything else now.
00:27:50
Speaker
And he's just always capital punishment now, and always angry. And, you know, but that was totally influenced by dark man and him being scarred all over. And, you know, thinking of what it must be like for him suffering and that, you know, luckily his pains cut off but capital punishments not so he gets to feel it all.
00:28:12
Speaker
Well, and the way Neeson plays it is because there's so much so much of this movie is Neeson acting without the benefit of being able to use his own face. Like, I mean, I don't think this movie would have been made in the same way if Neeson was the star that he is like today because his face is, you know, completely covered in makeup throughout most of the movie here.
00:28:38
Speaker
And he does a lot of work. I never realized how intense his eyes are until I until I saw him in this movie. And like I I had seen him in some things before, but I didn't know who he was until a dark man like that's where I first saw him and fell in love with him. And, you know, like to me, he's always the dude that played dark man and then went on to do other stuff. But but yeah, and looking back at it now, like,
00:29:07
Speaker
like I always remembered in the last scene and I tell you I loved Evil Dead. I always remembered in the last scene when he disappears in the crowd that you know some handsome dude turned around. I did not realize until I rewatched it the other day that that was Bruce Campbell. Yeah.
00:29:22
Speaker
turned around. And it got me thinking like, how much different the movie would have been if it had been Bruce Campbell in that spot or somebody else. And like, I think Bruce Campbell would have done awesome as dark man. But Liam Neeson just nailed it as the scientist. I believe that he was the scientist, you know, and the actress that plays his girlfriend, like, I believe they're scientists, they could have gotten
00:29:47
Speaker
you know, much more traditionally attractive people, you know, they could have had some bucks, some busty blonde on there to be the scientists that I would never have believed. But like, I believe these people figured this stuff out. I believe she's a lawyer. I believe he's a scientist that very nearly has nailed this artificial skin. And, you know, and then I thought was the smartest choice in the whole thing, that I buy who they are originally,
00:30:13
Speaker
And then Liam Neeson was such a good actor to bring that kind of intensity when so much of his face is covered up. And
00:30:22
Speaker
And admittedly, the other actors did a good job, too, when they are Liam Neeson in disguise. Like they all did such a good job of looking awkward and catching some of those mannerisms and stuff that he was playing that that was brilliant. And like it blew my mind when I saw this movie and.
00:30:44
Speaker
you know, Durant comes out, and it's Benny from LA law. Like, that's where I knew him from, you know, playing the, you know, mentally challenged guy that works at the law office. And all of a sudden, he is this terrifying character.
00:31:03
Speaker
And for a hot minute, I had trouble buying like, I was like, wait a minute. I know who this is, Benny. I know who this is. But very quickly, you know, after the first couple of scenes, when they like start taking out other crime bosses and stuff, I was like, OK, this dude is scary. This dude is legit, like, messed up, scary. And
00:31:23
Speaker
He has gone on to play such scary characters since then. And he plays like such a good villain and stuff now that I just it was an amazing turning point for me in this movie. It's something I'll always remember, because it was one of the first times that I realized like you could break that mold in your head of where somebody is, what a character is. And this guy is this character and break it and he could be somebody completely different.
00:31:50
Speaker
and enjoy it just as much. And it was a it was an eye-opening experience for me in this movie. See, I'd never seen L.A. Law still haven't seen him. So I had no frame of reference for Larry Drake that other people did. In fact, it wasn't until last night when I was doing research for this episode that I that I found out that he had played this mentally challenged character on L.A. Law. And oh, yeah. And just like how
00:32:14
Speaker
how much he really relished that idea. In fact, I mean, he loved this role so much that he reprised it two more times. I mean, he was in, he was in the one of the terrible sequels. Sequels. Like Liam Neeson is not coming back, but he comes back. But even they even did a TV show pilot for this in 19 because the sequels came out in 95 and 96, I believe, and they were shot back to back. And he was actually supposed to be in the third
00:32:44
Speaker
It was actually originally return of Durant was actually supposed to be the third one originally, but they had I don't remember what the reasoning was, but they had they had flipped them so that, you know, the return of Durant actually became dark man two and then die dark man die became dark man three. And they just died. Dark man died. But then they had they had done a pilot in 1991 or 1992.
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah, and I just found out about this last night. And apparently it's floating around there on like Daily Motion or Vimeo or whatever. So you can find it, you can watch it. I haven't watched the app, it's only like, I think it's only like a 20 minute pilot or something like that. But they did the origin story over again and they brought Larry Drake back as Durant. So we played this part three times and two of those times was in, but he loved it so much that he even played it in these lesser adaptations.
00:33:39
Speaker
And he's gone on to play such amazing villains on, you know like Stargate and stuff and all kinds of things that I, I really love it but then a lot of people like you know when they get a hold of playing villains they realize how much fun it is, and how you know you get to be so over the top and like get to do stuff that you never get to do otherwise.
00:33:59
Speaker
And he was really close to being typecast forever. He had done a lot of stuff before Benny. I didn't realize until I was researching this for our conversation that he had done so much stuff before that. But when I was a kid watching LA Law, I believed he was Benny. I thought that was who he was. And then all of a sudden, he's this terrifying guy that's just snipping people's fingers off with his cigar trimmer.
00:34:28
Speaker
man, I just loved him and
00:34:31
Speaker
I love I mean, so much of this movie is so over the top. It is just so much fun. And like, Sam Raimi has said so many times that like, he's not trying to make the smartest movie or like the high art, he's trying to make it fun. And he he goes all out to make this thing fun. You know, we just accept that gangsters have giant crates full of cars and gangsters with loaded guns in them.
00:35:00
Speaker
waiting to drive out of the crates at a moment's notice and run over their own people. Because, you know, reasons. You're a gang leader. You don't think these things through. And sure,
00:35:12
Speaker
Our gang of like, you know, six guys can walk in with one hidden weapon and take out 80 guys with machine guns pointed at them. Absolutely. It's just so much fun. I love it. And like, there's gritty real stuff like I mean, like, do you see dark man like sleeping in the gutter in the rain, just wind blowing and whipping and freezing?
00:35:34
Speaker
as he has to try and find, you know, some kind of cover, some place better than living in an alley. And the pain of trying to track down his girlfriend when he's all burned and scarred and covered in bandages, and she screams and runs away from him. And like, there's real stuff in there that's gritty and, and is juicy. And then there's just silly stuff like when he's dark man's hanging from the helicopter, and he's like, run across the top of trucks and stuff.
00:36:03
Speaker
There was no reason to put that in. But it was fun. And it got a chuckle out of me in a very exciting scene. And oh, man, like I said, he's just Sam ramying it up in this movie. And it is much fun to watch. We're going back to something you said earlier about Bruce Campbell and his cameo at the end. I never realized it was Bruce Campbell until years after I'd seen this movie and and
00:36:29
Speaker
And it's funny because that actually is a good segue to talk about some of the behind the scenes stuff that was happening here because Sam Raimi was such a, was such a young inexperienced director at the time.
Production Challenges and Creative Contributions
00:36:40
Speaker
The studio really did kind of fuck with him a bit while they were making this movie. And because one of the things he wanted was he had wanted, I just, Bruce Campbell at first, I had brain fart for a moment there. He had wanted Bruce Campbell to play dark man. That's, he, but,
00:36:58
Speaker
And like you said, you know, you can imagine Bruce Campbell doing this. And I love Bruce Campbell. Don't get me wrong. Absolutely. But he's, you know, he's got such a tongue in cheek element to his style of acting that I don't think you could have had him as dark man. And this movie would have had the same impact. I think he would have
00:37:21
Speaker
I think you would have, I think like things like the, you know, the dancing, like see the dancing freak dance that Liam Neeson does. I think it's, it's kind of funny when you watch it, but it's also a moment of, Oh, wow. This guy's really also scary. Yeah. Upsetting. And, and it makes you hurt for him at the same time. Right.
00:37:43
Speaker
don't know with the little bit of snark and, you know, sarcasticness and, you know, that comes through with Bruce Campbell sometimes, that that might have come off the same way. And I don't know. I mean, he might have played a great scientist. I don't know. I haven't seen him play that. You know, watching him play like an out of work former spy on burn notice. Freaking loved it. He did that job so well. And it fit him so good. And you know, Washington is
00:38:12
Speaker
as ash on the other evil dead and stuff fits him so great. But you know, he might, he might have done a great job at it. I don't know. But and I get like the studios being like, we don't want to risk this on somebody that doesn't have the same kind of name that we could get out of somebody like Liam Neeson, you know, and
00:38:36
Speaker
And I think choices for you. I think that was a, I think it was a smart choice because I don't think, um, and I could be wrong. Obviously, like you said, he could have done an amazing job, but I feel like if you had had Bruce Campbell in that dancing freak scene, I think it would have been, it would have come off as a lot more funny than it was supposed, than it was intended to be. Um, and.
00:38:59
Speaker
Yeah, I just I think he could have done the madness, but it would have been this kind of snarky kind of madness. It would have been something. It would have been probably more Deadpool than Darkman, I think. Absolutely. Yeah, that hits it right on the head. It would have been.
00:39:15
Speaker
I'd like to have seen that movie too. It would have been great to see, yeah. But I think we got, I think we were also, we were really fortunate that we got Liam Neeson in this. And it's funny because, you know, Liam Neeson now, in his Twilight years, has become, has like kind of reinvented himself as an action hero. When one of the first movies that a lot of American audiences would have known him from is an action movie.
00:39:39
Speaker
Absolutely. And I mean, I was really looking hard. And it could be a really good stuntman or something. But there's a whole lot of scenes that really look like I mean, and he's wearing a lot of makeup is darkening.
00:39:54
Speaker
But there's a whole lot of scenes like when they're in the high rise at the end on the high steel in the building that's under construction. And I mean, we know that they're standing on platforms that aren't very high and why not. But there's a lot of that stuff that really looks like it's Liam Neeson on there, where a lot of times it would be a stuntman doing it.
00:40:14
Speaker
Maybe it's a stuntman and really good makeup. I don't know. But it looked like he was doing a lot of those shots, which was impressive to me because I've watched it like three times in the last few days because I forgot how much I enjoyed it. I've been watching it on repeat. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was Neeson because he had talked about the the makeup job for this and how it had taken like
00:40:37
Speaker
And when they started doing it had taken like five hours to go through the make to sit in the makeup chair and they had eventually gotten so efficient they were able to cut it down to three hours. But he was also talking about how at the same time he was training for this this boxing movie that he was supposed to film right after this so he was up at like
00:40:54
Speaker
3 a.m. to like do training and then to to go and sit in the makeup chair and all this stuff. So I think that every time we see dark man's face like and like I said you know Liam Neeson's eyes I never realized how distinctive they are but I think that that is him in a lot of those scenes. Yeah that's the thing like it so clearly looks like him that it's hard to imagine that it's not
00:41:21
Speaker
Yeah, and also another interesting thing is talking about the level of talent and what people have gone on is the Coen brothers were actually involved in this too behind the scenes because- Oh yeah. Well, Frances McDormand is married to one of them and they were roommates with Sam Raimi at the time when he was putting this movie together. And they had done, and the Coens had done some uncredited rewrites on the script too. Wow, I did not know that.
00:41:51
Speaker
So yeah, I just found that out last night and that was another one of the little interesting things about this movie. But talking about what the studio wanted to do and this kind of plays into what you're saying about Sam Raimi's, you know, kind of approach to making movies. This was originally supposed to be like two hours his original cut was like two hours long and then the studio butchered it to 80 minutes, and then
00:42:14
Speaker
so much so that Danny Elpen threatened to walk off the project. And they were going to, and the studio would actually lock the cut. And they had said that, you know, they were prepared to release it as an Alan Smithy cut. But then at the last minute, some of the producers and Rami kind of like, you know, broke in and recut the movie and to make it the version that we have now. And
00:42:42
Speaker
And then by that point, it was too late to do anything else about this, and they had to release it as it is. But I mean, even that, like just reading the story, and you guys can, if you're interested in this, definitely look up the story behind it, because it's really fascinating. You can make a movie just about that, just having to, just behind the behind the scenes stuff on this, and I think it would be really interesting.
00:43:02
Speaker
That's the thing that frustrates me so much because, you know, you can have a really good idea and really good actors and all this stuff working together and still get a crappy movie when you have too many people too far up the ladder saying, no, no, no, we need to do this. We need to add this. We need to take that out. No, no, no. We need to do this because that'll make for a better happy meal toy. And, you know, whatever they're doing their reasons for, you know, it'll play better in China, whatever. And
00:43:31
Speaker
take great work from great actors and great writing and chop it up and make junk out of it sometimes. And it's really frustrating or worse make a joke out of it. And that frustrates me when you see people that really gave it their all
00:43:46
Speaker
But then by the time it gets out, it's a joke. And that's that's frustrating because like it could have been great sometimes. There's this there's this really delicate balance between push and pull when you're when you're working on a project because and you probably know this yourself being a creator to that.
00:44:04
Speaker
know, sometimes you do need someone to rein you in. You do need an editor or a collaborator or someone to say, you know, maybe you're pushing it too much there. But at the same time, it can go too far in the other direction. And I'm not sure if you ever saw The Death of Superman Lives. It was a documentary about the making of the- I haven't seen it yet. It's on my list of
00:44:27
Speaker
It's really it's a really great movie and one of the really interesting things about it is you watch that movie and you're watching and you realize that it's really kind of amazing with all the different pieces that have to go into it.
00:44:44
Speaker
how many good movies we actually do end up getting. Oh, yeah. And some of them have been working on it for 20 years to get some of these movies made finally. And then they go through so many changes before they get done that it's nothing like what they started with. Right. But, you know, it's amazing, like you said, that we get as many good movies as we do. But yeah. What do you think of
00:45:12
Speaker
Let's see, what was his name? Colin Freels as Louis Strack Jr. I think he'd made a really great villain and I had to think the first time I saw Strack on that sign when they're introducing him, I was like,
00:45:27
Speaker
Were they going for Stark? I just had to wonder, you know, where was that what they were shooting for? But anyway, he made a really great villain because I really bought him in the beginning as who he was pretending to be. And that, you know, he was just there to try and support Liam Neeson's girlfriend and be helpful. And, you know,
00:45:49
Speaker
Yeah, I might have gone into a little trouble with some tough guys, but we're working in construction and you know, I'm not really involved. Like it's the price of doing business. And, you know, but then as it goes on, you realize dudes as dirty as it gets dude is the powerhouse behind everything that's going on. I he did such a good job because I bought him in the beginning.
00:46:11
Speaker
And then was like, just totally hated him at the end of it. And, you know, and just like the goal at the end of it, when you've got dark man traps up at the high steel, and you've just pulled all this way, and you're like, hey, why don't you come work for me? Like, that is such a disconnected, like,
00:46:32
Speaker
you know, I do not understand what how the world works. I'm so used to getting my way. I'm so used to being the one in power and everybody doing what I say. Like, it was a little thing, but it said so much about his character to me, that he could just be so arrogant and disillusioned that he just, you know what, you've been trying to kill me all this time. And my guys, why don't you come work for me, I could put you to use, like,
00:46:58
Speaker
That's just one of those brilliant moments that you hope to capture as a creator. And in fact, they were going to make him even more over the top. Bruce Campbell had talked about in his memoir that there was one scene in the rough cut where Strack spreads gold coins across the covers of his bed, strips naked, and just kind of like rise around the money while laughing.
00:47:20
Speaker
And the test audiences found it too disturbing. And Campbell thought that was the whole point of that scene. He said that that was actually his favorite scene in the movie. And when he was talking to one of the producers about it, because he had done some work with the sound and the editing on it behind the scenes, he was telling the producer that that was the best scene in the movie. And the producer said, he's like, well, if you want it so much, I'll give you a cut of that scene, because it's not going in the movie.
00:47:51
Speaker
Oh, that is amazing. Oh, I loved it. I would have loved to have been there for that. I would have loved to see that. I want to see the rough cut of this movie now, the two hour and one version. Oh, man, I would pay money to see the, you know, uncut Sam Raimi version of it. You know, that needs to be the new hashtag. Forget the start of it. I want to see the Sam Raimi cut a dark man. And he had like four other guys.
00:48:19
Speaker
And you know what, it's funny, I was thinking about this because I had done an episode on the Phantom just a few months back. And just watching this movie last night and it made me think about the Phantom and the villain that Treat Williams, I think it was Treat Williams who played in that movie. And comparing him to Colin Friel's performance in this movie, they're very similar type characters where they're both kind of like these over the top villains, but whereas
00:48:48
Speaker
Treat Williams felt very out of place and a little bit too campy in the Phantom. I think Freels manages, I don't know if it's the tone of this movie or what it is, but it fits perfectly.
00:49:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah, he feels like a real dude. I mean, he he does not seem crazy over the top. Like, there's a lot of weird stuff in here, like Durant snipping off people's fingers to take them like that's that's a very particular thing to do. Like, that's that's weird, even for, you know, a criminal. But like,
00:49:25
Speaker
He doesn't feel like a like an out of place villain in this. Like he just feels like, you know, he's been rich. He's been powerful. He's been using his power to get his way for so long. And he's going to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. And we have seen lots of people with money that do that and have no problem trying to buy people off and do whatever they can to get their way, push people around. And he's been able to get away with it until now. Like he is a completely believable villain in this, which
Villains and Effects in 'Darkman'
00:49:56
Speaker
is sorely missing in a lot of movies, you know, like a lot of times either the villains don't feel complex and real enough, or they're too far over the top, or they're all hehehe, I mean, evil for the sake of evil, because I love evil. And that just, you know,
00:50:12
Speaker
people don't just wake up wanting to eat babies and stuff like, you know, you're not that doesn't happen. But this dude just being born in a rich family being that spoopy and that greedy sound, you know, yeah, I asked my wife because she had deeds to property that I needed. So I put her on a plane and you know, I landed on my feet. She did. Like,
00:50:37
Speaker
That's foul. But like people do that. You know, that's believable. People will kill for less than that. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:50:48
Speaker
Oh, you know, another thing I want to talk about is just the makeup in this and and like I'm I'm not someone who's anti CGI. I love CGI. I think that we wouldn't have gotten, you know, even a fraction of the superhero movies that we now get thanks to CGI. You could not do the Spider-Man movies the way we've done. Oh, absolutely not. And so but still, there is something to be said about about there is something to admire about practical effects. And I mean, the the makeup job that they did on Liam Neeson is just
00:51:19
Speaker
And it looks like his lips are gone. Like, yeah, they he did such a good job. And I was looking back at it the second time I rewatched it recently. Like, he has to be careful just when he's speaking and stuff, that those teeth aren't coming out at you when he moves his lips. Like, I seriously was wondering, was he just mouthing the words the first time opening his mouth and then
00:51:43
Speaker
like lip syncing to it later like I'm curious about that because you would think with all the movement in our lips his teeth would have to move out a lot more than they do it was really well done like it it
00:51:57
Speaker
doesn't look like it's bulked onto his face and then cut out to give you that depth. It looks like they cut into his face, which is amazing. Like I was looking at the whole time wondering, where is his hair? Like, how did they get this on and not have a big poofy part on the top of his head to cover up all of his hair?
00:52:16
Speaker
And they did such a good job. But the makeup they did on the other actors when he's pretending to be them was really good and very subtle. Like there's a very subtle difference in their skin tone and stuff from everybody else in the scene. Oh, I never noticed that.
00:52:33
Speaker
they look just a little bit fake like you know like Durant looks just a little bit off compared to everybody else when it's dark man pretending to be Durant or like the scene in the diner where I don't remember what his name is big fat dude with the tattoo on the side of his head yeah
00:52:53
Speaker
When he pulls at the skin on the side of his neck and it comes out with this this long string of like, you know, silicone makeup and snaps back, it was seamless beforehand. He pulls this thing out and stretches it and snaps back and it's seamless after that is so hard to pull off right and to make work like.
00:53:14
Speaker
that stuff, those things I was really impressed with. And then, you know, you go into the special effects where their faces are bubbling and the smoke's coming out and all that stuff. Oh, that was fun. And for all of that to be practical, because I mean, there, I mean, there was a little bit of CGI back then, but you could not make it look real enough. Not to that extent. Yeah.
00:53:35
Speaker
like making a stained glass monster come to life that looks weird and artificial. OK, that's one thing. But you couldn't pull off like smoke pouring out of the neck of your shirt. And it was so good. And being able to act against that, you know, being able to see what you're reacting to and not having to act against a tennis ball on a stick like that, it leads for so much better performances and so many little happy accidents and stuff that happen.
00:54:04
Speaker
You mentioned the teeth and actually that was actually the hardest part of performing with the makeup because he didn't want the teeth to move at all. And he said speaking with those false teeth was really the most difficult part of the performance.
00:54:18
Speaker
And also, you know, going back to what we're saying about was it him was it how much it was him how much for the stunt man. Apparently he had nice and it really wanted that he really liked the idea of try having to perform behind this mask and the makeup.
00:54:35
Speaker
So having the opportunity to do all these types of things and trying to mote through the makeup. So looks like, I think most of the time you see him on screen, especially when it's close ups, that's actually him on screen. It's not a stunt man.
00:54:53
Speaker
it. I really enjoyed it. Like when I first started playing it again the other day to rewatch it for this interview getting, you know, really bone up on it again. At first, I was like, Oh, my goodness. And like, it was like, it's a very like 80s 90s movie.
00:55:12
Speaker
But man, like I've watched it three times since I first started it the other day. I've thoroughly enjoyed it like I enjoy it as much now as I did back then. And it's still spraying my imagination now, which is one of those things like there's just
00:55:31
Speaker
You know, as a creator, like there's a handful of things that just really get under your skin and send your imagination in new directions and open up new tracks of creativity that you didn't realize were there before. And this for me is one of those. And I'll always love it for that, even though it's camping, even though it's, you know, so over the top in some places. But I loved it. Well, I think that's one of the
00:55:58
Speaker
That's one of the charms of Sam Raimi, is that he's able to do these movies that are campy, but they'd over, again, just like Colin Field's performance, right? They managed to tow that line where this manages to stay serious enough, but still have fun with it. It doesn't get too dour, but it doesn't go too campy. It finds that line and just rides it all the way to the end.
00:56:25
Speaker
And that's the thing I like about, you know, like the later Evil Deads and Army of Darkness and stuff like that. Like it does funny and it does scary and it doesn't have to sacrifice either one of those. Like it can still be really scary and startling and freaky and it can be funny and neither one of those have to be sacrificed. Like, you know,
00:56:48
Speaker
one or the other. It's not a silly movie with monsters in it. It's not a terrifying monster movie with a couple of jokes like it goes back and forth and rides that line so beautifully. And it's fun. That's the thing that's that's Sam Raimi in a nutshell. It's fun. I don't care about anything else. It's like 90s comic books, you know, it's flash over substance sometimes. But it's you know, you're gonna have a good time.
'Darkman's Legacy and Future Prospects
00:57:14
Speaker
The rule of cool applies, you know, and
00:57:18
Speaker
He makes cool movies. I mean, I mean, he's still doing that now. I mean, you know, I'm thinking about when you were talking about that and what kept going through my mind was not the evil dead stuff, but also like drag me to hell, which also has that very same idea where it's this it's this movie that is genuinely terrifying in a lot of places, but it's also pretty funny in a lot of places, too. And it manages to find that perfect balance.
00:57:42
Speaker
Yeah, it does. And, you know, and he's still doing it like, you know, in Spider-Man and stuff like there's places that are funny. There's places that are scary and you could bounce back and forth between them and. Oh yeah. I mean, that, what I keep thinking about is the scene in Spider-Man 2 when Dr. Octopus wakes up and the tentacles are attached. That's just like straight up. He just goes right back into his forward toolbox when he's doing that scene and it's awesome.
00:58:10
Speaker
like, and you see the same thing in dark man, like, you know, seeing that camera angle from from the bullets point of view, as it's shooting through the air at somebody, and seeing that camera angle from the tentacles as they're coming at you, and seeing the camera angle in the evil dead from like the hidden monster in the woods angle coming at you, like, it is, he's so good at those tropes, you know, he's nailed it down after this time, and knows when to throw them in and how that raises the drama and stuff. And
00:58:40
Speaker
and makes it seem so much more visceral and scary. And it's so much scarier when you can't see the danger coming. You know, you see that it's coming fast, but you can't see what it is. And oh, that's, that's good stuff. Yeah. I mean, it's too bad that the studio did muck with it because apparently
00:58:58
Speaker
you know, he had a, it was a really difficult time with him making this movie. And he doesn't really talk about it. Kind of like with Dave Fincher and Alien 3, you know, that's not a movie. If you ask him about Alien 3, he will not talk about it. That's, it seems like it's kind of a similar thing with Raimi and Dark Man. And, because they had done a, there was an article I think about a few years back where they had talked with a lot of the cast and a lot of the producers and people who had worked on the movie. And,
00:59:27
Speaker
They had asked Ramey if he wanted to have anything to say and he just declined to participate in it completely. So yeah, it's really kind of disappointing that he created this really interesting concept and it was just kind of taken away from him and it does make me wonder if we could get any sort of
00:59:48
Speaker
dark man stuff coming out now, like a new TV series, a new comic book or, cause they've done some marveling. Oh, a Netflix series. A Netflix series. That would be so good. Oh.
01:00:01
Speaker
I would love that. I would love to do like, you know, the comic book of it. I I I love the whole aspect with the artificial skin. I have always loved a master of disguise. You know, hold on, pull off your mask and stuff. But for it to be actual living flesh, you know, like it's not a rubber mask that you would be able to spot. It's actual living flesh. And for him to be so burned and so hurt that, you know, that
01:00:31
Speaker
It's such a great combination of ideas mixed together with, you know, him being homeless and struggling to survive and having to deal with all these injuries and looking like a terrifying monster and his life's been stripped away from him and he can't feel anything. And so many juicy things. I would love to do the comic book.
01:00:51
Speaker
I mean, I would jump at that. It'd be even cool if because when they had done that oral history and Frances McDormand and Liam Neeson were talking about it, you know, they had fond memories of working on it. They they they're really proud of what they had done on this. I mean, it'd be cool to do a continuation and revisit them that ignores dark man two and three and see. Come back now and see the older dark man. Yeah.
01:01:19
Speaker
Know what you've done. I'm coming to get you. Yeah. Oh, man. That would be how you could do such things with that. Oh, let's get my imagination coming down.
01:01:30
Speaker
I mean, it's such a it's such a cool movie. It's it's so underrated. I don't even know if this is available because I got the DVD. So I'm not sure if it's available streaming anywhere. It is. You have to write it like I rented it for like four bucks on Amazon Prime. So it is out there. Absolutely. I know I have the DVD somewhere, but in the move, it got packed up in my son, put all the DVD somewhere. And I have yet to find where they went.
01:01:56
Speaker
We're presently in the process of moving ourselves. I know exactly what it's like. I had to work everything together to get my desk ready for this show this morning. But yeah, it's such a good movie and I wish we could see something else happen with it. Apparently Universal didn't even know they still had the rights to it because they had made a dark man action figure, I think it was like a few years ago.
01:02:21
Speaker
company that made the action figures it was like this kind of specialty company and they talked to Universal about it and Universal was like oh we don't have the rights anymore and the guy's like well you kind of have to because I don't think they gave the rights to Sam Raimi when he was still like a small-time director and they checked and they looked at like oh yeah actually we do still have the rights to it. Yeah and like that breaks my heart because like
01:02:48
Speaker
I mean, I know they're the movie studio. I know they put up the money for it and stuff, but like they didn't write it. They didn't create it. They didn't, you know, like it breaks my heart that, you know, like I can make my book green zone and I own the rights to that. I control what happens to it. I am in charge of whatever licensing we do from here on out. If Netflix wants to make an animated series, that's between me and them to work that out, but it's still my property. It's my star Wars or whatever, you know?
01:03:17
Speaker
Like the thought of creating something so cool that has spurred so many people's imaginations, you know, that were old enough to have enjoyed it in the theater or on VHS or whatever at the time, like to know that you had a part in that.
01:03:33
Speaker
And it's not yours anymore. And they can do whatever they want to do with it and, you know, ignore it or run it into the ground. That's a shame. He really did create something amazing. And it's a shame that they ruined the experience to the point that he doesn't want to do anything with it anymore. Yeah. But I get it. I've worked on a couple of books that are hanging on the wall.
01:03:51
Speaker
that I'd rather not work on again down the road. It was too difficult of an experience. But a whole lot of these I absolutely loved and the creators are some of my best friends. But you know, not every experience goes that way. Right, right. Okay. Fish, anything else you want to mention about Darkman? I think I've pretty much said everything I have to say about this.
01:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, I've I've said just about everything I can say about it. I I'm a fan. I always have been a fan when I saw the list of movies that you've already covered and I saw that you hadn't done Darkman yet. Like this is a travesty. We have to talk about Darkman, even if I'm the only person in the world that loves it as much as I do. I had to talk about Darkman. No, I'm glad you suggested it because one of the things I do like to to do on the show and even though we do, I love the you know, I love the more
01:04:40
Speaker
bigger, popular, more mainstream stuff like the MCU and all that. But I also like going back and touching on some of these movies that maybe were not well known or maybe people have forgotten about or maybe unfairly judged the first time around.
01:04:54
Speaker
And so it's always cool to go back and look at some of those. And I think this is definitely one of those that fits. These help pave the way to get us to where we are now. Oh, you know, like movies like this led to stuff like The Crow and Blade and things like that that let the MCU be what it is now. If, you know, these hadn't have kept making Stepping Stone after Stepping Stone and showing the world that you can enjoy a superhero movie with popcorn at the movie theater.
01:05:22
Speaker
And it doesn't have to be, you know, the silly campy old 60s Batman. And, you know, I am eternally grateful, especially for the small movies that came out and helped fill those gaps for so long. Because, you know, as a kid who loved superheroes and movies and comic books and stuff, it was so rare to find a treasure like this that was coming out. And I absolutely loved it.
01:05:49
Speaker
Well, not only one to find one one of these that was coming out, but one of them that was good and that actually still holds up. I mean, that's absolutely that's a that's a big feat because a lot of the stuff that we got in the 90s, you know, some of it has its charm, but a lot of it does not hold up very well. Oh, they're blessed. It's hard. There was one I can't remember if it was black scorpion or what it was a lady with a black scorpion themed costume and her car transformed into a different type of car.
01:06:17
Speaker
I wanted to like it so bad because it was an obscure superhero movie and it was an indie film. Plus it's hard, it was bad. Oh my goodness. And they made like one or two of them, I think. It was so bad. But I watched all that weird stuff because, you know, I was looking for the next dark man that was going to come out. It was a TV series, actually. Oh, no, no, it was a Roger Corman Showtime movie, apparently.
01:06:45
Speaker
That's probably what you're talking about. Superhero comedy film that Roger Corman produced. And then later they had done a TV show based on it. But yeah, there was a lot of that kind of stuff lying around back then. Anyway, Fish, why don't you tell people where they can find you?
01:07:04
Speaker
I am on all of the social medias as Mr. Fish Comics, so you can find me there. I have a TikTok stream where I show time lapse videos of the projects that I'm working on, and I give a lot of advice to other artists and creatives or people that are looking to make comics or looking to commission artists, as I really believe in giving back as much as we can.
01:07:27
Speaker
I get to spend my whole day drawing comic books. I mean, I'm living my dream every day. So I may not be as rich and famous as some other guys. But if you want to do this for a living, I've got a lot of advice that can help you get there and go Mr Fish dot com G O M R F I S H dot com. That will always take you either to the next Kickstarter for Green Zone or to the online shop where you can buy the issues that are out now, because by the time this comes out,
01:07:56
Speaker
the first issue should be dropping at the store and the next Kickstarter for the second issue should be coming out soon. And like I said, if Green Zone does as well as I think it's going to do and the fans enjoy it, then it's going to be going full time next year and be coming out every other month. So keep your eyes peeled for it. OK, very cool. Fish, thanks so much for coming on. It was fun conversation. Great to great to have you on. Great to meet you. And Motham Rol can come on again if you want to.
01:08:24
Speaker
Absolutely, man. I had a lot of fun. I love talking. Okay, great. All right. That does it for this episode of Superhero cinephiles. Our website is superhero cinephiles.com. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Supercinemapod. Also, Superhero cinephiles is our Facebook group. Please make sure to like us, rate us, review us on Apple podcasts, anywhere else you get your podcasts. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.
01:08:51
Speaker
You have been listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at SuperCinemapod. Join our Facebook group by searching for Superhero Cinephiles where you can interact with us and other superhero fans. If you'd like to support the show, you can become a regular supporter at Patreon,
01:09:06
Speaker
or make a one-time donation through PayPal, both of which can be found at our website, SuperheroCinephiles.com. If you buy or rent any movies through the Amazon links at our site, it helps support the show. Please be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:09:40
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.