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Home , Roy Lee, Spec script, The Grudge 2, Vertigo Entertainment

Daniel Herbert Remaking Transnational Hollywood An Interview with

The recent cycle of Hollywood remakes of East Asian RL: Actually, the Pusan Festival a few years ago constitutes one of the most important changes in was the first time I’d been to Korea. I didn’t speak Hollywood’s transnational composition. Producer Roy Korean because my parents just spoke English to Lee of is immensely responsible me, and I don’t speak Korean now. for this industrial and cultural change. Lee produced (2002), (2004), and most DH: In terms of your background, do you feel they recently (2006), and has negotiated deals [your parents] had any particular influence on the for numerous other Hollywood remakes of “foreign” films career you chose, or do you feel you’ve done things currently in development. differently than they would have imagined?

The following is an edited transcript of an interview I RL: Definitely very differently. They would have conducted with Lee on September 9, 2006. wanted me to continue being a lawyer and having a safe career, of having a steady income from working in a corporate law firm. Daniel Herbert: Could you talk about where your parents are from, and when and how they moved DH: When you were studying law, what type of from Korea? law did you think you would practice?

Roy Lee: They moved from Korea in the early 60s, RL: I was interested in corporate law, transactional I think was 1962. My father came here to go to work, where one company would acquire another medical school and did his residency here. I was one just to increase the value of everything. Almost born in the late 60s, in 1969, in . We like the new heads of Paramount. Those guys were moved to Washington D.C. when I was three. We former corporate transaction people. They look for lived there while my father was working at various deals and build companies. hospitals. DH: And you imagined you would be part of those DH: Did they have strong connections with family kinds of negotiations? in Korea? Did they go back? Did you go there?

94 Hybrid Media, Ambivalent Feelings Hyung-Sook Lee, editor, Spectator 27:2 (Fall 2007) 94-100. Herbert

RL: I was. When I was working in the law firm in DH: How much of the business, would you say, is D.C., I did corporate transactional work. devoted to remakes versus original scripts?

DH: That kind of experience must play into what RL: In general, now, I’d probably say [remakes are] you do now, in terms of negotiating deals. about 25%, which is a substantial amount. When you say remakes, it could also be adaptations of TV RL: It doesn’t really. I feel like it’s all common shows. But if you’re thinking about adaptations, sense. If there’s a person willing to sell and there’s that’s probably more than half, up to 75%, of all a person willing to buy, there’s always a way to make material – things that are based on books, or comic a deal. I don’t think that is something you need to books, or just other mediums. Whereas it seems go to school or practice law to realize. like it’s rare that an original idea and a spec script are made into movies. DH: When and how did you decide to go into the entertainment business? At our company it’s probably more than half devoted to remakes, mainly because that is what is expected RL: It was in September 1996 when I first moved of us from the studio system. It was never our out to California. I was leaving the law firm and intention to always be just remakes. It worked out I moved out here just to try something different. very well for us to start with. We didn’t see a reason I had a feeling I’d go into entertainment in some to deviate from that if things were going smoothly way, whether film, music, or television, and it just in terms of projects going into production. so happened that my first job was in the . DH: I’m sure that you must go out to a lot of festivals. I worked for this company Alphaville. At the time we were doing remakes of The Mummy (original RL: I don’t go out to festivals so much any more 1932, remake 1999) and The Day of the Jackal because a lot of the projects are sent to me early (original 1973, remake 1997). I watched how the in the stages of either development or as they are development went through with those films and finished. So I would get the scripts and rough-cuts how it was not that difficult to be a producer. I of movies and then the final product of movies too, didn’t really see it as something that you needed to to see if they could get any traction on getting a go to film school to learn, which was all just based on studio to buy the remake rights. And the reason a relationships and identifying interesting properties lot of them do that is to offset some of the budgets and working with . of these movies, if they can sell some rights. It helps to raise the budget if it sells early, or it offsets some DH: It’s interesting that you were working on of the costs they’ve spent already. remakes as part of your introduction to the industry. [Could you give] your official title at Vertigo DH: You mean to offset the costs of the production Entertainment and describe what your day-to-day of the ? So someone from Japan or activity looks like for the most part [now]? South Korea will go to you, even during their own production or before, to sell their remake rights to RL: My official title is producer, and my day-to-day fund their own production? is actually producing movies. Producers are most like architects of the movies or even like a chef at a RL: Just to see whether or not someone would restaurant. We put together the pieces that make buy a movie. the movie go forward. I don’t write it. I don’t direct it. I just help to put the whole package together and DH: That can’t have always been true. When would bring the project forward for a studio or a private you say that shift occurred? financier. RL: During the last couple of years, when these

Hybrid media, ambivalent feelings 95 Remaking Transnational Hollywood movies started doing well financially and the Ring book probably wouldn’t have been translated studios started getting more and more money for in English if it hadn’t been a successful movie. It the rights. doesn’t really matter if these are remakes of foreign movies or just books or original screenplays, just DH: And you have a first-look deal with Focus something where the story interests me. It’s a lot Features? easier to be able to judge the viability of a movie by watching a movie that’s already been made and RL: . hasn’t been seen widely by the US audience.

DH: Who do you talk to most regularly at DH: How would you characterize the difference Universal? between producing a remake versus an original script? RL: The studio executives, like Scott Bernstein or Peter Kramer, the senior VPs. RL: It’s a similar process, but it’s an easier process to get a remake into production because it takes less DH: They will then green-light things? work to convince the financier, be it a studio or an independent financier, to fund a project because it RL: The process is a lot slower than just green- feels like a safer to work on something that is lighting. We first have to identify projects. From successful before – financially and commercially and there, we either have hired a beforehand or creatively – by showing movies. Like, “that really work with the studio to find a writer. worked, but these are the things I could improve.” And the fact that it’s already been seen by a huge An example would be The Host (2006), where we audience overseas and been successful there, but saw the movie and identified it as something that that’s not the audience we’re targeting. they wanted to try to adapt to the US market. And then we go out to different writers and figure out DH: You save time and money on script development who the person would be to write it, and then we’d and audience research. Have you ever tried to wait for the script. Then the process would either calculate the savings of doing a remake versus doing be a long process of getting a good script, or a short an original script? one, where a first draft comes in where we could attach a director. That is the next step, finding the RL: No, I never really thought of it that way. It’s director, who then is the person who attracts the hard to say, because the original scripts we have cast. At that point, when we have the script, the could take longer, but I have no idea how much. The director, and the cast in place, the studio will green- costs of doing a remake vary from hiring a million- light the movie. dollar writer to a $75,000 writer. The difference between the payments of the writers for The Ring DH: Which do like working on more? Do you like and The Grudge was over half-a-million dollars. So developing original scripts or do you like working it’s hard to gauge how that affects the development on remakes? Do you ever feel that you’ve been of original scripts, because they vary too. Sometimes pigeon-holed into the remakes category? you can buy a script for $100,000 and pay that writer to work on it, but then you bring in a million-dollar RL: I want to work on things that have interesting writer to go into production or use that one script stories. It doesn’t matter where the stories come and go all the way through. I’ve seen that in the from, because a lot of the movies we are remaking case of The Strangers (2007), where they bought a are based on books that were originally published in script and they had the original writer all the way other countries. So those are books that we would through. It was substantially less than some of the have no access to because we wouldn’t have translated remakes we’ve done. copies of them. Prior to these remakes being made, the books would’ve never been really translated. The DH: Do you feel like the remake wave has slowed

96 FALL 2007 Herbert down since the initial boom after The Ring? RL: Yeah, it was like thirty movies [that got remade]. RL: No. It is one of these things where there’s always going to be an appetite for film projects. DH: I also think there’s a certain way that Asia There was a boom in terms of the acquisition of the and Asian culture is seen as new and fresher than remake rights, because it was almost like opening a Europe, which is seen as old culture. door that hadn’t been opened before, so there was so much to choose from. There’s always going to be RL: It also could be the emergence of these some tapering off…sort of like cherry-picking the markets making their own homegrown films. They best projects that the studios feel are most viable for hadn’t been making commercial films – and that’s remaking. But there’s always going to be an inflow a subjective term – commercial films, likeThe Host, of new material that’s being produced by foreign which is horror, or (2002). They are territories that potentially can be remade. movies that had rivaled the quality of Hollywood movies, because of the amount of investment that’s It is almost like the emergence of video games coming into the film industries as well as the talent being adapted into movies. Prior to Super Mario that’s either coming to the US and learning or Brothers (1993) and whatever those movies were, learning through watching a lot of other movies and there’d never been movies based on video games. becoming filmmakers of commercial movies, rather But because they saw the viability of some of the than just the art-house style of movies, which felt movies, like Resident Evil (2002), it opened the door like more of the case in the early 80s and any time to other movies being adapted. But, it wasn’t just prior to that. like a phase or a wave of movies and then it would stop. They [the studios] will always consider video DH: Similarly, then, why horror? Why is horror games as something to adapt into films. It is sort the genre [of so many remakes]? of like you open the door and it will be an ongoing thing. Probably the same could be said about the RL: I think that it is an issue of the genres that are early years when there was the first adaptation of a most easily adaptable. Because horror and high- novel. Some were successful and some weren’t, but concept comedies, or any type of high-concept it’s always been considered as one of the sources of movies, are easier to adapt. Because dramatic movies material. are very cultural or period pieces are very cultural, they are almost impossible to adapt to the US DH: This may sound simplistic, but why East Asia? setting, which is what the remakes would normally Specifically, why remake East Asian films rather try to do. Barring The Grudge, they would try to set than European films right now? Why was that the the movie in the US. door to open? If they have lots of cultural issues, like family RL: It’s because the European films were exploited. relations or relations with the community, they’re I don’t know if exploited is the [right] word. A lot somewhat set to the region that the movies are of them were remade, and so it was just more of made in, and they are harder to adapt. But horror the inflow that is still a constant. There are movies, movies seem to be easier to adapt because something like The Last Kiss (2006) or other movies [from that was scary to the audience, say in Asia, would Europe] that are still being adapted. But it was a potentially be scary to audiences in the United just a new door being opened in Asia that hadn’t States. And also high-concept movies, like The Lake been considered before. House (2006), which was somewhat of a supernatural love-story. DH: At a certain moment, with films likeLa Femme Nikita (1990) and True Lies (1994) and even Three DH: In getting all this stuff from all the various Men and a Baby (1987), French films were… producers, have you noticed any difference between Japanese and Korean films?

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RL: Korean films…they try to make their movies in there are a lot of people interested, they have to pay a wide genre of “commercial movies.” Whereas the more. And part of the process of paying more is Japanese marketplace feels like they haven’t veered getting points on the back-end, net points or gross that much further from the art-house style movies points. or the horror genre, until recently, with movies like Bayside Shakedown (1998) or The Sinking of Japan DH: Is it typical to secure distribution rights when (2006). Now it feels like they’re trying to make negotiating a deal for remake rights? commercial movies, whereas before it felt like Korea was focused on making commercial movies. RL: It is not typical, but it happens occasionally. A lot of times the studios would actually require a DH: Do you need different approaches to adapting “holdback provision” on a project, where the original films from different countries? movie cannot be released during the six months prior to the release of the remake. So, they can RL: Not really. It’s more of that each movie stands release it any time before that or any time after that. on its own, in terms of whether or not it’s adaptable, They just don’t want to piggy-back and confuse the because there are so many types of producers in audience. I’ve read a lot of people complaining, Japan and Korea that make different kinds of saying “oh, they bought movies just to put on the movies. It’s hard to pigeon-hole them and say shelf.” But that’s not necessarily the case. It is just “this country is easier” or “this country is harder.” to reduce the confusion for potential audiences. They’re all based on the individual projects. Now it’s becoming somewhat blurred because one of our DH: For a specific window before the release. more recent deals was a Japanese book that was made into a Korean movie that we’re adapting for RL: Yes. So, like when the domestic distribution a US adaptation. rights for the original movie that sold for remake would have that provision when they’re selling it to DH: When you’re thinking about changing films any other potential distributor, just saying “if there’s and about how you need to change certain elements, a remake that’s being produced, you cannot release it sounds like you’re thinking of the US market and it six months prior to that movie.” not necessarily a global market. Do you keep that in mind? Do you think not just how you adapt And, these projects in development take years. So something for America but also for the world? the distributor would have to be sitting on it for at least three years to be able to complain that they RL: I think about making a movie as commercial as couldn’t release it because of a holdback provision possible, but making it feel real, rather than forced of the studio. Whereas they were just doing it to into feeling like we’re catering towards the German try to capitalize on the marketing of the studio. It’s audiences or the Asian audience. It’s like this movie not an onerous type of provision that keeps these is supposed to be a view of, or of wanting this movie movies from being released. to be set in, the US. Just like Japanese and Korean movies are targeted for their own marketplace, but DH: How aware do you have to be about different still trying to appeal to the world. copyright laws in different countries when you’re securing the remake rights? DH: In negotiating deals for remake rights, is it standard practice that the producers of the RL: They are very stringent about the due diligence original film will get points on the revenues of the that the studio goes through, in terms of going remake? through the chain of title, to make sure that everyone is signed off, that there could be no type of legal RL: It varies from project to project. If it’s a loopholes for someone to claim ownership of the competitive situation, a studio has to make it more movie. So, they usually have everyone involved appealing to go to the one studio over the next. If in the original movie sign off, saying that “this

98 FALL 2007 Herbert company that’s selling the rights has all the rights DH: Similarly, Takashige Ichise produced a number to sell.” Everybody, down from the director to the of films in Hollywood as well as in Japan, is that writer, even the composer, is asked to sign a sheet correct? saying “yes, we have sold all the rights.” RL: No, The Grudge and (2006) were Or, the company that’s selling the rights has to show the Hollywood movies. He has a lot of films in the contracts that they had with these people, who development. He just travels back and forth. He were involved with the original movie, showing that has a house here and a house in Japan. they had no control over the underlying property. DH: Do you have a regular working relationship DH: It seems to me that a large number of with him? Hollywood remakes of foreign films are directed by foreign directors, like Insomnia (2002) and RL: Yes, we are producing a lot of movies Dark Water (2005) and Lake House. How does this together. happen? DH: Who else would you say has been instrumental RL: Everything’s on a case-by-case basis, so it just in this wave of East Asian-Hollywood remakes? so happens that we do like to work with foreign talent and the studios like to take risks with tried RL: Well, Gold Circle is buying a lot, but whether and true directors from other countries. Even with or not they’re actually producing remains to be Dark Water, Walter Salles was an accomplished seen. There are one-offs, likePulse (2006) and a few director, and presumably [Alejandro] Agresti was others, that aren’t necessarily the movies that I would as well. So was [Takashi] Shimizu for The Grudge have picked to remake. So, there’s no one that’s done because he did a great job with the original. It feels as much or has as much in development as me. like a trend, but it’s weird, because it just happens to fall together that way. Even the movies we’re going DH: Why has no one copied you? forward with – Sassy Girl’s (original 2001, remake TBA) a first-timer,Addicted ’s (original 2002, remake RL: A lot of people tried, but the rights-holders TBA) with a Swedish director who’s a first-timer. of these movies would prefer to work with us on Were not targeting foreign directors. It just happens projects because of our track record, as opposed to that we get good scripts and foreign directors, that someone who is coming in saying that they can do are in demand by the US financiers, like the script. something with the projects. So, a lot of the movies It’s just the process of finding the right directors that are getting picked up and made by other buyers that would get a green-light are or have to be the are movies that we chose to pass on. directors that we can attract. DH: What are your thoughts about being a successful DH: With the success of The Ring, there was a lot Asian American working in Hollywood? of interest in [Hideo] Nakata. How much were you involved with him coming to the United States and RL: I don’t know that I’ve felt any type of racism at becoming a successful Hollywood director? all. It’s more of like – it just shows that anyone can enter the Hollywood system and succeed as long as RL: I talked to him regularly. We went over a lot you continue to do the work and you have the ability of material. He chooses things on his own but I was to identify projects that are somewhat commercial able to get him the material and have the meetings. and that’s about it. I haven’t really thought about it Like with The Ring 2 and this other one, I knew too much, because it was just something that came where he was and just dropped the script off at his naturally, in terms of my fitting into the system. house. Like with The Entity (1981), I gave him the DVD and he watched and said it could make DH: I ask because in other discussions of you, they’ll a good movie. say “he’s ethnically Asian and culturally American,”

Hybrid media, ambivalent feelings 99 Remaking Transnational Hollywood and that’s what allows for your unique position of RL: Probably doing the same thing, because brokerage between the East Asian market and the it’s interesting. Just producing movies that have US. How accurate do you feel that is? How do you commercial viability and that are fun to watch and feel about being described that way? that I’d be proud to say that I was part of making. It’s an ongoing process. Every day you don’t know RL: I don’t mind being described that way, because what new properties are being created and what I feel it’s somewhat true. I felt that there was some the studios are going to green-light. It’s always a level of comfort that the people that we’re dealing gamble of waiting for the next script to come and with in Asia felt when they were dealing with me as see what’s good. It’s something that I don’t think opposed to someone who is Caucasian. That could is going to change in terms of the outlook of what have given me an edge over some other people. But I want to do. on the studio side here, the studios and financiers, all they care about is somebody who can deliver DH: Thank you very much. projects and produce movies. It could be anyone from any culture. If they had the properties and they had the ability to work with people, that’s all they really need. I would like to thank Roy Lee for taking time and DH: Finally, where do you see yourself and your speaking with me. I would also like to thank Adam company in the next five-to-ten years? Where Turner for his help arranging my meeting with Mr. would you like to be? Lee.

Daniel Herbert is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Screen Arts & Cultures at the University of Michigan. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Critical Studies at the University of Southern California, working on contemporary transnational remakes. His essays appear in Film��� Q���������uarterly�������� and Millennium����������������������� Film Journal.

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