Writer and producer Larry Wilson tells us about Cindy, Aliens, Young Sherlock Holmes and Beetlejuice.
Originally a writer, he then moved to development and the world of studio executives.
He moved back to writing, withBeetlejuice, which he also co-produced.
Oh, and theres thatBeetlejuicesequel too…
Lets start with what youre up to now, your webseries Cindy.
Can you tell us a bit about it?
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Yeah.
It was one of those ideas that I feel like I woke up with!
Cinderella, as a reality show.
And I was getting in pitch mode, and looking for work.
And I took it into Nickelodeon…
I worked it out a bit, a very brief beat sheet before I went in to pitch it.
But I got a meeting.
It was one of those meetings where they go we really love it, but…!
And I just thought, you know, Im very tired of hearing this.
I need to get something made.
And lets do it as a web series.
It started to come together from there.
I am so glad I made that choice.
Its been an incredible experience.
Its been a terrific process.
Cindy seems to be finding a way through that, though?
It was built in the 1920s, it was restored a few years ago.
And there was a midnight screening ofBeetlejuicethere on Friday night and I did a Q&A.
We were able to show theCindytrailer for the first time on a big screen.
And it played really great.
It could take off.
It might Im going to use the word!
But you never know until you know.
It seems special for you for a few reasons too.
Firstly, its very much yours.
Secondly, youre directing.
And thirdly, your daughter Autry Haydon-Wilson is in it as well.
Shes a beautiful girl inside and outside.
Along with that, shes a terrific actress.
She goes to a performing arts high school here in Los Angeles.
And then shes surrounded by really talented friends.
It just seemed a really likely path to go on.
The wicked stepshits are both from the same school.
My ex-wife is the fairy godmother.
It just, once I made this choice about Autry, became a friends and family project.
So is this doubling up as family therapy then?!
[Laughs] Thats another interview!
Where do you see the long term of Cindy?
Theres a couple of things.
Megan was actually a student of mine in one of my screenwriting classes just a couple of years ago.
The first bit of her work she submitted to me, I thought boy, this girls got something.
Every once in a while, you have a student whos just got that x-factor.
And so we went from being teacher-student to being collaborators and friends and all of that.
But to answer your question, Megan and I have already talked about a season two.
Weve got an idea.
Season one ends on a cliffhanger.
Season two will combine Cinderella withThe Wizard Of Oz.
But Oz is a little town on the way to the Death Valley desert.
Maybe Hulu, who knows.
Whats really important to us at this point is that we maintain creative control.
And that it remains a unit from the cast to Jason Hampton, the line producer.
Id love to use my DP, Jonathan Bruno again.
We keep the unit that did the first ten episodes.
It turned into a labour of love.
Noone got rich doing it!
We do have plans for it.
Id love to see it go on to an IFC or cable channel platform.
There might be a movie in it.
Were open to all options.
You bring up creative control there.
Is that a fair reflection for you?
Not overnight, but relatively quickly after we finished it.
I wont name names here, but I worked at Universal Studios at the time.
I was director of development for the director Walter Hill.
I had a very good relationship with a very prominent executive at Universal.
My initial reaction was wow!
He must have loved it or he wouldnt have wanted to see me so soon.
But I went into his office, and he literally said what are you doing with your career?
This piece of weirdness, this is what youre going to go out into the world with?
Youre developing into a very good executive.
Youve got great taste in material.
It goes to show, right?
We did draft after draft after draft.
And Michael and I felt by the end of that process that wed ruined the script.
It was very demoralising.
Then Tim got attached, and he went through his own battles, certainly.
Were you, or are you, involved in either of those?
But there was a time where there was an announcement from Warners that a sequel was getting active.
And I said to my agent, I think I should probably be writing this!
One of my favourite Hollywood quotes of all time!
So Im assuming that Im still too close to the material.
The thing I feel so strongly about a sequel, and I think everybody does….
I saw the new Michael Keaton filmBirdmana couple of weeks ago now, and I contacted Michael.
I hadnt had any contact with Michael sinceBeetlejuice.
But I loved the film so much that I contacted him and told him that.
And its true.Beetlejuicewas lightning in a bottle.
You get that alchemy.
You dont always know how its happening or whats in control of it.
And thats an amazing thing.
Whatever happens with the sequel, what I want it to be is good.
I want it to capture what the original film captured, and that in my mind is really tricky.
And I dont know.
When people say we have 1000 tracks, so well do it 1000 times better!
But all being said, there does seem to be a lot of serious talk about it.
Tim and Michael seem interested, and theyll have the same concerns that I do, I know that.
It was heating up, and so he said see who you could find.
I read theTerminatorscript, I got it through Jims agent.Terminatorwas either in production or pre-production, I forget.
It was just there on the page!
He brought in all this extraordinary conceptual artwork hed done for that, and then we talked aboutAliens.
It was me who brought Jim into the process, and beat the drum for him.
Believe it or not there needed to be a drum beaten at times.
It was my finest moment in many ways as a studio executive I guess.
I gather too that you came up with the original idea for Young Sherlock Holmes?
Young Sherlock Holmes, I was a studio executive at Paramount then.
I had left writing behind.
It was not going well.
Jeff Katzenberg really, really liked it.
He said if we can get Chris Columbus to write it then were going to do it.
And that started that process.
It became the film that it is, but honestly, the film was very disappointing to me.
It had strayed very far from my concept of it.
And it did okay-ish.
I dont think it was particularly successful either as a film or commercially.
It actually started a chain of events that we lead to me going back to writing.
And then the first thing I did wasBeetlejuice.
Which brings us full circle.
Cindy, your name is very much all over it.
Is this about the purest its got for you then?
Can you foresee, if it works, ever going back down the studio route?
Ive got projects in more traditional development, but Im loving this process.
But Im not getting any younger.
Im prepping a music video next, theres a graphic novel Im working on as a producer.
That could potentially become a film.
And Im not ready to go away!
Larry Wilson, thank you very much!
You canfind out more about Cindy, and back its Kickstarter appeal, right here.
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