Film Stories with Simon Brew

In 1980, an option was taken out on Judge Dredd with a view of getting a movie of Mega City One's legendary law enforcer to the big screen. In the years that followed, it looked like Tony Scott might direct a film based on 2000AD comics' most famous character, with Arnold Schwarzenegger sniffing around.

In the end, 1995 saw a seasoned movie star in Sylvester Stallone and a twentysomething British film director called Danny Cannon realising the film. Turned out to be quite a story...
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Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett work as filmmakers under the collective name of Radio Silence, and they've been out and about promoting their new film, Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come.

The poor pair had to suffer a conversation with Simon for their sins, that touched on the new movie, on films such as Abigail and Devil's Due, plus tips of the hat to very expensive chairs and the Sega Dreamcast console...
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No two ways about it, 2000's X-Men movie was a massive gamble. At a time when studios needed movie star vehicles, 20th Century Fox found itself without a summer blockbuster due to a delay on a Tom Cruise film. It'd already greenlit and backtracked on X-Men once.

When the film finally got going? Well, there'd be well-reported behind the scenes problems. A star who wasn't cast until shooting began. And a story that requires a fair amount of use of the word 'allegedly'...
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In person, Simon got to meet - after years of interviewing them remotely - writers/producers/directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord. Chaos absolutely ensued.

In this Film Stories special, they talk about Project Hail Mary, the second best Rocky film, choosing to do a project because it's a good idea for a change, and a whole lot more...
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At the end of 1997, Kevin Costner's second film as director - The Postman - made its way into cinemas, at the end of a difficult year for Warner Bros. The $80m, three hour movie would be savaged by critics, and fail to find an audience - but there was quite the story behind the film, before and after.

There's quite a story too to Wag The Dog, a movie that could fit into the schedules when a far more expensive project was hit by a delay. And the political satire that followed made headlines for unexpected reasons within months of its release.

Stories of both are told in this episode...
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