Episodes

In 1982 British filmmaker James Scott had made an Academy Award winning adaptation of a Graham Greene novella. Adapting another Greene novella, this time as a feature length film, seemed like a natural progression of things. He had Greene's blessing to take his novella Loser Takes All and turn into a film that would feature stage star Robert Lindsay and Molly Ringwald. He had every element in place. Almost. The only thing left was getting American distribution. And that was found when a deal was...

Elaine May will always be best known for her comedy with Mike Nichols and her screenwriting skills. However, as a director May is an uncompromising force who seemingly would do whatever it takes to get her vision on the screen. This episode looks at the great lengths May went to in order to get Mikey and Nicky, a lifelong passion project, made and what that lack of compromise cost her. Author Patrick Cooper, director of photography/cameraman Jack Cooperman, and an unnamed crewmember help t...

The death of actor Peter Sellers in 1980 also seemed like the death of the Pink Panther film series. Instead, director Blake Edwards decided it was a new beginning. A beginning of numerous lawsuits, several flops, and one unseen television pilot. Author John LeMay and actor Charlie Schlatter help tell the story of what happened when Blake Edwards kept trying to keep the Panther on the hunt. Sources Books LeMay, John. Trailing the Pink Panther Films: An Unauthorized Guide to the Pink ...

Alan Dean Foster is an accomplished author in his own right, but in this episode of The Industry, he shares his process of writing movie novelizations and some of the more interesting novelizations he's done. From Star Wars, Alien, The Thing, The Black Hole, and even a very special episode of Maude, Alan shares many of his experiences in this unique writing world. Links Dan Delgado on Twitter and Bluesky Visit Alan Dean Foster's website Alan Dean Foster's Memoir of his noveliza...

Back in the 1970s and 80s if you walked into a bookstore you would undoubtedly had seen whatever the newest movie was in theaters sitting on a display in book form. The movie novelization is a world unto itself. We take a look at what it takes to adapt a movie to a novel, why the differences can be interesting, and get into why they exist in the first place. With insight from novelization experts Alan Dean Foster and Tim Waggoner, podcast host Paxton Holley, and filmmaker Whit Stillman, the rare...

By the 1960's director Alfred Hitchcock was at the absolute height of his powers. He had reached the point where he could make any movie he wanted. Yet as the decade rolled on. Hitchcock seemingly had project after project he had developed not blossom into a feature film. What was keeping Hitchcock from making the movies he really wanted to make? We attempt to answer this question with help from HitchCon's Joel Gunz and author Shawn Levy. Links: Listen to Lew Wasserman's story on Glitte...

Peter Bogdanovich's final film, She's Funny That Way, came and went and barely anyone seemed to notice. However, it wasn't the movie he really made. What Peter actually filmed was a black and white screwball comedy called Squirrels to the Nuts. What happened is a typical story. The movie didn't test well and the studio changed the film completely, and no surprise the studio version bombed anyway. The original version? That was believed lost to history. Or so we thought. A few years l...