Roger Corman has had a hell of a year. The lovable, 84-year-old maestro/producer/ director and mentor of B-movie entertainment was the recipient of the Honorary Lifetime Achievement Oscar (where Quentin Tarantino waxed effusively about his work), some of his older films have been lovingly re-released through Shout Factory, and the 3D remake of his 1978 film “Piranha” has received critical kudos and enough dough to merit a sequel, apparently. Additionally, “Piranha” has been made available for viewing On Demand via the “Movies On Demand” channel through FilmBuff. Oh, and “Sharktopus” is coming to the Syfy Channel. Never forget about “Sharktopus.”
ThePlaylist: We first wanted to congratulate you on your Lifetime Oscar win. Were you at all upset that the award wasn’t broadcast [he received the award at a private function in November of last year]?
Roger Corman: I was so happy to receive the award, that I was happy any way I could get it. It was just unfortunate that this year they had expanded the number of nominations for Best Picture and some other categories which meant they didn’t have enough time on the actual Oscar broadcast to give the special achievement, honorary awards and so forth. So they invented a Governor’s Ball, which was a very nice party, and they gave it to us at the Governor’s Ball. So I was happy to do that. I figured that I didn’t really care. In fact it was really nicer to get it at the Governor’s Ball.
Were you surrounded by all the directors that you have helped out in the past?
Yes. It was almost as if we were having our own private party within the party.
Are you thrilled by the new Shout Factory DVDs and Blu-rays?
Yes. They have done an exceptionally good job on the production. They have some additional features and the clarity of the films is the best we’ve ever had on DVD.
Watching the special features on these discs, it seems like it was a little easier to get an independent movie out to the theaters back then. Would you agree?
I agree that it was easier then. As a matter of fact this is the biggest change in motion pictures that I’m aware of in the last 20 years or so. Up until some time in the ’90s, every film we made got a full theatrical release. And we were dependent upon that. Starting, actually, in the late ’80s, but coming to fruition in the ’90s, the major studios, with these giant tentpole pictures and the huge amount of money they spend on advertising, began to dominate theatrical distribution, getting to the point where except for an occasional independent, medium budget film, [those] were the films that went into theaters. And it has hurt the independent films greatly.
You always seem to be on the cutting edge of distribution, from home video to Netflix to cable to On Demand. Is this just something you’re always really aware of, just in terms of how to get your films out there?
Yes. We have worked in all of those areas but you still cannot, from a dollars-and-cents standpoint, they don’t add up to what we’re able to get theatrically. You can’t get a giant hit, for instance the original “Piranha,” was a huge hit for us. We made it for $300,000 or less but we brought in millions of dollars from theatrical distribution. There’s no way you can get that selling it to pay cable or putting it out on DVD. So these are very bad times for independents. There’s one hope, and that is the internet. I think that we will come back as films are showing more and more on the internet and it will be a great source of income but it’s still a couple of years away.
Now have you seen “Piranha 3D?”
I didn’t see it. I heard it was not bad. And it got a sort of average gross. I looked at the grosses this morning. And it was neither good nor bad. It was sort of okay. I noticed looking at newspapers that they had very small ads. They didn’t support it as much as I thought they would have. But they still got a decent gross.
Well, it should be good for you at the very least, going back to the original film.
Yes, it was not an accident that we re-released “Piranha” at this time.
The original film is so sharp from a script standpoint and editorially. Does the movie hold any special place in your heart?
Yes. It was the first script that John Sayles wrote. And the first picture Joe Dante directed. Both of course have gone on to have really wonderful careers. And they showed right on the very first film how good they both were. I remember looking at the first cut of the film and it’s the only film I’ve ever made where I said “Take out some of nudity.” As we got deeper into the picture there was still nudity in a couple of scenes towards the end. And I said to Joe, “This picture is playing extremely well, we don’t need the nudity.” It’s good to have a little bit of nudity towards the first section but once we get deeply into the story, I don’t want to have it, I want to play the story exactly as it is, because it’s very good.
We remember the “Piranha” remake from the mid-’90s that aired on Showtime. Is that ever going to come out on DVD?
Probably not. I really didn’t want to remake “Piranha” but Showtime did. I did 33 pictures over a three year period for them. They wanted a certain number of remakes and in order to make the deal, I agreed that “Piranha” was one of the ones to be remade. My own feeling was ‘we are not going to be able to put together as good a combination as we had with John Sayles and Joe Dante and the remake was not going to be as good.’ And it wasn’t. It was an okay picture, there was nothing wrong with it, but it didn’t have the spark that the first one did.
There’s an anecdote on the “Forbidden World” Blu-ray that you didn’t want as much humor because you were worried the audience was laughing at the movie and not with the movie. But it seems like you’ve embraced humor more in recent years. Has anything changed?
I’ve always felt, and maybe that comment didn’t quote me correctly, I’ve always felt that you should have some humor in your picture. Because if you don’t give the audience something to laugh at, they may laugh at something you don’t want them to laugh at. There should always be a little bit of humor to lighten the story.
Now people are really excited about “Sharktopus.” That seems to have a little bit of a “Piranha” vibe.
Yes. With “Sharktopus,” we followed a similar formula with “Piranha,” which is a straightforward science fiction-slash-horror film with a sharktopus. But as with both films, we have humor within the picture. I think it’s necessary to do that.
You’ve done so many things over the years. Is there still something you’re really dying to do?
There’s nothing specific that I’m really dying to do. There’s a script that I really like on Crazy Horse, the great Indian chief that defeated Custer at the Battle at the Little Big Horn. It’s a little bit away from the type of film we’ve been making recently and I’m working on Crazy Horse now.
Is this something you’d direct yourself or produce?
I’ll produce it. The years have gone by and I think the directing career is behind me. I’m not going to get up at 6 o’clock every day anymore. It’s easier to be a producer.
You often show up in your former filmmaker’s films. Is this the main time that you see these guys or do you see them on a more regular basis?
I see them occasionally. Sometimes I play little roles in their films. It started with “The Godfather,” Francis [Ford] Coppola cast me as a senator on the senate crime committee on organized crime. And I’ve played little bit roles or cameo roles in a number of them. I was just up at Coppola’s vineyard, he invited me and my family up for my birthday this year, and I see Joe Dante and Jonathan Demme frequently.
Is there anything you want the next generation of filmgoers that will watch the original “Piranha” to take away from it?
What I want people to take away is a recognition that it is possible to make a good picture on a medium budget ($300,000 in those days would be a little over $1 million today). And to me that would a medium-to-low budget. To me, it’s still a good picture and it still stands up. And I would like to have people enjoy the picture and also recognize that you don’t have to spend $100 million or $200 million to make an enjoyable film.
Is there anybody who’s doing low budget movies that you are really impressed by?
Not really, because the low budget films aren’t getting into theaters and I don’t see as many of them as I should. I’m sure there are people making good low budget films, I just don’t know who they are. I like the career of Christopher Nolan, who started with a medium-to-low budget picture “Memento” and then worked his way up to “Inception,” which I saw a month or so ago and think is a very good picture. And I think that is the type of career that a number of people who started with us have had.