December 26, 2024 • 15 mins
George Noory and author Marc Zicree celebrate the 100th birthday of Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling on Christmas Day, discuss some of the most famous episodes of the classic TV show, and explore why science fiction and fantasy can inspire people to believe in a more positive future.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you
along with March's decree. Mark, I didn't know that you
were such an accomplished singer.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Just for you, George. That's the only time when when
you and Tom came to me and said we want
our song for Christmas. I chose the Great Classic by
Tom Larra and it was great fun to do. But
but most of my time I'm writing and producing and directing,
as you know, and it's really fun. You know, it's funny.
It's so wonderful that my own studio, full of all
(00:34):
these spaceship props and all these things, all these things,
and my fans from you know, have basically financed me
four million dollars to date, and I'm raising another twenty
million to make the five pilots we're going to be making.
So between cloud funding and selling investment shares, it's gone wonderfully.
I mean, people really want to see positive, hopeful future stories,
(00:58):
you know, stories that say we can reach a crossbound
he's embarrassed, a world worth living in. And you know,
when you talk about Rod Stirling, Rod was not a fatalist.
He was he was he loved humanity. He had hope
for humanity. The darker episodes of Twilight Zone, he's given
cautionary tales like monsters are do on Maple Street or
or the after the bomb stories. He did, you know,
(01:18):
because he had hope for humanity, just like Geen Roddenberry
on Star Trek. These were these were great, great men
with vision. And to celebrate Rod's hundred's birthday tonight with
you is this is the best thing I think I
could be doing on christ It's a Christmas gift to me, George,
to be spending this time with you.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Did he know that he had health issues before he
passed on.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Only towards the very end. You know, he was a
four packa day smoker. He lived very intensely and uh,
and then his heart started to fail, and you know,
he had open heart surgery and and and died as
a result of the open heart surgery. So it was
very tragic. I think probably nowadays, with all the events
and the surgery, they probably could have saved him and
(02:02):
certainly he would have known to stop smoking. You know,
people often asked me if I could go back in
time and ask Rod serving a question. What would I ask?
And I asked and say, well, I don't think i'd
asked a question. I just tell him to stop smoking.
And you know, because we would love to have Rod
with us even now. I mean, Kirk Douglas made it
past one hundred and it would have been wonderful if
Rod could have two.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
How many years did Twilight Zone run?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
It ran five seasons. Four of those seasons were half
hour episodes and then one season was eighteen hour long
episodes the fourth season, and it was just there wasn't
anything like it on TV then or now. And it's
the greatest looking black and white show ever made, great writing,
great acting, great composers, Bernard Herman, Jerry Goldsmith, I mean,
(02:47):
just the top people working in film and TV. It
was the writing of the Tractor. It was Rod's writing
that it all started with that.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I was watching It's a Wonderful Life, which I try
to do every year, one of the classics, and that's
black and white too. There's something weird and special about
black and white, is there?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah. It just puts it in a puts
you in a certain frame of mind. It's just it
takes you to a place, and you know, people try
and colorize these things, but I really loved really great
black and white photography. You know George Clemens, who was
the great cinematographer on Twilight Zone. He went an Emmy
for Twilight Zone, but he'd been a cameraman on everything
(03:26):
from Blood and Sand with Rudolph Valentino to Richer Verdu
with Chaplain. I mean, this guy came up through the
great Golden era of Hollywood. And when you look at
Twilights and you just see how spectacularly it's filmed, it's
just miraculous. I think it's the most beautiful television show
ever shot.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
What was one of your favorite Twilight Zone episodes?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Oh gosh, Well, you know I love Walking Distance, which
is Rod's farewell to his father. You know, his dad
died when Rod was overseas in World War Two and
he wasn't able to come to the funeral. And so
this is a twilights On episode where an executive walks
back his hometown. He finds himself in the past of
his boyhood and he wants to stay there, and his
father is to tell him that he has to go
(04:06):
back to his time and find happiness. There. But that
was really Rod finally having a goodbye to his father,
to have that last moment with his father that he
so longed for. And so that's a great episode. But
there's so many. I mean, I think any Twilights On
episode are going to get value from a nightmare twenty
thousand feet, the Grimlin on a wing, or that great
villain on the episode with wishing people to the cornfield.
(04:27):
I mean, it's funny because when Bill and I are
working together on space Command, Bill he'll say, oh, be careful,
I'll wish you to the cornfield. You know it's and
he can do it.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
What of mine? You as you well know, to serve man.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yes, Yes, a great episode and it's wonderful. Richard Keel,
who later played the character Jaws, the villain Jaws of
the James Bond movies, played all of the aliens in
that film in that episode and he was great and
has one of the great greatest, you know, swist endings
of any Twilights One episode.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
What were they called Cannamites or something like that.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Cannabis. Yeah, I think it's a play on Cannibal. And
it's Damon Knight, who was a great short story writer
and who instantly bought my first short story. He wrote
that short that that story when he was when his
wife was out with another man, and Rod read the
story and bought it and adapted it to Twilight Zone.
So I interviewed Damon when I wrote the Twilight Zone companion.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Mark Hollywood is going through a tremendous metamorphosis these days.
What's happening?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yes, Well, you know, I think it's a mixture of
different different elements. You know. I think that in some
cases Hollywood, you go to movies and they're like the
same old thing, the same old thing. It's hard to
see something that's original. Every now and then you find something.
But also it's so easy now for people to shoot
(05:51):
their own films, to shoot their own TV shows and movies.
I mean, I have my own channel on YouTube that
reaches around the world. I have millions of views of
one hundred thousand subscribers, and I think people if you
want to have your own voice, and it's exactly what
Rod was talking about back in the fifties. He's created
twilights on too avoid censorship. If he were here now,
he'd probably be wounding kickstarter campaigns. He'd be doing what
(06:14):
I was doing because I have total freedom now. But
I have no interest in working for the studios and
the networks because I don't need their guidance quote unquote
to make my work a disaster. I can make it
the way I want it. I can cast who I want.
It's very easy. It's total artistic control, which I really
(06:34):
love having.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And you could do it cheaper, can't you?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yes? Much cheaper? Yes, what costs the studios millions, we
can do for hundreds of thousands of dollars. And you know,
and the fun part is one thing I learned from
Rod that was so invaluable. He shot twilights under the MGM,
and he had access to every prop, every costume, every set,
everything at MGM ever made. So you'll see tons of
(06:58):
stuff from Forbidden Planet in Twilight Zone, or you'll see
them shooting an episode on the Andy Hardy Street on
the MGM back lot. So I did the same thing
when I was at Sliders on the Universal lot, and
now that I'm doing Space Command. Whenever a big budget
science switch and TV show movie ends, a lot of
those props and costumes and sets come on the market,
(07:18):
come up for auction. I can buy them penny's on
the dollar. So that's added to what we design and
build from scratch, and it is a much more production value.
And so if you go on my three sound stages,
you see, you know, we have like thirty space suits
like from the original Twilight Zone and from Prometheus. We've
sets from the you know, Andrews game, and all sorts
(07:40):
of movies and TV shows. It's just it's like a museum.
But it also allows us to work very, very effectively,
and it's just a sheer joy. And we're having a party, George,
January first, to our studio and any of your coast
to Post team is certainly welcome, including you and Tom
and everybody of course. And it's just such a joy
(08:00):
to be able to share all of this with everyone.
You know, And I love I love making television. It's
my favorite art form.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Well, you should check in with us because we're going
to be on the air January first, Mark. You know,
we work all the holidays.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
My friend.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Well, you're you're just a hard working man, George, and
you you're you're the best, and that's why you've lasted
so long. You know. It's a quality doesn't always rise
to the top, but I always celebrate it when it does.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
What are your thoughts on streaming?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
What?
Speaker 2 (08:30):
What where are you headed with that?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Well, the challenge, of course is finding finding quality. There's
so much of everything, you know, there's infinite channels, you know,
and so that's a problem. The good part is that
you can watch whatever you want to see whenever you
want to see it. But there's just such a such
an enormous amount of content being made that to find
the quality things is hard, and so you really have
(08:55):
to know who to listen to and who's guidance to seek,
uh and and not just watch anything that comes on
because your mind will turn to mush, you know. So
it's you know, it's very fun to have my own
YouTube channel, mister sci Fi, because I can sort of
talk about twilights when I can talk about Star Trek,
I can share different episodes of TV that I've written
in the past or that I'm doing now. It's but
(09:18):
you know, my favorite network, frankly is YouTube because so
many old TV movies and rarities are on YouTube. You
can find things that you never thought you'd see again,
and I love that aspect of it. But Netflix, i
think has some of the quality, has gone down and
a lot of you know, there's a lot of shows
where I watch and I just go, boy, they really
dropped the ball on that one. And I think it's
(09:40):
because they're just making them too fast. They're not putting
enough their heart and soul into it. You really have
to treat it like an art form as Stirling did,
as Ray Bradbury did. You know all of our favorites
and you know when you put quality and you know
it laughs. Many of the shows I wrote in my
twenties and thirties and forties and fifties people are still
watching now and loving. And it was funny. I was,
(10:02):
I was out the other day and a homeless guy
complimented me on the Deep Space nine episode. I wrote, Yes,
he said that far be all the Stars, that was
a great episode. It's like, wow, you know, I could
thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah, But I love the
reach of television that reaches millions of people in their homes,
(10:22):
and it has an intimacy that the big, big budget
movies don't have. Really that the man, I've been so blessed,
you know, I've known so many wonderful people and I
worked with so many great people. I mean, you know
George the case, so many of the Michelle Nichols before
she died. I met her when I was ten when
the Original Star Trek was on the air, and I
(10:43):
got gone the set of the Original Star Trek and
and fifty years later I got to film her in
a scene in the Space Command just before her passing.
And so I brought the scrap book I kept when
I was ten, with the photos and letters she'd written
to me, and we sat years later flipping through the
scrap book on you know, on my show, on my
(11:04):
shooting day. So that was just a miracle, wonderful, just
just just such a gift.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Russell Crow send me a Merry Christmas text today. What
a class guy.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yes, yes, and I'm glad he's having like a resurgence,
so things like The Pope's Exorcist and so forth. He's
a very strong actor. And you know, I'm I'm glad
that he sent you, sent you that message. It's there's
a lot of really good people in Hollywood. You know,
Hollywood gets slammed for start of being a dog dog place,
but that's not been my experience. You know. It's like
(11:35):
there's a lot of really good hearted people here. But
you know, there's there's a lot of the bad kind too,
and those are the ones that get all the press attention,
you know when they're when they're misbehaving. But you can
find wonderful friends and loyal people and honorable people. And
I've worked with many, many, many of those kinds, and
it's it's just been a blessed life.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Mark who was asleep at the wheel at Blockbuster. At
one point, they were dominant in the DVD rentals. They
captured the market, They had hundreds of stores all over
the country. Somebody there slipped up when streaming came in
because they entirely Millet missed the whole thing. How could
you do that?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Well, we on Netflix started as just like you know,
video rental, they mail you DBDs and they were smart
enough to get into streaming ride at the beginning before
people knew what it was. But yes, Blockbuster absolutely dropped
the ball. So a lot of people have nostalgia for
Blockbuster and maybe someday come back again. You know, what's
old is new again. But yeah, they definitely missed out
(12:36):
on the coming technology. And it's every few years it changes,
it changes, it changes. It needs to be on top
of that. You know, it's I shoot digitally, I edit
on a Mac. You know, it's you really have to
know what the new technologies are. Otherwise it becomes impossible.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It really does, it really does. And how's the pool
of talent in LA for you?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Fabulous great thing. If I can say to my friends,
these actors like Doug Jones and Robert Poccardo and Bill
Mummy and all of them, I can basically say, our
studio is here in La. So when you were done
shooting this whatever series or whatever movie you're shooting in,
you know, in Toronto or Atlanta or Bangkok or wherever,
you can come back.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Home to LA.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
You can sleep in your own bed. We can shoot
for two three days and that's it, you know. So
I work with their schedules. Because I was standing sets,
I can. I can do that. And even Ethan McDowell
has been playing the lead in Space Command. He's he
was in a regular and Walking Dead. Recently he just
shot the you know, a show for HBO. I mean
(13:40):
he's busy, but every time we call upon him, you know,
he flies in from New York and we rock and roll.
It's in fact, we're about to shoot a scene. Way
flies into a Rex spaceship in a space suit in
a weightless atmosphere and saves his son who's been injured
and knocked unconscious. And that's going to be this big
special effects thing and huge fun, huge fun.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
How did you conceive of Space Command?
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Mark? I noticed a few years ago that a lot
of science fiction was very negative and very just topic
and very bleak, basically giving a message the future is
going to be terrible and there's nothing we can do
about it. And I thought it was a terribly disempowering message.
And I wanted to create a show that would say,
you know, we can do better, we can be better,
we can make a future that's worth living in for
(14:24):
our children and grandchildren. It's not the moment you give
up power, the moment you say, well nothing, I can't
do anything. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. But if
you come together with a good heart and compassion and action,
you can make the world something worth living in. So
I wanted to inspire people like the original start to
(14:45):
conspire me when I was a kid, so I didn't
want to trust the networks, so the studios not to
cut me off at pilot or wreck it. So I
just reached out to my fans, and as I say,
they stepped up so far with over four million dollars,
and that's allowed me to have my own studio and
shoot the first seven eight hours of Space Command, and
now the future we're doing and on and on. You know,
it's just it's limitless, and many of my investors have bought.
(15:09):
You know, I sold shares at seventy five hundred bucks
each because I figured that's enough that regular people could
afford it. But many people by multiple shares, and they
just they love being part of something positive, and I
do too.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam
dot com for more
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you
along with March's decree. Mark, I didn't know that you
were such an accomplished singer.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Just for you, George. That's the only time when when
you and Tom came to me and said we want
our song for Christmas. I chose the Great Classic by
Tom Larra and it was great fun to do. But
but most of my time I'm writing and producing and directing,
as you know, and it's really fun. You know, it's funny.
It's so wonderful that my own studio, full of all
(00:34):
these spaceship props and all these things, all these things,
and my fans from you know, have basically financed me
four million dollars to date, and I'm raising another twenty
million to make the five pilots we're going to be making.
So between cloud funding and selling investment shares, it's gone wonderfully.
I mean, people really want to see positive, hopeful future stories,
(00:58):
you know, stories that say we can reach a crossbound
he's embarrassed, a world worth living in. And you know,
when you talk about Rod Stirling, Rod was not a fatalist.
He was he was he loved humanity. He had hope
for humanity. The darker episodes of Twilight Zone, he's given
cautionary tales like monsters are do on Maple Street or
or the after the bomb stories. He did, you know,
(01:18):
because he had hope for humanity, just like Geen Roddenberry
on Star Trek. These were these were great, great men
with vision. And to celebrate Rod's hundred's birthday tonight with
you is this is the best thing I think I
could be doing on christ It's a Christmas gift to me, George,
to be spending this time with you.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Did he know that he had health issues before he
passed on.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Only towards the very end. You know, he was a
four packa day smoker. He lived very intensely and uh,
and then his heart started to fail, and you know,
he had open heart surgery and and and died as
a result of the open heart surgery. So it was
very tragic. I think probably nowadays, with all the events
and the surgery, they probably could have saved him and
(02:02):
certainly he would have known to stop smoking. You know,
people often asked me if I could go back in
time and ask Rod serving a question. What would I ask?
And I asked and say, well, I don't think i'd
asked a question. I just tell him to stop smoking.
And you know, because we would love to have Rod
with us even now. I mean, Kirk Douglas made it
past one hundred and it would have been wonderful if
Rod could have two.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
How many years did Twilight Zone run?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
It ran five seasons. Four of those seasons were half
hour episodes and then one season was eighteen hour long
episodes the fourth season, and it was just there wasn't
anything like it on TV then or now. And it's
the greatest looking black and white show ever made, great writing,
great acting, great composers, Bernard Herman, Jerry Goldsmith, I mean,
(02:47):
just the top people working in film and TV. It
was the writing of the Tractor. It was Rod's writing
that it all started with that.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I was watching It's a Wonderful Life, which I try
to do every year, one of the classics, and that's
black and white too. There's something weird and special about
black and white, is there?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah. It just puts it in a puts
you in a certain frame of mind. It's just it
takes you to a place, and you know, people try
and colorize these things, but I really loved really great
black and white photography. You know George Clemens, who was
the great cinematographer on Twilight Zone. He went an Emmy
for Twilight Zone, but he'd been a cameraman on everything
(03:26):
from Blood and Sand with Rudolph Valentino to Richer Verdu
with Chaplain. I mean, this guy came up through the
great Golden era of Hollywood. And when you look at
Twilights and you just see how spectacularly it's filmed, it's
just miraculous. I think it's the most beautiful television show
ever shot.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
What was one of your favorite Twilight Zone episodes?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Oh gosh, Well, you know I love Walking Distance, which
is Rod's farewell to his father. You know, his dad
died when Rod was overseas in World War Two and
he wasn't able to come to the funeral. And so
this is a twilights On episode where an executive walks
back his hometown. He finds himself in the past of
his boyhood and he wants to stay there, and his
father is to tell him that he has to go
(04:06):
back to his time and find happiness. There. But that
was really Rod finally having a goodbye to his father,
to have that last moment with his father that he
so longed for. And so that's a great episode. But
there's so many. I mean, I think any Twilights On
episode are going to get value from a nightmare twenty
thousand feet, the Grimlin on a wing, or that great
villain on the episode with wishing people to the cornfield.
(04:27):
I mean, it's funny because when Bill and I are
working together on space Command, Bill he'll say, oh, be careful,
I'll wish you to the cornfield. You know it's and
he can do it.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
What of mine? You as you well know, to serve man.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yes, Yes, a great episode and it's wonderful. Richard Keel,
who later played the character Jaws, the villain Jaws of
the James Bond movies, played all of the aliens in
that film in that episode and he was great and
has one of the great greatest, you know, swist endings
of any Twilights One episode.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
What were they called Cannamites or something like that.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Cannabis. Yeah, I think it's a play on Cannibal. And
it's Damon Knight, who was a great short story writer
and who instantly bought my first short story. He wrote
that short that that story when he was when his
wife was out with another man, and Rod read the
story and bought it and adapted it to Twilight Zone.
So I interviewed Damon when I wrote the Twilight Zone companion.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Mark Hollywood is going through a tremendous metamorphosis these days.
What's happening?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yes, Well, you know, I think it's a mixture of
different different elements. You know. I think that in some
cases Hollywood, you go to movies and they're like the
same old thing, the same old thing. It's hard to
see something that's original. Every now and then you find something.
But also it's so easy now for people to shoot
(05:51):
their own films, to shoot their own TV shows and movies.
I mean, I have my own channel on YouTube that
reaches around the world. I have millions of views of
one hundred thousand subscribers, and I think people if you
want to have your own voice, and it's exactly what
Rod was talking about back in the fifties. He's created
twilights on too avoid censorship. If he were here now,
he'd probably be wounding kickstarter campaigns. He'd be doing what
(06:14):
I was doing because I have total freedom now. But
I have no interest in working for the studios and
the networks because I don't need their guidance quote unquote
to make my work a disaster. I can make it
the way I want it. I can cast who I want.
It's very easy. It's total artistic control, which I really
(06:34):
love having.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And you could do it cheaper, can't you?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yes? Much cheaper? Yes, what costs the studios millions, we
can do for hundreds of thousands of dollars. And you know,
and the fun part is one thing I learned from
Rod that was so invaluable. He shot twilights under the MGM,
and he had access to every prop, every costume, every set,
everything at MGM ever made. So you'll see tons of
(06:58):
stuff from Forbidden Planet in Twilight Zone, or you'll see
them shooting an episode on the Andy Hardy Street on
the MGM back lot. So I did the same thing
when I was at Sliders on the Universal lot, and
now that I'm doing Space Command. Whenever a big budget
science switch and TV show movie ends, a lot of
those props and costumes and sets come on the market,
(07:18):
come up for auction. I can buy them penny's on
the dollar. So that's added to what we design and
build from scratch, and it is a much more production value.
And so if you go on my three sound stages,
you see, you know, we have like thirty space suits
like from the original Twilight Zone and from Prometheus. We've
sets from the you know, Andrews game, and all sorts
(07:40):
of movies and TV shows. It's just it's like a museum.
But it also allows us to work very, very effectively,
and it's just a sheer joy. And we're having a party, George,
January first, to our studio and any of your coast
to Post team is certainly welcome, including you and Tom
and everybody of course. And it's just such a joy
(08:00):
to be able to share all of this with everyone.
You know, And I love I love making television. It's
my favorite art form.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Well, you should check in with us because we're going
to be on the air January first, Mark. You know,
we work all the holidays.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
My friend.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Well, you're you're just a hard working man, George, and
you you're you're the best, and that's why you've lasted
so long. You know. It's a quality doesn't always rise
to the top, but I always celebrate it when it does.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
What are your thoughts on streaming?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
What?
Speaker 2 (08:30):
What where are you headed with that?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Well, the challenge, of course is finding finding quality. There's
so much of everything, you know, there's infinite channels, you know,
and so that's a problem. The good part is that
you can watch whatever you want to see whenever you
want to see it. But there's just such a such
an enormous amount of content being made that to find
the quality things is hard, and so you really have
(08:55):
to know who to listen to and who's guidance to seek,
uh and and not just watch anything that comes on
because your mind will turn to mush, you know. So
it's you know, it's very fun to have my own
YouTube channel, mister sci Fi, because I can sort of
talk about twilights when I can talk about Star Trek,
I can share different episodes of TV that I've written
in the past or that I'm doing now. It's but
(09:18):
you know, my favorite network, frankly is YouTube because so
many old TV movies and rarities are on YouTube. You
can find things that you never thought you'd see again,
and I love that aspect of it. But Netflix, i
think has some of the quality, has gone down and
a lot of you know, there's a lot of shows
where I watch and I just go, boy, they really
dropped the ball on that one. And I think it's
(09:40):
because they're just making them too fast. They're not putting
enough their heart and soul into it. You really have
to treat it like an art form as Stirling did,
as Ray Bradbury did. You know all of our favorites
and you know when you put quality and you know
it laughs. Many of the shows I wrote in my
twenties and thirties and forties and fifties people are still
watching now and loving. And it was funny. I was,
(10:02):
I was out the other day and a homeless guy
complimented me on the Deep Space nine episode. I wrote, Yes,
he said that far be all the Stars, that was
a great episode. It's like, wow, you know, I could
thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah, But I love the
reach of television that reaches millions of people in their homes,
(10:22):
and it has an intimacy that the big, big budget
movies don't have. Really that the man, I've been so blessed,
you know, I've known so many wonderful people and I
worked with so many great people. I mean, you know
George the case, so many of the Michelle Nichols before
she died. I met her when I was ten when
the Original Star Trek was on the air, and I
(10:43):
got gone the set of the Original Star Trek and
and fifty years later I got to film her in
a scene in the Space Command just before her passing.
And so I brought the scrap book I kept when
I was ten, with the photos and letters she'd written
to me, and we sat years later flipping through the
scrap book on you know, on my show, on my
(11:04):
shooting day. So that was just a miracle, wonderful, just
just just such a gift.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Russell Crow send me a Merry Christmas text today. What
a class guy.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yes, yes, and I'm glad he's having like a resurgence,
so things like The Pope's Exorcist and so forth. He's
a very strong actor. And you know, I'm I'm glad
that he sent you, sent you that message. It's there's
a lot of really good people in Hollywood. You know,
Hollywood gets slammed for start of being a dog dog place,
but that's not been my experience. You know. It's like
(11:35):
there's a lot of really good hearted people here. But
you know, there's there's a lot of the bad kind too,
and those are the ones that get all the press attention,
you know when they're when they're misbehaving. But you can
find wonderful friends and loyal people and honorable people. And
I've worked with many, many, many of those kinds, and
it's it's just been a blessed life.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Mark who was asleep at the wheel at Blockbuster. At
one point, they were dominant in the DVD rentals. They
captured the market, They had hundreds of stores all over
the country. Somebody there slipped up when streaming came in
because they entirely Millet missed the whole thing. How could
you do that?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Well, we on Netflix started as just like you know,
video rental, they mail you DBDs and they were smart
enough to get into streaming ride at the beginning before
people knew what it was. But yes, Blockbuster absolutely dropped
the ball. So a lot of people have nostalgia for
Blockbuster and maybe someday come back again. You know, what's
old is new again. But yeah, they definitely missed out
(12:36):
on the coming technology. And it's every few years it changes,
it changes, it changes. It needs to be on top
of that. You know, it's I shoot digitally, I edit
on a Mac. You know, it's you really have to
know what the new technologies are. Otherwise it becomes impossible.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It really does, it really does. And how's the pool
of talent in LA for you?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Fabulous great thing. If I can say to my friends,
these actors like Doug Jones and Robert Poccardo and Bill
Mummy and all of them, I can basically say, our
studio is here in La. So when you were done
shooting this whatever series or whatever movie you're shooting in,
you know, in Toronto or Atlanta or Bangkok or wherever,
you can come back.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Home to LA.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
You can sleep in your own bed. We can shoot
for two three days and that's it, you know. So
I work with their schedules. Because I was standing sets,
I can. I can do that. And even Ethan McDowell
has been playing the lead in Space Command. He's he
was in a regular and Walking Dead. Recently he just
shot the you know, a show for HBO. I mean
(13:40):
he's busy, but every time we call upon him, you know,
he flies in from New York and we rock and roll.
It's in fact, we're about to shoot a scene. Way
flies into a Rex spaceship in a space suit in
a weightless atmosphere and saves his son who's been injured
and knocked unconscious. And that's going to be this big
special effects thing and huge fun, huge fun.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
How did you conceive of Space Command?
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Mark? I noticed a few years ago that a lot
of science fiction was very negative and very just topic
and very bleak, basically giving a message the future is
going to be terrible and there's nothing we can do
about it. And I thought it was a terribly disempowering message.
And I wanted to create a show that would say,
you know, we can do better, we can be better,
we can make a future that's worth living in for
(14:24):
our children and grandchildren. It's not the moment you give
up power, the moment you say, well nothing, I can't
do anything. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. But if
you come together with a good heart and compassion and action,
you can make the world something worth living in. So
I wanted to inspire people like the original start to
(14:45):
conspire me when I was a kid, so I didn't
want to trust the networks, so the studios not to
cut me off at pilot or wreck it. So I
just reached out to my fans, and as I say,
they stepped up so far with over four million dollars,
and that's allowed me to have my own studio and
shoot the first seven eight hours of Space Command, and
now the future we're doing and on and on. You know,
it's just it's limitless, and many of my investors have bought.
(15:09):
You know, I sold shares at seventy five hundred bucks
each because I figured that's enough that regular people could
afford it. But many people by multiple shares, and they
just they love being part of something positive, and I
do too.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
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