BY Samuel D Osborn

Rarely do big studio executives step away from their desks and onto sets to direct a movie of their own. But for the first time in over fifteen years, Bob Shaye, co-chairman and founder of New Line Cinema, has directed his own picture. And it’s a film some people have hailed as the next E.T. We sat down with the Big Suit and spoke about his new film, THE LAST MIMZY, the fourteen years it took to get moving, the danger of online word-of-mouth, and Dwight Schrute’s bare, white ass.

FEARS: Somebody just told me it took you fourteen years getting THE LAST MIMZY off the ground. What took so long?

ROBERT SHAYE: Well, yeah, but it wasn’t a day and night endeavor. First of all, I had a pretty involved day job, being co-chairman of New Line. And there was a lot going on with New Line in those years. The second reason was that MIMZY is based off a great story (“Mimsy were the Borogoves” by Lewis Padgett) that captivated me as a fourteen year old boy in Detroit. But it ended with the kids becoming super-geniuses, with all kind of super powers, then stepping into a circle made out of the toys that made them that way, and disappear. That’s the end of the story. So that raised a lot of issues about what happens afterwards. Do they come back? Do the parents follow them? It just raised way too many questions.

FEARS: In fixing the ending, is MIMZY a great departure from the original source material?

ROBERT SHAYE: Well, as it turns out, that short story part represents only the first twenty minutes of the movie. After that we had to create a satisfying last two acts of the movie that would justify adapting it into a feature film. And we went through, like, nine or ten drafts of the scripts with five different writers. Bruce Rubin, who actually wrote two different scripts, was hired twice, Toby Emmerich, president of our production company, wrote two more extensive drafts, and then in the middle of all this we had three other writers. And there were several chunks of time, two or three years, where I had decided that MIMZY was just a nut that couldn’t be cracked. I mean, there are certain things that are written that cannot satisfactorily be translated into film. Everything that’s great in literature isn’t great on film. But Michael Phillips (MIMZY’s producer) was very persistent and he would call every so often with new ideas, get me fired up again. I’d hire another writer, and it all went in circles like that until it eventually ended here.

FEARS: Did you go the standard Hollywood route in targeting a market audience, doing market research, all that whatnot to release the picture?

ROBERT SHAYE: No we didn’t do any of that at all. Actually, the film took on a life of its own. I knew that it would be a complicated film to market, but I also knew that it had the potential to be a very broad film. It could be a film that would appeal to grown-ups with its provocative ideas, and also a film that is very enjoyable for kids. After all, the film is told, in large measure, from the point of view of a six year old and a twelve year old. They’re the ones whose brains are changing. The short story was more about the parents worrying about what it happening to their kids. But I thought that this was a more interesting approach, watching the film through the children’s eyes, with more wonder in it and less scary drama. Of course, the parents had important roles, but I thought it was interesting that Tim’s (Hutton) character had no idea what was actually going on with his kids. Actually, when we first made the film there was a lot more screen time for the parents. The parent audience we tested it for, though, didn’t like all their bickering. They didn’t like that they were fighting all the time. So we toned that down a little bit because parents didn’t like seeing families fighting in front of their children. They didn’t want to raise that issue.

FEARS: Yeah, it wasn’t a dysfunctional family film. We’ve had too many of those over the years.


ROBERT SHAYE: I know. I wanted it to be a PG film, not PG-13. The movie was going more towards something that doesn’t talk down to kids. I hate those stupid kids shows, Pink Pony or whatever they call it. It was interesting enough so parents aren’t looking at their watch all the time waiting to get out of the theatre. And I think it came out that way. I think I did the right thing.

FEARS: Was that the only segment parents objected to?

ROBERT SHAYE: Actually, when Rainn’s character gets up in the morning and goes to the refrigerator to get a piece of cake, he’s not wearing pajamas. He bends over and we see his butt. With more sophisticated audiences, and we tested a lot of audiences, they thought it was one of the big laughs in the film. But I got a whole bunch of reaction when we screened it for parents saying they don’t want their kids seeing some man’s naked butt. We ended up spending $20,000 putting a pair of underpants on Rainn digitally.

FEARS: I thought I noticed something…


ROBERT SHAYE: Yeah, he’s wearing leopard-skin underpants. But it’s ok. Why should I offend five percent of the audience for a little joke? The kind of people who are offended by this joke, those kind of parents, they talk a lot. They get on the internet now, and all of a sudden it’s a big turn-off.

FEARS: Since you brought up the subject, what is the current attitude towards online critics, bloggers, etc?

ROBERT SHAYE: Well it’s dangerous. Everybody thinks they’re film critics and page sixers and all that other stuff. People sneak into test screenings like Aintitcool.com. And, yeah, it’s nice when they get it right, but these people aren’t trained journalists. They can offer a point of view, but just because they can see it in print online, they suddenly have an aura of authority. I used to be disc jockey in college on the dormitory radio station. I know the feeling. You wonder if anybody’s listening to you. I mean, I used to offer a hamburger and a coke for anyone to call in. Just to be sure I wasn’t talking to myself. Actually, once I did an hour and a half show and then realized somebody had forgotten to turn on the transmitter. I think one of the follies of the internet is that if people Google a movie they come up with sixteen opinions that they take as gospel. The internet is such a false façade. I mean, people don’t even use their real names. Sexyboy13, Sam456, or whatever. You don’t know these people. But you trust them.

FEARS: Technology will always be ahead of legislation, and you always have to adapt. And business has to adapt.

ROBERT SHAYE: Right, somebody asked me what was going to happen to the film industry because of the internet. And, of course, I don’t know. But I believe it’s going to adapt in a way, and I think audiences are going to adapt too. The proliferation of media systems is never going away. However, I don’t think that many people are going to watch movies on their iPod or their cell phones. People are going off on such crazy tangents. I think it’ll pull back. But I think filmmakers have to be better entertainers these days, because there are so many ways to postpone viewing a movie because of these new developments. And if we want to keep people going to theatres, and we definitely do, there will have to be movies worth going to the theatres for.

FEARS: You mentioned the importance of theatres. Are they still really an essential element for the film industry?

ROBERT SHAYE: We need them because it’s the best place to see movies. How many times have we rented a movie, sat down with a glass of wine, and fallen asleep? It’s not the emotionality, provocation, the joy of movie-going in a big theatre with a bunch of strangers you share a communal two hour experience with. And this is what I hope for THE LAST MIMZY. It has, at least for the audiences who’ve seen it so far, a lot of emotion, a lot of joy, and a lot of thoughtfulness. All good stuff worth visiting your theatre for.

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