I think once we started directing separately - we each have different kinds of interests now, and the kinds of movies we want to do. I wouldn't hold your breath for that one.
I think that came out of watching all those serious movies for all that time. If you watch a movie like Zero Hour, Sterling Hayden is pretty funny, and so are the guys in the cockpit.
The only one that got through was Jimmy Walker, because he plays the gas station attendant. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just that we were kind of purists at the time, and we didn't want any comedians.
I think we grew up thinking that the funniest things on TV were the old, serious movies. I always liked the Marx Brothers, but the thing that always made us laugh were movies like Zero Hour. That's what inspired us.
Sometimes, if you really want to try something original, you step a little too far out of bounds. I mean, there's a market force that kind of unconsciously keeps you in line a little bit.
It didn't happen every time for every movie. Ruthless People was a good movie, but we didn't get a good release or marketing. They completely blew the opening.
It's useless to try and make rhyme or reason of it, because one guy thinks one thing and the other guy sees a whole other thing. So I try not to take them too seriously. Lately I have them screened so I only read the positive ones.
Oh yeah, I believe in God. I think there's much more evidence that there is a God than that there isn't. I don't believe that Mother Theresa and Hitler go to the same place.
Our fathers were actually business partners in the same real-estate firm, and we got together and thought, How can we get a movie together and get distribution and create a new movie genre? We started by making satires of commercials.
Our producer Jon Davison thought it would be a good idea to put in additional TV scenes. So, they sent me a tape of these additional TV scenes, and I watched them, and I didn't think they were that great. I didn't think it was worth putting them in.
Everything about it worked, and I don't mean just the movie, but in our experience, we realized there's also a component of luck involved in this business. We had absolutely the most competent people in the studio working on the release and ad campaign.
I think up until the point when we started in the business, which was in the early '70s, most of the humor was political. The smart humor was political satire.
