There came a point in time when Michael was under a great deal of pressure to alter the film in a way that was just disturbing to him. I had not seen the movie, yet. He phoned me in July of '92 to look at his version.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I remember feeling that Michael was extremely sensitive when it came to that moment. Most directors are and they usually rely, at least in my experience, on the actress to take over. And Michael is a gentleman.
Michael is a funny character, for whom I have a great deal of affection. He sat across his desk and seemed to be a bit of a blunt fellow. We began talking about the characters and he opened up about his vision.
Yes, the marriage proposal was shot. Michael excluded the dialogue from the final edit.
Michael Jackson wanted to be in Men in Black II. He told me he had seen the first Men in Black in Paris and had stayed behind and sat there and wept. I had to explain to him that it was a comedy.
The scene was attempted a second time, up on top of the fort, and cameras didn't even roll. Michael, though he wasn't admitting it, wasn't sure how to shoot the scene.
Yeah, I think Michael has had to deal with that label of being Michael Caine for a long time.
I have a feeling he felt Jon Voight had run away with the film, which he didn't, though he was brilliant in it, in a much less easy part. I just don't know what had got into him, but something had.
Michael died five years ago this January, and the first thing that really struck me about the script was the part about her peeling off from the funeral and just getting into a rowboat and having a real kind of cry where nobody was.
I phoned Joe Roth, who was head of the studio at the time, and told him how beautiful the film was, and that I was fully ready to support it, that Michael's work was wonderful and I imagined that Daniel would feel the same. He listened quietly and read between the lines.
It was exactly what was released two months later with the exception of a couple of reaction shots which we went back in to get. I liked the movie very much and asked him what the studio's problem was. I felt that he was at a point where they might have worn him down.