A few years ago, there were requests to me, Can we make this? I said that I have no rights. Contact the Hitchcock estate, which won't release it for a remake.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was under contract with Hitchcock before I even met him. They wouldn't tell me anything about the film, or who was working on it. They had all sorts of excuses as to why they couldn't tell me anything.
I sketched out a rough story for them and the director said, well it's a good story but we have the go-ahead from Universal to make this script and did I want to do it. I said no, and they left.
I was in New York. Hitchcock was in California. He rang me to make a report on his progress and said, I'm having trouble. I've just sacked my second screenwriter.
Well, we are not doing that film actually. At least I am not at the moment, but we are making an effort to get it done; I don't know whether we'll get the financing for it. The old story we had it, it fell out of place and this and that.
Who was the real Hitchcock? I interviewed him once and haven't a clue.
I'm looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.
He wasn't directing it, of course, so I didn't work with Hitchcock.
I directed some movies in the past, and I'd still love to do that. You know, the whole thing is a labor of love, I think.
I know that if a film is ready to emerge out of what I write, I'll be able to go off and make it without asking anyone's permission.
The deal is that you can do it, you don't really owe me anything, but at the end of it, I own the film. Then I can actually go out and reprint or not reprint if it I want.