Posted on 10/27/06 at 01:32 PM

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Levine talks 'Mundi' and 'Blood'



TALKING TO BARRY LEVINE: PART ONE

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Part One

Over the last few weeks, we've been hearing about the announcements of a couple of new comic book movies. The first is the Image Comics (and now Dark Horse) title by Arvid Nelson and Eric J, Rex Mundi. The other is Blood on the Tracks by David Tischman and Philip Bond.

One thing both these projects have in common is Producer Barry Levine, now President of Blatant Pictures.

Newsarama managed to get this exclusive interview with Levine by Thrill-House Comics publisher David Elliott.

David Elliott/Newsarama: Barry, I've known you for around ten years now. For those who think you're a newcomer to the film industry can you tell us what your background has been?

Barry Levine: Are you talking about as a film producer or my work in film music supervision?

NRAMA: Well, let's back up even further. I think that while many people think of film producers as bean counting accountants or lawyers, you took a very different route.

BL: One of the reasons I was always interested in comic books, besides story and character was various styles and tones, colors, the artists themselves bring to embellishing an artists work. Some of my earliest influences were Boris Vallejo, Frank Frazetta and Roger Dean.

I started my career in rock photography in the punk scene in England. Eventually working with bands like Yes, Queen, Kiss, Motley Crue that were all visually orientated.

NRAMA: So you came into music as a visualist…

BL: That's what I did. You need to tell a story with one image. Just as a comic book cover needs to give the reader a point of reference for the characters and story, I had to sum up the tone and ideas of an entire album in one image.

One thing I learned from Gene Simmons is that if it takes more than two seconds for someone to look at an image and not getting what the story is, you're working with one hand behind your back.

Some times there are certain comics that only focus on the covers, but sometimes they bring in artists that don't live up to or are out of sync with the comics interiors.

NRAMA: Gene's right on the money. A lot of my background is with the newsstand and you haveto make your cover pop out and grab people's attention right away. How many album covers did you shoot?

BL: I shot over a hundred covers but my work was used in well over two hundred if you include compilations.

NRAMA: How long were you photographing bands for?

BL: Pretty consistently from 1972 through to the mid-eighties.

NRAMA: You must have seen some pretty crazy things during that time.

BL: Hmmm… (laughs) Yeah, I was involved with a lot of insanity. The phrase "sex, drugs and Rock & Roll" wasn't coined for nothing. I saw the beginning and the end of several different bands and music. Working for the NME in the UK I saw the beginning of the punk movement.

NRAMA: What do you think made your photography stand out from everybody else's?

BL: I wasn't interested in shooting bands standing against a brink wall. I designed all my own concepts, layouts and set design. All the top bands realized that I wanted to do something different and that no matter who they were I could produce something different that would sell their albums or I just wasn't interested in shooting them.

NRAMA: So you'd actually turn some of these bands down?

BL: Yeah, if there wasn't anything there to interest me I wouldn't do it, no matter who they were. Besides, I was beginning to get burned out doing all these photo shoots and felt there was something more I wanted out of life.

NRAMA: When did you come to this realization?

BL: After I shot three bands in one day. I felt like an assembly line. But it did lead to one pleasurable thing. The business managers of The Who asked me what I really wanted to do with my photography. All I really wanted to do was my own fantasy book and that is where the comic book influences such as Frazetta and Dean influenced me. It was basically fantasies of some of the top singers, dancers and actresses from the time. I photographed Cher, Leslie Ann Warren, Jane Seymour, among others. The photographs were designed and lit to look like fantasy paintings. The only difference between doing it then and doing it now, was that everything was done in camera. No CGI, no photoshop. What you see is what you got.

We ran out of money half way through the book.

NRAMA: That must have hurt…

BL: No, not really. It allowed me to produce these photographs and use my influences from comics and fantasy in a way that has been copied several times ever since.

It's kind of funny that the people I deal with on a day to day business don't know that I made my career as an artist. That's why I am very protective of the creators I work with. I try and give them as much latitude as possible.

NRAMA: So from music photography you went to music supervisor to several major motion pictures. It sounds a natural move, but switching from pictures to sound is very different. I'd imagine that requiring a whole different skill set.

BL: Only difference for me was continuity in imagery.

NRAMA: But still, it was someone else's images.

BL: Yeah, but being a visualist doesn't mean you have a great ear for music.

NRAMA: And you did?

BL: I was appreciated and loved. I'd worked with all types of music. As I already had been working with the best musicians in the world combining visuals and music was just evolution. I worked on very character driven movies like Driving Miss Daisy, Robert De Niro's Guilty By Suspicion, but the coolest part started when I had the opportunity to work on comic book driven movies.

NRAMA: Which ones did you work on?

BL: Street Fighter and Judge Dredd among others, but Judge Dredd really started making me think that it would be really great to adapt comic book properties into film. It's kind of funny because I worked closely with Danny Cannon to create something different that would allow the music to embellish both the character and the visuals, opposed to the standard pop driven soundtracks that are used to market films. I really didn't give a shit if we had a pop hit or not. If the lyrics are stripped away then they should be able to work in lew of a score.

I was using bands like THE THE and the Coucteau Twins, Left Field, White Zombie, the Cure. I think the final thing that drove me out of that industry was that I was psyched to put the Brian Eno producer of U2 together with David Bowie for the end titles of the Judge Dredd soundtrack. They did a real driving tribal, percussive, dark acoustic, very moody piece that captured the qualities of Dredd and the savagery of his world.

To my complete surprise, the producers thought the soundtrack and its end title was pure, unadulterated shit. I asked them what they were looking for. There came the most ridiculous reply, they wanted something like "Eye of the tiger" by Survivor.

The Cure, Brian Eno, The The and Survivor. I said that'll work. I felt for a moment like I was on acid.

The positive part of working on Judge Dredd it made me make the decision to produce films, preferably comic book adaptations.

NRAMA: So now those dreams are about to become reality?

BL: Yes. I did a few other things along the way, rock management, just to survive.

NRAMA: 1999. You sell Detroit Rock City to New Line. Was this everything coming to fruition for you?

BL: Yeah, I was able to work with a group that were also my closest friends. Mike DeLucca at New Line gave me my opportunity, which I will always appreciate.

NRAMA: Was the end result what you had envisaged?

BL: Yeah, pretty much. It was quite an education working on the set. The second picture I sold to New Line and Mike DeLucca was also a comic book. Shadowman from Acclaim. That was my real first comic book adaptation.

NRAMA: What happened to it?

BL: A script was written but New Line just couldn't make the deal with Acclaim. Eventually it ended up over at Dimension. After so many years of development, we ended up with a great script but no studio. After the Weinsteins left, the project has just sat there.

NRAMA: Okay, so Rex Mundi and Johnny Depp. How did you manage to get that set up?

BL: I met Arvid Nelson and Eric J at Comic-Con four years ago as an independent producer and fell in love with the concept, the writing and the artwork. While every other producer was looking for comics that were easy to adapt to film, there's me picking up one of the most hardest to adapt projects out there. But I just loved it. I really wanted to make it work.

I spent a year trying to get studios interested in it. They all said the same thing… Too dark, too ambitious and too hard to sell. But I have a tattoo on my arm that says, "Who does not hope to win has already lost." It's not there for nothing. I wasn't going to let Arvid, Eric or myself down.

While I was at Dark Horse Entertainment, this was one of the projects that I brought in as part of my deal. Mike (Richardson) saw the same potential as I did and helped get behind the project. I then brought in a friend of mine that I had developed a few projects with before, Alan Riche [MouseHunt, Starsky and Hutch], who brought it to Johnny's agent at UTA who sent it over to Infinium Nil [Johnny Depp's production company]. Johnny read the comics, he had already been researching that time period and characters. Once we had established that relationship we worked very closely with Sam Sarkar, who runs development for Johnny. When we sat down with Johnny he fell in love with Eric J's artwork and that pulled him into the story. Once we had Johnny interested in this as a project for him to star in Jon Levin at CAA suggested a meeting with Jim Uhls [Fight Club]. Johnny, Sam and Jim had several conversations that resulted in Jim coming onboard as the screenwriter.

NRAMA: What can you tell us about their take?

BL: Absolutely nothing. No if I want to keep working in this town. All I can say is that with the combination of talent that has been brought together on this project, you couldn't ask for anything more.

At this point Barry had to head out for a meeting. He promised me he had some even bigger things to talk about. Hopefully I can pin him down for the second part of this interview in the next few weeks.

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