Joel Schumacher - Part I

Making films

Interviewed by David Wood

You weave in and out of the mainstream with your work.

I'm trying! I'm trying to grow and I think that as soon as you get good at something you have to change it because the tendency is that any form of success breeds a fear of form and conservatism. You see it with actors sometimes.

You seem to be moving away from big budget films to smaller independent work.

I would never have got the money to make "Flawless" if it had been an expensive film. If it had been expensive, I would have had to make it more user friendly, softer, and toned it down. You get to do riskier subject matter independently.

My earlier films, "St Elmo's Fire" and "The Lost Boys", they became very successful but they were very unexpected, I had to fight for the cast. On "St Elmo's Fire" the studio really didn't want me to have the kids because nobody knew who they were and they also didn't want me to name the film "St Elmo's Fire" because they thought that nobody would want to see a film about a saint or a fire! They soon changed their minds.

"The Lost Boys" and those "Batman" films in Part II.

See Joel Schumacher talking about his films at the 44th London Film Festival.