Joe Dante (1946), film buff and former film journalist (including for ‘Film Bulletin’, up until 1974) who became a film director in the late 1970s, was the guest of honor at the 33rd Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival to attend the premiere of his latest film “Burying the Ex,” a black horror comedy thriller shot entirely in Los Angeles and which drew a nice reception in Brussels. True to his earlier screen classics such as “Piranha” (1978), “The Howling” (1981), and “Gremlins” (1984), Mr. Dante, known as the king of the horror-comedy genre who always excels with sparkling one-liners, original film references and a wonderful sense of humor pervading most of his movies, his body of work is and will always remain fresh and unpredictable. With other highlights such as “The ‘Burbs” (1989) and “Matinee” (1993) to his credit, it is hard to comprehend that “Burying the Ex,” his first feature since “The Hole” (2009), doesn’t have an easy time getting into theaters. Yet, Mr. Dante is a veteran who has directed interesting films for nearly four decades now—and still counting. So why stop?

Mr. Dante, what is, in your opinion, the most difficult thing in the entire process of filmmaking?

It doesn’t happen on every movie, but it is when you realize that you and the producers are no longer on the same page about the movie that you’re making. In the interim, they have changed their minds about what they thought they wanted, and now, they want something different, not what you’re making. And what’s more, it’s not what you’ve made, because this happens after you have been shooting for a week or two. And so, suddenly, all the plans go out the window, and it has to be about something that it wasn’t about, or it has to have a tone that it didn’t have, but you can’t change it because there’s stuff you’ve already shot, so you have to move on. You might end with a movie that’s partly about this and partly about that. All of the fights that I’ve had with producers down the road have all been about people who changed their minds about what it is they wanted, ‘Oh, we thought it was going to be a film for children, and now it’s for older kids,’ or vice versa, ‘So we’ll do it this way,’ while you’re already doing it the other way.

What about the opposite, what’s the biggest joy of making a film in your opinion?

Oh, there are so many. The first successful screening of your finished movie is very nice, while the opposite of that is the first view of the rough cut. The only good thing you know then, is it will never be that bad again. It’s never quite as good as you hoped for, and usually, it’s not as bad as you fear, but the first rough cut is always disappointing because it hasn’t been shaped. It’s just all there. If you’re good, you can see what needs to be done. As you know, movies are made three times. First, they’re written, then they’re shot, and finally they’re edited. But the editing room is where you perfect the movie, whether it’s the movie you intended to make or the movie that you’re stuck with: this is the part where you fix it. This is the part where you say, ‘Well, you know, this isn’t a very good romance, but it’s a damned good biker movie, so let’s concentrate on that and make the best biker movie out of the failed romance movie that we just made.’ Also, the joy of making movies is working with actors who come up with things that nobody planned, that weren’t in the script, discovering that you blocked the scene, and instead of it being a problem, it just all worked out magically well. Basically, there are many more good things about making a movie than bad things.

When did you first realize that you were bankable?

I don’t know if I ever realized about being bankable, but I did realize that, after I had made “Piranha,” which made money in South America where people knew what a piranha was, I suddenly got offered a lot of pictures, “Orca 2” or “Jaws 3,” things like that. These were not necessarily the movies that I wanted to make, but “Piranha” had put me on the map, so to speak, and there was a scene in the movie where the bad guy, who was a general and who was up to no good, falls in the water and gets eaten by piranhas. The audience cheered, and I never encountered anything like this. Something I had engineered got an approbation from the audience, and it gave me a feeling of power. I realized you could affect people, although it was done in a very crude way. Once, when I went to see “Gremlins” in New York—it was played in two theaters next to each other—there was this one scene that got a big reaction from the audience, and when I looked out from the projection room in one theater, I saw this wave in the theater, how the audience reacted from the front row all the way to the back row. And then I looked out the other window into the other theater, and the exact same thing happened. It sort of empowers you: it makes you feel that—when you do it right—you can have an effect. Now, if movies really did change the world or could affect any kind of good change, we would have all disarmed after “Doctor Strangelove” [1964] came out. So I’m not a believer that movies can change much, but I think that they can certainly provide enjoyment and personal fulfillment for the audience when they’re done well.

Have you always been able to work without somebody looking over your shoulder?

I have occasionally been able to do that, but most directors would tell you no. When I was starting on very low-budget movies for Roger Corman, he was not the kind of guy who looked over your shoulder. He gave you his parameters; what kind of movie you were making, you knew how much money you had to spend, and you knew how much time you had. He was almost never on the set; he was busy doing other things. His directorial and editorial instincts were always pretty clever. It was an incredible working learning experience working. When I worked for Spielberg, it was the same thing. He was a man you could go to for an answer or to discuss things, and he knew what he was talking about: he was a filmmaker. So in that sense, I was very lucky with my first movies, because even though some of them were low-budget exploitation movies, I really didn’t have anyone looking over my shoulder, and that happened with “The Howling” too. I was working for a company then that suddenly discovered that horror movies were popular, and there was not a lot of oversight. It was really only when I got into the studio system, away from Spielberg, that I realized how much interference there could be. And I don’t mind any interference at all from people on the same page or people with the same goal, but the destructive interference from people who don’t like the kind of movie that you are making or wouldn’t go to see it personally, but yet are just filled with ideas of how you should change it. That I found debilitating. That happened much more later in my career; oddly enough, it didn’t happen in the beginning when I didn’t even know what I was doing. I was just basically trusted to be able to go out and make these movies. I always came in on budget, or under, so it was like, ‘Well, leave him alone. He knows what he’s doing’. But when I finally started to make expensive movies—understandably, the more money you spend, the more willing they are about getting their money back. Suddenly, I had people telling me things like, ‘That’s not funny,’ you know. Or, ‘Well, I think it’s funny, so maybe we should let the audience decide when we go to the preview.’ And then they’d say, ‘It’s not funny, so don’t do it.’ It’s difficult to deal with that. How interested they are, depends on how important the movie is. Mostly, they don’t have the time to manage the movie. I worked about a year and a half on “Looney Tunes: Back in Action” [2003], and I was constantly being reminded by them they didn’t like cartoons; they would never go see a picture like that and kept telling me what I should do. ‘You should do it this way.’ So I said, ‘You don’t like this movie, but I’m not making it for you. Why don’t you leave me and the animation director alone. We like these movies and we know what we’re talking about, so let us just finish it, and then we’ll show it to you?’ And when we showed them the movie, it didn’t even have any animation in it; they hated it. One thing that I learned, is never to show the studio any picture in any kind of form that’s too rough because whatever first impression they have of the movie, will be the impression they’ll have forever. You can bring in Orson Welles to fix it, or James Cameron to reshoot it, and it won’t matter. Their impression will always be the same. It’s hard enough to make movies when people are getting along. When they aren’t getting along, you go to work every morning, and you are upset because you know you will have to fight with somebody about something, and you got six months to go, you know you will have to battle for six months with these people. It wears you down.

Where do you get the energy to keep on making movies?

I love making movies! Despite some of the bad things I just talked about, there aren’t too many of them: I only had those troubles from, let’s say, 1998 until 2000. That was the only time I had troubles with the studios; all the rest was wonderful. With all the other movies I made, I could say, ‘If you don’t like it, it’s my fault. If you do like it, that’s my fault too. It’s my movie. I stand by it.’ Little things I gave up on, the other things that I got, we did the bargaining, and that’s the way people always made movies from the beginning of the studio era. You go to a preview, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and you do whatever needs to be done. I’m perfectly okay with the system! What I’m not okay with is people who don’t know anything about making movies telling you they do.

What about the amazing talent of filmmakers such as Roger Corman and, most of all, an extraordinary filmmaker like Steven Spielberg. What makes working with them such a wonderful experience?

Well, one thing is they foster talent. They both have done projects purely because they wanted to find new people. Roger has a more complex motive because finding new people means you can get them cheaper, and it also means you can get them to adapt to your way of working. But he is also tremendously talented at finding new people who really want to make movies. And I was one of them; I did everything to make my movies good. When I edited “Piranha,” like seven days a week for a whole month, I even slept in the editing room because I was afraid it would be terrible. I didn’t go to the wrap party because I thought the movie was terrible. But he found people like that. Spielberg also; one of the reasons he formed his own company was to bring in new talent. With the TV show ‘Amazing Stories’ [1985-87], he insisted NBC would keep to their two-year agreement because he wanted to use it as a starting off point for young talent, to give them a break, bring them into the studio system and let them make a studio movie of thirty minutes, for a bigger budget than they ever had before. So I think of them as givers to the business. They brought so many people and so much talent to the business. You didn’t see too many other people doing that kind of thing.

How did you move on from the low-budget production “The Howling” to your first Hollywood studio movie, “Twilight Zone—The Movie”?

Well, it was a gradual step. The “Gremlins” script first came to me as a low-budget movie. Steven had decided he wanted to make a low-budget horror film as the first movie for his new company. While we were developing that, we discovered it couldn’t be a low-budget movie if we wanted all of those special effects. “Twilight Zone—The Movie” then came along, and I was in the right place at the right time because I was asked to direct an episode, so that was my first studio movie. Ironically, because of the tragic accident that happened before we started shooting the rest of the movie [deadly helicopter crash when shooting John Landis’ episode], the studio was very hands-off on the movie. They wanted the movie because it was a Spielberg movie, but they didn’t want anything to do with it. So George Miller and I—for him his first studio movie as well—were completely left alone; we got all the talented studio people, we got all the studio equipment, and we could do whatever we wanted. We both discovered on our next pictures that it’s not really the way it works.

How do you work with your actors on the set?

I take the John Huston approach. I start with storyboards—I’m not Hitchcock, I love Hitchcock, I love his movies, but I couldn’t work that way where everything is figured out, where you’re going to be, and all of that. But John Huston used to say, ‘Now you just come in and let’s run the scene. Let’s see where you’ll stand. You’re going to pick up your hat? You’re going to move over there? You’ll pick up a drink?’ Then you look at that, and you decide how you’ll cover the scene. I always have my idea, but the extra and additional fill-up of the actor coming up with something different—what if I stand over there, or what if I don’t do this or that—I like that. It’s one of the fun things about actors who come up with that; I love that. This spontaneity is great. Doing a scene over and over again like Stanley Kubrick did, I couldn’t do it. I think he’s great, but I couldn’t do those many takes. Working with actors is the joy of making movies because it’s the one thing you anticipate. You don’t know what they’re going to do unless you’re doing a movie version of a stage play where you’ve seen them all playing their part. The way they play opposite each other is a surprise. Kid actors are even better because you really never know what they’re going to do or where the stuff comes from. That’s why I make so many movies with kids; they’re great to work with.

Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, Brussels (Belgium)
April 8, 2015

“Burying the Ex” (2014, trailer)

FILMS

CANNONBALL (1976) DIR Paul Bartel PROD Samuel W. Gelfman SCR Paul Bartel, Donald C. Simpson CAM Tak Fujimoto MUS David A. Axelrod CAST David Carradine, Veronica Hamel, Bill McKinney, Gerrit Graham, Robert Carradine, Belinda Balaski, Judy Canova, Carl Gottlieb, James Keach, Dick Miller, John Herzfeld, Allan Arkush, Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Michael Finnell, Jonathan Kaplan, Martin Scorsese, Sylvester Stallone

HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD (1976) DIR Joe Dante, Allan Arkush PROD Jon Davison SCR Patrick Hobby [Danny Opatoshu] CAM Jamie Anderson MUS Andrew E. Stein ED Joe Dante, Allan Arkush, Amy Jones [Amy Holden Jones] CAST Candice Rialson, Mary Woronov, Rita George, Jeffrey Kramer, Dick Miller, Paul Bartel, Joe Dante, Allan Arkush, Jonathan Demme, Danny Opatoshu, Lewis Teague

GRAND THEFT AUTO (1977) DIR Ron Howard PROD Jon Davison SCR Ron Howard, Rance Howard CAM Gary Graver MUS Peter Ivers ED Joe Dante CAST Ron Howard, Nancy Morgan, Marion Ross, Pete Isacksen, Barry Cahill, Rance Howard, Clint Howard, Paul Bartel, Garry Marshall, Bobs Watson, Allan Arkush, Cheryl Howard

PIRANHA (1978) DIR Joe Dante PROD Jon Davison SCR John Sayles (story by John Sayles, Richard Robinson) CAM Jamie Anderson MUS Pino Donaggio ED Joe Dante, Mark Goldblatt CAST Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn, Dick Miller, Barbara Steele, Belina Balaski, Melody Thomas, Bruce Gordon, Paul Bartel, Joe Dante, John Sayles

ROCK ‘N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL (1979) DIR Allan Arkush, Joe Dante [uncredited] PROD Michael Finnell SCR Richard Whitley, Russ Dvoch, Joseph McBride (story by Joe Dante, Allan Arkush) CAM Dean Cundey CAST P.J. Soles, Vincent Van Patten, Clint Howard, Dey Young, The Ramones, Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel, Dick Miller, Joe Dante

THE HOWLING (1981) DIR Joe Dante PROD Jack Conrad, Michael Finnell SCR John Sayles, Terence H. Winkless (novel ‘The Howling’ [1977] by Gary Bradner) CAM John Hora MUS Pino Donaggio ED Joe Dante, Mark Goldblatt CAST Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee, Dennis Dugan, Christopher Stone, Belinda Balaski, Kevin McCarthy, John Carradine, Slim Pickens, Elisabeth Brooks, Robert Picardo, Dick Miller, Roger Corman, John Sayles, Jonathan Kaplan

A TIME TO DIE (1982) DIR Matt Cimber, Joe Tornatore PROD Charles lee SCR Matt Cimber, Willy Russell, John F. Goff (novel ‘Six Graves to Munich’ [1967] by Mario Cleri [Mario Puzo]) CAM Tom Denove [Thomas F. Denove], Eddy Van Der Enden [Eduard van der Enden] MUS Robert O. Ragland CAST Rex Harrison, Rod Taylor, Edward Albert, Jr., Raf Vallone, Linn Stokke, Cor van Rijn, Herbert Mittendorf, Rijk de Gooyer, Joe Dante, Red Horton

TWILIGHT ZONE – THE MOVIE (Warner Bros., 1983) DIR John Landis (prologue, segment 1), Steven Spielberg (segment 2), Joe Dante (segment 3), George Miller (segment 4) PROD John Landis, Steven Spielberg SCR John Landis (segment 1), George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, Josh Rogan [Melissa Mathison] (segment 2), Richard Matheson (story by Jerome Bixby) (segment 3), Richard Matheson (also story) (segment 4) (TV series ‘The Twight Zone’ created by Rod Serling) CAST (segment 1) Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, Vic Morrow (segment 1), Scatman Crothers, Bill Quinn (segment 2), Kathleen Quinlan, Kevin McCarthy (Uncle Walt), Dick Miller (segment 3), John Lithgow, Abbe Lane (segment 4); Burgess Meredith (voice only)

GREMLINS (1984) DIR Joe Dante PROD Michael Finnell EXEC PROD Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall SCR Chris Columbus CAM John Hora MUS Jerry Goldsmith CAST Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Frances Lee McCain, Polly Holliday, Glynn Turman, Dick Miller, Keye Luke, Scott Brady, Judge Reinhold, Jackie Joseph, Harry Carey, Jr., Steven Spielberg

EXPLORERS (1985) DIR Joe Dante PROD David Bombyk, Edward S. Feldman SCR Eric Luke CAM John Hora MUS Jerry Goldsmith CAST Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, Jason Presson, Amanda Peterson, Dick Miller, Robert Picardo, Dana Ivey, Meshach Taylor, Mary Kay Place

INNERSPACE (1987) DIR Joe Dante PROD Michael Finnell EXEC PROD Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Peter Guber SCR Chip Proser (story by Chip Proser, Jeffrey Boam) CAM Andrew Laszlo MUS Jerry Goldsmith CAST Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, Meg Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Fiona Lewis, Veronica Wells, Robert Picardo, Wendy Schaal, Harold Sylvester, William Shallert, Kathleen Freeman, Dick Miller, Joe Dante

THE ‘BURBS (1989) DIR Joe Dante PROD Michael Finnell, Larry Brezner SCR Dana Olsen CAM Robert Stevens [Robert M. Stevens] MUS Jerry Goldsmith CAST Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducommun, Corey Feldman, Wendy Schaal, Henry Gibson, Brother Theodore, Courtney Gains, Dick Miller

GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990) DIR Joe Dante PROD SCR CAM MUS CAST Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, John Glover, Robert Prosky, Robert Picardo, Christopher Lee, Haviland Morris, Dick Miller, Jackie Joseph, Kathleen Freeman; Tony Randall (voice only)

OSCAR (1991) DIR John Landis PROD Leslie Belzberg SCR Jim Mulholland, Michael Barrie (play ‘Oscar’ [1958] by Claude Magnier) CAM Mac Ahlberg MUS Elmer Bernstein CAST Sylvester Stallone, Ornella Muti, Don Ameche, Marisa Tomei, Yvonne De Carlo, Ken Howard, Kirk Douglas, Joe Dante, Jim Abrahams

SLEEPWALKERS (1993) DIR Mick Garris PROD Michael Grais, Mark Victor, Nabeel Zahid SCR Stephen King CAM Rodney Charters MUS Nicholas Pike CAST Brian Krause, Mädchen Amick, Alice Krige, Jim Haynie, Cindy Pickett, Lyman Ward, Ron Perlman, Dan Martin, Glenn Shadix, John Landis, Joe Dante, Stephen King, Tobe Hooper, Mark Hamill

MATINEE (1993) DIR Joe Dante PROD Michael Finnell SCR Charlie Haas (story by Charlie Haas, Jerico) CAM John Hora MUS Jerry Goldsmith CAST John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Lisa Jakub, Kellie Martin, Jesse Lee, Lacinda Jenney, James Villemaire, Belinda Balaski, Dick Miller, John Sayles, Naomi Watts, Kevin McCarthy

IL SILENZIO DEI PROSCIUTI, a.k.a. SILENCE OF THE HAMS (1994) DIR – SCR Ezio Greggio PROD Julie Corman CAM Jacques Haitkin MUS Parmer Fuller CAST Ezio Greggio, Dom DeLuise, Billy Zane, Joanna Pacula, Charlene Tilton, Martin Balsam, Stuart Pankin, Phyllis Diller, Larry Storch, Shelley Winters, Henry Silva, Joe Dante, John Carpenter, John Landis, Mel Brooks

BEVERLY HILLS COP III (1994) DIR John Landis PROD Mace Neufeld, Robert Rehme SCR Steven E. de Souza (characters created by Danilo Bach, Daniel Petrie, Jr.) CAM Mac Ahlberg MUS Nile Rogers CAST Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, Hector Elizondo, Theresa Randle, Bronson Pinchot, Timothy Carhart, John Saxon, Alan Young, Stephen McHattie, Al Green, George Lucas, Joe Dante, Arthur Hiller, Barbet Schroeder

THE PHANTOM (1996) DIR Simon Wincer PROD Robert Evans, Alan Ladd, Jr. EXEC PROD Joe Dante, Graham Burke, Greg Coote, Dick Vane, Bruce Sherlock, Peter Sjoquist SCR Jeffrey Boam (characters created by Lee Falk) CAM David Burr MUS David Newman CAST Billy Zane, Kristy Swanson, Treat Williams, Catherine Zeta-Jones, James Remar, Car-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Samantha Eggar, Patrick McGoohan

SMALL SOLDIERS (1998) DIR Joe Dante PROD Michael Finnell, Colin Wilson SCR Gavin Scott, Adam Rifkin, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio CAM Jamie Anderson MUS Jerry Goldsmith CAST Kirsten Dunst, Gregory Smith, Jay Mohr, Phil Hartman, Kevin Dunn, Denis Leary, David Cross, Ann Magnuson, Wendy Schaal, Dick Miller, Robert Picardo; Tommy Lee Jones, Frank Langhella, Ernest Borgnine, Jim Brown, Bruce Dern, George Kennedy, Clint Walker, Christopher Guest, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Christina Ricci (voice only)

LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION (2003) DIR Joe Dante PROD SCR Larry Doyle, Paula Weinstein, Bernie Goldmann CAM Dean Cundey MUS Jerry Goldsmith CAST Brendan Fraser, Jenna Elfman, Steve Martin, Timothy Dalton, Joan Cusack, Heather Locklear, Mary Woronov, Robert Picardo, Marc Lawrence, Dick Miller, Roger Corman, Kevin McCarthy, Ron Perlman, Peter Graves; Joe Alaskey, Billy West, Jeff Glenn Bennett, Bob Bergen, Casey Kasem (voice only)

THE HOLE (2009) DIR Joe Dante PROD Vicki Sotheran, David Lancaster, Michael Litvak SCR Mark L. Smith CAM Theo van de Sande MUS Javier Naverette CAST Chris Massoglia, Haley Bennett, Nathan Gamble, Teri Polo, Bruce Dern, Quinn Lord, Dick Miller

TRAIL OF BLOOD (2011) DIR – SCR Joseph Guerrieri, Justin Guerrieri PROD Matthew Hsu EXEC PROD Joe Dante CAM Collin Brink MUS Dylan Ris CAST Robert Picardo, Tim Barraco, Trevor Torseth, Kandis Erickson, Mackenzie Mason, Maggie VandenBerghe, Ray Campbell, Dustin Fotzsimmons

THE BUTTERFLY ROOM (2012) DIR Jonathan Zarantonello PROD Ethan Wiley, Enzo Porcelli SCR Jonathan Zarantonello, Paolo Guerrieri, Luigi Sardiello (novel ‘Alice dale 4 alle 5’ by Jonathan Zarantonello) CAM Andrew Strahorn MUS Aldo De Scalzi Pivio CAST Barbara Steele, Ray Wise, Erica Leerhsen, Heather Langenkamp, Ellery Sprayberry, Julia Putnam, Camille Keaton, P.J. Soles, Adrienne King, Joe Dante

BURYING THE EX (2014) DIR Joe Dante PROD Alan Trezza, Mary Cybriwsky, Carl Effenson, Kyle Telieka, David Johnson, Frankie Lindquist SCR Alan Trezza CAM Jonathan Hall MUS Joseph DoLuca CAST Anton Yelchin, Ashley Greene, Alexandra Daddario, Oliver Cooper, Dick Miller

DARK (2015) DIR Nick Basile PROD Nick Basile, Kathryn Belli, David Boulton, Andrea De Liberato, Emanuele Moretti EXEC PROD Joe Dante, Sultan Saeed Al Darmaki, Benny Ash, Raphael J.H. Hickman SCR Nick Basile, Elias CAM Trent Ermes MUS Kenneth Lampi CAST Whitney Able, Alexandra Breckenridge, Michael Eklund, Brendan Sexton III, Benny Ash, James Dinnono

TALES OF HALLOWEEN (2015) DIR Darren Lynn Bousman, Axelle Carolyn, Adam Gierasch, Andrew Kasch, Neil Marshall, Lucky McKee, Mike Mendez, Dave Parker, Ryan Schifrin, John Skipp, Paul Solet PROD Axelle Carolyn, Mike Mendez SCR Axelle Carolyn, Andrew Kasch, Neil Marshall, Mike Mendez, Lucky McKee, Dave Parker, Ryan Schifrin, John Skipp, Molly Millions, Billy Jackson, Clint Sears, Greg Simmons (created by Axelle Carolyn) CAM Jan-Michael Losada, Zoran Popovic, David Tayar, Alex Vendler, Richard J. Vialet, Joseph White, Scott Winig MUS Lalo Schifrin, Christopher Drake, Christian Henson, Joseph Bishara, Michael Sean Colin, Haim Frank Ilfman, Bobby Johnston, Austin Wintory, Edwin Wendler ED Matthew Barry, Josh Ethier, Andrew Kasch, Mike Mendez, Vanessa Menendez, Eddie Oswald, Dave Parker, Zach Passero, Brian J. Smith, Sean Tretta CAST Caroline Williams, James Duval, Kristina Klebe, Ben Stillwell, Adrienne Barbeau, Barry Bostwick, John Landis, Joe Dante

TV MOVIES

THE SECOND CIVIL WAR (1997) DIR Joe Dante PROD Guy Riedel TELEPLAY Martyn Burke CAM Mac Ahlberg MUS Hummie Mann CAST Beau Bridges, Joanna Cassidy, Phil Hartman, James Earl Jones, James Coburn, Dan Hedaya, Elizabeth Peña, Dennis Leasy, Ron Perlman, Brian Keith, Kevin McCarthy, Dick Miller, Roger Corman, Robert Picardo, Belinda Balanski

THE WARLORD: BATTLE FOR THE GALAXY (1998) DIR Joe Dante PROD Dan Dugan, Bill Millar EXEC PROD Joe Dante TELEPLAY Caleb Carr CAM Jamie Anderson MUS Karl Lundeberg CAST John Corbett, Carolyn McCormick, Rod Taylor, John Pyper-Ferguson, Elisabeth Harnois, Dick Miller, Belinda Balaski

THE GREATEST SHOW EVER (2007) DIR Joe Dante, Huston Huddleston, Scott Leva, Stacy Title PROD nancy Adams TELEPLAY Huston Huddleston CAM Paolo Cascio, Charles Schner CAST Traci Lords, Mickey Rooney, Daniel Alm, Arthur Ryabets, Emanuela Szumilas, Adrian Arminius, Luke Eikens, Cassie Jaye, George Lindsay, Jr.

BLAST LAS VEGAS (2013) DIR Jack Perez PROD Keith Melton TELEPLAY Joe D’Ambroasia, Tom Teves (story by Meyer Shwarzstein) CAM Alexander Yellen MUS Chris Ridenhour CAST Frankie Muniz, Barry Bostwick, Maggie Castle, Michael Steger, Andrew Lawrence, Joe Dante