Seth Abramovitch’s recent interview in The Hollywood Reporter doesn’t shed much new light on “horror master” John Carpenter’s career (Did you know that The Shape’s mask in Halloween is actually a William Shatner mask? That young Michael Myers’ hand in the opening tracking shot of Halloween is actually that of writer/producer Debra Hill?) In fact, Carpenter seems like he’d much rather talk about his Lost Themes record, video games, or the L.A. Lakers than regurgitate Halloween facts, but there are some bright spots, like this quote on his recent lawsuit against Luc Besson, director of Escape From Spac…err, Lockout:
CanalPlus is the company that, with me, owns Escape From New York. They came to me and said, ’Luc Besson ripped you off on Lockout.’ Or Lockdown, whatever the hell that was. And they sent me the movie, and yes, he did. It’s the same story. (Laughs) I mean, you can’t do that, can you? You have to change a couple things. He’s after the president’s daughter? Come on. So I took him to French court.
The great thing is, I didn’t have to do anything, really. That’s the kind of the job I’ve always wanted—where you don’t have to show up, and something happens. And we won! But any great dreams of retiring wealthy were shattered because they didn’t give us as much money as CanalPlus wanted.
Ever the capitalist, Carpenter has long implied that he doesn’t mind Halloween’s sequels, remakes, and sequels to remakes as long as he’s cashing a check and not doing much else. But while Carpenter didn’t mind cashing the check from the Luc Besson lawsuit, he doesn’t plan on suing the makers of the video game Metal Gear Solid, even though Metal Gear’s main character, Solid Snake, is a badass anti-hero type who dons some scruff, an eye patch, and a bad attitude. In other words, he has quite a bit in common with the character that Carpenter created along with screenwriting partner/bandmate Nick Castle (although on the NES box art, Solid Snake more so resembles Kyle Reese):