[Part 2]
Vincent Mandalay.
There was a time, not all that long ago, when my name had been respected, praised, and worshiped even, by the critics and elites within the cutthroat world of Hollywood filmmaking. Since I could speak, I’ve only spoken in the language of cinema. My earliest memories from childhood all center around my father and our weekly trips to the multiplex, followed by passionate debates over the intricacies of “the process” by the fireplace. Our time in this world was cut short, as I would lose my father before the start of high school after his failing health and decades of bad habits finally caught up to him. I vowed to keep his memory alive with every movie ticket and bag of popcorn I purchased thereafter.
It was my father’s reputation as one of the most sought editors in the business that allowed me a foot in the door but not much further. Never one for making friends, my icy exterior did little to win favor with my colleagues, though teachers and professors would acknowledge my talent while encouraging me to learn the value of teamwork. I resisted them, perhaps out of spite, as the era of auteur filmmakers in which I’d grown up had inspired me to master my skills in all areas of production. The stories I wished to tell were too personal, too thoroughly crafted in my head for others to be able to help in the translation to celluloid. I thought I could become a lone wolf film crew, a Renaissance man of the motion picture.
It was my final thesis project that would earn me the golden ticket into Hollywood. A little sci-fi romance called Starry Eyed, centered around an astronaut lost out of time who crash lands on a distant world and falls in love with an alien princess. A little high concept for sure, but without the usual smoke and mirrors most genre pictures were known for. Instead, taking place almost entirely within an interstellar dive bar, the picture was more of a collage of vignettes, all tied together by a singular love story for the ages. The various alien humanoids, all in relationship dramas of their own, sought to destroy this forbidden love due to their inability to see their failures, and the tragic finale saw the two loves jettisoning themselves into space on a small shuttle, their next destination unknown.
While showcasing it for my college’s film festival, it would catch the eye of producers who just so happened to work for the studio my father once had, Sunrise Studios. They met with me following the film’s premiere, telling me they were impressed with my work but not surprised given the talent my father had displayed during his tenure there. After some small talk, they offered me the deal of a lifetime. The producers at Sunrise felt the film was almost ready for a theatrical release, but needed a few reshoots to beef up the runtime and correct some mistakes. It would be on a tight budget, with Sunrise overseeing the remainder of production. But providing everything went smoothly, I was offered the standard royalty rate and copyright ownership of the title Starry Eyed. Of course, I accepted and would end up missing my graduation ceremony to begin the first day of reshoots.
It was no surprise to me that the film won its fair share of box office success, but it was the critical adoration, the endless universal praise that truly went to my head, fueling my already supremely overfed ego. An immediate Best Picture frontrunner, the film would eventually earn seven Oscar nominations, though sadly would win none. The crushing loss didn’t matter much to the studio nor I, as such oddities were common throughout Hollywood. I’d already set my eyes on the future, determined to annihilate everyone’s expectations with my next cinematic concoction.
It didn’t take me long to find my inspiration. In March of 1980, the once sleepy volcanic mountain of St. Helens, tucked away in Washington state within the Cascade mountain range, reawakened with titanic force. Within seconds the entire region felt the pent-up rage of mother earth as millions of tons of pulverized rock and ash descended upon the entire region. In total, 57 deaths were confirmed amongst hundreds more left injured and or homeless. As fate would have it, just before the disaster, I’d found myself doing a bit of light reading on the topic of volcanology and historical eruptions. The fabled story of Pompeii came up naturally, and I became mesmerized by the images of the doomed citizens, frozen in place as they ran in terror from the inescapable power of Mt. Vesuvius. I envisioned the same kind of universal love story from Starry Eyed unfolding during such an eruption set within a futuristic Pompeii. The massive 78-page treatment was written in just three weeks and its title, though I couldn’t have known at the time, would go on to become one of the greatest tragedies in cinematic history.
Pompeii Inferno
Sunrise initially balked at my treatment, saying it was too expensive for my second feature and that Starry Eyed’s “modest success” did not warrant control over such a large blockbuster. Undeterred, I edited my treatment to include fewer characters and less focus on the actual spectacle. I even did the unthinkable; offering to forgo my entire director’s salary in favor of a sweet backend deal, providing the film was a box office hit. The studio was enticed by this offer, and after a few days of negotiations, they came back with a list of demands of their own if the picture was to be made.
Contrary to their previous statements about budget, they now wanted a bigger focus on spectacle and a large cast made up of the top talent in Hollywood. I had no problem with this initially, seeing it was a massive win on my end until I was informed by the head of the studio himself that the leads were to be approved by them directly. A minor annoyance for sure, and I wanted to protest. I was given a list of actors and actresses the studio saw as “bankable”, though to be honest most of them inspired zero confidence. The female lead would eventually go to an actress that had been the lead of one of the studio’s successful horror franchises, Evelyn Furrow. Being a fan of the series and the actress in particular, she wasn’t a tough sell for me.
Unfortunately, for various reasons, the list of names for the male lead dwindled until there was just one. Salary disputes, schedule conflicts, lack of interest, hell two of them even came down with pneumonia the day of the audition. Whatever reason they gave, my patience wore out until just one name was left, whose placement on the list had been done so on purpose. I had hoped, no, prayed, that I could lock down any of the other potential options beforehand.
Mario De Luca.
A name anyone reading this will certainly know, especially in light of recent events. He’d come seemingly out of nowhere from some small village in northern Italy to Hollywood, shortly after the release of the revised edition of Starry Eyed. Just shy of 21, his first film role had been a minor supporting character in a low-budget crime drama, but his charming yet sardonic performance won over audiences and critics alike. He would go on to become one of the few actors to win an Oscar for their debut performance. Since then, he’d continued to win countless awards as his films pulled in huge numbers at the box office thanks to his adoring fan base.
By all accounts, I should’ve been thrilled to have such an esteemed actor in my film, not to mention his huge and dedicated fan base willing to support every project with consistently massive returns. Better still, he was an incredibly attractive young man with a slim but athletic physique, and his intoxicating Italian accent added the perfect garnish to an already admittedly attractive appetizer. Although considered a sex symbol by many, his humility and commitment to social issues had won over even the harshest critics, and his background in sailing and engineering allowed him to overcome his “himbo” persona” that had won him so much acclaim.
Everyone fell for it immediately, except for me.
Why was I the only one that saw it in the beginning? He was a good one, an actor that is. I’ll give him that much credit. Our first meeting would be right after the Oscar ceremony in which he’d won his first award. Outwardly, he did nothing wrong or disrespectful to offend me. Quite the contrary. His warm compliments of my film seemed genuine, and I had admittedly been impressed with the performance of the fresh-faced newcomer.
It was his eyes. “The eyes are the windows to the soul”, a popular saying no doubt, one told by my grandmother to my father and then so on to me. If this is true, then there was nothing I could decipher from the soul of Mario De Luca that night. His smile was bright, his tone was pitch-perfect, and he had just dropped his now trademark “island off the coast of Tristan da Cunha” story that would become one of his signature hits.
Almost every box was checked off but one.
His eyes. They were this unnerving shade of brown, almost black, with his irises practically indistinguishable. The eyes that tended to follow you no matter which direction you went. Stoic and unchanging, they were the kind of eyes that burned straight through to your soul, resisting all attempts by their owner to simulate emotion. I could feel the gears behind his head moving, attempting to reverse course and eventually settling for heaping even further praise upon my work as well as my father’s. It didn’t work, and from that point onward, our paths would not cross again for several years. I retreated into my little corner of Hollywood, and soon our brief encounter slipped into the recesses of my memory. I’d hoped to never have another interaction with him until his name was forcibly brought back into my life. “I have my reasons” is all I could say when the studio pressed on why I was so resistant to his casting.
There was another matter outside of Mario himself that concerned me. His fanbase was, by most accounts, a respectable group of people who just so happened to admire Mario’s work and were happy to support his projects to the fullest extent. But being such a large group, it meant there were more opportunities for “nutjobs” and “loonies” to slip through the cracks. Reports of incidents of stalking and harassment were common and on more than one occasion, Mario’s house had been the subject of burglary and vandalism. Since then, Mario had assembled a security team of sorts to escort him to and from sets, interviews, and pretty much any social engagement. I worried about the expense and hassle of having to factor in his “entourage” into the budget, I worried about disruptions to the set and film, but more than any of that, I worried about just having Mario on the film, period. It was the first of many bad omens for the project, one that I should have heeded when I had the opportunity.
The “audition”, as it were, went off smoothly, with Mario sitting down in front of me, the casting director, and an executive from Sunrise who’d come to facilitate the likely deal that was to be made later. His trademark smile was glossier than ever and his tailored denim ensemble was certainly a bold choice but still made him look like a million bucks. I almost didn’t catch it, until our last encounter came back to me, and I remembered.
His eyes.
Before they’d been a deep brown, almost black.
Now, a warm chocolate had filled in the previously voided-out irises.
What sort of trick was it? Contacts perhaps? It would be very much like Mario to start wearing contacts just to win over one person. I couldn’t give it that much thought but it was certainly off-putting at first. It did the trick though, as before long, I found myself getting swept up in his effervescent charm just like everyone else. His flawless climatic monologue to his character’s lover as the city is engulfed in flames was certainly one for the books. He was so committed, so in tune with the character and the emotion of the scene, one could have easily believed the audition tape was part of the film if placed in. I could tell he’d studied the script, as he delivered the dialogue flawlessly while ad-libbing a few lines of his own that I was a tad jealous I hadn’t written myself.
Given his offer was already guaranteed by the studio, the executive and casting director were ready to sign right then and there. My input was merely a formality, it wasn’t required. Even though I’d been more than a little swooned by his performance, there was still that initial meeting, that flicker of the void that I saw in Mario’s eyes the night we first met. I wanted to say “no, please find someone else, anyone else”. It was too late though. This was so much bigger than just my treatment. Money was being spent, sets had been constructed, and the Hollywood Hype machine was already in motion. I rationed at the time that I was going to work with many actors, and it was not possible that I would like every single one of them. Mario was just one of many “bad eggs” I would come across in this line of work, and there wasn’t anything even “bad” about him. It was entirely my paranoia alone and nothing else. What did it matter if we had to work together on this one project?
I signed off on the deal with no hesitation, eager to get production started as soon as possible, but requested a meeting alone with Mario right afterward, just to talk about the character. His team looked rather annoyed with this request but Mario waved them off effortlessly and soon we were alone for the first time. There’s been much printed in the media since this has all come to light about our “meeting” that day. I’ll tell you his cunning charm had certainly worked wonders, as all traces of that initial encounter were all but erased. The preceding years had certainly been good to both of us, and I was happy to stay in my little corner while he continued his swift ascent to the top. No shady backend deals were made, and certainly, no plans were discussed on what would eventually transpire. I simply wanted his input on the character, what he liked, disliked, his permission to add the improvised lines to the script, and one final question about why he wanted to be involved in the project. His answer was swift and to the point, as if memorized beforehand.
“Who wouldn’t want to be a part of one of your films? With this movie, together you and I could become immortal!” said with the verve and veneer of the best car salesman alive. When you flash a mug like his and smile as if you’ve just fallen in love for the first time, how could anyone resist such a charm?
With casting in place, an estimated budget of around $45 million secured, and the entire Seattle backlot of Sunrise Studios completely transformed into a cyberpunk rendition of the Italian countryside, Pompeii Inferno would officially commence production on July 23, 1982, with an expected release date in the summer of 1983. It would be going up against big titles such as Return of the Jedi, Superman III, and Psycho II, a competitive release schedule for sure. The studio and I, though, were more than confident our original piece would stand out against the standard Hollywood fare. The first day of shooting went off without incident, as would the next few weeks.
Mario and Evelyn, by all accounts, got along swimmingly. Their chemistry was off the charts, so passionate that you truly forgot you were making a movie whenever they were on camera together. It was quite the experience in person, seeing two of the most talented actors of their time bringing my screenplay to life. The crew speculated endlessly about a potential affair, while the studio execs were already formulating a PR stunt involving the supposed “couple” following the end of production. The studio had spared no expense when it came to set and production design, and there had been fear in the beginning that it had been too big a gamble to make on an untapped IP. But ever since Mario had been officially signed on, the studio had been practically radio silent, deferring to my direction when any issue arose.
It wasn’t until the first month of shooting had wrapped, that the trouble began.
It all started over dinner, which would later be called “The Last Supper” by the trades. We’d just started filming the initial eruption of the volcano, and after ten hours of being covered in both fake and real sweat, ash, and dirt, the entire cast and crew and I were ready for bed. But not before a lovely last-minute supper prepared by Mario himself. An Italian wedding soup that had been in his family for generations, or so he claimed. It had been a welcome and refreshing denouement to a particularly stressful day, though it would quickly prove to be fool’s gold.
Mario had eaten his bowl rather quickly and helped himself to a second bowl before the rest of us, and so of course he was the first to display symptoms. I’d just sat down and was about to take a bite when a loud crash caught everyone’s attention. Mario had dropped his bowl and was caught stumbling out of the hotel dining room, mumbling something under his breath no one could hear. Several members of his team followed him out, and while it quickly became a hot topic of gossip, no one felt anything off for the first twenty minutes or so.
But once it hit, it struck hard and fast.
Everything changed at once. Slowly at first but more rapidly as the minutes ticked by. The room started spinning while waves of euphoria washed over most of us, though a few muted screams signified others were not so lucky. One of the SFX guys told everyone to stop eating while laughing hysterically. In between his uncontrollable fits of mania, he managed to spit out that the food had likely been laced with molly. My symptoms remained relatively mild throughout, so it wasn’t all that bad until the vomiting kicked in. The hotel staff had been more than accommodating before this but were brought to the gates of hell and back that night. I can’t even imagine the smell in the morning when they were finally able to start cleaning.
The first ambulances didn’t show up until well over an hour later when the hallucinations finally kicked in. I don’t remember much, other than the occasional sensation of total weightlessness, which was not as fun as you might think. There’s more than one testimonial of me being seen desperately clinging to a lamppost as I was escorted into an ambulance. In total, more than 40 members of the cast and crew were hospitalized that night, most for minor symptoms. Almost all of us were dismissed that night, though they did end up keeping the SFX guy who’d first warned us for observation. Evidently, he’d had a second helping of Mario’s Italian wedding soup…
and a third…
and a fourth…
Sunrise, however, wasn’t laughing at the situation. A meeting was called with me, Mario, the studio president, and several other execs two days after the incident to discuss how it happened in the first place. Mario denied putting any drugs in the soup, pretty adamantly and emotionally too if I may add. Even I doubted at the time he could have done it, given how against character it was. With no other suspects, the entire incident was being chalked up as an expensive fluke, one that should not have happened under my watch. At least, that’s how the studio president felt. I was, after all, the writer, director, editor, producer, and cinematographer of the project. I truly was “the last man standing”.
It was disheartening, how swiftly the studio turned on me, probably not wanting to upset their new golden goose. Mario, the martyr that he was, did all he could to take away the blame, but the studio stood firm on their assertion that the entire ordeal should have been avoided. Someone always ends up being the scapegoat, and so I begrudgingly took their verbal reprimand and offered my reassurances that a meeting of this sort would not happen again.
History, however, would prove otherwise, as just a week later, a meeting with the very same group of people, minus Mario, would meet for an entirely different reason.
Leah Fenway.
A legend from the Silver Age of Hollywood, we were beyond ecstatic when she returned the Pompeii Inferno script with a note that read “What a piece of shit! Where do I sign?”. I still have that script and note framed and sealed in a vault to this day. A tough-as-nails stronghold of a woman, she still brought an aura of grace to all her scenes as the “Cassandra” of our film; a volcanologist that attempts to warn the citizens of Pompeii about the impending eruption, only to be killed in a freak accident shortly before the volcano explodes. Her scenes had already been completed by the time of the “Supper” incident, and it was thought that she hadn’t been present when the soup was served.
It would appear not, as just a day after the meeting with Mario and the studio president, Leah would be found in the middle of the set by a crew member, dead of an apparent heart attack.
When Leah’s autopsy report was released, it showed trace amounts of MDMA in her system. Surveillance footage of the studio also showed Leah stumbling onto the set by using her keycard to gain entry. How the alarms still weren’t set off, no one knows. Nothing appeared to have been sabotaged, and there was no reason the motion sensors shouldn’t have alerted security the moment she arrived. All that was certain is that Leah wandered onto the set and managed to get down one of the “streets” before ducking into an alleyway, not to be seen again until her body was discovered hours later. The news spread fast and within days, paparazzi and media junkets from all over the country had poured into Seattle to cover the story. Naturally, word of the “Last Supper” also leaked, and soon, tabloids all over the world were spreading the “news” of our allegedly cursed production, detailing both the molly incident and Leah’s death in grim detail.
It was a PR disaster, the kind every film production prays never happens to them. There’s a precedent of course, a cast or crew member dying during production isn’t out of the ordinary, though it’s usually due to negligence or a pre-existing condition. Leah, as far as we knew, had a clean bill of health the day she signed on for the film, and given the lack of clues at the scene or any explanation as to how she got onset in the first place, it was beginning to look like yet another “freak accident” of sorts.
Our second meeting was a contentious one. I was of course deeply apologetic, offering to address Leah’s family and fans personally and donate my backend percentage to Leah’s estate. The studio wasn’t impressed and told me point blank the only reason they weren’t shutting down production that day was because of the massive expense already incurred. As is customary, the studio had already planned out a promotional campaign over the next year which included tours of the Pompeii set, toys, costumes, and multiple endorsement deals. This time, there was no beating around the bush, no slap on the wrists. It was made abundantly clear that no more incidents were to be tolerated going forward. This was officially my “second strike” as it were.
There was nothing to be done, “the show must go on”, as we love to say in show business. The production though was allowed to pause for two days to give us all time to grieve. Leah’s family, which had mostly consisted of her many adopted children, hounded the set every day from that point onward, determined to take down both the studio and me along with it. Threats of a lawsuit floated around but nothing had come of it at that time. The once joyous and playful atmosphere quickly devolved into a near-constant state of mourning and paranoia, everyone wondering who or what would happen next.
[Part 2]