Here's a story for you all. A few days after Christmas 1993 I got a phone call from a man who said he was a producer with Disney films. I thought some caving friend of mine was putting me on, like I've done a time or two (like the time Rick Bridges was on TV talking about Lechuguilla, so I called him and in my best fake French accent told him it was Jacques Costeau, and "we should do zee projects togezer.") Anyhow, this guy said that Disney had a script and an approved budget and they were going to make another Journey to the Center of the Earth. Their premise was that the Jules Verne story had happened, and now modern cavers were going to go back. It was to be a new story, not the same one. They invited me to come to LA and bring a duffel of caving gear, slides, and ideas of what sorts of gadgets cavers in the future might use. So I took them up on it and went to LA a couple of weeks later.
The morning I was to meet at the Disney studios was the morning of the Northridge Earthquake. It happened in the wee hours of the morning. I was staying in well known cavers Matt Oliphant and Nancy Pistole's guest house behind Matt's parent's house on the north end of the LA basin. I didn't know what to do about the scheduled meeting at the Disney studios. The phones were out. So I picked my way around closed roads and made it to the studio in Burbank, which was closed. Eventually I managed to get through to an associate producer and we planned to meet at the director's home in Burbank later the next day. The director's (Charlie Haid) chimney on the side of his house was laying flat in his yard. For several hours I met with him, two producers, a set designer from England (who had designed the sets for the movie Willow), and a couple of other people. I showed them gear, slides of Huautla, Cheve, Golondrinas, Honey Creek, etc., and entertained them with caving stories. They got me to speculate about what cavers of the future might have, like lightweight lights with very bright beams (this was pre-LEDs), radio headsets in helmets like in Sylvester Stallone's movie Cliffhanger, and so on. The movie was a go and they started planning locations. They were in constant touch with me and offered to hire me away from my job for one year. I named a price, which I thought they would think would was too high ($250K) and they agreed to it. They let me read their script and I told them there were lots of things that cavers would scoff at. They let me re-write it to the point that I thought cavers would like it. I still have a copy of that script. I've thought about donating it for the TCMA auction. Then the whole project fell through when Disney president Frank Wells, who had climbed the Seven Summits, and was somewhat the outdoorsman, who planned on making a series of outdoor adventure films and had already made Iron Will, which Haid directed, was killed in a helicopter crash while remote skiing. The Journey project was immediately shelved. About a month later the producer called me and said he was going on to other projects and he didn't know what would happen to the movie. He said, and I quote, "My guess is that they'll change direction and start making goofy animated films instead." Michael Eisner got Frank Wells job, and the rest is history.. Bill PS - I asked them if Kurt Russell could play me, and they said they probably could do that. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
