82-999: Red Dawn is a 1984 American action drama film directed by John Milius with a screenplay by Milius and Kevin Reynolds . The film depicts a fictional World War III centering on a military invasion of the United States by an alliance of Soviet, Warsaw Pact , and Communist Latin American states. The story follows a group of teenage guerrillas, known as the Wolverines, in Soviet-occupied Colorado . The film stars Patrick Swayze , Charlie Sheen , C. Thomas Howell , Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey , with supporting roles played by Ben Johnson , Darren Dalton , Harry Dean Stanton , Ron O'Neal , William Smith and Powers Boothe . Despite mixed reviews from critics,
164-474: A "Rotten" 48% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The website's consensus reads, "An appealing ensemble of young stars will have some audiences rooting for the Wolverines, but Red Dawn ' s self-seriousness can never conceal the silliness of its alarmist concept." Colin Greenland reviewed Red Dawn for Imagine magazine, and stated that " Red Dawn [...]
246-462: A "sharply written anti-war movie ... a sort of Lord of the Flies ", took the project to Yablans. The script's chances increased when Reynolds became mentored by Steven Spielberg , who helped him make Fandango ; the script was eventually purchased by MGM. Bart recalls that things changed when "the chieftains at MGM got a better idea. Instead of making a poignant little antiwar movie, why not make
328-491: A 1968 Time magazine article about the new generation of Hollywood filmmakers, which also referred to George Lucas and Martin Scorsese . This was read by Mike Medavoy , who became Milius's agent. Medavoy called Milius "a badboy mad genius in a teenager's body, but he was a good and fast writer with original ideas." Milius began to get writing commissions. He wrote a script entitled The Texans for Al Ruddy at Paramount,
410-599: A Marine", said Milius. "As a surfer I'd spent a lot of time hanging out with the Marines off Pendleton , and I'd had every intention of joining up ... I was devastated, I felt like I'd been rejected as a human being." "It was totally demoralizing", he said later. "I missed going to my war. It probably caused me to be obsessed with war ever since." Milius said he was "dying to be able to... go prove myself in battle—the same as all young men long to do, if they are honest with themselves, whether it's right or wrong or even sane, which
492-488: A badge. And being lonely." Dirty Harry was an enormous box office hit. George Hamilton hired Milius to rewrite Evel Knievel (1971), a biopic of the stunt rider , at a fee of $ 1,000 a day. Milius re-did the entire script over seven days. He wrote an original script, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean , about the famous judge . He offered it for $ 150,000 if he could direct, but could find no takers. He sold it to First Artists for $ 300,000, then extremely high for
574-510: A colorful character with a talent for lively interviews. His self-styled "Zen Anarchist"/"American samurai" persona made him stand out in Hollywood. For instance, he rewrote Dirty Harry only on the condition that he be given an expensive gun. He was also one of the inspirations for the character of John Milner in the enormously successful American Graffiti (1973). Milius said of this film, "I guess he [Lucas] saw me in that light because I
656-406: A contemporary version of Red River (1948) (never made, although Sam Peckinpah was going to direct it in 1979 )— Milius later said it "wasn't very good". He also wrote an original called Truck Driver (aka The Haul ) which was purchased by Levy-Garner-Laven, although that film too was not made. Milius later said he "didn't do a good job" with these two early scripts "because in both cases I
738-416: A last minute attempt to get Reynolds to direct the film and went to see Spielberg. However, by this stage Fandango was in rough cut, and Bart sensed that Spielberg was disappointed in the film and would not speak up for Reynolds. Milius was signed to direct at a fee of $ 1.25 million, plus a gun of his choice. Milius set about rewriting the script. He and Haig devised a backstory in which the circumstances of
820-485: A lasting legacy." Red Dawn has been reference for and influence on a number of other media, including music, books, film, and video games. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 'Wolverines' graffiti was reported seen on a destroyed Russian APC. Phineas and Ferb into the 2nd Dimension references Red Dawn when Irving stands above destroyed robots, holds a staff up, and yells, “Wolverines!” Red Dawn has influenced
902-456: A long time, but we never did it." Milius did come close to making Extreme Prejudice , based on his script, in 1976. However he decided to make Big Wednesday instead; Extreme Prejudice would be made a decade later, much rewritten, and directed by Walter Hill . In 1975, Milius formed his own production company, The A Team, with Buzz Feitshans , who had edited Dillinger . They had a five-year deal with Warner Bros.. Milius said, "Our motto
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#1732791593253984-446: A lost cause), lets them go; the brothers sit on a park bench together where they presumably bleed to death. Danny and Erica trek through the mountains and reach American-held territory. In the closing scene, a plaque is shown in the mountains. It is fenced off and a U.S. flag flies nearby, confirming that the U.S. ultimately won the war. The plaque states that: In the early days of World War III , guerrillas, mostly children, placed
1066-555: A number of video games. John Milius John Frederick Milius ( / ˈ m ɪ l i ə s / ; born April 11, 1944) is an American screenwriter and film director. He was a writer for the first two Dirty Harry films, received an Academy Award nomination as screenwriter of Apocalypse Now (1979), and wrote and directed The Wind and the Lion (1975), Conan the Barbarian (1982), and Red Dawn (1984). He later served as
1148-448: A percentage of the profits for Big Wednesday which amounted to virtually nothing. In 1979, Milius said "the ultimate aim of the A Team is that it will become a company that makes lots of projects. I shall be the figurehead and the father figure and take a percentage and I won't have to do anything except go off and direct my movie once every three years." The A Team made a number of movies not directed by Milius. Notably, they produced
1230-552: A place where the frontier mentality lives on just beneath the surface. Red Dawn has been variously released across a variety of formats. The movie being shown to American prisoners at the re-education camp is Sergei Eisenstein 's Alexander Nevsky (1938). Much of the story is set in the Arapaho National Forest , and a group of Soviet soldiers refer to the Colorado War , which was fought there between
1312-514: A political perspective, many will find its simplistic vision problematic. But the visceral punch of Red Dawn is nonetheless undeniable. It puts pedal to the floor early on and keeps it there to the end. It is one of the most relentless films ever made.... As with Conan and Apocalypse Now , the air of unrelenting doom is an acquired taste. Yet this grit has served as a preservative. Red Dawn holds up surprisingly well today. Not simply in terms of its action set pieces but in its portrait of America as
1394-425: A script. Directed by John Huston and starring Paul Newman , it was a moderate hit, although Milius disliked the final result. "I fought every day", he said. "And I was blooded well. I was treated horribly." More popular was Jeremiah Johnson . Milius did some work with David Giler on the script which became The Black Bird . By now Milius was one of the most sought after screenwriters in Hollywood, seen as
1476-470: A teen Rambo and turn the project over to John Milius, a genial filmmaker who loved war movies. The idea was especially popular with a member of the MGM board of directors, General Alexander Haig , the former Nixon chief of staff, who yearned to supervise the film personally and develop a movie career." Bart says most of MGM's executives, except for Yablans, were opposed to Milius directing. Bart claims he made
1558-596: A war would be like. The film isn't even that violent – the war shows none of the horrors that could happen in World War III. In fact, everything that happened in the movie happened in World War II." Bart says Yablans pushed through filming faster than Milius wanted because MGM needed a movie over the summer. Milius wanted more time to plan, including devising futuristic weaponry and to not shoot over winter, but had to accede. Milius wanted Robert Blake to play
1640-541: A wider audience." His father Sidney Beckerman helped him pay a $ 5,000 option. Reynolds wanted to direct but the Beckermans wanted someone more established. Walter Hill briefly considered the script before turning it down, as did several other directors. The Beckermans pitched the project to David Begelman at MGM, but were turned down. They tried again at that studio when it was run by Frank Yablans . Senior vice-president for production Peter Bart , who remembers it as
1722-401: A witty and perceptive piece for The Nation , Andrew Kopkind called it "the most convincing story about popular resistance to imperial oppression since the inimitable Battle of Algiers ", adding that he'd "take the Wolverines from Colorado over a small circle of friends from Harvard Square in any revolutionary situation I can imagine." Libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard argued that
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#17327915932531804-483: A year." Milius then got a summer job working at the story department of American International Pictures through a student colleague of his who had begun working there, Willard Huyck . Huyck and Milius worked at AIP under producer Larry Gordon , reading scripts. They eventually collaborated on a rewrite of the screenplay for The Devil's 8 (1968), an action drama about moonshine drivers which ripped off The Dirty Dozen (1968). Milius's name had been mentioned in
1886-399: Is Civitas Sine Prudentia, which really translates to Social Irresponsibility; I believe in it. It's refreshing, it's liberating. Americans are basically socially irresponsible ... Who else would have invented the atomic bomb quite the same way? The Nazis would have invented it with the desire to conquer the world; we were the only people that could have invented it with the desire not to conquer
1968-465: Is a classic lone man, with a searing loneliness about him. A leader of men is always alone." It was never made; neither was Man-Eaters of Kumoan (1976) based on book by Jim Corbett about a tiger hunter in India which Milius worked on. For several years, he developed with Stanley Kubrick an adaptation of Night Drop by S. L. A. Marshall . "We talked about it for years and years and worked on it for
2050-402: Is a debate that's been going on since we left the caves. Only there was no way I could found my own unit, so I did the second best, which was to write it. Every writer wishes he could actually be doing the thing he writes about." He later admitted, "I don't know how well I'd have done. I really wanted a military career, to be a general, but I had a hard time polishing shoes. And marching. I was in
2132-552: Is a self-congratulatory little B-picture, the sort America does so well. Set in the early months of World War Three, it's a loving chronicle of juvenile heroism in Russian-occupied Colorado. Schoolkids caught behind enemy lines become crack guerillas overnight. Slaughter nobly, die even more so. Nice scenery, shame about the movie." The New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin said, "To any sniveling lily-livers who suppose that John Milius ... has already reached
2214-414: Is equally ridiculous. National Review Online has named the film No. 15 in its list of the "Best Conservative Movies." Adam Arseneau at the website DVD Verdict opined that the film "often feels like a Republican wet dream manifested into a surrealistic Orwellian nightmare". According to Jesse Walker of Reason , The film outraged liberal critics, but further to the left it had some supporters. In
2296-579: Is the form. "I can't grade you on the content. I can't tell you whether this is a better story for you to write than that, you know? And I can't teach you how to write the content, but I can certainly demand that you do it in the proper form." He never talked about character arcs or anything like that; he simply talked about telling a good yarn, telling a good story. He said, "Do whatever you need to do. Be as radical and as outrageous as you can be. Take any kind of approach you want to take. Feel free to flash back, feel free to flash forward, feel free to flash back in
2378-468: Is the only way anyone will listen to you in Hollywood", he said. "It's the next best thing to being a star." Gangster films were popular at the time and AIP offered him the chance to direct one if he would write it for a fraction of his regular fee. Milius agreed and wrote and directed Dillinger (1973). "I deliberately chose Dillinger because he was a pure criminal", said Milius. "Robbing banks to right social wrongs did not come into it." The movie
2460-748: The Aleutian Islands , part of the Territory of Alaska . At the time it was released, Red Dawn was considered the most violent film by the Guinness Book of Records and the National Coalition on Television Violence, with a rate of 134 acts of violence per hour, or 2.23 per minute. The 2007 DVD Special Edition includes an on-screen "Carnage Counter" in a nod to this. A few days after the NCTV survey came out, 35 protestors picketed
2542-529: The Apocalypse Now script, "No one would touch it because of the Vietnam War. Everyone loved it, it did more for my career than any other script because it was always considered a work of genius; from the minute it came out, it really stirred people up. It's a good script, it's certainly no work of genius. It churns people up, and that's what they think works of genius are supposed to do." However,
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2624-510: The Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes and the U.S. government. During one scene, the young freedom fighters sit and listen to a radio playing messages meant for guerrillas behind the lines. The message played, "John has a long mustache.", is one of the messages that was used before D-Day in Normandy to signal French partisans of the imminent invasion. The broadcast of this message is dramatized in
2706-661: The ROTC once, and I hate marching ... I would have been good in the Mexican Army." At one stage Milius considered becoming an artist or historian. During a rainy day on a summer vacation in Hawaii in 1962, he stumbled upon a movie theatre showing a week of Akira Kurosawa films and fell in love with cinema. Milius studied film at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television , which he chose because it
2788-576: The Soviet Union is devastated by a failed wheat harvest and invades Poland to suppress food and labor riots. Soviet allies Cuba and Nicaragua build up their military strength while El Salvador and Honduras fall under Soviet influence and a communist coup d'état seizes control in Mexico. In the town of Calumet, Colorado , a high school class is interrupted by a Soviet-led invasion. Some students, including brothers Jed and Matt Eckert, escape
2870-485: The 1962 film The Longest Day . The operation to capture former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was named Operation Red Dawn and its targets were dubbed "Wolverine 1" and "Wolverine 2". Army Captain Geoffrey McMurray, who named the mission, said the naming "was so fitting because it was a patriotic, pro-American movie." Milius approved of the naming, saying "I was deeply flattered and honored. It's nice to have
2952-514: The Hunting Trail directed by Milius and written by Winfred Blevins , about Theodore Roosevelt . The film was never made. Neither was The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy , a proposed biopic about the famous anti-Communist Senator , which Milius declared interest in making. Milius next wrote and directed the popular adventure film The Wind and the Lion (1975), which starred Sean Connery and Candice Bergen . He later said he felt this
3034-732: The MGM/UA building in opposition to the film. John Milius said: What these people really don't like is that the movie shows violence being perpetrated against Russian and Cuban invaders, which is what the demonstration was all about. My question is, where were all these demonstrators when the Russians shot down that airliner ? Were they cheering? And what about the people being gassed and yellow-rained in Afghanistan? ... There's really no pleasure in outraging these people. I suppose next some extreme right-wing organization will give me an award, which
3116-526: The National Student Film Festival and screened around the country in various festivals; it was praised by Vincent Canby of The New York Times . Milius received a job offer to work in animation but he turned it down as he could not see himself "sitting there drawing cell after cell." Milius's first completed script was Los Gringos (1968). "It actually wasn't bad", he later said. "It was sort of like The Wild Bunch ... there
3198-460: The US pilot but Frank Yablans overruled him. Powers Boothe was selected instead. The movie was filmed in and around the city of Las Vegas, New Mexico . Many of the buildings and structures which appear in the film, including a historic Fred Harvey Company hotel adjacent to the train depot, the train yard, and a building near downtown, which was repainted with the name of "Calumet, Colorado", referencing
3280-640: The United Kingdom—remain active against the Soviets, but are militarily crippled. Tanner assists the Wolverines in their guerrilla operations, which leads to increased reprisals by occupational forces against civilians. Visiting the front lines of the war, Tanner and Arturo are killed in the crossfire of a tank battle between Soviet and U.S. forces. The Soviets bring in Colonel Strelnikov, a brutal Spetsnaz commander and his men, to track down
3362-400: The Vietnam War which George Lucas intended to direct as a follow-up to his first feature THX 1138 (1971). Milius says Coppola: Offered that wonderful fork in the road where I could go do my own thing rather than just rewrite some piece of crap that would probably be rewritten by somebody else. That was the most important decision I made in my life as a writer. That sort of steered me onto
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3444-468: The Wolverines. Daryl is arrested by the KGB after his father betrays him. They force him to swallow a tracking device and release him to rejoin the Wolverines. Soviet troops track the group to the forests using radio triangulation equipment but are ambushed by the Wolverines, who trace the source of the signal to Daryl; confessing the truth, he pleads for mercy but is shot dead by Robert. Shortly thereafter,
3526-404: The chaos as Soviet paratroopers attack. Combined Soviet, Cuban and Nicaraguan soldiers then occupy Calumet. Jed, Matt, and their friends Robert, Danny, Daryl, and Arturo flee into the countryside after procuring supplies and weapons from a store run by Robert's father. When they encounter a Soviet roadblock, they are saved by a U.S. helicopter gunship. After several weeks hiding in the forests,
3608-575: The co-creator of the Primetime Emmy Award -winning television series Rome (2005–2007). Milius was born April 11, 1944, in St. Louis , Missouri , the youngest of three children to Elizabeth Marie ( née Roe; 1906–2010) and William Styx Milius (1889–1975), who was a shoe manufacturer. He is Jewish . When Milius was seven, his father sold Milius Shoe Company, which his grandfather George W. Milius had founded in 1923, and retired. He moved
3690-479: The collapse of NATO, a left-wing Mexican government would participate in the Soviet invasion, effectively splitting the U.S. in half. Bart says, "Even Milius was taken aback by Haig's approach to the project. 'This is going to end up as a jingoistic, flag-waving movie,' Milius fretted. As a result, the budget of this once $ 6 million movie almost tripled." Other changes included a shift in focus from conflict within
3772-582: The family to Bel Air , California. John Milius became an enthusiastic surfer. At 14, his parents sent him to a small private school, the Lowell Whiteman School , in the mountains of Steamboat Springs, Colorado , because he "was a juvenile delinquent". Milius became a voracious reader and started to write short stories: "I had learned very early, to write in almost any style. I could write in fluent Hemingway , or in fluent Melville , or Conrad , or Jack Kerouac , and whatever." He says he
3854-562: The film became a commercial success, grossing $ 38 million against a budget of $ 17 million. It was the first film to be released in the U.S. with a PG-13 rating under the modified rating system introduced on July 1, 1984. A remake was released in 2012. In the 1980s, the United States becomes increasingly isolated after a green political party gains power in West Germany and successfully persuades Western Europe to remove its nuclear weapons . Subsequently, NATO dissolves. Meanwhile,
3936-401: The film was "not so much pro-war as it is anti-state." Rothbard gave the film a generally positive review, while expressing some reservations with the story: One big problem with the picture is that there is no sense that successful guerrilla war feeds on itself; in real life the ranks of the guerrillas would start to swell, and this would defeat the search-and-destroy concept. In Red Dawn , on
4018-420: The film. ) Eventually, Robert Redford agreed to play the lead and Sydney Pollack signed to direct. Milius wrote an uncredited draft of Dirty Harry (1971). He says his contribution to the film was "A lot of guns. And the attitude of Dirty Harry, being a cop who was ruthless. I think it's fairly obvious if you look at the rest of my work what parts are mine. The cop being the same as the killer except he has
4100-518: The first three films from Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale : I Wanna Hold Your Hand , 1941 (directed by Steven Spielberg ), and Used Cars . He also produced Hardcore , directed by friend Paul Schrader . Schrader once described Milius's writing as containing too many good lines and scenes. He says Warren Beatty once "told John something I've been telling him too: 'You come too soon and you come too often.'... He's so full of juice he just can't stop coming, rather than holding back and tightening
4182-608: The following year saw the release of Apocalypse Now , directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola rewrote the script, which Milius disliked. "He wanted to ruin it, liberalize it, and turn it into Hair ", said Milius in 1976. "He sees himself as a great humanitarian, an enlightened soul who will tell you such wonderful things as he does at the end of Godfather 2 -- that crime doesn't pay ... Talent-wise, he's no John Ford; character-wise, he's no Steve Spielberg. Francis can't stand to have any other creative influence around ... Francis Coppola has this compelling desire to save humanity when
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#17327915932534264-511: The group learns that Mr. Eckert is held at a re-education camp at Calumet's drive-in . Visiting the camp, they speak to him through a fence and learn that Mrs. Eckert is dead; he tells the group to avenge him. The group visits the Mason family in occupied territory and learns that Robert's father was executed by the occupiers. The Masons ask Jed and Matt to care for their granddaughters, Toni and Erica. The group begins launching guerilla attacks on
4346-475: The group to conflict between the teens and their oppressors, and the acceleration of the ages of some of the characters from early teens to high school age and beyond. There was also the addition of a sequence where some children visit a camp to find their parents have been brainwashed. Milius later said, "I see this as an anti-war movie in the sense that if both sides could see this, maybe it wouldn't have to happen. I think it would be good for Americans to see what
4428-471: The invasion would occur; this was reportedly based on Hitler's proposed plans to invade the U.S. during World War II. Haig took Milius under his wing, bringing him to the Hudson Institute , the conservative think tank founded by Herman Kahn , to develop a plausible scenario. Milius saw the story as a Third World liberation struggle in reverse; Haig introduced Nicaragua and suggested that, with
4510-469: The kind of drama that I was interested in. Another great influence on me was ... On the Road , which has no tight, linear narrative, but sprawls, following this character. Moby Dick and On the Road are completely different kinds of novels, yet they're both extremely disciplined. Nothing happens by accident in either of those two books. Milius reflected his "ambitions stopped at B Westerns ... I thought that
4592-433: The life of the mountain man Liver-Eating Johnson . Milius later said this was "the real breaking point" where he knew "almost overnight... that I had become a good writer with a voice.": I knew that material. I'd lived in the mountains, I had a trapline, I hunted, and I had a lot of experiences with characters up there. So, it was real easy to write that and there was a humor to it, a kind of bigger-than-life attitude. I
4674-647: The man is a raving fascist, the Bay Area Mussolini ." The film was released in 1979 to great acclaim. Milius's old agent, Mike Medavoy, helped establish Orion Pictures in 1978 and one of their first movies was going to be East of Suez , written and directed by Milius. It was not made. Spielberg said in 1978 that Milius was key to the group of young filmmakers known as the New Hollywood , which included himself, Lucas, and Coppola: Spetsnaz Too Many Requests If you report this error to
4756-417: The middle of a flashback. Feel free to use narration, all the tools are there for you to use." Milius says his writing style was influenced by two novels in particular, Moby-Dick and On the Road : I think Moby Dick is the best work of art ever made ... I used to point out the dramatic entrance of characters, how they were threaded through ... Moby Dick was a perfect screenplay, a perfect example of
4838-423: The names of their lost upon this rock. They fought here alone and gave up their lives, so "that this nation shall not perish from the earth." Originally called Ten Soldiers, the script was written by Kevin Reynolds . Producer Barry Beckerman read it, and, in the words of Peter Bart , "thought it had the potential to become a tough, taut, 'art' picture made on a modest budget that could possibly break out to find
4920-444: The occupational forces, calling themselves the " Wolverines " after their high school mascot. The occupiers respond with brutal crackdowns, resulting in the executions of Mr. Eckert and Arturo's father, but the Wolverines are undeterred. They meet crashed USAF pilot Andrew Tanner, who informs them of the current state of the war: Several American cities, including Washington D.C., were destroyed by nuclear strikes, Strategic Air Command
5002-477: The original cut featured a love scene between her and Powers Boothe but it "was cut out after some previews because of the age difference. And that was the main reason I took the movie—it was such a terrific scene." Some of the weaponry devised for the film did not work. Futuristic helicopters created for the film did not have FAA approval to fly over people. The budget increased from $ 11 million to $ 15 million. It eventually came in at $ 19 million. The film's score
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#17327915932535084-424: The other hand, there are only the same half-dozen teenagers, and the inevitable attrition makes the struggle seem hopeless when it need not be. Another problem is that there is no character development through action, so that, except for the leader, all the high school kids seem indistinguishable. As a result, there is no impulse to mourn as each one falls by the wayside. Ed Power writes for The Independent , From
5166-491: The path of doing my own work and being a little more like a novelist ... I tackled an unpopular subject that no one was going to make a movie about where the chances were really slim that I could pull it off. There was no book, nothing but me and the blank page. And that was wonderful because I had followed my heart. One of the nicest times in my life was writing Apocalypse Now. The commercial failure of THX 1138 delayed production plans for Apocalypse Now . Milius later said of
5248-455: The pinnacle of movie-making machismo, a warning: Mr. Milius's Red Dawn is more rip-roaring than anything he has done before. Here is Mr. Milius at his most alarming, delivering a rootin'-tootin' scenario for World War III." MGM apologized to Alaska war veterans for the film's advertising, which claimed that no foreign troops had ever landed on U.S. soil, overlooking the Aleutian Islands campaign of World War II, where Japanese soldiers occupied
5330-659: The reasoning of people in Asia, it makes sense to me. Zen is very sensible, the whole way of feeling things is logical, whereas many of the Western-motivated things—greed, business sense—I'm not comfortable with, I don't understand their rationale." Milius says he attempted to join the Marine Corps and volunteer for Vietnam War service in the late 1960s, but was rejected due to a "chronic" and "sometimes disabling" case of mild asthma . "I'd have given anything to be
5412-489: The remaining Wolverines are ambushed by Soviet helicopter gunships, which kill Toni and Robert. Jed and Matt decide to attack the occupational forces in Calumet to distract them while Danny and Erica escape. The plan works, but Jed and Matt are severely wounded by Strelnikov before Jed can kill him. They are discovered by Cuban Colonel Ernesto Bella who, completely disillusioned with both the war and Soviet ideology (seeing it as
5494-449: The river man ..." I just realized that this was the voice that the script had to have. It was as clear as a bell. I knew that writing was particular to me. Milius sold the script to Warner Bros. in 1970 for $ 5,000, going up to $ 50,000 if it was ever made. Warner Bros. had other writers work on the original script based on The Crow Killer . Milius was also called back to work on it, and his fee grew each time. (He eventually made $ 90,000 on
5576-458: The situation and building characters. That releasing diffuses the energy, the characters are too broad because they never have time to build up the inner strength." Milius says he was offered $ 17,000 to rewrite Skin Game (1971) but then Francis Ford Coppola made a competing offer of $ 15,000 for Milius to write Apocalypse Now . Apocalypse Now was an adaptation of Heart of Darkness set in
5658-530: The town in Michigan , are still there today. An old Safeway grocery store was converted to a sound stage and used for several scenes in the movie. Before starting work on the movie, the cast underwent an intensive eight-week military training course. During that time, production crews designed and built special combat vehicles in Newhall, California . Soldier of Fortune reported that the movie's T-72 tank
5740-432: The world" Its first production was an autobiographical surfing picture, Big Wednesday (1978), which he called "a surfing How Green Was My Valley ". This was a major commercial disappointment although it has gone on to be a cult film. Milius's friendship with George Lucas saw him given a percentage of the profits for Star Wars , which Mike Medavoy estimated earned Milius $ 1.5 million—in exchange Milius gave Lucas
5822-561: Was a good life. I never wanted to be Hitchcock or some big mogul, I didn't want to be Louis B. Mayer . I wanted to be ... Budd Boetticher or something ... John Ford ." His short films at film school included The Reversal of Richard Sun (1966), Glut (1967) and Viking Women Don't Care (1967). He wrote a documentary, The Emperor (1967), directed by classmate George Lucas , who also edited an animated short Milius directed called Marcello, I'm So Bored (1967) with John Strawbridge. Marcello , Milius's thesis film, won best animation at
5904-445: Was a lot of killing and shooting and riding and dust ... sombreros. ... It was a pretty good idea, actually. It had everything, and it was certainly as original as The Wild Bunch , but it wasn't as skillfully written as later stuff." He followed this with The Last Resort which was optioned by Michael S Laughlin in 1969. Milius says, "Neither of them were ever made, but I was able to option them. I had them rented out for like $ 5,000
5986-462: Was a surfer going past my time." He also wrote the first draft of the Dirty Harry sequel, Magnum Force (1973). Milius later said "I don't like Magnum Force . Of all the films I had anything to do with, I like it least. They changed a lot of things in a cheap and distasteful manner." However, it was successful at the box office. Milius wanted to move behind the camera. "Being a director
6068-474: Was also influenced by the oral story telling of surfers at the time, who had a beatnik tradition. "My religion is surfing ", Milius said in 1976, adding that "the other thing that influenced me throughout my youth was my involvement with things Japanese. I studied judo , kendo , and painting. I felt more comfortable with things Japanese and with Japanese people than I did with Europeans ... feudalism in any country, at any period, fascinates me ... I understand
6150-461: Was an elitist school that trained people for Hollywood. His classmates included George Lucas , Walter Murch , Basil Poledouris , Randal Kleiser and Donald F. Glut . Milius says he was influenced by his teacher, Irwin Blacker: He gave you the screenplay form, which I hated so much, and if you made one mistake on the form, you flunked the class. His attitude was that the least you can learn
6232-424: Was composed and conducted by Basil Poledouris ; it was the first soundtrack album to be released (on LP and compact disc) by Intrada Records . The label issued the complete score in 2007. Red Dawn was the 20th highest-grossing film of 1984, opening on August 10, 1984, in 1,822 theaters and taking in $ 8,230,381 on its first weekend. Its box office gross is $ 38,376,497. Red Dawn received mixed reviews, receiving
6314-593: Was crippled by Cuban saboteurs, and paratroopers were dropped from commercial airliners to seize key positions in preparation for the main assaults via Mexico and Alaska . Most of the southwestern United States and Northwestern Canada are occupied by the Soviets, but American counterattacks halted their advances between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River . Europe has decided to remain neutral. America's only remaining foreign allies—China and
6396-494: Was his first "real" movie. He intended to follow this with Give Your Heart to the Hawks , a story about mountain man Jedediah Smith in the 1820s based on the novel by Winfred Blevins "It's my interpretation of Jedediah Smith, which might not be exactly historical", said Milius. "It'll be about exploration, about the need to see what's over the next ridge and what that does, what price you pay, to find out. Like Dirty Harry, Smith
6478-404: Was influenced by the people who had hired me. They said put this in and put that in, and I went along with it. Every time I went along with something in my whole career it usually didn't work. Usually there's a price to pay. You think of selling out, but there is a price to pay. Usually what people want you to do is make it current." Milius then wrote Jeremiah Johnson , a story loosely based on
6560-461: Was inspired by Carl Sandburg . I read a lot of his poetry and it's this kind of abrupt description—"a train is coming, thundering steel, where are you going? Wichita." That great kind of feeling that he had, that's what I was trying to do there. I remember there was a great poem about American braggarts. You know, American liars—"I am the ring-tailed cousin to the such and such that ate so and so and I can do this and I can do that better than Mike Fink
6642-678: Was moderately successful and launched Milius's directing career. He worked on the script for a TV sequel, Melvin Purvis: G-Man (1974), a pilot for a proposed series about Melvin Purvis (there was a second TV movie, but no series), but did not like the director, Dan Curtis , or the experience of working for TV. Contemporary film critics grouped Milius in with the emerging "movie brats" generation of filmmakers that also including Lucas, Coppola, Terrence Malick , and Scorsese. In 1974, David Picker announced he would produce Ranch Life and
6724-449: Was such a precise replica that "while it was being carted around Los Angeles, two CIA intelligence officers followed it to the studio and wanted to know where it had come from". Powers Boothe later claimed that "Milius cut out the emotional life of its characters. Originally, my character was anti-war, as well as a rightist. I was supposed to be the voice of reason in that movie. But certain cuts negated my character." Lea Thompson said
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