Which Lie Did I Tell? (11 page)

Now we’re back into the story, which is where I needed The Magician to give Maverick the money to enter the game. Why would he have money in the first place? I figured he’d been out there forever, it wasn’t illogical for him to have found valuables from people over the decades who had died in this rough ground.

Why would he give it, though? Couldn’t be sympathy. Maverick had to earn it. The hermit didn’t have a name then. I decided to call him The Magician because I decided he wanted some magic in his life. Not totally illogical—he’s a weird old guy coming to the end, clearly his life hasn’t had a lot of ups. Okay. He wants magic. I sold the notion to myself.

Problem: Maverick is a gambler, what can he do that’s magical?

The great sleight-of-hand artist
John Scarne did something that I read about once which almost cost him his life. Scarne, after thousands of hours of practice, had taught himself to cut to the ace of spades
at will.
He pretended it was a trick but all he did was riffle the cards, spot where the spade ace was, and instantly count how many cards into the deck it was and then cut to it.

Just writing that seems amazing. Scarne almost got killed when he
pissed off a major Prohibition-era gangster who saw him cut the ace and wanted to know the trick. He wanted to be able to do it too. And he thought Scarne was putting him on when he claimed he couldn’t. So he was going to kill Scarne. Fortunately for one and all, the gangster was finally convinced.

I decided Maverick could also cut to the ace of spades at will. He has, built into his character, marvelous skill with cards. The Magician says he wants to see magic before he dies and if Maverick can do something magical, he will let him go and give him the money for the entrance fee. Maverick begins his con, comes up with a story, told sincerely, that he once had magic, the day his mother died he had it, and The Magician says, You can do it again, but Maverick is reluctant, says he’s convinced he will fail. The Magician forces him to try and of course he cuts to the ace of spades, gets the money, and goes off to the poker game. Now this was all done straight, the audience did not know it was a trick, and at the end of the movie, in the first draft, Maverick is about to tell how he did it, then changes his mind, saying that life’s always a little better when there’s just a touch of mystery in the air. In other words, he tells us it was magic, not a con.

Okay, exposition’s over.

The first draft is accepted, Dick Donner comes on to direct, and we start the first of endless months of revisions. Donner likes The Magician, and what he likes about it is the magical aspect, the sense of something strange. He likes it so much he wants more of it.

And I never told him what I just told you—that it was a con.

He did not know the Scarne story. (I’ve used this material twice so far, as any of you who saw
Magic
know.)

I never told him for this reason:
because he never asked.

In the second draft it’s the same setup, only everything else is different. Maverick cannot cut to the ace of spades at will, and he really did have magic the day his mother died. This time around, Maverick cuts what we think at first glance is the ace of spades but it turns out to be the ace of clubs—in other words, he fails. But The Magician gives him the money anyway because Maverick has come close and given The Magician hope that the next guy he finds will actually be able to do it. “Hermits need hope,” The Magician says, one of the truer lines I’ve written in my life.

The third draft stays the same, with just the amount of money changing. I must explain that I am willing and happy to do any changes here because I am not threatened by anything that’s happening—nothing is
altering the spine of the movie. It is still about a guy needing money. I get very crazy if you mess with the spine. Otherwise I am totally supportive.

And I think the reason I never told Donner about the Scarne story was because writers need secrets just as much as hermits need hope. Also, I think I was afraid if I told him the truth, Donner would hate it. And want other changes that
would
alter the spine.

Marion Dougherty, who is fabulous, is casting the movie, and it is Marion who gets this notion:
make The Magician a woman.
She felt it would add a new dynamic. Donner went for it, and, as I said, I didn’t mind, I was just trying to service the director. The spine was safe. And once Marion’s notion was taken, there was nobody else, really, who would have been as good in the part as Linda Hunt.

In the fourth draft, the dynamic changes again: now she gets into his life to give him back confidence, to send him on his way knowing he has a chance to win. She says he came close and next time he’ll come closer, all of which leads, of course, to the big card game when the ace of spaces
is
cut and wins the game for Maverick. Donner liked that because he wanted to get the encounter to be as mystical as possible—by that time
Tom Sanders, our production designer, had come up with some startling and beautiful notions of what the hermit’s home might look like.

The fifth draft is essentially the same as the fourth, except now The Magician is convinced Maverick has magic inside him. He cuts to the ace of clubs again, but this time the
next card
is the ace of spades. It was, hopefully, a stronger version and was intended to be both different and emotional. This is how the concluding moments read in rehearsal, starting with the reveal of the spade ace as the next card. Henry, it should be noted, is The Magician’s pet rattlesnake who was been watching the sequence with great interest.

We leave her there. And that’s where I left the sequence after rehearsal. Linda Hunt
and Gibson were terrific. No question it was different from anything else in the movie. Donner still liked the notion, still wasn’t happy with the scene, but he couldn’t verbalize what more he wanted. And frankly, I was tired. I had delivered the first draft in March, it was now August, and after that kind of time with this many changes, you lose not only your zest but your objectivity.

I was out of the loop for the next many months. Donner brought in
Gary Ross, who wrote the excellent
Dave,
for another whack at The Magician. I wasn’t even remotely upset—I didn’t have it in me for another go.

It was, apparently, a happy shoot. Which, as I’ve said, has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the film. We don’t like to believe that but it’s true. I was called out to see the
first showing of the film. It wasn’t a true sneak. There was an audience of a couple hundred people but it wasn’t in a large neutral theater somewhere in Pasadena; rather, they chose a place without air conditioning—without
working
air conditioning—on the Warners’ lot on a hot afternoon.

There was a lot of tension—there always is at such a moment— there should be, my God, if you’re not tense then, get out of the picture business—but the time pressure
Maverick
was under made it unendurable. I delivered the first draft on March 12, 1993. That week Gibson said he liked it, so we were a “go” project.

And that same week I was told that the movie would open—would
definitely
open—on the weekend before Memorial Day, May 20, 1994. Ready or not. I have never been around a flick that went so fast. Thirteen months from first draft without director to being in 2,000-plus theaters. This is a terrible gamble to take—there was no time for mistakes.

We all saw the movie on March 13. The picture had to be totally locked and ready to go to the lab for printing by early May. This was not, obviously, a low-budget art film. There was no time for tinkering. The picture had to work.

It did and it didn’t.

The audience loved
Jodie Foster, loved
loved
Gibson—more importantly,
loved
them.
Great affection for James Garner, too. Not to mention the crucial ending card sequence. (What always gives you hope at such a time is if the ending holds. If that’s happening, even if you’re in rough shape, you have a solid chance.)

The Linda Hunt scene was a train wreck.

Sure, this was a rough cut, two and a half hours long. Yes, the air-conditioning malfunction was a factor. And Linda Hunt was wonderful.

It still stopped the picture dead.

Gibson was fine in the scene, too. And it sure was gorgeous to look upon. But it was dead wrong. I don’t know why. A different style, maybe. Maybe what was once a simple con to get money had become too convoluted. We’ll never know. It just did not work. The audience was confused at first, then, more dangerously, they began to lose interest. When you have a sag like that it can cripple everything that immediately follows.

We met afterwards. The early thoughts were of how to save it but soon we all knew the entire sequence had to be jettisoned. This was a major chunk of film we were eliminating, and opening day could not be delayed. Reshoots were scheduled for the next weekend. Instead of The Magician blasting Maverick out of the hanging tree—from the second draft on, the original bow and arrow had become sort of an elephant gun—a providential blast of lightning saves him.

But without someone to give him money, guess what? He couldn’t be robbed. So the moments when the bad guy robs him were edited out, and
Graham Greene as the Indian friend had to be brought back to set up that his money is in his boot. And then after he is saved you see Gibson hobbling along after his horse, showing us his money is safe.

I think we sort of kind of got away with it. It was a loosely plotted movie anyway, so no one noticed. And Donner was able to get the movie down from two and a half hours to two hours ten. I think he could have gotten it down to under two hours, had he been given time. Maybe it would have worked better. We’ll never know. It pleased a lot of people just as it was in the summer of ’94. Which is all it was ever meant to do. Let’s leave it at that.

One of the great truths of the movie business is that movies are
fragile.
And even the most successful are only a step away from disaster. Every step of the way …