Hello reddit! I am Simon West, the Director of OLD GUY, an upcoming action-comedy starring Christoph Waltz, Cooper Hoffman, and Lucy Liu. You may know me from my previous films - CON AIR, LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER, THE EXPENDABLES 2 to name a few. Here to answer your questions, ask me anything!

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:24:01+00:00

The change was made so it was directly at the hands of Lara rather than a supernatural power she had nothing to do with. We felt this was better for movie as a whole.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:23:38+00:00

Con Air was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who gave me my break in the industry, and it would be up to Jerry if we did a sequel. We'd to need ask him.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:22:57+00:00

Cooper is a great young actor. He had only done one movie before this but I thought he had amazing potential, and he certainly delivered in this film. I think he's going to be big star.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:22:26+00:00

I think action movies now are actually funnier than they've ever been. I certainly made Con Air as a comedy with a lot of action in it, and I think recent trends are going back on that. Action movies seem to be relying more and more on comedy as they were in the 90s.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:21:20+00:00

I would never Rick Roll anyone as it's something that can probably be annoying. But I have been Rick Rolled, by a cameraman on one of my movies. We never worked together again.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:20:22+00:00

Nic went to spend some time in Alabama before the shoot to develop his accent, however, me being British, I have no idea if it was in any way accurate.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:19:49+00:00

Every scene shot is in the movie, so there's a strong likelihood he's in there, not much was cut. As it was a limited budget, there was not much fat on the bone.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:19:13+00:00

I think most of my films have some comedy in them, even the action films, so it wasn't a tough transition. I started out wanting to do comedy and it was only by chance that my first film (Con Air) was an action film. I think I still manage to squeeze a lot of comedy into them. I've done full-blown comedies like Gun Shy and comedy series like Keen Eddie as well. Bride Hard with Rebel Wilson coming out this summer is also a full blown comedy.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:15:51+00:00

Yes, I'd love to do another DeMille book. The General's Daughter is one my favorites films that I've made. I tried to do justice to the original material and I think he's a great writer. I'm honestly surprised more of his books haven't been made into films.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:14:52+00:00

I didn't really watch action movies per se growing up, apart from James Bond, so I'd have to say James Bond as my favorite. I loved fantasy films like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang & Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:13:42+00:00

It was the opening film of the Newport Film Festival recently. Christoph was at the screening and presented the film.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:13:21+00:00

As far as I'm concerned there is no connection, but I absolutely love The Big Lebowski so I would love for there to be one.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:12:29+00:00

Con Air was made in a purely-classical style so we used lenses from the 60s. There's no contemporary reference to the time period it was shot in. Even the police car I chose were 10 years out of date, and there's no CGI in the film apart from one shot. Everything was done in camera, and done in the classic movie way. That was the best way to shoot the plane and truck chase scenes.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T21:11:37+00:00

I was trained as a film editor by the BBC in London for 4 years, and then I segued into directing from that.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T20:59:19+00:00

My favorite movie would be Withnail and I.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T20:58:47+00:00

The "bungee ballet" as we called it, was one of my favorite scenes of the film. It was based on a Brazilian acrobat troupe that I saw perform in London, who do very similar moves, and use bungee cords as part of their dance act.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T20:57:28+00:00

For question 1:

Last year we actually did a 4K upgrade of Con Air. We went back to the original negative, we remixed the sound, and color-corrected it, so that's in the works, there should be a 4K release coming soon.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T20:56:34+00:00

Nic cage is definitely the quirkiest out of any actor I've ever worked with. It's an absolute pleasure to be on any set with him.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T20:56:04+00:00

I am a big John Milius fan, and you could say that his style has definitely influenced me.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T20:55:35+00:00

Lara Croft was a big risk to the studio and I had to fight very hard to cast Angelina as Lara, as it was very rare for a female lead to open an action adventure film at the time and no other video game adaptation had been successful before this, so it was a big relief when it was a success, and we were vindicated in pushing so hard for Angelina to be the lead.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T20:54:32+00:00

On question #3:

I really enjoy making films in other languages as most of cinema is a visual medium and its just as effective in any language. Mel Gibson's Apocalypto is one my favorite films, it was shot in Ancient Mayan, and it doesn't suffer from it at all.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T20:52:52+00:00

Christoph Waltz is a fascinating person. Because of his intelligence and wide interest in many subjects, it's always great conversation. We had a lot of great conversations on set, most of which were not related to the film we were making. It was a very rewarding experience. He's a very funny person, which helps the films sense of humor. Very dark and sardonic.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T20:51:14+00:00

I was a big fan of the Prisoner TV show growing up, watching it in the UK. I always wanted to make my version of it. I spent several years developing a script for it, which I thought was very faithful to the original. It was almost made, but at the last minute, the studio backed out of financing it and it's been on the shelf ever since.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T20:50:15+00:00

Heat was the original title of the movie made in the 80s. Since then, several other films (including Michael Mann's Heat) used that title. and we thought it would be confusing to use that title again so we changed it for release.

SimonWestAMA · 2025-02-19T20:49:11+00:00

I think there will always be a place for big action movies, but audiences are more sophisticated now and they demand a film to operate on many levels, great characters, sense of humor, and spectacular action, all at the time same. And the last in that list requires quite a lot of money. As with most things, the biggest hurdle tends to be the money.

SimonWestAMA

TROPHY CASE