The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast · A L Katz

S4E6: It's The HACK-CADEMY A-WEIRDS!

February 18, 2025·50 min·1 clip

14 years of rejection before One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest became a classic.

Alan Katz opens with his usual jokey welcome and greets Gil Adler on his birthday. Gil answers from Vancouver, and the weather talk quickly becomes part of the bit. They trade quick lines about cold, sun, and spring showing up late. The birthday wish puts the conversation in a looser, warmer place. From there, they settle into the rhythm of two collaborators who know each other well. They joke about being 49 and seem to enjoy the number more than they mind it. The conversation then drifts toward the pile of projects that never made it to the screen. Alan and Gil realize there is probably a whole podcast sitting inside that graveyard of unrealized movies. They imagine going back through those scripts with friends and reading scenes from the versions that never got made. The idea works because it sounds funny and a little sad at the same time. Gil brings up a documentary about Christopher Reeve. Alan has not seen it yet, and Gil recommends it as really well done and unexpectedly uplifting. That opens the door to a longer memory about their working relationship with Reeve. They remember the actor and director dynamic on set and describe Reeve as someone who eventually came around. The talk moves into the later years, after the accident, and to a call to Dana Reeve offering him a directing chance on Tales from the Crypt. The offer never became an actual episode. Even so, both men treat the gesture as meaningful on its own. It was a sign that the people who had worked with him still thought he had it. The episode ends as a birthday catch-up, a memory piece, and a reminder that unfinished business can still hit hard.

As heard by us

A birthday chat that turns unfinished movie business into an affectionate, rueful memory.

The episode starts with a birthday check-in and settles into an easy, wandering conversation about scripts that never got made, casting memories, and what it means to stay remembered by people who once worked together.

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Why you'd press play

Birthday banter, script detours, and a Christopher Reeve reflection that starts light and lands warm.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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