1999: The Podcast #061 – Payback – “Mel” with Jim Woods
Payback was something of a surprise – and largely forgotten – minor hit, riding mostly on the coattails of Mel Gibson at the height of his popularity and box office appeal, having come off a string of hits, including 1994’s Maverick, 1995’s Oscar-winning Braveheart, 1996’s Ransom, and 1997’s Conspiracy Theory, as well as the prestige of Brian Helgeland, who had just won an avalanche awards, including the Oscar, for writing LA Confidential as well as the aforementioned Conspiracy Theory.
But the production of Payback also opened a window to some of the personal and professional issues surrounding Gibson that would become increasingly apparent in the years leading up to his career crash in the mid-2000s.
Unhappy with the direction of the film Helgeland wrote and director, Gibson had Helgeland fired and reworked and reshot much of the movie, adding Kristofferson’s character to the story and changing much of the tone and arc of the main character Porter.
As a result, Payback is actually two movies – the theatrically-released Gibson vision released in 1999 and the Helgeland cut, released on Blu-ray 7 years later, officially titled Payback: Straight Up.
We had writer and Payback superfan Jim Woods on to talk about both!
You can find out everything you need to know about Jim on his website: Jim Woods Writes
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