John Milius

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John Frederick Milius (born April 11, 1944) is an American screenwriter, producer, and animator of motion pictures.

He was a screenwriter for the first two Dirty Harry films, received an Academy Award nomination as screenwriter of Apocalypse Now, and he wrote and directed The Wind and the Lion, Conan the Barbarian, and Red Dawn.

He later co-creator of the Primetime Emmy Award-winning HBO series Rome.

Early life and education

Milius was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of three children to Elizabeth Marie (née Roe) and William Styx Milius (1889–1975), who was a shoe maker. He is Jewish. When Milius was seven years old, his father sold Milius Shoe Company, which his grandfather George W. Milius had established in 1923 and resigned. He and his family then relocated to Bel Air, California. John Milius developed an ardent fanbase. He "was a juvenile delinquent" in the mountains of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, when he was 14 years old.

Milius began to write short stories: "I had learned to write in almost every style well before." I could write in fluent Hemingway, or fluent Melville, Conrad, Jack Kerouac, or whatever. He claims he was also influenced by the oral story telling of surfers at the time, when there was no beatnik tradition.

Milius wrote in 1976, "My religion is surfing," he said, adding that "the other thing that influenced me throughout my youth was my fascination with things Japanese." I studied judo, kendo, and painting. I felt more comfortable with Japanese and Japanese people than I did with Europeans... feudalism in any nation fascinates me at any time. I understand people in Asia's reasoning, so it makes sense to me. Zen is extremely sensible, the whole system of feeling things is logical, but many of the Western-motivated activities —greed, company sense — aren't familiar with, and I don't know why.

Milius says he longed to join the Marine Corps and volunteer for the Vietnam War service in the late 1960s but was turned down due to a "chronic" and "sometimes disabling" case of mild asthma. Milius wrote, "I'd have given anything to be a Marine." "I spent a lot of time hanging out with the Marines off Pendleton, and I had every intention of joining them." "I was devastated, and I felt as if I had been rejected as a human being." Later, he said, "It was totally demoralizing." "I didn't get to my war." "I'm probably caused me to be obsessed with war for the first time ever." Milius said he was "dying to be able to... demonstrate myself in combat" as all young men do, whether it's right or wrong, or even sane, which is the subject of a debate that has raged since the caves were carved. Only because I couldn't find my own unit, I did the second best, which was to write it. Any writer wishes he were doing the thing he writes about. "I don't know how well I'd did," the narrator admitted later. I wanted to be a general but had a difficult time polishing shoes. And marching. I was in the ROTC once and hate marching.... I would have been doing well in the Mexican Army if I had been a soldier."

Milius considered becoming an artist or scholar at one stage. During a rainy day on a summer holiday in Hawaii in 1962, he stumbled upon a movie theatre screening 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 was an elitist institution that prepared people for Hollywood. George Lucas, Basil Poledouris, Randal Kleiser, and Donald F. Glut were among his classmates. Milius claims he was influenced by his mentor, Irwin Blacker:

Milius claims that his writing style was influenced by two books, particularly Moby-Dick and On the Road.

Milius reflected on his "ambitions at B Westerns"... I had a wonderful time doing it. I never set out to be Hitchcock or some wealthy mogul, but I didn't want to be Louis B. Mayer. "I wanted to be... Budd Boetticher or something else... John Ford." Richard Sun (1966), Glut (1967), and Viking Women Don't Care (1967), were among his short films at film school. He created The Emperor (1967), directed by George Lucas, who also produced an animated short film directed by Milius' name, Marcello, I'm So Bored (1967) with John Strawbridge.

Marcello, Milius' thesis film, received best animation at the National Student Film Festival and screened around the country in various festivals; The New York Times' Vincent Canby praised it. Milius was given a job to work in animation but he turned it down because he didn't want to see himself "sitting cell after cell."

Personal life

Milius has been married three times. Ethan Jedediah and Marco Alexander, Renee Fabri (m. January 7, 1967), and one child, Amanda Milius, with his second wife, Celia Kaye, have two children (M. February 26, 1978). Amanda is the producer of The Plot Against the President, a 2020 film directed by Amanda. Elan Oberon, his current marriage (since 1992), is his current marriage.

Milius was a ardent surfer for a large portion of his life but decided against it when he reached his 50th birthday.

Milius is a self-proclaimed "Zen anarchist," but he also aligns himself with conservative groups in Hollywood and was interviewed in the film Rated R: Republicans in Hollywood. He has also worked at the Institute for Creative Technology, a military think tank.

Milius said:

Milius has endorsed minimum wage work and conscription. Douglas MacArthur had "crossed the Mississippi like Caesar crossed the Rubicon and declared himself Emperor Douglas the First," Milius said. Milius was a member of the National Rifle Association's Board of Directors, where he was instrumental (with Charlton Heston) in resuing a takeover attempt by supporters of the so-called Militia Movement.

"I'd like to be Jack Hawkins in Bridge on the River Kwai," Milius said. "I call myself romantic." I believe in a number of nineteenth-century ideals: chivalry, honour, loyalty, and romantic love" are all present in this book.

Milius signed a petition in favor of releasing director Roman Polanski, who had been arrested while traveling to a film festival in 1977, which the petition said would jeopardize the art of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely," and that arresting filmmakers visiting neutral countries could open the door "for causes of which no one knows the consequences."

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Career

Los Gringos (1968), Milius' first completed script, was published. "It actually wasn't bad," he said later. It was kind of like The Wild Bunch... there was a lot of killings and shootings, riding and dust... sombreros. ... Actually, it was a good idea. It had everything, and it was certainly as original as The Wild Bunch, but it wasn't as well-written as later stuff."

He followed this with The Last Resort, which was optioned by Michael S Laughlin in 1969. "Neither of them were ever made," Milius says, "but I was able to choose them." "I had them rented out for like $5,000 per year."

Milius obtained a summer job with American International Pictures' Story Department, thanks to a student colleague of his who had started working there, Willard Huyck. Huyck and Milius were employed at AIP under producer Larry Gordon, who was in charge of reading scripts. They eventually collaborated on a rewrite of The Devil's 8 (1968), an action adventure about moonshine drivers that was ripped off The Dirty Dozen (1968).

Milius' name had been announced in a 1968 Time magazine article about the new generation of Hollywood filmmakers, which also referred to George Lucas and Martin Scorsese. Mike Medavoy, Milius' agent, read this. Milius was "a badboy mad genius in a teen's body, but he was a good and fast writer with original thoughts," Medavoy said of him.

Milius' first writing commissions came. He wrote a script entitled The Texans for Al Ruddy at Paraguay (1948), which was never produced, but Sam Peckinpah was going to direct it in 1979). Milius later said it "wasn't very good." He also wrote Truck Driver (aka The Haul), which was purchased by Levy-Garner-Laven, but the film itself was not made.

Milius later said, "didn't do a good job" with these two early scripts "because, in both cases, I was influenced by the people who had hired me." They said they brought this in and put it in, and I went along with it. It was rare that I did not do well in my whole career that it didn't work. Usually, there's a price to pay. You may have figured out that selling out is cheaper, but there is a price to pay. Typically, the first thing people want is to make it current."

Milius then wrote Jeremiah Johnson, a tale loosely based on the life of the mountain man Liver-Eating Johnson.

Milius said later that this was "the true breaking point" for him, "almost overnight" that I had a voice.

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In 1970, Milius sold the script to Warner Bros. for $50,000, the highest price ever made. Other writers contributed to Warner Bros' original script, which was based on The Crow Killer. Milius was also called back to work on it, and his salary increased each time. (He eventually earned $90,000 on the film.) Robert Redford eventually agreed to lead the team, and Sydney Pollack was hired to direct.

Dirty Harry (1971) was Milius' uncredited draft. "A lot of guns," Jim Carrier says of his role in the film. Dirty Harry's demeanor, he was a brutal cop who was ruthless, was reflected in his behavior. If you take a look at the rest of my work, I think it's pretty clear what parts of mine are mine. The cop is the same as the murderer but with a badge. And it's lonely." Dirty Harry was a huge box office hit.

At a cost of $1,000 a day, George Hamilton hired Milius to rewrite Evel Knievel (1971), a biopic of the stunt rider. Milius re-did the entire script in seven days.

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, a fictional film about the respected judge, was written by him. If he could direct, he might have sold it for $150,000, but there were no takers, but there were no takers. It was sold to First Artists for $300,000, which was then very high for a script. It was a moderate success, but Milius was dissatisfied with the final result, directed by John Huston and starring Paul Newman. "I fought every day," he said. "I was well-fed." "I was treated horribly" by the time. Jeremiah Johnson was the most popular of the two boys.

On the script that became The Black Bird, Milius did some research with David Giler.

Milius, who was seen as a colorful person with a natural gift for entertaining interviews, was one of Hollywood's most coveted after screenwriters by now. His self-styled "Zen Anarchist"/"American samurai" persona made him stand out in Hollywood. For example, he only rewrote Dirty Harry on the proviso that he was given an expensive weapon. He was also the source of Big John's esthetic appearance in the American Graffiti (1973). "I think he [Lucas] saw me in that light because I was a surfer going through my time," Milius said of the film.

Magnum Force (1973) was also the first draft of the Dirty Harry sequel, as well as the first draft. "I don't like Magnum Force," Milius later said. I love it most of all the films I had to watch, but I loved it the most. "They changed a lot of things in a convenient and disgusting manner." However, at the box office, it was a success.

Milius wanted to move behind the camera. "Being a director is the only way anyone will pay attention to you in Hollywood," he said. "It's the next best thing to being a celebrity."

At the time, Gangster films were in vogue, and AIP gave him the opportunity to write one for a fraction of what he normally did. Milius accepted and directed Dillinger (1973-1973). "I deliberately picked Dillinger because he was a pure criminal," Milius said. "Robbing banks to fix social injustices were not involved in it."

Milius's directing debut was moderately successful, and it launched Milius' career. Melvin Purvis: G-Man (1974), a pilot for a proposed series about Melvin Purvis, was not interested in the director's or television experience, but not fond of the pilot nor the challenge of being on television.

Milius was grouped by contemporary film critics in the upcoming "movie brats" generation of filmmakers, which also included Lucas, Coppola, Terrence Malick, and Scorsese.

David Picker announced in 1974 that he would produce Ranch Life and 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 planned biopic about the legendary anti-Communist Senator, which Milius expressed an interest in seeing.

Milius wrote and directed The Wind and the Lion (1975), which starred Sean Connery and Candice Bergen. He later said that this was his first "true" film.

He intended to continue this with the novel "It's my interpretation of Jedediah Smith, which may not be completely accurate," Milius said. "It'll be about exploring, about the need to know what's over the next ridge and what it does, and what price you pay to find out." Smith, like Dirty Harry, is a classic lone man, with a lingering sadness. A male king is never alone." It was never made; neither were Man-Eaters of Kumoan (1976), based on a book by Jim Corbett about a tiger hunter in India, which Milius worked on.

In 1976, he was close to making Extreme Prejudice based on his script. Rather, he made Big Wednesday; Extreme Prejudice would be published a decade later, much rewritten, and directed by Walter Hill.

Milius formed The A Team, a design firm that had edited Dillinger in 1975. They had a five-year contract with Warner Bros. Milius wrote, "Our motto is Civitas Sine Prudentia," which really refers to Social Irresponsibility; I believe in it. It's refreshing and liberating. Americans are essentially irresponsible... Who else may have created the atomic bomb in the same way? The Nazis would have invented it with the intention of conquering the world; we were the only ones with the intention not to conquer the world.'

Big Wednesday (1978), the company's first photo, was an autobiographical surfing picture with the caption "a surfing How Green Was My Valley." This was a major commercial disappointment, but it turned into a cult film. Milius's relationship with George Lucas, who Mike Medavoy estimated earned Milius $1.5 million, in exchange Milius gave Lucas a share of the Big Wednesday's earnings, which amounts to virtually nothing.

"The A Team's ultimate aim, according to Milius, is that it will become a company that produces a lot of projects." I'll be the figurehead and father figure, receive a share, and I won't have to do anything but go off and direct my film every three years."

The A Team produced a number of films that were not directed by Milius. They produced the first three films from Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, including I Wanna Take Your Hand, 1941 (directed by Steven Spielberg), and Used Cars. He also produced Hardcore, which was also directed by Paul Schrader.

Schrader referred to Milius' writing as having too many good lines and scenes. Warren Beatty once told John something he'd been telling him too: "You come too soon and you come too often." He's so full of life he can't avoid coming rather than sitting back and tightening the situation and creating characters. Because the characters are so broad, they never have time to develop the inner strength."

Milius claims he was charged $17,000 to rewrite Skin Game (1971), but Francis Ford Coppola responded with a $15,000 bid for Milius to write Apocalypse Now. Apocalypse Now was a recreation of the Heart of Darkness set in the Vietnam War that George Lucas intended to direct as a follow-up to his first film THX 1138 (1971).

Milius says Coppola:

The commercial failure of THX 1138 has delayed production of Apocalypse Now. "No one will touch it because of the Vietnam War," Milius said of the Apocalypse Now script. Everyone loved it, and it did more for my career than any other script because it was always regarded as a work of genius; from the minute it came out, it sparked people; It's a good script, but it isn't necessarily genius. People get up, and that's what genius engineers are supposed to do."

However, Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, was released the following year. Coppola rewrote the script, which Milius looted. Milius said in 1976, "He wanted to ruin it, liberalize it, and turn it into Hair." "He sees himself as a brilliant humanitarian, an illuminated soul who will tell you such wonderful things as he does at Godfather 2; besides, he is no Steve Spielberg." Francis Coppola has this burning desire to save humanity, despite the fact that the man is a raving tyrant, the Bay Area Mussolini.

The film was released in 1979 to acclaim.

Mike Medavoy, Milius' old agent, helped establish Orion Pictures in 1978, and Milius' first film, East of Suez, was supposed to be written and directed by Milius. It wasn't made.

Milius was a key to the group of young filmmakers known as the New Hollywood, which included himself, Lucas, and Coppola.

(Quentin Tarantino said he could imagine the film Deliverance being about "Hollywood filmmakers": you can imagine Spielberg, Lucas, and Scorsese as the husbands. "You can even imagine John Milius as Lewis": (And you can't really imagine him as Lewis.

Milius had his greatest commercial success as a director with Conan the Barbarian (1982), which also made a cameback of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Two years later, this was followed by the well-known action film, Red Dawn (1984), which was the first film to be rated PG-13.

He was involved in the development of Uncommon Valor (1983) and served as a "spiritual advisor" for Lone Wolf McQuade (1983). In an episode of Miami Vice (season 3, episode 22), he wrote and directed an episode for The New Twilight Zone (1985) and a tale about his "Viking Bikers from Hell."

It was reported that he was wronging Fatal Beauty, which he wanted to direct with Cher, in 1986; Tom Holland and starred Whoopi Goldberg.

There had been rumors that Capone would direct a film for HBO, but it wasn't made.

Farewell to the King (1989) starring Milius in the late 1980s. At the box office, this flopped. In 1989, he began to apply for adaptations of Allan W. Eckert's "The Frontiersmen: A Novel" about settling the Ohio River Valley and "Half of the Sky," about a Rocky Mountains explorer.

Sean Connery was hired to appear in producer Mace Neufeld's film The Hunt for Red October, based on Tom Clancy's book of the same name. Connery found the script "too American" and pleaded with Neufeld's John Milius to rewrite the Russian sequences. "Get a different look and different speech patterns," Connery said of Milius.

Based on Stephen Coonts' book, Neufeld recruited Milius to write and direct the Intruder's flight. It wasn't even a financial success.

"I think the times have changed, and that is why my films were less well received," he said later. "I also think those are great films, especially the King's farewell."

Milius said he was blacklisted for his liberal convictions in liberal Hollywood in 1992, but that his flops were not as forgiven as those from more liberal filmmakers. "It weighs ten times more against me," the author said. "You are hunted and you are hunted, and you are shot and arrested, and if they catch you they will hang you."

The film Hunt for the Red October had been a huge success, but Milius remained in high demand as a screenwriter: he wrote several drafts of another Clancy adaptation, Clear and Present Danger (1994), which was another hit.

Milius worked on several unfilmed scripts, including Bad Iron, a biker film written by Kent Anderson that he wanted to produce, which he wanted to produce. He was supposed to produce a film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, but it was postponed until an Italian television miniseries on the same subject was produced. Harlot's Ghost, based on a Norman Mailer book, was written by Milius; Milius characterized it as "a cross between The Godfather and Apocalypse Now." It's about families, duplication, and risk, but the government has triggered it this time."

He adapted the Sgt. Joel Silver, a rock comic, has Renny Harlin and Paul Verhoeven attached at certain points respectively. And co-written with Barry Beckerman, I wrote a version of Die Hard 3 as an editor. He wrote Texas Rangers, a memoir about the formation of the school for Frank Price at Columbia in the early 1990s. He wished to direct the film but was unable to raise the funds.

He recalled Andrei Konchalovsky as the head of Morgan Creek Productions in 1993, portraying an English monk captured by a band of Vikings. Milius said of his filming a Viking story, "it was inevitable." "I've been a practicing pagan for a long time." Conan the Barbarian was really a Viking movie, but it was disguised." However, funding did not come as a result. Gary Sinise and Laurence Fishburne, and Tom Clancy's book Without Remorse, were supposed to direct an adaptation of Tom Clancy's book Without Remorse, but the project was cancelled in 1995, just two weeks before shooting was scheduled due to Savoy Pictures' financial demise.

Walter Hill's biopic of Geronimo, Geronimo: An American Legend was shot in a Milius script.

He also produced two films for television: Motorcycle Gang (1994) and Rough Riders (1997).

Milius was hired by the Institute for Creative Technologies in 2000 to help anticipate the dangers to peace in the United States and the emerging virtual reality technologies that could be used to prepare US troops for the future. "John has demonstrated a deep knowledge of the human condition and the ways in which conflicts can be resolved through his extensive body of work," ICT executive director Richard Lindheim said. "Furthermore, our efforts will greatly benefit from his global outlook in the near future, as well as the security procedures and protocols that will be needed to ensure peace."

He also wrote two biopics: Le May for Robert Zemeckis, about Curtis LeMay; and Manila John, about John Basilone, which he was going to make for HBO. Warner Bros. wanted him to upgrade Dirty Harry and wanted them to finance a version of The Iliad; there was also talk that he'd make The Alamo for HBO.

He appeared on King Conan's Iron (2001-02), a sequel to Conan the Barbarian, in the early 2000s.

He also created Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death), a biker film starring Triple H, and wrote a pilot for a Delta television show about a military special operations team that fights terrorists. None of these films were produced.

Texas Rangers (2001) was eventually completed, but Milius claimed that his script had been largely revised.

Milius' accountant embezzled him an estimated $3 million in late 1990s and early 2000s, leading to a dramatic financial reversal.

On the television show Deadwood, he tried to work as a staff writer, but showrunner David Milch refused because he did not consider Milius a staff writer. Milius pleaded that he needed the money to pay for his son's tuition at law school, so Milch simply paid the fees. Milius' career flourished after he helped create the BBC/HBO television series Rome, which allowed him to pay Milch.

Dodge City (circa 2005) — a Western series for CBS and Saigon Bureau (2008) — about the AIP Bureau of photojournalists in the Vietnam War, a joint venture with Chris Noth based on the book Requiem. He also wrote a script about the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War, The Chosin Few for Mark Cuban's 2929 Entertainment, and The Iron Horsemen, a motorcycle film.

Milius was working on a new project, a film biography of Genghis Khan, and a new television series called Pharaoh, which dates back to King Hatshepsut's reign, when he had a stroke. He was unable to talk or move for a while, but eventually recovered.

Milius, a story consultant for the online game Homefront, was about a North Korean conquest of America in March 2011.

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