A VISIT TO THE JONAH HEX MOVIE SET

Back in 2008, Justin Gray and I were writing the JONAH HEX comic for DC Comics monthly – a gift given to us by then editor in chief Dan DiDio-and were a couple of years into it, writing done –in-one adventures of everyone’s favorite bounty hunter. The book was successful, getting a lot of new eyes on the character and at WARNER BROS it got the attention of a lot of Producers pitching the film and eventually hiring the then directors Mark Neveldine to write the screenplay and possibly direct the movie. All this was taking place while we knew nothing. At one point a DC PERSON had me visit the WB lot and tell me all about the film being made and their take on it. This take included Zombies, supernatural stuff, and so on. I told them the character we were writing was grounded in reality and I was told that no one would go see a classic western these days and they had to make it wilder and bigger than life, almost like a western superhero movie. I disagreed, but whatever, wished them luck and offered Justin and I to help in any way we can, story wise. They said they weren’t looking for our input and that was that. End of story.

While this all was going on, the film switched screenwriters, directors and so on. It was being filmed in New Orleans and that’s all we knew. Again, not a soul wanted us involved and no one was fighting for us on the comic side as well. It really sucked because We had written screenplays, done an animated movie and some TV as well, but again, keep the comic guys on the comic and they all had this. It sucked and we were so frustrated. We thought they could really use our writing experience.

About a few months later I got a phone call from a producer friend at Warner that helped Joe Quesada and I land ASH at DreamWorks a few years before and he said he was one of the people working on the film and invited us to the set, saying we deserve to be there since the film was being based on our books. It was super cool of him and although I was not on board on the angle they were taking about with the character, I was staying positive it was still gonna be Jonah on the big screen and who didn’t want to see that in some form.

Justin and I flew into New Orleans, checked in to the hotel and the people on the set sent a car for us to take us to the shoot. About 45 minutes later we were driving into the middle of a swamp location that was very cool and when we arrived, someone checked us in, and we got sprayed head to toe with mosquito spray because as we were told, they had bugs the size of cats flying around down there. We had to cover our eyes and mouth and seriously, we were sprayed everywhere.

We were then led to a trail that led to where the director and the crew were shooting. Suddenly, on horseback, we see Josh Brolin, in full makeup, ride up to us. It was an amazing sight…seeing a character that I have oved almost my entire life and having the gift to write saddle up to Justin and I.  His first words were “Are you the two guys that created me? Which we told him no, we were the guys currently writing the character. He then said “oh, I was gonna give you shit about the 4 hours it took to get this make-up on each day of shooting” We all laughed and made our way to the current location of the shoot. We did ask to take a photo with Josh but the PR person lost their shit at the idea and we were not allowed to document a single thing, which was truly sad for us.

We got a lot of introductions around to the actors, producers and director and so on and they started to shoot a scene that never made it to the movie. I heard there were a few scenes like that. Anyway, the set up was we had three men that had already been hung by someone and two scavengers were trying to climb up the bodies and steal their clothes and boots when Jonah came riding by, looking down at them and asking them if they saw who he was tracking. After a funny awkward exchange, Jonah left them be. The shot this a few times and it was then we met the art director that was very excited we were on set and he showed us his inspiration book that had a ton of the Jonah hex pages from our book inside it. Pretty cool. He even modeled some shots after our covers and so on.

Lunch time came and we were invited to lunch with John Malkovich and had an amazing time talking about comics and other things while sitting in a small outdoor shack like restaurant next to- I kid you not- about a half dozen hungry looking gators. There was a sign that said not to feed them sporting a hand with severed fingers. We got the point and kept our distance. John is an intelligent and funny man that sure knows his underground comic artists. He talked a lot about meeting Robert crumb and others.

After lunch, back on set to the scene where Jonah’s family gets killed and they eventually grab Jonah and slice open his face. There was a lot of set up and in the meantime, we got to hang with Diane Lane- she was set visiting her then husband at the time, Josh. Well, meeting her might have been the other highlight since I had a crush on her since Streets of Fire so many years before. Yeah, it was good to be me. Josh came over and asked If we were hitting on her, smiled and said guys my age all had a crush on her. He was right. I did.

Anyway, the rest of the day went well, we were driven back to the hotel, Justin and I did the town proper that night and then we were back home and back to writing the character.  The cool thing is that it took someone outside the circle of DC to actually invite us to the set…that DC at the time just treated us like second class citizens at the time- wait, more like an afterthought, and it really broke our hearts. We put so much into that series and were so bummed to not even be considered for anything.

There is so much more in-between then and when the movie was put out, but most of it is negative except the naming of a certain female bounty hunter- a late night call from someone on the set – how the movie destroyed our trade sales and so on…and I wanted to leave this on a high note for now. Perhaps I will write a breakdown of that time later on, a part two to this piece- but for now, I do remember that day as super exciting, and feeling, even for a moment, we were part of something---and I say for that day, because we were never really part of the production at all, other than the title of “Inspired by” Oh, and we were never thanked on the credits for anything. Yeah, it all sucked on some level.

Many years later I was again invited to the set of another adaption- this time for the Harley Quinn movie, and that was a totally different experience and will write about that soon. That was an entirely different situation.

 

Jimmy Palmiotti

 

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