It’s been a long few years for Kyle Newman. The young director’s comedy, Fanboys, following a group of George Lucas-obsessed friends on a quest to see Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace before its released, wrapped in the summer of 2006 and is just now being released in theaters on February 6th, 2009. What took so long? Well, the involvement of Harvey Weinstein, another director, reshoots, new cameos, and the removal of an entire plotline can lead to a long post-production. But with the help of an intense internet campaign, Newman regained control of Fanboys and is finally delivering his version of the film to the masses. He sat down with MovieRetriever and pulled no punches regarding what’s been going on with Fanboys, his love for Star Wars, and fandom in general.

--Brian Tallerico

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MOVIE RETRIEVER: Let's start with your strongest Star Wars memory.

KYLE NEWMAN: Well, my very first memory was Star Wars. I don't remember the movie, but I remember the energy of everyone in this parking lot of a drive-in movie theater after they had just watched it. I was born in '76. So, at this point, I was only like one-and-a-half maybe. I remember my brothers and sisters, my cousins – everyone had gone to see it. There was this electric energy.

And then I remember the time leading up to Episode One when every fan started coming out and getting excited for the big release. It was good. It didn't matter what the movie was, I just remember the time and the people coming together and getting excited. It was a really special time.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: Were you one of those people who waited in line?

NEWMAN: I did. I was in New York. And right across the street from where I was living was a movie theater. I just called 'em on the phone and got tickets, so you didn't have to wait in line, but I went over there to hang out with everybody. It was very fun. It was a good ritual. There were so many good people in line and everybody was having a blast.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: If the original trilogy came out today, do you think it would have the same power or was timing a major factor?

NEWMAN: I think timing was a major factor. Obviously, the storytelling is really impeccable but timing was a major factor. It was such a zeitgeist film. And, technologically, what it was doing was so innovative. Each time you saw it there was something new that pushed the boundaries. Especially when you're a kid, that kind of stuff - the lightsaber battle, the space battle in Jedi - it kept upping the ante. Now, people have seen so much stuff that while the stories are still incredible - that's obviously a major factor in the staying power - I think what made them iconic was how much they pushed the boundaries for the era they came out.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: Do you keep up on current Star Wars products like Clone Wars?

NEWMAN: Oh yeah. I watched Clone Wars religiously. And I did a podcast with them where every couple of weeks I came in and discussed a few episodes from a filmmaking perspective. I go to a lot of the conventions and Star Wars celebrations. I still get the occasional toy and keep up with the universe. I read the comic books. I still get Star Wars magazine. I'm on top of everything.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: You mentioned anticipation for the prequels, I feel like your movie is more about anticipation than the actual final product. Do you think it was that anticipation that has led to such negativity surrounding the prequels? I know you're a fan of them. Why do you think so many people hate them?

NEWMAN: It was a backlash, for sure. When it started getting talked about in '96, when he started gearing up to make Episode One, it was still a little underground. There was a time when Star Wars was kind of dead from the '86 or '87 until the mid-nineties. Once it started building back up after the Special Editions, there was a cool group that thought they were going to go reject against it. That was kind of preceding it by a year. When you're a kid or a teen and you're seeing these movies and you're hearing the idea of prequels, you're imagining what they're going to be in your head. I think, invariably, it will never live up to the expectations of your own imagination tailored to what you want it to be. I probably like them more than most people - it wasn't really the medium in which it was presented. I was more interested in what the story was. Star Wars could be oral tradition, they're such good stories. So, I went and found out all the spoilers. I eased into it. It wasn't like a big culture shock. "Whoa, that wasn't what I imagined." So, I think that was a factor. I think people who did that - eased in after 20 years of anticipation... if you don't do that, you're bound to be let down.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: Do you think there was some of that with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull too? Do you have an opinion on the backlash to that movie?

NEWMAN: I do think it happened a bit. I mean, some of that could have been a little tighter. There were some moments in that which I don't think fit tonally with the other Indy films like the moments with the gophers at the beginning and the Tarzan vine swinging. I think if they had been a little more prudent, taken one more pass, it would have felt a little different. I also think tying it to the sci-fi thing might have been a lot for people. Strangely, again, I kind of enjoyed that movie. It wasn't a perfect movie. I liked it more the more I saw it. The same thing with the prequels. I know a lot of people saw it once and said, "What's that? I don't want Indiana Jones to grow old." And then they rejected it. It's definitely a generation gap and then you're reintroduced to it and you're not remembering that some of Temple of Doom was hokey or that Indiana Jones was taking a life raft and jumping out of a plane and landing in a stream. People talk about how ridiculous parts of Crystal Skull are and there are some equally ridiculous parts in the other Indiana Jones movies.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: Define the term "Fanboys" for people who may be unfamiliar with it.

NEWMAN: It's a term for a group of people, no matter what age, who are really into sci-fi, fandom, comic books, a certain genre of film. And they are unafraid to wear that on their sleeves. I don't think fanboys are closet nerds. They are people who embrace it, sometimes flaunt it, and are proud of who they are. They are heavily represented in the online community. They're tech-savvy. They're cutting edge for what they're into. They're people unafraid to talk about what they're into. Even at a nice dinner, they'll talk about Star Wars, Go-Bots, whatever.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: Are you a fanboy for anything but Star Wars? Are you a Go-Bots fanboy?

NEWMAN: I grew up on Masters of Universe, Go-Bots, G.I. Joe. I love all that stuff. Star Wars has a special place because I think there's something eternal about it. It's evolved through generations. It has a spiritual and mystical side to it while it's also this fantasy/space opera. There's movies and stuff I love - Close Encounters, Blade Runner, 2001, Alien, Aliens, and all those type of films, Goonies, Gremlins - but Star Wars holds a unique place. It exists in different mediums. I think the reason that Star Wars has such longevity is the fan community. The people have responded to it and taken it on themselves to keep it alive. George Lucas was smart in recognizing that there are a lot of people who want to play in the world he created. So, let them write books and comic books and design toys and video games and expand the series into television. I think he knows the universe has gotten bigger than anything he can control.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: So, what's it like when that world comes down off the pedestal and you're calling "Action" on Billy Dee Williams and Carrie Fisher?

NEWMAN: It was very surreal. I was on the first day that we were supposed to shoot with Billy Dee Williams. You want to meet the actors and go over the scene and make sure they know where you're coming from. We're supposed to go to dinner with the producers and one of the writers. We sit down and someone comes over and says, "You have a phone call from Carrie Fisher." So, I had to get up and leave the dinner with Billy Dee Williams right when he's about to talk about Star Wars. "Why right now?!?! Who scheduled these things at the same time?!?!" So, I go up and have this great conversation with Carrie Fisher about the script and improving her character's pivotal point in the movie. She was like, "I'm playing a different character. I'm Carrie Fisher, the actress. But, in the context of this movie, I'm also playing Princess Leia. I have to do something positive." I go back downstairs in time to hear Billy Dee say, "That's all I've got to say about Star Wars." I missed the entire thing. I know a lot of people go to pick their brains and have fun with them. It was surreal working with them after being three years old and seeing them in a movie that changed my life. It was kind of a dream come true. And working at the Ranch. And the sound team from the prequels doing our sound. And Ray Park. And William Shatner, someone else I was fond of growing up. It was inspiring.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: Did you ask everyone? Did you talk to Mark Hamill?

NEWMAN: I didn't talk to Mark beforehand but we did try to get him in the movie. It didn't work out. But I became friendly with Mark afterwards. He's a great guy. Maybe if I'd known him beforehand I might have convinced him to do it. It worked out. The movie's great how it is. Unfortunately, he's not in it. Who knows how it would have changed things if he was?

MOVIE RETRIEVER: And what about all the other cameos like Craig Robinson, Will Forte, Danny McBride. Were they all fans and that's why they wanted to be involved?

NEWMAN: Will Forte, Danny McBride, Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes - all those guys were Star Wars fans. Seth Rogen is a huge Star Wars fan and also a Star Trek fan, so he got to play two characters. He wanted to defend Star Trek with one character and be pro-Star Wars with another and they fight each other. I think that was a huge advantage trying to cast this movie. It was easy saying, "It's a movie about your childhood and all these things you love."

MOVIE RETRIEVER: We need to talk post-production. Does it leave you hung up career-wise or did you move onto other projects while this one went through such an ordeal between wrap and release? There had to be times during this historic post-production when there's not much you can do on a day-to-day basis. Are you just stuck in career limbo?

NEWMAN: On one hand, a portion of my life, I was stuck in limbo. But I've been developing 20 or 30 other projects on my own. It was definitely hard because it's something you can never let go of. I felt like the permission we got from Lucasfilm and the access, I felt like they trusted me and entrusted me to finish something. And when the fans started getting wind of it, I felt like it was sort of my duty to see it through and make sure the message was the proper one and directed at the fan community. Being a fan, I didn't want anything else out there. On the one hand, I could never let it go. On the other, I saw everyone else moving on and I had to sort of plan for beyond it. It was probably detrimental a little bit but I think if I hadn't put that passion behind it, who knows where it would have ended up now? I really feel like I kept our team kind of intact - producers, writers, actors. We were all on the same page and making sure we stayed together over these years.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: Without that, it probably would have fallen apart. Did it ever cross your mind that the movie would never get released?

NEWMAN: All the time. All the time. But I knew that the audience for this was so vast and so strong and the online support, which I started seeing, was amazing and unprecedented. It encouraged us to keep positive and fingers crossed that it would eventually end up back in our laps and we would get the chance to see it through to, at least, a proper version and proper storyline. That was all very important to us.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: Let's talk about the "proper version and proper storyline". Why was keeping the cancer plot so crucial to you? [Editor's Note: At one point in post-production, the studio cut out a major plotline involving one of the main characters suffering from cancer.]

NEWMAN: As a function of storytelling and script. It was an inciting incident. It was a rallying call for these guys. While the trip, in conceit, was very zany, it had this emotional core to it because it was coming from a grounded place. I thought the movie was unhinged without it. You couldn't get behind these guys. They weren't doing it for any reason other than on a whim. They were just criminals. The movie is really about friendship. You take that out and the movie's not really about friendship and the Star Wars over-plot really doesn't work because there's no substance to it. It was really a pointless movie at that point. Yeah, there's laughs in it and, ultimately, what they proposed changing was scattered. But I found that when you take out those little moments, it changes the way you feel about the movie and the characters within the movie. To me, it became soulless. There was no heart and little purpose. And there was no ticking clock. Ultimately, where did it end up? It ended with them watching the movie on a laptop and then throwing it out the window and saying "That sucked" and driving off. It didn't culminate in anything. There was no substance. It was hard to watch.

We never set out to make a big, broad, four-quadrant comedy. We were making a comedy that had dramatic elements. It had emotional stuff and you also laughed your ass off. We were making this hybrid thing and they were trying to eliminate the second half of the hybrid. It became very impure. I think you could tell the difference between what we shot and what was inserted.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: Do you think that the version you wanted to be seen was impacted by the internet support? Did that have an effect on getting the film back in your hands?

NEWMAN: I think it did. I was scared at first. Not all productions have their behind-the-scenes being talked about all over the internet. It's a $4 million movie. It got to the point where all of this drama was unnecessary and because it was Star Wars it got a lot of extra examination. Here, I've made a movie that I'm really proud of. I screened it in London to 1400 fans at Star Wars Celebration to three standing ovations and I videotaped it and I showed everybody, but I guess nobody ever showed Harvey [Weinstein]. I'm getting all this support online and they're talking about changing it and it just didn't all add up. I was afraid. I knew I had made a great movie. The actors, producers, writers - we were all happy with what we had pulled off. We were smart about how we cast the movie. We had tremendous foresight considering the people we cast who took off. We were on the right track.

And then all this happens and there's a lot of negative stuff and the people they brought in to work on the film were, in a very low class way, criticizing the actors and the casting and the directing and kind of demeaning Star Wars fandom. Here we'd done all this grassroots awareness and built support and, suddenly, there are polls on StarWars.com debating "How worried are you about the fate of Fanboys?"

It was very disheartening to watch everything that you've done positive be undermined in a week by a bunch of idiots, this team that was brought in to do this. Mainly just the director who they brought in to re-shape it who was opening his mouth online and really offending our core audience. So, I was shocked. I was like, "Oh my God." It was just getting out of control and here we are on the sidelines and I'm watching the movie fall apart. I'm watching our fanbase dissipate. It was hard. I'm glad it took a positive spin. The fans were so relentless.

It came around until Harvey finally said, "Obviously, the version you made is the version that people want to see." If people know version A exists and they want to see it, you don't want to sell them version B. You have to go back to A. It made sense creatively from our point of view and business-wise from theirs. I wanted to stay objective and positive. I went to screenings of the other cuts. It was hard to see some of it. The stuff you love chopped up and destroyed. But I went there with a notepad and I wrote down everything. I wanted to see what was working too that they were coming up with. If it was great and it worked, hell, I'm gonna keep it. I don't want to make a bad movie. If it exists and we own it and we can use it, I'll work it in.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: So, how much footage is there on the cutting room floor now? Is there a whole new movie? Are we talking Paul Schrader and Renny Harlin with The Exorcist prequel or little things here and there?

NEWMAN: It's a few scenes. I went back and recut everything that is included that I didn't shoot. It's re-using that raw material again to incorporate into our film. There are a couple things like "You have to include this joke in the opening crawl. You have to put this joke here in the middle of this peyote scene." They make my stomach turn a little bit but I had to do what I needed to get this story back and get the story in the right direction. It's hard. But I think there's only about three scenes that I didn't shoot in there. And they've all been re-cut and re-incorporated and trimmed down.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: So, there's a few scenes in the movie that you didn't shoot and you cut around to get the project released and make yourself happy. Let's say the movie does well and they give you an option to do a director's cut for DVD. Do those scenes get pulled out if you have final cut?

NEWMAN: Two of them I would probably keep. And one is early in my favorite scene in the movie. There's one line of dialogue different. It's a line that mentions that the two guys were a comic book writer team when they were teens instead of just the one guy being into comic book art. It was kind of replaced with another version of that scene. It still works. But it was the best scene in the movie and it was the best performances by these two actors in the film. But for whatever reason it was a scene they just had to switch to another version. And the guys look older and they look slightly different and the performances aren't there. You can tell they're upset that they had to go back and re-do something that they nailed the first time. I would switch that back to the original.

It's little moments. Like the Grand Canyon scene. When they go and talk to Eric after his father has given him the note "Come home or you're fired." It originally just said "You're fired." And Linus, when they all get up to leave, sits there for a minute, pulls out his pill bottle, the music starts playing, it was a great track, and he tosses the pill bottle into the ravine. It's that he's going to accept his fate just as Eric is accepting his. It was a perfect mid-point to the movie before they head to Vegas. It was a ten second visual scene. To me, it was important. You have thirty minutes of the movie where there's no reference to what he's going through. And it's not like people sitting around talking about cancer. It's a bottle and a close-up and then he just tosses it. It was a perfect moment. And they're like "Absolutely not. You cannot put that in the movie. Cancer is evil. Don't talk about it." It was give-and-takes. I got to put the story in but I had to give up on little nuance beats which I think make the story richer. If I was ever to do a master cut, it's all waiting there.

MOVIE RETRIEVER: Being a sci-fi fanboy, are you excited for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek?

NEWMAN: Oh my God. Absolutely. The cast is incredibly exciting. I like that new trailer. A good buddy of ours, Zachary Quinto, is playing Spock. I'm incredibly excited for him. I think it's a perfect role for him. I think the cast is great. There's a lot of life left in Star Trek. I think they're gonna kick off something good.