I had a friend who was suppose to be Rebecca Lange long before Abby took the role. She had given me the contacts for a few of her friends who were wanting to act and there was another person who was involved and wanted the female antagonist role. All had bailed on the project on the day of filming. While I understand that there was problems on their ends, I am not mad in anyway about them bailing. In this business, it's hard to get people who really want to do this. This left me with a dilemma. We lost the female antagonist along with the other two male antagonists.
Jamie and Stephen both arrive and I had to end up sticking them in front of the camera. They were unprepared but we filmed for four hours and wrapped up. Took the footage home and there was a lot of loose footage that we missed and ultimately, I decided to scrap it and move over to my old beat up hard drive. To those who are wondering what the Campaign is ... Marvel's The Punisher.
Out of all of the characters in the Marvel universe, Frank Castle by far my favorite character. Next to say Bruce Banner and possibly Magneto. In the early 2010's it was announced that Castle had came home to the Marvel film-world. As soon as I saw that the film rights had reverted from Lionsgate to Disney, I knew that I needed to somehow get my name out there as a possibility. Ultimately, I came, I saw, and I failed.
With Disney making Castle as part of Daredevil; I felt that now is the time to tell my story. I think that Joe Bernthal will be another great addition to the line up of actors who have portrayed Castle. It will also give me a reason to watch Daredevil as most people who know me know that I do not watch television shows at all.
With Campaign, I based my version of the character from characteristics from all three film adaptions. I liked the moody-ness of the Tom Jane; the brutality of Ray Stevenson; and the overall tortured soul of Dolph Lundgren's portrayal. Ironically, in my script, I did include mentions of Matt Murdock and did include Typhoid Mary as the female antagonist in the short film.
In the short film, I established that Castle is going to hunt down the three children of crime mob boss Ma Gnucci; the woman responsible for killing Castle's family. Castle finds out that her sons are meeting up to buy drugs from Maginty. He intercepts Maginty's men and meets up with Ma Gnucci's kids to slaughter them. However, when he arrives, only two of the three kids are present. Typhoid Mary was called in by the eldest son, Bobby. It turns into a bloodbath and Castle manages to kill the two brothers and spares Mary.
I wanted to show that Castle wasn't the mindless killing machine that we saw in Punisher: War Zone, but, keeping the brutal tone of vengeance as these are the people who killed his family. And at the same time show that he has some humility and something of a soul left intact. And there was an ending where we were going to bring in Micro and Lynn Michaels to help get Castle and Typhoid Mary back into town and to take Mary to Murdock to face his justice. But, with us losing who was supposed to be Typhoid Mary that day, we never finished it.
What had I had in mind for the project if I had gotten my wish and I was Frank? If we did manage to get a Marvel reboot, the film would have taken place across "Phase One" and "Phase Two". We would have revealed that it was Castle behind the scenes in the first Iron Man film as a soldier in Afghanistan as well as bringing in the injured soldiers who were apart of the Extremis Program in Iron Man 3. These injured soldiers were to be apart of his unit who were attacked and kidnapped by the Ten Rings terrorist organization.
We would then get Castle home to his wife and have Rhodes play a predominant role in the story. Rhodes would be on par with Louis Gossett Jr's role in the 1989 film. We would soon get to the chase and have Castle's family executed while out on a picnic at a park in NYC. Frank would be injured and in a coma but would wake from his coma during the events of the Avengers with the aliens arriving and attacking. Unable to walk, Castle would manage to get out of the destroyed hospital, a la the Bride in Kill Bill, by crawling to safety and managing to help save a few New Yorkers in the process by managing to kill the aliens with their own weapons.
However, Frank would not be able to see the survivors to safety as debris from the hospital cracks him in the head and ironically puts him back in his coma. This heroic act from a paralyzed man gets back to Nick Fury who digs around and discovers who Frank Castle is. He knows that Castle has ties to some members of the Avengers and wants Rhodes to bring him into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s care. Frank was to wake up during the events of Iron Man 3. My planing points after that far in the script that I did start to write was show the Punisher dismantling AIM Technologies and the mob organization ran by Ma Gnucci.
Ultimately, the villains of my vision were to be Ma Gnucci and M.O.D.O.K. Ma Gnucci was to be left dead as in the comics by Castle throwing her into a bear habitat in a zoo. After doing the deed, Fury would call Frank to head to the AIM headquarters to destroy it. This would be happening as Tony and Rhodes would be off trying to save Pepper and the President of the United States at the oil tanker.
M.O.D.O.K. was to be a fierce and very systematic killing machine. I had it imagined that it would basically be doing all the killing of the AIM workers while it tried to kill Frank. Police would go into the AIM building and get slaughtered with the exception of a scared police officer who would be Lynn Michaels. She would be inspired by Frank and his methods to his madness and tries to help him kill M.O.D.O.K. and they would ultimately succeed.
So, what happened? In the months prior to Joe Bernthal being announced as the iconic Frank Castle; myself, Abby, Jamie, and Stephen talked about redoing the short and possibly doing it as a television pilot. To my irony, this is the route that Disney decided to go. I guess my dicking around is what caused the downfall. I have no one to blame but myself on this. Do I have any resentment towards Marvel and everyone involved with Daredevil? Hell, no. I would love to be back working with Disney like I did with my production assistant job on Lost. Because I know, that in this business, there are more failures than successes. But, when you do have a success, no matter how big or small, be thankful for it. It could just all disappear one day.
I am Orlando Eastwood. I love all my fans. Thank you for supporting me throughout the years and I hope once we have American Nightmare 3D ready, I can scare you all again. Take care.
