Hi, and welcome to our second bonus episode talking with film producer John Peters. Last time, we talked about how John went from running his own chain of hairdressing salons to dating Barbra Streisand to producing a hit album with her and beginning his filmmaking career where the star is born, and then embarking on what would become one of the most improbable producing careers in all of Hollywood. By all accounts, that's sort of where this crazy story should have ended. The history of Hollywood is littered with names of people who had a hit but just couldn't keep her career going. But in this episode, I want to zoom in on what happened next. Because after A Star Is Born, John stepped beyond Barbara's orbit and started a producing career of his own. And in very John Peters-y fashion, one of his first major films without her was Caddyshack. A chaotic, almost feral, coke-fueled, vignette-driven comedy that biologic shouldn't really have worked, and yet somehow became one of the most beloved cult comedies ever made. And from there, John's career gathers momentum and eventually crosses paths with the man who will become one of the most important professional relationships of his life, Peter Guber. Now, Peter's another filmmaking legend who should have his own episode. But at the time, Peter was a rising star at Columbia Pictures who had struck out in his own very successful producing career and was, as The New York Times put it, one of the most brilliant men in Hollywood. So he saw something in John's boisterous belief that could complement his own ambitions, and together they formed Goober Peters Entertainment, a partnership that would go on to define an era of 1980s filmmaking. And that slate reads like a highlight reel of some of the most interesting films of the decade. American Werewolf in London, Flashdance, The Color Purple, Gorillas in the Mist, Rain Man, and then Batman, which at the time became the highest grossing superhero film ever made and arguably kicked off the modern era of comic book movies. By some accounting, that movie made Warner Brothers around $2 billion. $2 billion in 1989. John and Peter had already the most lucrative deal in all of Hollywood at Warner Brothers, but they wanted more. So when Sony Electronics considered purchasing Columbia TriStar under the newly formed Sony Pictures banner, the duo helped orchestrate the deal and position themselves as the new co-chairman of Sony Pictures, a deal valued at nearly $5 billion that made them some of the most powerful business executives in America overnight. In this episode, we dig into that middle period of John's life, his rise as a producer in his own right, his unlikely creative chemistry with Peter Guber, and the way he worked with some of the greatest creative talents in the world, people like Tim Burton and Harold Ramis and Bill Murray. We also touch briefly on his early vision for Sony Pictures, what he imagined the studio could become, a vertically integrated media conglomerate with its own theme parks, A vision that wasn't too far-fetched considering Sony had all the elements that a company like Apple was able to put together years later. Music publishing, entertainment, and electronics, all working together in a seamless entertainment ecosystem. It's an exciting look at what might have been, but we'll delve more into those years in future episodes. As always with John, the conversation isn't linear. It loops and it jumps decades. It's reflective and funny and contradictory, but it's honest. so this intro like last time it's the context it's the map the the history lesson and then the conversation itself with john is unfiltered min is on words so with that in mind here's part two of my ongoing conversations with john peters um so yeah last time we covered a lot of the um you know your your journey from starting as a hairdresser then meeting barbara streisand getting into producing movies and what i'm really kind of interested in chatting about next is there's a period of time before you meet peter guber where you go and independently produce movies or you produce them on your own but you produce them with studios and your first movie out of the gate after working with barbara is caddyship which is pretty phenomenal as a new debut movie from a producer. Yeah, especially because I had never done a comedy before. I see, look, my gift is the gift of finding people far more talented than me and giving them a chance to do usually my vision and getting it done. And like with Tim Burton, when we did Batman together, I remember Tim said to me, you know, we were working on the movie, and he said to me, you know, John, I just want you to know that I think you're too talented. And I said, what do you mean? He said, you just have too many ideas that's threatening to the director. And I said, well, that's probably why a lot of people didn't like me that much. Like in Stars Born, Bradley Cooper, I had worked on that script for many, many, many years. And then this fella came in, Billy Gerber, who came in and worked on the script and worked on the movie, a really good job. But it was basically the movie that I and Barbara, we all created a long time ago. And then Bradley comes in the genius of geniuses Bradley is beyond maybe the best director in Hollywood maybe one of the greatest actors I mean he just an amazing guy And what he does and how he does it is fantastic So we were lucky. Got it. We were aligned. The stars were aligned for us. And then you produce the main event again with Barbara. And then your first movie on your own is then Caddyshack, which I think is interesting for two reasons. One is the way you approached it seems to be that you sort of did it as a bunch of vignettes. You know, you did it as little scenes all the way through. And the golf course was the backdrop that tied everything together. But also you had Chevy Chase and Bill Murray who were sort of never in scenes together until you realized, oh, God, we got to get these guys in a scene together because they sort of famously hated each other. We wrapped the movie. And I realized we didn't have a scene with the two of them together. So I got him to write it, and I'm sure Billy was part of it. I know our director was a writer, and I gave him kind of a few ideas. Listen, movies are all about vignettes with the story woven in between, so every vignette is some kind of a funny thing. That's all movies are about, like a backdrop you can hang a love story or a character story onto. And endings, oh, you have to walk out of that theater happy, laughing, crying something so you can tell people and get people to turn around and come back in again. That's, you know, I don't know why that I grew up so old school, but it's just my instincts, I guess. You know, I'm going to be 80 in a couple of months and that's almost 100 years old. And then that's a long time to be a gunslinger. Yeah, there's still so much love for Caddyshack. I mean, you know, I know you've been talking about kind of trying to resurrect it and bringing it back for a new generation. Golfing people love Caddyshack. I don't golf. But it's Rodney Dangerfield I used to see on Johnny Carson's show. And he would, first time we met him, he came in and he came on the lot at Warner's. And I was there with Mark Canton. And he came in and he had a little doctor's case. And he came in and he sat down on the couch with everybody. He opened it up. He put two or three lines of coke on the table, and he stiffed it up. Where's the pussy? Where's the pussy? And we were sitting with the head of the studio. It's like, uh. Then I couldn't find him, and we went into the bathroom, and all of a sudden, he's in the urinal. He's standing on top of the urinal. I said, what are you doing? He said, I have to piss standing up. Man, I have to piss standing up. I just stand on top of the toilet. So it was crazy times, yeah. The Caddyshack set sounds like a pretty crazy place. You had Roddy Dangerfield and Bill Murray, Chevy Chase. You know, you were a notorious wild man. That must have been an incredible. The nice thing about everything is Bill Murray, God love his soul, raw talent. Chevy, raw talent. Everybody on that show was wrote. Harold, the director, who I love. and he was the hero. And Doug Kenny who died in Hawaii in an accidental suicidal deal or fell or tripped or something, don't know, but he died, was another wild talent. Everybody, they were all wild talents. The people at the studio, knuckleheads, but we got it done. And then it was Orion at Warner Brothers, Mark Canton, brilliant talent, Terry Semel, Bob Daly, that whole Warner Brothers group. Those were the best guys in Hollywood. And really, I owe them everything. And Mark Canton, I'm hoping to work with him again and bring him into the AI business. Yeah. After you do a few movies on your own, you then meet Peter Guber, who sort of undeniably becomes one of the largest professional relationships of your life. What did you guys see in each other? Because you clearly, he was a studio guy. He had grown up through Columbia Pictures. You were now a very up-and-coming film producer on your own right. You guys seemed to complement each other, very similar to the Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer relationship. What did you see in each other that you think created that relationship? I had seen Peter around at parties because I was with Barbara. He loved horses, and he saw what we were doing. and then he went and did it at his house in his backyard. And Peter and Linda were very, very, very creative people. Talented, imaginative, fun, creative. What made you guys, you and Peter, go, okay, I like you, I respect you, I see you at a party and I think you're good or smart and I like the movies you're doing? They wanted to hire me and I said, no, I want to be your partner. I said, I'll build this into something really big. and we were with Peter and Paul Schaefer and Gil Siegel and whoever else I don remember And that was Polygram That was before anything right Okay He had Polygram already right And I said to him I want to own a studio one day Peter And he believed me. We believed it together. I don't want to run one. I want to own one. And so we did the Sony deal. Own part of something that's 3.5%. It's a lot of money in a multibillion-dollar company. and so we did the Sony deal. We owned part of Sony. It's three and a half percent. It's a lot of money on a multi-billion dollar company and then he didn't say anything. I said, don't you want that? And Paul Schaefer said, no, he does. He wants it so much he's afraid to say it. So yeah, no, once we came together, it was very obvious what we do. He was a super agent and I was a visualist and he'd be on the phone and I'd be creating and writing and smoking marijuana and chasing girls and raising my daughters and having a good time. I've had a good time my whole life. And then you guys, your first movie together was American Werewolf in London, right? First movie, if you say so, I don't remember, but I think it was, yeah. And then you go on, you produce Flashdance, you produce a bunch of movies together under Goober Peters. I think the name makes me laugh because I think it's funny that you guys at some point were thinking of putting it the other way around. You just couldn't call it Peter's Goober. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. I know. We should. We'll be fine. Yeah, so you start Goober Peters. You guys produce these iconic films. I mean, Flashdance, you know, goes down in history. It's still referenced now. It's two Super Bowl ads from just last year reference the iconic splash scene and then obviously you culminate with batman i mean which is a huge swing it was the second most performing movie at the box offices in 1989 and it was the highest grossing superhero movie ever um and at that point you guys are sort of really riding high you've got a great lock deal at warner brothers and then how does the opportunity to run what became Sony Pictures, but at that time was Columbia's tricep. I didn't want to work for anybody. I wanted to own everything. I've been working, didn't want, it was too smart. I was making money in the stock market. I wanted to buy something. I wanted to get money. And Peter did too. Peter, listen, Peter's a genius. Peter's a brilliant man. And I owe him a lot. This man many times stood up for me, said to people that he forced down my throat. I thought for his, their throat, if he leaves, I leave, he was just fucking great. And I was at one time, I did something that hurt his feelings, and I'm sorry for it. I love them, and I one day would love to make up with them. But in any event, I needed someone to help put together all these deals when we had to deal with Walter Yadnikov. Walter Yadnikov ran Columbia Pictures, Columbia CBS Records. Barbara was on CBS Records. I put together deals where she sold 50 million albums. The Guilty album, Star is Born, it's 20s, 25 million. They made a fortune with me prior to that. They couldn't get to her. She wouldn't answer anybody's phone call. She was a diva. That funny girl was the best thing she ever did, and it was a great funny girl, everything she's done. But Star is Born, writing, directing, producing, acting, that was the best what she did. Yeah. And like, I mean, you and Peter, if I'm just going through the just the IMDb just to to make sure I don't miss anything. But your guys collaboration together was American Werewolf in London, The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper. I mean, and there are other ones that I'm skipping. I'm just hitting the really like the iconic ones. Flashdance, Vision Quest, Clue, which may not be a classic, but I loved. I grew up watching Clue and loved it. Yeah, it did. Youngblood, The Witches of Eastwick, Inner Space, Who's That Girl, the great Madonna film, 1987, Caddyshack 2, Gorillas in the Mist, and then culminating in Batman. I mean, that's, in terms of a run of pictures together, that's unbelievable. I mean, the point was is that when we did Batman, when Peter and I got involved in Batman, I wanted to make a trilogy because I was George Lucas's freak. I loved George Lucas. I loved what he did. I have to stay careful because of my reputation. People are scared of me. I just would love to go out. I'm going to be 80 in a couple of months, and I'd love to be able to go out with a big one. One of the things that we did is we didn't get the opportunity. We created it. So I had been working on this idea for 20 years I was working on this idea when I told him one day we get a studio Well it happened just like I said it would exactly like I said it would And it felt amazing. There's a picture of Peter and I. There's a picture of Peter and I where he literally jumps in the air with the Academy Award. And I'm holding him. I think maybe that was Rain Man or Color Purple, one of them. But I was holding him and holding each other. It felt beautiful. He was my male love affair. Me, he was a wonderful guy, and he looked after me, and he helped me with all the things I didn't know. It was good. Yeah, because you went to Sony, and you sort of had an immediate win with Rayman. I mean, that won the Best Picture Oscar your first year at Sony, right? kind of yeah okay but you guys had developed it before is that right oh we had developed it for five years yeah we had all kinds of spill we had all kinds of different people and it was it was you know like I said it was 600 million I mean it it a big hit was a big and it was those two guys were great great great actors great characters. Everywhere I go, I wear all these movies as a badge of honor. And, you know, the nice thing is it's like Dana White says, you know, he thinks that everybody in America's kids should learn to do karate and or jujitsu or MMA, because if you know how to fight, you're fine. And all of my kids, I taught how to fight. Peter and I, Peter was a great fighter. really honestly even though the ending was not exactly the way i wanted it the results are more than fantastic that i missed with peter i wish that we to be quite candid we don't really talk because something you know he's upset about but it's fine it's all good but you miss him oh sure he was a fantastic asset was fantastic in other words if i wanted to get something done in saudi Arabia, I could lay the whole thing out and he'd go there and get, I don't like to make the deals. I can see it, watch it, do it, put it together, but I don't like to be, also my personality is such where I offend people sometimes. And my daughter Kaylee, you sure, Dad? Oh, yes, you do. I have to fix everything, Dad? Oh, yeah. Well, that's amazing. I mean, if you're, I mean, are you tired? Do you want to finish up? I'll finish, sure. Otherwise, you don't give me that look. Well, I'd love to, I mean, if you'd be willing, I'd love to talk about the Sony time with Peter. Yeah, because I think you had, you know, in just our talks now, you know, you really kind of wanted to kind of really grow it out in all of the different... Sony land. Yeah, that you wanted to kind of... I had Marita come out from China to come up to my house in Beverly Park. Yeah, that you wanted to kind of... I had Marita come out from China to come up to my house in Beverly Park with Marita, Olga, that other guy that's friendly with Peter. I forgot his name. and Peter and our group, I guess. And he said, why do we want to do this? To me, he asked me. And I said, it's the funny land. I want to build an empire of imagination. And there's nobody doing it but Walt Disney. I want to do it. And he left and wanted to do the deal, and they did the deal. Peter doesn't even know that. That's absolutely what I just told you is like the God's honest truth, and it's big news because it's the truth. they needed a reason and now the other side of it the people below him they thought I was going to bankrupt the company yeah and it's interesting because I feel like Sony was uniquely poised to take advantage of the fact that I mean something that iTunes did so many years later Sony had the music business it had the film business it had this sort of ability to cross pollinate Yeah, well, yeah. Well, I call that in our own business of stuff is critical mass. They had a critical mass. And Sony Land would have brought it all together. Michael Jackson, if he had stayed alive and all the creative talents that I wanted to put together, we would have built theme parks that were futuristic. See, Disney was doing what was today, but we would have been building what was tomorrow. JP, thanks so much, man. And this is, I love doing this. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you have what you want. Yeah. Thanks.
