The thread on the orginal ending on Juice was really dope. So I went to the site and came upon this gem. I decided to share it with the Coli since New Jack City is a classic I many of our books & loaded with many quotes. Long read but a good interview.
APRIL 6, 2016 | PUBLISHED BY REGGIE WILLIAMS
New Jack City’s Creator Reveals Nino Brown’s Beginnings & The Story’s Original Ending
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In the mid-1980s, Thomas Lee Wright, a creative executive at Paramount Studios left the company to pursue a career as a screenwriter. One of his first endeavors was to write a treatment for The Godfather: Part III, because he knew Paramount had a high interest in making a third installment of its epic mafia tale, and Wright had a love for the film series. His research in writing that series led him to the story of Nicky Barnes, a drug dealer and one of the most powerful men in New York City, in his heyday. A student of gangster films, Wright saw a noticeable lack in stories about powerful people of color, in the genre. He immersed himself in the mean streets of New York for six weeks and, in the end, emerged with a screenplay about Barnes’ life. That screenplay, would eventually evolve into the fictionalized story called New Jack City.
Now, more than 30 years after Wright completed the first draft of that seminal screenplay, New Jack Cityhas become a cultural touchstone for an entire generation. “Nino Brown” remains one of the most iconic antiheroes in film history and is a staple in Hip-Hop culture. And, the film’s impact has endured like few others, affecting celebrities like Jamie Foxx who had an entire New Jack City-themed birthday party, athletes like Marshawn Lynch and Richard Shermanwho made it a part of their in-game discussion, and millions of everyday fans who have watched the film countless times.
As the film celebrates its 25th anniversary this year (March 8), discussion about its legacy has reached a fever pitch. Wright, who is currently working on two documentaries, spoke to Ambrosia For Heads this month about how New Jack City went from an idea to a finished film, the evolution of the story and its characters, the influence of The Godfather and Othello, the backstory of central figures like “Nino Brown,” how the story originally ended and much more.
Ambrosia For Heads: What was your inspiration for the film?
Thomas Wright: I had been an executive at [Paramount] studios, and during that time, got a glimpse of how decisions were made, what movies were made, and how they fed their distribution channels. I just felt in general there were whole blocks of our culture that were being neglected or the stories weren’t getting told, at all. At Paramount, I knew they wanted to do another Godfather. I had seen what they had attempted in the past. When I left being an executive, the first thing I did was a treatment for Godfather III. They hired me to write it just to get the ball rolling. Their goal was to get [Francis Ford] Coppola back involved, as was mine. I even devoted my treatment to him in the hopes that [he would get involved]. So I did my draft. When I did my draft, they sent me to the East Coast. I spoke to old Italian guys in Little Italy, South [Philadelphia], Atlantic City, and to some of the guys who had advised on the first two [Godfather] films. They were all suggesting periods of time to write about, when the mafia was strong and periods of history for various [crime] families.
Again and again, when we were potentially talking about doing the doing the film set in the ‘70s, they were talking about this guy who kicked them out of Harlem. Every one of them seemed preoccupied with the fact that they had been forced to leave a section of the city by someone who was very well organized, extremely intelligent, and forceful with leadership that rivaled their own. That was Nicky Barnes. Simultaneous with that sojourn for research purposes for Godfather III, 60 Minutes did a story, as it happened, on Nicky Barnes. [After] that introduction by Mike Wallace, I thought, man, [Nicky Barnes] is iconic and seemed to be important enough for somebody to write about him. So as soon as I was done with my Godfather draft, I went back to the east coast and decided that I would write the story of this iconic character. I just learned as much as I could, and lived there and talked to many, many people who had known him. I wrote it, and it came very quickly too, because I think the timing was right. The zeitgeist—I think the whole country at that period was becoming aware of what was happening in our cities. There’s a history to it and a reason for it.
AFH: Can you tell me the timeline of when you had the idea to when you first made a pitch?
Wright: Absolutely. It wasn’t a pitch. I wrote a screenplay in its entirety, because I had learned that early on as an executive that if you want to tell a story right, you should really tell it in its entirety, if possible. So I wrote a complete first draft; that was at the end of ‘85. I reworked it through the beginning of ‘86. When I got it finished, I took it to my agent. I was with an agency called Bauer-Benedek, which later became United Talent. My agent was a young guy named Danny Halsted who went on to become head of Oliver Stone’s company. At the time, he was like, “Why didn’t you tell me you were writing this? I’ll never be able to sell a movie about a Black drug dealer. Are you crazy? Who’s gonna want to see that?” I said, “Well, I think it’s more than that. I think there’s a strong character here. I think that there’s a strong dynamic between the good guy and the bad guy. It’s classic, man. It’s the classic structure.” He goes, “Well, I don’t know who I’m gonna sell it to. I said, “Let’s try Paramount. That’s a place where I’d spent a lot of time.” I knew Eddie [Murphy] wanted to do something more serious. They had been putting him in comedies. When I was there we had a real amazing run in the early ‘80s of successful films. Eddie’s first couple films: 48 Hours [and others].
AFH: Was Eddie someone you were considering for the project?
Wright: I had no idea when I first wrote it that Eddie was very aware of Nicky Barnes—that he had grown up with an awareness. I guess the legend was something he was always fascinated by. I had spoken to Eddie on several occasions because I was on the set. I followed the dailies on 48 Hours. I had to watch all of the five cameras that were shooting every day and narrow them down to 15 minutes that [crew] could watch. So I got to know Eddie’s work and I got to him a little bit, being on the lot. When I did [my draft for the third] Godfather, because there had been this part of that story where Nicky threw the mob out of Harlem, they had said, “Do you think Eddie could play it?” initially. Then, Eddie at a wrap party for Golden Child…I think we spoke for about 45 minutes about his wanting to do a role that would be darker than what he’d been doing, playing a villain. I think a lot of people feel the same way, that sometimes a villain is more fun to play than a good guy. He also wanted to show his range as well. But the studio felt strongly that his relationship with the studio to be strongly based on comedy and the franchises that they were building in the comedy realm. Although, he brought a lot of dramatic sensibilities to the comedies they were doing. Even though they were comedies, there’d be moments of great sincerity and connection that bespeak his ability as a dramatic actor too. Sometimes as an actor you can’t always find the roles that you’d like to play.
So that is why we thought of him. We went there, and Paramount turned it down summarily—almost immediately.
Danny had spoken to George [Jackson, a producer of Krush Groove and the namesake of George Jackson Academy] and knew that Quincy Jones’ [production company] was a potential place that might be interested. He took it to them, and very quickly they moved on it. Within 48 to 72 hours, I was on the lot at Warner Bros. talking to them about what the movie could be. We started out approaching the story as if it were the ‘70s, and heroin [was the drug]. Very quickly, George and Doug [McHenry] believed that because we were in the ‘80s now, and because the birth of crack cocaine was transforming everything, from the streets to the criminal justice system, that it would be much more cutting edge to make the story about a more recent period in history. Also, they didn’t really want to have to deal with all the period issues that the ‘70s would have presented. But [more than that], they wanted to get as close as they could to what was happening now. “Now” being the ‘80s.
AFH: So the film began as a biopic set in the ‘70s to a contemporary film?
Wright: Yes, and that was a journey for me in the sense that I had steeped myself in Barnes and that iconic [era]. Barnes himself modeled his operation after the mafia. He had a drug council. Each of the guys, they divided up the city and each guy had a different territory. That table meeting that you see in New Jack [City], that’s directly related to Nicky, and also what you see in The Godfather—guys around the table. You have formal meetings. You dress well. You report in and make deals around that table.
Getting to the ‘80s was [difficult]. I had to basically change a lot of the names of the characters. I had to reconfigure. The Warner execs who oversaw development and production of New Jack Citywere Mark Canton, future producer of more than 50 films, including 300 and its sequel, David Heyman, producer of all the Harry Potter films, and Lisa Henson, daughter of Jim Henson (of Muppets fame), and eventual producer on over 40 films. I dealt with each one of them at one point in time or another in doing the other four or five drafts that I did. The whole process there was about two to three years of rewrites under those executives. Every movie is a collaboration. The Warner execs prided themselves on the studio. All the great gangster films came out of Warner Bros., if you look back. We tried to view the movie with that, so you had a sense of the classicism that was involved in the making of this movie. While they wanted it to be cutting edge, they also wanted it to have all of the great characteristics of the very best gangster films of the past. We wanted this to be the preeminent new crime film, ‘cause there hadn’t been one since The Godfather that we considered to be worthy of critical attention and hopefully commercial success.
AFH: You’d written an entire script, based on Nicky Barnes. Did it require a complete rewrite when you decided to make it more contemporary?
Wright: I kind of took the Barnes story and overlaid it over The Godfather-esque structure. For me, structure is everything in a motion picture. The structure of a story and the way the characters interact and the way that the story unfolds more or less stayed the same from the beginning. There were some structural changes you had to make—how you meet the man, how he organizes the group, who opposes him, how they achieve some of their success, and how they suffer the downfall. I think [Ambrosia For Heads’] interview with Barry [Michael] Cooper was very, very good in really getting at the heart of all the different influences that a movie can have. I found it really interesting to hear what inspired him.
From my point of view, Barry was brought on when I was really capable of bringing nothing more to the project. They knew that Barry, from his journalism, was cutting edge with current trends and knew [Harlem] like the back of his hand—where the story took place. He was a real find. George goes, “Tom, I think you’ve written all you can on this. Here’s this writer, what do you think?” He showed me some of [Barry Michael Cooper’s work]. I said, “I think it’s absolutely a great idea.” It turned out to be, because the things Barry brought to it, I don’t think anybody else could have. Then, the casting was such that these actors just seemed to be perfect for the roles that they played. They allowed Mario [Van Peebles] to do what he wanted with it as well. Mario allowed the actors to do a lot of improvisation. So sometimes you just sit back and watch all of your collaborators in awe, and you’re so thankful that they’re all bringing so much of themselves to the project.
APRIL 6, 2016 | PUBLISHED BY REGGIE WILLIAMS
New Jack City’s Creator Reveals Nino Brown’s Beginnings & The Story’s Original Ending
0
In the mid-1980s, Thomas Lee Wright, a creative executive at Paramount Studios left the company to pursue a career as a screenwriter. One of his first endeavors was to write a treatment for The Godfather: Part III, because he knew Paramount had a high interest in making a third installment of its epic mafia tale, and Wright had a love for the film series. His research in writing that series led him to the story of Nicky Barnes, a drug dealer and one of the most powerful men in New York City, in his heyday. A student of gangster films, Wright saw a noticeable lack in stories about powerful people of color, in the genre. He immersed himself in the mean streets of New York for six weeks and, in the end, emerged with a screenplay about Barnes’ life. That screenplay, would eventually evolve into the fictionalized story called New Jack City.
Now, more than 30 years after Wright completed the first draft of that seminal screenplay, New Jack Cityhas become a cultural touchstone for an entire generation. “Nino Brown” remains one of the most iconic antiheroes in film history and is a staple in Hip-Hop culture. And, the film’s impact has endured like few others, affecting celebrities like Jamie Foxx who had an entire New Jack City-themed birthday party, athletes like Marshawn Lynch and Richard Shermanwho made it a part of their in-game discussion, and millions of everyday fans who have watched the film countless times.
As the film celebrates its 25th anniversary this year (March 8), discussion about its legacy has reached a fever pitch. Wright, who is currently working on two documentaries, spoke to Ambrosia For Heads this month about how New Jack City went from an idea to a finished film, the evolution of the story and its characters, the influence of The Godfather and Othello, the backstory of central figures like “Nino Brown,” how the story originally ended and much more.
Ambrosia For Heads: What was your inspiration for the film?
Thomas Wright: I had been an executive at [Paramount] studios, and during that time, got a glimpse of how decisions were made, what movies were made, and how they fed their distribution channels. I just felt in general there were whole blocks of our culture that were being neglected or the stories weren’t getting told, at all. At Paramount, I knew they wanted to do another Godfather. I had seen what they had attempted in the past. When I left being an executive, the first thing I did was a treatment for Godfather III. They hired me to write it just to get the ball rolling. Their goal was to get [Francis Ford] Coppola back involved, as was mine. I even devoted my treatment to him in the hopes that [he would get involved]. So I did my draft. When I did my draft, they sent me to the East Coast. I spoke to old Italian guys in Little Italy, South [Philadelphia], Atlantic City, and to some of the guys who had advised on the first two [Godfather] films. They were all suggesting periods of time to write about, when the mafia was strong and periods of history for various [crime] families.
Again and again, when we were potentially talking about doing the doing the film set in the ‘70s, they were talking about this guy who kicked them out of Harlem. Every one of them seemed preoccupied with the fact that they had been forced to leave a section of the city by someone who was very well organized, extremely intelligent, and forceful with leadership that rivaled their own. That was Nicky Barnes. Simultaneous with that sojourn for research purposes for Godfather III, 60 Minutes did a story, as it happened, on Nicky Barnes. [After] that introduction by Mike Wallace, I thought, man, [Nicky Barnes] is iconic and seemed to be important enough for somebody to write about him. So as soon as I was done with my Godfather draft, I went back to the east coast and decided that I would write the story of this iconic character. I just learned as much as I could, and lived there and talked to many, many people who had known him. I wrote it, and it came very quickly too, because I think the timing was right. The zeitgeist—I think the whole country at that period was becoming aware of what was happening in our cities. There’s a history to it and a reason for it.
AFH: Can you tell me the timeline of when you had the idea to when you first made a pitch?
Wright: Absolutely. It wasn’t a pitch. I wrote a screenplay in its entirety, because I had learned that early on as an executive that if you want to tell a story right, you should really tell it in its entirety, if possible. So I wrote a complete first draft; that was at the end of ‘85. I reworked it through the beginning of ‘86. When I got it finished, I took it to my agent. I was with an agency called Bauer-Benedek, which later became United Talent. My agent was a young guy named Danny Halsted who went on to become head of Oliver Stone’s company. At the time, he was like, “Why didn’t you tell me you were writing this? I’ll never be able to sell a movie about a Black drug dealer. Are you crazy? Who’s gonna want to see that?” I said, “Well, I think it’s more than that. I think there’s a strong character here. I think that there’s a strong dynamic between the good guy and the bad guy. It’s classic, man. It’s the classic structure.” He goes, “Well, I don’t know who I’m gonna sell it to. I said, “Let’s try Paramount. That’s a place where I’d spent a lot of time.” I knew Eddie [Murphy] wanted to do something more serious. They had been putting him in comedies. When I was there we had a real amazing run in the early ‘80s of successful films. Eddie’s first couple films: 48 Hours [and others].
AFH: Was Eddie someone you were considering for the project?
Wright: I had no idea when I first wrote it that Eddie was very aware of Nicky Barnes—that he had grown up with an awareness. I guess the legend was something he was always fascinated by. I had spoken to Eddie on several occasions because I was on the set. I followed the dailies on 48 Hours. I had to watch all of the five cameras that were shooting every day and narrow them down to 15 minutes that [crew] could watch. So I got to know Eddie’s work and I got to him a little bit, being on the lot. When I did [my draft for the third] Godfather, because there had been this part of that story where Nicky threw the mob out of Harlem, they had said, “Do you think Eddie could play it?” initially. Then, Eddie at a wrap party for Golden Child…I think we spoke for about 45 minutes about his wanting to do a role that would be darker than what he’d been doing, playing a villain. I think a lot of people feel the same way, that sometimes a villain is more fun to play than a good guy. He also wanted to show his range as well. But the studio felt strongly that his relationship with the studio to be strongly based on comedy and the franchises that they were building in the comedy realm. Although, he brought a lot of dramatic sensibilities to the comedies they were doing. Even though they were comedies, there’d be moments of great sincerity and connection that bespeak his ability as a dramatic actor too. Sometimes as an actor you can’t always find the roles that you’d like to play.
So that is why we thought of him. We went there, and Paramount turned it down summarily—almost immediately.
Danny had spoken to George [Jackson, a producer of Krush Groove and the namesake of George Jackson Academy] and knew that Quincy Jones’ [production company] was a potential place that might be interested. He took it to them, and very quickly they moved on it. Within 48 to 72 hours, I was on the lot at Warner Bros. talking to them about what the movie could be. We started out approaching the story as if it were the ‘70s, and heroin [was the drug]. Very quickly, George and Doug [McHenry] believed that because we were in the ‘80s now, and because the birth of crack cocaine was transforming everything, from the streets to the criminal justice system, that it would be much more cutting edge to make the story about a more recent period in history. Also, they didn’t really want to have to deal with all the period issues that the ‘70s would have presented. But [more than that], they wanted to get as close as they could to what was happening now. “Now” being the ‘80s.
AFH: So the film began as a biopic set in the ‘70s to a contemporary film?
Wright: Yes, and that was a journey for me in the sense that I had steeped myself in Barnes and that iconic [era]. Barnes himself modeled his operation after the mafia. He had a drug council. Each of the guys, they divided up the city and each guy had a different territory. That table meeting that you see in New Jack [City], that’s directly related to Nicky, and also what you see in The Godfather—guys around the table. You have formal meetings. You dress well. You report in and make deals around that table.
Getting to the ‘80s was [difficult]. I had to basically change a lot of the names of the characters. I had to reconfigure. The Warner execs who oversaw development and production of New Jack Citywere Mark Canton, future producer of more than 50 films, including 300 and its sequel, David Heyman, producer of all the Harry Potter films, and Lisa Henson, daughter of Jim Henson (of Muppets fame), and eventual producer on over 40 films. I dealt with each one of them at one point in time or another in doing the other four or five drafts that I did. The whole process there was about two to three years of rewrites under those executives. Every movie is a collaboration. The Warner execs prided themselves on the studio. All the great gangster films came out of Warner Bros., if you look back. We tried to view the movie with that, so you had a sense of the classicism that was involved in the making of this movie. While they wanted it to be cutting edge, they also wanted it to have all of the great characteristics of the very best gangster films of the past. We wanted this to be the preeminent new crime film, ‘cause there hadn’t been one since The Godfather that we considered to be worthy of critical attention and hopefully commercial success.
AFH: You’d written an entire script, based on Nicky Barnes. Did it require a complete rewrite when you decided to make it more contemporary?
Wright: I kind of took the Barnes story and overlaid it over The Godfather-esque structure. For me, structure is everything in a motion picture. The structure of a story and the way the characters interact and the way that the story unfolds more or less stayed the same from the beginning. There were some structural changes you had to make—how you meet the man, how he organizes the group, who opposes him, how they achieve some of their success, and how they suffer the downfall. I think [Ambrosia For Heads’] interview with Barry [Michael] Cooper was very, very good in really getting at the heart of all the different influences that a movie can have. I found it really interesting to hear what inspired him.
From my point of view, Barry was brought on when I was really capable of bringing nothing more to the project. They knew that Barry, from his journalism, was cutting edge with current trends and knew [Harlem] like the back of his hand—where the story took place. He was a real find. George goes, “Tom, I think you’ve written all you can on this. Here’s this writer, what do you think?” He showed me some of [Barry Michael Cooper’s work]. I said, “I think it’s absolutely a great idea.” It turned out to be, because the things Barry brought to it, I don’t think anybody else could have. Then, the casting was such that these actors just seemed to be perfect for the roles that they played. They allowed Mario [Van Peebles] to do what he wanted with it as well. Mario allowed the actors to do a lot of improvisation. So sometimes you just sit back and watch all of your collaborators in awe, and you’re so thankful that they’re all bringing so much of themselves to the project.