Freejack is a 1992 science fiction action flick in which a Formula One driver explodes into a gigantic Nissan advertisement in a gnarly mid-air collision, only to have his body stolen just before impact by a time-traveling Mick Jagger. All this in a film that once had the mind of a 1959 thinking-man’s pontification on the soul, that now has the body of an Arnold Schwarzenegger brouhaha. Only it stars Emilio Estevez. That’s right. The Mighty Duck man, I swear to God! If that’s not enough weirdness to satiate you, this story also involves a classic Spielberg/Hooper “who actually directed this” mystery, actresses replaced mid-shoot because they don’t make the producers feel all funny deep down inside, and even Sir Anthony Hopkins talking a little sh*t. This is What Happened to Freejack.
The story of Freejack starts back in 1959 with the release of Robert Sheckley’s science fiction novel Immortality, Inc. In the acclaimed novel, a man named Thomas Blaine dies in a car accident and wakes up in the future, revived through advanced medical technology. He then learns that in the future the human soul has become a commodity controlled by powerful corporations. The wealthy and elite have the power to body-hop, swap souls through psychic transfer, and essentially monetize immortality. Now, all these themes are present in Freejack, though in a much more digestible, Cliff’s Notes-type version. The original novel was far more of a Kurt Vonnegut–style cerebral critique of capitalism and the question of what it means to truly be alive. If Immortality Inc were a carefully planned out gourmet meal… Freejack is a TV Dinner. But it still tastes good if you’re in the mood.
Nonetheless, Morgan Creek Entertainment saw their opportunity to turn the book into an Arnold Schwarzenegger–worthy sci-fi action epic based on Alien writer Ron Shusett’s script that did just that. Shusett had accomplished this before when he helped turn Philip K. Dick’s short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale into Arnold Schwarzenegger and Paul Verhoeven’s ass-kicking Total Recall. With the perfect script for the project wrangled, Morgan Creek set out to find their director. New Zealand’s Geoff Murphy happened to be in great favor with the studio after his work on Young Guns II yielded nearly the same box office as the first. So much so that they offered him the opportunity to helm Freejack at double his payment rate. A self-professed science fiction fan, Murphy was happy to accept. He would later admit this decision to be hubris after riding the accomplishments of his previous New Zealand film success as well as Young Guns II. He saw what he thought were issues early on but expected his talent would be able to overcome them. The first of these issues was Shusett’s script. Murphy lamented that nothing philosophical remained from Immortality, Inc in the script he’d just read, noting that it had all been replaced by a “muscle-bulging subtlety.” He could read the writing on the wall: Morgan Creek wanted their very own Total Recall. He was fine with this, but there was just one problem: they couldn’t get Arnold Schwarzenegger. As a matter of fact, by the Murphy had signed on to direct the studio had already hired Emilio Estevez for the role of Alex Furlong. Also, in part, based on his performance in the Young Guns films.
Murphy would later admit that he should have left the project then and there. He agreed that Emilio was a worthy actor but that he simply wasn’t big or believable enough to handle an Arnold-type role. Instead of bailing, though, the director requested a rewrite. He asked for the script to be touched up to fit a smart, fast, and savvy character rather than the muscle-bound Arnold archetype. The studio agreed initially, and Above The Law writer Steven Pressfield was brought on to inject more structure and character motivation. Later, Nightcrawler writer Dan Gilroy would receive his first writing credit on the project as well. But according to Murphy, when he handed in the revised script, the studio constantly fought him on this in what would turn out to be an ongoing power struggle throughout the production where the studio held all the cards.
It was so bad that Murphy tried to leave the film entirely. But the studio refused to let him out of his contract. He consulted a lawyer, who told him he may have a breach of contract case. However, the studio could file an injunction making sure he wasn’t allowed to accept work anywhere else until the case was finished. Which, in Hollywood, could take years. So he begrudgingly decided to finish the film. Or did he?
After Hours actress Linda Fiorentino became the favorite to play Julie Redlund alongside Emelio Estevez, eventually winning the role. For a while, at least. Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger was cast by Morgan Creek to play Victor Vacendak, the full-of-flair, boots-on-the-ground “villain” chasing Emilio around the future. Though Murphy didn’t choose the rocker, he didn’t mind his casting either. Nor did he mind Morgan Creek casting acting legend Anthony Hopkins to play Ian McCandless, the maestro of it all, looking to stuff his brain into a younger body in the name of love. Hopkins was already at this point in his career full of talent and fresh off Silence of the Lambs a year before. And Mick Jagger was cool. Weird. But cool. More importantly, his stunt casting (as Murphy would call it) would hopefully bring in more box office. Jagger did want to meet the director before officially signing on, however. Murphy flew to his London apartment and had a drink with the rock star, where the two hit it off and the rest is history.
Jagger wasn’t the only famed rock star to join the cast. New York Dolls frontman and Scrooged co-star David Johansen signed on to play Alex Furlong’s sleazy business partner and friend. Versatile character actor Jonathan Banks was hired to play the terminally unimpressed Mark Michelette, a corporate titan attempting to double-cross McCandless. With Pulp Fiction’s “Honey Bunny” Amanda Plummer in the role of gun-wielding nun, and Frankie Faison as the scene-stealing, rat-eating wise man, the film was ready to rock. But much of this was about to be more of a Marilyn Manson on a bad day–type sh*t-show than a well-oiled rock concert. But those can be fun too.
The crew set up in Atlanta, Georgia to film Freejack. Though the film takes place in New York City and some scenes would be shot there, it would have been much more difficult to film the entirety of the sprawling action sequences in the city. The trouble began almost immediately. Director Geoff Murphy, already at odds with the studio, was not a fan of either the Line Producer chosen by Morgan Creek, nor the Production Designer he chose, frequent Steven Spielberg collaborator Joe Alves. Murphy was under the impression that, due to Alves Oscar-winning past, he had become full of himself and knew more about making movies than some random dude out of New Zealand ever could. Murphy would go so far as to even call Alves futuristic vehicle designs laughable in comparison to movies like Mad Max or Blade Runner. He wasn’t a fan. And the studio wasn’t a fan of what they were seeing from Murphy.
The dailies being sent in to the studio hadn’t been receiving the same warm welcome as they had with Young Guns II. The studio, for unknown reasons, wasn’t impressed with the performance of Linda Fiorentino as Julie Redlund. So much so that they demanded she be replaced and that they reshoot weeks of work with a replacement actress. Though this would be a massive inconvenience and cost an egregious amount of money, the good news is that replacement actress was at least the extremely talented Rene Russo. Murphy still wasn’t impressed. He demanded to know what had been the problem with Fiorentino’s performance. According to Murphy, it was at that point an Executive at Morgan Creek finally replied, “She doesn’t give me a hard-on.” Yikes. Murphy complained that Emilio and Linda had created such special on-screen chemistry together that this decision affected the actor negatively throughout the rest of the shoot. The production also used the opportunity to fire Succession actor David Rasche from the project while they were at it.
The stress of all this became noticeable when the shoot moved to New York. So much so that, though they barely socialized, Mick Jagger came up to Murphy and insisted that after the shoot was over, he vacation at his home in the Virgin Islands for several weeks. Jagger wouldn’t be there, but his servants would take care of Murphy and his wife during their stay. They obliged, and after several weeks in Mick Jagger’s vacation home, it was time to return to reality and edit Freejack.
Murphy and Red October editor Dennis Virkler spent ten weeks editing twelve ten-minute reels one at a time. They kept thinking they had a good cut of the film until they would watch it all together and find out it was terrible. Finally, they were forced to turn it in to the studio for test screenings. Which, inevitably, went horribly. They returned to the editing booth with a bevy of notes from the dreaded studio. Morgan Creek had original writer Ron Shusett turn in 15 new scenes full of action that, once again, reminded Murphy of a Schwarzenegger film. Not an Emilio Estevez one. Murphy was able to argue some of these scenes away but was still forced to reshoot multiple scenes, including the big cyberpunk soul transfer in the climax between Estevez and Hopkins.
They had originally shot the scene using old-school filming techniques, such as double exposure, superimposition, and the like. Murphy’s version wasn’t deemed sexy enough. They instead used a new and expensive technology to digitally manipulate 35mm film on a computer, creating the mind-meld scene we ultimately see in the film. It’s impossible to say what would have been better but to be fair to the suits, the scene in the movie is pretty bad ass. Even with all these concessions being made, the studio still allegedly hated Murphy’s one-hour and thirty-five-minute bare-bones version of his film. One of the “She doesn’t give me a hard-on” Executives would recut the film themselves. Over the weekend. Murphy would later claim that all that was really accomplished during this process was them taking the scenes he had put on the cutting room floor in the name of brevity and inserting back into the film before sending it off without even watching it.
Though there is no official record of this, and even Murphy’s memoir A Life On Film says that he himself begrudgingly directed the reshoots… the rumor still persists that by the time it was said and done, writer Ron Shusett ended up being the lead force on all of this, even co-directing the film. It sounds like Murphy was there but had completely ceded control over to the producers at this point, perhaps leading to the rumor. Whatever happened, Murphy wanted his name off the film. It was no longer his, as he saw it. He was unable to do this but did get his “possessory credit” taken off. The moment before the title drop in the beginning of the film that would have said “A Geoff Murphy Film.”
The film also went through several composers, at one point hiring Mark Isham to add twenty minutes of rock music into the score. Allegedly, even the Composer didn’t think that made sense for the film but tried anyway and was subsequently fired. Predictably, they weren’t happy with what he came up with and instead hired Trevor Jones to rush in and provide the score you see in the final film.
Finally, Freejack released upon the world in January of 1992 and made an abysmal $17 million worldwide on a $30 million budget. The only thing worse were the reviews. Even years later, from actor Sir Anthony Hopkins himself, who called it “a terrible film” on The David Letterman Show. Mick Jagger even admitted that accepting the role was a spur-of-the-moment decision, and had he had more time to think about the script, he probably wouldn’t have taken it. Emilio himself said the film was “Not my finest hour.”
As someone who used to watch Freejack on HBO in the 90s, and thought it was pretty rad, even ten year old me was a little perplexed at why the dude from The Breakfast Club was in a movie so clearly built for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Despite that, and all the blood sweat and embarrassment that went into making this movie….there’s still some cool futuristic badassery afoot. And watching Mick Jagger do whatever the hell it is he does in this movie has some kind of Canon films type charm to it. We’re glad it exists. And that… is What Happened to Freejack.
A couple of the previous episodes of the show can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
