The Neverending Story: 'SwitchBack'

July 1996

At two hours and 13 minutes, Stuart's film has a test screening at Paramount. "It went like gangbusters until this one scene at the very end, and I lost them," says Stuart. "There was no getting them back on the bus. They killed me on the [comment]cards." Since Stuart's contract allows him three test screenings before showing the film to the studio, he returns to the editing room and cuts 13 more minutes. At the second screening, the audience responds with "great numbers." After a third screening in late July, Stuart continues to tweak the film. One evening, while tucking his son into bed, the boy asks him how much money Going West will make. "It's scary when you've got an 11-year-old worried about grosses," admits Stuart. "I told him I'd like it to make a profit."

August 1996

At one hour, 58 minutes, the film is shown to Lansing for the first time. She likes it but has three or four suggestions, mostly about pacing. Stuart and Buff, confined by lack of footage, are able to accommodate only two of them. Seventeen more seconds are cut.

September 1996

"I'm ready to put this to bed," says Stuart. He finishes mixing in composer Basil Poledouris' musical score and hands the movie over. Paramount schedules the movie for an early 1997 release.

January 1997

Stuart is told by a reporter that the movie has been bumped to fall. "I do feel like the bastard stepson," he says of the communication breakdown. (Paramount's marketing and distribution chief, Rob Friedman, who was new on the job, denies any decision had been made at this point.)

March 1997

Friedman announces Paramount's plan to open GWIA in the fall, seeing it as a chance "to move it into a time period less competitive with similar kinds of movies." Says Stuart: "I won't believe it until I'm in the theater eating popcorn."

July 1997

Paramount slots the movie for late October and focuses on its title. "The pros said, 'How can we sell an action movie with four words in the title?'" says Stuart. The studio sends him more than 150 titles, but he vetoes them all. Given three final options, he chooses SwitchBack over Shock Waves and Western Cut.

Oct. 12, 1997

Sitting a bit uncomfortably in front of a table of journalists at Beverly Hills' Four Seasons Hotel, Stuart, in a blazer and loafers sans socks, looks every bit the writer-director. He tells them the publicity phase has been the hardest part of the entire experience. He admits there may be some weaknesses in his storytelling and says he'd like the chance to do better. When one journalist mentions that this project has been his baby for a long time, he replies, "At this point it feels more like a teenager." But Stuart remains optimistic; he's already finished his next script, a thriller set in the South. "I didn't know if I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer — now I get to be both. I can stand on the deck of an aircraft carrier or study serial killers at Quantico. I get to be everything. What Jeremy originally said about the script [applies to me as a director]. I don't think it's gonna make a ton of money, but it's gonna get me work."