Bonus - Demolition Man, Batman Returns, and the Security State w/ Daniel Waters (Preview)

American Prestige

Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison

History, Politics, News

4.8 • 705 Ratings

🗓️ 6 July 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Subscribe now for the full episode. Get your limited edition "Robo Washington" poster now. Subscribers get a 50% discount! Danny and Derek speak with writer and director Daniel Waters about the films Demolition Man and Batman Returns, both screenplays of his. They discuss the state of screenwriting now vs. when Daniel first arrived in Hollywood, the two films’ criticism of the security state, Demolition Man’s commentary on the stultifying effect of “political correctness” of that era, the duality of Stallone and Snipes’ characters, the challenge for a writer centering an institution they’re critical of, the horror of a utopia, the film’s ambivalence toward violence, Batman Returns coming at the beginning of IP-driven Hollywood, Max Schrek as Mitt Romney, and the reassessment of Daniel’s work in the last couple of decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everyone. Producer Jake here. In case you haven't heard, we've released a limited edition
0:04.7	poster called Robo Washington Crossing to Delaware, which, as you might have guessed, is our
0:10.2	post-apocalyptic take on the famous painting. The artwork is by Josh Lynch, who did our original
0:15.3	logo as well as the fantastic art for our friends over at Blowback, and we're really excited
0:20.1	with how it came out.
0:21.4	Orders will be open until Friday, July 11th, so get yours now at AmericanPestigeestor.com.
0:27.1	Again, that's AmericanPestigeestor.com, or just click the link in the show notes.
0:32.4	Paid subscribers get 50% off, so subscribe now to take advantage of that deal.
0:37.2	This is print to orders, so the posters will be printed and orders will be fulfilled after July
0:41.8	11th.
0:42.7	Thanks again for all your support and enjoy the episode. So, that's conversation.
0:56.0	Hello, Prestige Heads, and welcome. I'm Danny Bessner, here as always with my friend and comrade, Derek Davison, and we are both extraordinarily excited to welcome to the podcast today.
1:17.9	Daniel Waters. Daniel is a writer. He's a director. He's a producer. But we invited him to talk about one of the great movies of the 1990s, and that is Demolition Man,
1:28.5	but Daniel also wrote Heather's,
1:30.3	The Adventures of Ford Falane, Hudson Hawk, Batman Returns,
1:34.5	and other movies.
1:35.6	But Daniel, thank you so much for joining us.
1:38.2	Happy to be here.
1:39.3	I didn't have to mention all my credits, but, you know,
1:43.0	I wanted to give you due space for all the millennials listening whose lives were reshaped...
1:49.0	Something for everyone.
1:50.0	By Batman Returns and others of those movies.
	...

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