He may not be a household name but this director has movies like Slaughterhouse Rock, The Kickboxer franchise and the upcoming film Gunner, which is set to star Morgan Freeman, to his name.
Richard: How did you get your start in the filmmaking industry?
Dimitri: Well, I went to film school at Loyola and I got a master’s in film and television and I did a short that won 10 or 11. I don’t remember national and international film awards and then I went on and I did some cable television and, and at the time that cable TV had just started, they had these opportunities where they wanted studios built for public access. So I did a lot of that and then ended up having a pretty good position, one of the biggest cable operators in the country and decided to leave and set up my own phone company.
Richard: So who are your greatest inspirations in this industry?
Dimitri: Oh God, there’s so many, I mean, way before I was born Howard Hawks, producer. He of course, Marin Scorsese, who I worked for as an actor. and who actually wrote a letter for me to go to film school. I was about 19. At the time I worked on a movie called New York, New York as an actor and you know, Francis Ford Coppola James Cameron. and the list goes on and on. And so, wow.
Richard: Where did the inspiration for filmmaking come from? What made you say that this is what I wanna do with the rest of my life?
Dimitri: Well, I don’t think you ever do that. Do you? I think you just kind of start doing things and I think if anybody’s lucky enough to figure out what they want to do for the rest of their lives, I think that they’re pretty fortunate, but most of us do the best we can, or at least it’s been my methodology to try to see if we can just, you know, I try to see if I can do the best I can this year and if I can get through this year, you know, it leads me to opportunities later and so on and so forth. So I never really planned on being a filmmaker. And there wasn’t a single point in my life where I said this is gonna be exactly what I’m gonna do and then all of a sudden I had an opportunity, after film school, and it just one thing led to another and I knew that I was always a very good writer and, writing is what always got me through school, better than anything. And so that was, you have to be a good storyteller. You gotta be a pretty good writer.
You have to be able to work story all the time. especially when you’re, when you’re making movies and TV, because you have to be able to adjust in the day. Sometimes what was written down, whether it’s by you or anybody else may not be working and it may not be working for the actors, you know, so you have to figure out how to continue and move the story forward maybe better than what was originally on the page. I think. I think it starts there.
Richard: So basically the script is never set in stone. It’s always evolving even when you’re, even when the cameras are rolling.
Dimitri: Yeah, I mean, the script has to be good. It’s got to be very good. Otherwise nobody is going to want to jump on board. But when you’re making the film, you’re gonna run into all kinds of situations that, you know, when you’re dealing with actors and actresses and, and locations and it’s just you can see things that work better for the story and hopefully you’re not you’re, you’re, you’re right about your choices, at least 85% of the time.
Richard: Do you have any upcoming projects in the works?
Dimitri:Well, I’m finishing Gunner with Luke Hemsworth and Morgan Freeman. So I’m editing that right now and I’ll probably be delivering that in the next two months and I’m preparing a sequel, the third installment of Kickboxer, which will be Kickboxer III: Armageddon. And I’m planning to shoot that in September. And I’m also doing a film called Flying Shadow, which I’m planning to do just, I’m trying to plan to do both these movies before the end of the year.
You know, Kickboxer did so well. I think it’s still, I think it’s 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and the critics and I think it’s in the eighties with audiences around the world. So I think it’s still holding up pretty well.
Richard: That’s great to hear. so when you, when you made your, first feature film, where did you, where did you get your, where did you get your money from? Because I know making a film is not free. Like,
Dimitri: Well, I don’t know, you know, everybody always asks me that and, and I’m, I’m never, I’m not trying to be coy at all. Everything is different. Yeah. So, early on when I was doing this, video just came into play and there were studios that had divisions that were video divisions. And the majority of the things that I’ve done are independent, they’re independent films.
So I’d say maybe 75% of them are independent. I did, I worked as a director on studio television and I also work as a showrunner on studio television for Warner Brothers. But as a filmmaker and as a, as a, as a, as a writer, producer, director, the majority of what I’ve done is independent. And so sometimes you have an opportunity where you’ll have a property that you’re very passionate about.
And I always suggest to people that if you’re doing this because you need a job, you should just do something else because you really need to be excited about what you’re doing and you really need to be passionate about what you’re doing because as a filmmaker, you may be working on something for a year, two years, three years of your life and that time will never come back.
So you really need to be passionate about it. You really need to want to get that story out there. So sometimes you’ll have sales as today. And now at this point in my life, when I want to do something that’s an action oriented project, which is the majority of the stuff that I do. I, I have a certain value that’s attached to myself and the projects that I pick and then you have to put actors together.
Sometimes I’ve had investors that have liked the genre. For instance, Kickboxer is a very, very valuable commodity. I think before I got involved with this company, they had made when I was still in film school, something like five Kickboxers. And then when I took over the franchise, I relaunched two of them.
So I did Kickboxer: Vengeance and Kickboxer: Retaliation brought Jean Claude Van Dam back. And there were investors that were very interested in that franchise and along with sales and along with the cast, I was able to put together a certain amount of financing.