Now grown-ups, the former Mississippi kids— The Adaptation’s director Eric Zala, producer Chris Strompolos, and special-effects wiz Jayson Lamb—have made that dream a reality. After person-to-person dubs of their homemade homage journeyed all six degrees to the desk of Spielberg himself (unbeknownst to the makers), the trio racked up a 2003 theatrical premiere at Austin, Texas’ screenhead shrine, the Alamo Drafthouse, leading to a gushing review by Ain’t It Cool News’ online über-fanboy, Harry Knowles, which in turn paved the way for a breathless, 10-page feature in the March 2004 Vanity Fair. Before long, the three guys found themselves meeting Spielberg, getting brought out to the Lucasfilm ranch for a special screening, scoring a deal with producer Scott Rudin—who’s preparing a Daniel Clowes–scripted film based on their experiences—and taking lunch with development executives to discuss directing their own original blockbuster screenplay, currently titled What the River Takes. Zala, Strompolos, and Lamb may have scored the biggest hit ever for Team Film Geek.

“We’re sort of informally known out here as the ‘ Raiders guys’ or the ‘Raiders boys,’ ” says Zala, phoning in an interview with the Voice from Los Angeles between meetings. “Which we get a kick out of, since we’re in our mid-30s now. I think some people half-expect to see pimply-faced 18-year-olds.”

The piece brings up an interesting question towards the end: is the new-found enthusiasm over The Adaptation warranted, or is it just another sign of my generation’s (that would be “X”) unhealthy nostalgia fixation? I would suggest that the age of the filmmakers, their infectious enthusiasm, and the time they lived in when they made it might give The Adaptation an innocence and endearing charm that’s singular among fan films, but we’ll have to wait and see when this sucker makes it to DVD.

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Chris Tallman explores the dark psyche of the Caped Crusader in his new fan film…

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The movie is available for download now at OemingFilms.com in Apple QuickTime format. Also planned is a special download package for PlayStation Portable users which will allow them to watch the movie on their handheld.

I sat down to talk with Mike about the movie, after viewing it online last week.

What made you decide to make this movie?

I’ve been interested in doing a short film, or any kind of film, since probably the early 90s. But during the early 90s you didn’t have stuff like Final Cut. You didn’t have the XL1 camera so the technology just wasn’t as home-based back then, or at least not as easily accessible. If you went out and got the 16mm camera and stuff, that’s like a whole other thing.

The revolution with the digital technology just makes everything so much easier once you have a computer, most computers have the ability, like your basic Mac, already have some basic film programs in there. All you have to do is grab your home, digital camera and you can do everything. It doesn’t take that much to actually go out and shoot something.

So once the practical end of it became a reality, by that point I’d done a couple of creator owned books, there’s “Powers” of course, and then I’ve gone on to write other stuff, and “Six” came about with looking for something to shoot for some of my martial arts friends, Steve Izzy and my Sifu Louis Diaz, just these amazing martial artists. Steve can do all these flips and crazy stuff.

Basically I was looking for a story that I could design around a fight scene.

So the whole thing was basically about the fight scene at the end.

So I came up with this story and got some help from my friend Dan Berman, who co-wrote the “Thor” stuff with me�

I had written a screenplay for it but I brought in Dan to help me finish it off. We did the comic together. The comic was almost, sort of pre-vis for the film. It was a way to go ahead and shoot the film without shooting it, so when we went to go shoot it we knew the story inside and out.

It was mostly an exercise in an extension of storytelling.

Tell us more about your martial arts background.

After I did “Bulletproof Monk” back in the day I did a lot of research in martial arts to do the book, so I was very interested in martial arts. I had ideas of doing other martial arts comics, but I wanted to continue doing some research on it so I could use that in the martial arts book.

So I took classes for about two and a half years. I recently stopped taking classes, largely because of my work overload. My body’s taken a toll for [quitting]. I gained fifteen pounds immediately, so that was pretty fun.

During the classes I learned how martial artists are supposed to move. I learned about the basics and fundamentals, which I was able to translate then, into the comics. There was a book did for “Inside Kung Fu” magazine called “Dragons on Fire”, with Rick Meyers. And there I was able actually to use most of the martial arts I was able to learn, in the characters and the poses and styles and such.

During the class is when I met these other guys, the young cats, because I’m, like, old in martial arts world. These seventeen-year-old kids and these eighteen-year-old kids and they’re just doing this amazing stuff. Like all the stuff you see in “The Matrix”, but without the wires.

[Steve Izzy] can run up walls and flip off of them. I’ve seen him do a back flip off of a second story building and just land and run away. Crazy stuff.

And now he’s playing Robin in the “Batman and Robin Stunt Show” at Great Adventure, which is kind of his first step towards doing what he wants to do, which is being a film stuntman.

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