Star Trek II. Blade Runner. John Carpenter’s The Thing. Poltergeist. ET the Extra-Terrestrial. Conan The Barbarian. The Road Warrior. Tron. The Dark Crystal. Creepshow. The Beastmaster. Megaforce. All of these films and more came out in the same year–1982. They are all the focus of a fantastic new docuseries.
All four episodes of The CW‘s docuseries 1982:Greatest Geek Year Ever! have now aired and are available to stream for free on The CW app. Cherry the Geek TV caught up with Greatest Geek Year Ever producer Scott “Movie” Mantz and director Roger Lay, Jr. at this year’s San Diego Comic Con to talk about the show.
Lay talked about how the show morphed from it’s original movie format to a 4-part series. “It actually could have been an eight part television series. There was so much story to cover for that particular year (1982),” he said. “One of the most difficult things for us was having all of these great interviews and figuring out how do we fit them all in here. The CW series is great because we get to cover so much more ground in the four episodes and it also gives the viewers a chance to come in, experience part of the story, take a break, maybe re-watch some of those films featured in the doc during the week, and then come back the next week and watch the next part of the show.”
Mantz added “It was always the hope that we could make this as a docu-series. Break it up into each genre within each part. Lo and behold, not only did that happen, but that happened on a network. We were extremely lucky and we are extremely grateful that people can watch each part and absorb it and take it in before they move on to the next one.”
Both Mantz and Lay also hint that 1982 is not the only great geek year of cinema that is worth exploring in a docu-series. “Mark (Altman), Scott, and I spent years fantasizing-could this be a book, could this be a docu-series, could this be a standalone documentary? It was always about 1982 though. That’s the year. That’s the phenomenon. But as we started doing all of these interviews and thinking about years in the proximity of ’82, or even further down the line (1999), we realized that there are arguments that could be made for other years. We had such a great time doing this one–it was back-breaking work–but if this one is successful and the network or somebody else thinks that this branding of Greatest Geek Year Ever has potential for other years, we’d be willing to come back in,” said Lay.
“Would we be willing?!,” asked Mantz. “The answer is YES! There are other years that the argument could be made that it was the greatest geek year ever. 1999. 1984. Maybe it’s 1994. Maybe it’s 1987. Take your pick. By doing this series, we’ve discovered that this is something that can keep going and going. There could be other greatest geek years ever, but really–it’s 1982.”
You can watch the full interview by clicking on the link below:
You can also watch the full 1982:Greatest Geek Year Ever! Comic-Con panel by clicking the link below:
About Author
