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Combative comic Rob Schneider may be bloodied and bruised, but he is not beaten in his battle with Hollywood.
While we are talking metaphorically, Schneider has finally found a way to get his directorial debut, Big Stan, released in North America.
The answer is DVD.
Big Stan, an absurd prison comedy, debuted in the digital domain this week because Schneider could not find a studio to release it theatrically in the U.S. and Canada.
"Especially as a first-time director," Schneider tells Sun Media, "it is not the best result to do something that comes out on DVD. But, hey, I'm proud of it and, these days, a DVD release is BIG! I know some films that can't even get released on DVD!"
Schneider, now 42 and finally maturing, is on the phone from the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where he is shooting a romantic comedy, You May Not Kiss the Bride. He is committed to getting Big Stan some notoriety.
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Big Stan, which Schneider filmed in 2007 and managed to get released internationally in 2008, is a fun and a funny movie. Schneider stars as a charming goof sentenced to prison for fraud.
Thanks to a scam, he has six months before he has to report, spending that time training in martial arts with a chain-smoking maniac, The Master. David Carradine sends up his Kung Fu and Kill Bill past. In jail, Schneider establishes himself as the meanest man in the joint, to avoid becoming somebody's sissy.
The movie deserves recognition, especially from Schneider fans. It deserved theatrical distribution, the normal prelude to a DVD kiss.
"It's a combination of things," Schneider says. "It kind of snuck under the radar. The studios are all looking for what could make them $100 million and I'm not Will Smith and I'm not Adam Sandler (his long-time friend). But I am marketable."
The company which owned Big Stan went bankrupt. Schneider got the film back and started releasing it personally in countries from Mexico to Spain and from The Philippines (part of Schneider's heritage is Filipino) to Russia and Bulgaria. Just not North America.
"Nobody wanted to release it unless I came up with $20 million for prints and ads. This is all boring stuff but that really is what happens."
Big Stan, among many attributes, features four charming old farts in support roles.
Besides Carradine, there is Henry Gibson as Schneider's cellmate, M. Emmet Walsh as his crooked lawyer, and Scott Wilson as the scheming prison warden. Wilson, superb as a killer in the American classic In Cold Blood, now works in relative obscurity.
"He is one of the great actors alive, isn't he?" Schneider asks rhetorically. "He is like my best friend in Hollywood. He is just a great guy and he was happy to be there for my directorial debut and I wrote those warden scenes for him."
Carradine was crucial.
"If David didn't do the movie, I didn't want to make it, because there really was no one else who could play The Master," Schneider says. "I needed someone who looked like he could kill you with one punch but also look like he could drop dead at any second. It had to be some sort of haggard guy who has lived his life -- and God knows David has!"
Carradine, Wilson, Gibson and Walsh all contributed to Schneider's growing confidence on set, as the director of Big Stan.
"It was such a pleasure because these guys are around and they want to work and they are great to work with. They were all happy to be there. For me, the job of the director is to hire the right actors and you just point the camera and shoot. How blessed was I to have these fantastic talents there?"
Now Big Stan is finally being seen.
"It's got a lot of heart and it was a lot of fun and I poured myself into it. I hope people have a good laugh because that is what it's for. I'm not trying to win an Academy Award on 'this' one! I just want people to laugh their tails off."
Schneider's movie his 'swan song' to extreme slapstick
The prison comedy Big Stan is Rob Schneider's fond goodbye to extreme slapstick.
"The crash-and-burn days of comedy for me are over," the 42-year-old Schneider tells Sun Media as the movie debuts on DVD this week. "I used to think: 'I'll do whatever it takes for a laugh!' I don't feel that same way any more. The second half of Big Stan, for me, was my swan song to that kind of comedy."
In Big Stan, Schneider directed himself in the lead role as a real estate fraud artist who gets sent to prison. Despite his tiny size, he bulks up, trains in martial arts and becomes the baddest dude in the joint.
"I don't know if I meant that intentionally at the time," Schneider says of the swan-song notion. "But, when I was working on the script (with writer Josh Lieb) and when I was working on the movie (as his directorial debut), I wanted to transition out of that."
Schneider, a native of San Francisco, has a background in stand-up comedy. He joined Saturday Night Live as a writer in 1988 and became a full-time cast member 1990-1994, playing roles such as Tiny Elvis, Orgasm Guy and office dweeb Richard Laymer, who anointed co-workers with annoying nicknames.
Schneider often works with fellow SNL alumnus Adam Sandler. They have a new movie ready to shoot with Chris Rock, David Spade and Kevin James.
"It's a Big Chill kind of movie," Schneider says of the change in tone.
"We're getting older and our audience is, too. And, hopefully, if we're doing stuff that is interesting to us, it will be interesting to them."