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We originally featured the Black Dog Press Kit in our December 1998 magazine. Hold on to your seats for a hair-raising truck ride!!
Black Dog
For Jack Crews, the rules of the road are simple: Don't look at the cargo. Don't question the route.
And don't stop moving, if you want to stay alive.
Jack's driving days were over until he got an offer he couldn't refuse. But what was expected to be a
straight run up north has taken some unexpected turns.
Now, the stakes are high as gun runners, government agents and a fleet of monstrous 18-wheelers pursue
Jack in an intense highway duel in the Universal Pictures release Black Dog.
Patrick Swayze (Ghost, Dirty Dancing), country music star Randy Travis and rock singer Meat Loaf star in
this explosive action thriller from director Kevin Hooks (Passenger 57). The film also stars Stephen Tobolowsky
(Mississippi Burning, Mr. Magoo) and Charles Dutton (Roc, Mimic).
Swayze is Jack Crews, a professional trucker who lost his license and went to prison after a fatal accident.
Stripped of his livelihood, Jack is forced back behind the wheel to deliver an illegal shipment of guns to the
man who holds his family hostage.
But there are a lot of determined folks who don't want him to deliver his illicit cargo - and Jack is forced to
dodge one deadly obstacle after another, and confront his past demons, to prove to his wife and daughter that he
can provide for them once again.
If Jack can somehow survive these human predators, he'll come face-to-face with the Black Dog, a haunting apparition
that's the source of his personal demons.
From Universal Pictures and the Mutual Film Company, Black Dog was produced by Raffaella De Laurentiis, Peter Saphier
and Mark W. Koch, with executive producers Mace Neufeld, Robert Rehme, Gary Levinsohn and Mark Gordon. The screenplay
was written by William Mickleberry & Dan Vining.
About the Production
As soon as she read the script for Black Dog, producer Raffaella De Laurentiis thought of director Kevin Hooks.
After all, having handled a runaway jumbo jetliner pursued by an undercover cop in Passenger 57, who better than
Hooks to orchestrate hordes of 18-wheelers crashing and careening through the countryside?
Kevin Hooks
(Click for larger image)
The call was made, and Black Dog was rolling. "I think it's everybody's fantasy," Hooks chuckles, "that when you're on
the road and someone cuts you off, as my mother would say, 'I wish I had a Mack truck!' Well, we did have a Mack truck,
and we did run those guys off the road!"
From the opening credits to the heart-pounding finale, Black Dog crackles with spectacular action that pushes the chase
film genre to new heights.
"I've done a number of action films," Hooks explains, "and the challenge is always the same: how to bring something new
and unique to the screen. For Black Dog, we went out of our way to create some things with trucks that people haven't
seen before. I feel really satisfied and like we accomplished something significant in this genre."
Shot on location in and around Atlanta and later in the truckstop-studded countryside surrounding Wilmington,
North Carolina, Black Dog is the story of Jack Crews (Swayze), a top notch trucker locked out of the profession
because of a tragic accident that resulted in one man dead, the man's wife in the hospital and Jack serving a prison
sentence. Newly released, he's now just another ex-con toiling in a low-wage dead-end job to support his own wife Melanie
(Brenda Strong) and daughter Tracy (Erin Broderick). When faced with the loss of his house, something he struggled for
years to obtain before the accident, Jack is desperate and in the perfect position to be exploited when approached by
Cutler (Graham Beckel), his crooked boss.
"When I heard Patrick was interested, I thought, 'What a great actor for the role of Jack Crews!'" Hooks notes. "I've
always admired his earnestness and honesty and the fact that he's a very emotional actor. He brings a lot to whatever
character he's playing."
And the idea of playing a "regular guy" struggling to do right appealed to Swayze. "I was not looking for Jack Crews
to be a superhero, not Mr. Kung Fu, but just a guy who is only a hero because he's trying to save his family.
Patrick with Brenda Strong and Erin Broderick
(Click for larger image)
The relationship Jack has with his family is really important because it kicks off the movie and determines what
the stakes are," Swayze adds. "If he loses his house, they all go back to a life of poverty, and his daughter goes
back to a school with metal detectors. Jack will go to his last breath not to allow that to happen."
Desperate to salvage the situation, Jack accepts Cutler's "off the books" offer and is sent down to R&H Trucking in
Atlanta, run by Cutler's partner, the brassy, Bible-quoting Red (Meat Loaf). Here, he picks up his rig loaded with
the secret cargo, bumbling Earl (Randy Travis) to ride shotgun and armed escorts Sonny (Gabriel Casseus) and Wes
(Brian Vincent), who'll follow in a Camaro.
This is somewhat strange and unsettling, but Jack has no illusions that this is a legitimate run. As Cutler told
him before he left, "The way I see it, you only need a (trucker's) license if you get pulled over."
The run back to Cutler's New Jersey truckyard has barely begun when the first attack is launched - Red is planning
to double-cross Cutler and hijack the cargo for himself. Jack manages to beat the attackers off and impress his
"escorts" with a daring bit of driving, but as soon as he can, he stops, refusing to go any further without knowing
what he's hauling... Illegal is one thing; life-threatening is something else altogether.
But it just gets worse - the load is millions of dollars worth of illegally imported assault rifles, assorted other
guns and enough ammo for an army.
Jack's caught in the spider's web - Red has gathered additional forces and is once again coming up fast from behind;
ahead, Cutler, who no longer trusts Jack to deliver the goods, has kidnapped Melanie and Tracy; and to top it off,
FBI Agent Allen Ford (Charles Dutton) and ATF Agent McClaren (Stephen Tobolowsky) head a government Task Force poised
to swoop down, smash the gun running operation and grab everyone involved.
Jack's only way out is to drive... and DRIVE HARD. But down that road lurks his own personal demon, the Black Dog,
a haunting apparition that plagues truckers stretched beyond their mental and physical limits and the proximate cause
of the accident that sent him to prison and nearly destroyed his life. Finishing the run and saving his family seem
all but impossible now. Can Jack come up with what it takes?
At its core, Black Dog is a spectacular action movie. "We wreck a whole bunch of big rigs. We blow trucks through
car carriers filled with cars. We blow them up in just about every way you can imagine," Swayze says.
(Click for larger image)
"The audience will never realize that when they see one truck on the screen, it took 16 trucks to get it
there," De Laurentiis adds. "We had to have multiple trucks for each one used, because they all served different
purposes. Altogether, there were probably 70 big rigs used in the film!"
Ever eager to try something new, something not seen on screen before, the stunt and special effects crews came up
with a number of electrifying sequences guaranteed to keep the adrenaline pumping.
"We have big rigs, huge heavy behemoths, crashing and pounding through things," second unit director/stunt coordinator
Vic Armstrong relates, "and motorcycles with machine guns trying to stop Jack and take his tires out. And more guys
come onto his truck and try to cut his fuel lines and air lines.
"And then we have the big truck chase scene in the hills of Georgia..."
In one of the more complicated action sequences, a runaway big rig on a downhill grade gets airborne
and slams through a mobile home stuck in the road. To shoot the scene, the big rig was set up with a
ramp devised by the special effects team. Stunt driver Tom Huff hit the ramp at 70 mph, took flight,
slammed right through the mobile home, then landed perfectly on his tires again.
We had a really great team here to make it work," Armstrong notes, "and that's what it takes. It's a team effort."
Ingenuity was also required because so much of the action takes place in and around Jack's truck.
What was needed was a vehicle that could not only be Jack's truck to be driven, battered, shot at and rammed
off the road, but one that could also serve the director and camera units, as well as provide a platform for stunts.
It would help if it could be steered independently by someone else so the actors could concentrate on their acting.
That challenge was all the motivation needed by special effects supervisor Kit West, who won an Academy AwardŽ for his
special effects in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
He came up with The War Wagon.
(Click for larger image)
"We bought ourselves a city bus," West relates," and the first thing we did was cut the entire top off,
except for the engine and air conditioning system at the back. Then we cut the cabin and sleeper off a
Peterbilt truck, and with a system of bellows and tracks, we placed it on the bottom of the cutaway bus.
"We disconnected the entire steering system and all the controls so that when the camera was in the cabin
looking out, the real driver was sitting under the hood in full control of the vehicle. We called it a
'blind driver', and he was hidden below the hood so the actors could act and he could be in control of the rig.
"The War Wagon proved more than up to the task, with the added perk that Hooks and his team were able to
direct and review the scenes on video monitors from the comfort of bus seats that West had left on board for them.
Combine the crack stunt and special effects crews with the ideal action star, and the mix was pure excitement.
"There's a big aerial shot of a stunt where Patrick is really crawling along the side of the truck,"
says Armstrong of the film's star. "And that's the toughest thing about working with him; you have to
keep trying to stop him doing the things that are dangerous. He's superb and totally capable of doing
the stunts, of course. And he's so helpful. On one stunt, I think we did nine takes, and he would have
gone all day.
"We have all these great moments that tell the story," Armstrong concludes, "where we see the emotions of the
actors surrounded by this fast-moving action."
While the high speed action is the lifeblood of Black Dog, it's still the performers who give the film its heart.
Good acting and interesting characters only enhance the heart-pounding appeal of the action scenes.
The intense emotion required to convincingly convey Jack's determination to see this through at all costs was something
Swayze could relate to. "Jack's carrying a demon inside, and if he doesn't work that demon out, he's no good to his
wife and daughter, or anyone. I think that, just like Jack, we all have those personal demons at different points
in our lives that are necessary to work out before we can get on with it."
Interestingly, producer Peter Saphier notes that this twist was something that Swayze himself injected into the story.
"This is an action film," he notes, "but Patrick brought an entirely new relationship with the wife to the movie
that we didn't have originally. It makes more sense in terms of the emotional impact for the ending. With Patrick,
we had an added ingredient to Jack Crews, and he made him a really great character."
(Click for larger image)
In addition, co-stars Randy Travis and Meat Loaf, both highly acclaimed and successful recording artists,
give entertaining performances as the bumbling Earl and the sinister Red, respectively.
"I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had people as talented as Randy Travis and Meat Loaf to work
with on this project," director Hooks states. "They brought a lot of different qualities to their acting
than the other actors because of their [music industry] backgrounds. And to channel that unique energy into
these characters and really illuminate those qualities was a challenge that I wasn't accustomed to."
I was impressed to find out that Meat Loaf had worked with Joe Papp at the Public Theatre in New York. He's
really an accomplished actor. And Randy is probably one of the most charming people that I've ever met."
In portraying Earl, Travis had to stretch far beyond his real-life circumstances as one of today's most accomplished
country artists, winner of numerous Grammy and CMA (Country Music Assn.) awards.
Other than just being a total goof, I don't know how else you would describe Earl," Travis explains. "He thinks
he knows everything, but actually doesn't know very much about anything that's going on, period."
On top of that, Earl is an utterly incompetent aspiring country singer/songwriter, a far cry from Travis'
25 Top 10 singles and 12 albums with more than 20 million units sold.
Ever the consummate music professional, Travis smiles when this particular aspect of Earl's persona is mentioned.
"He's a terrible singer. It was strange for me to try and sing a song so totally out of tune, because I normally
work so hard to keep everything right.
"But it was actually kind of fun," Travis admits. "I went in and just made everything as bad as possible. It didn't
matter if I started off in one key and ended up in another. It was a chance to do everything I try so hard not to do
in real life."
Naturally, Travis makes a contribution to the Black Dog soundtrack. Collaborating with fellow Black Dog actor Brian
Vincent, who plays Wes, Travis performs "My Greatest Fear."
A total contrast to the bumbling Earl is Red, the double-crossing Atlanta truckyard owner played by rock star Meat
Loaf. While Earl is rather slow, pointlessly full of himself, but generally a good guy, Red is capable, calculating
and evil.
"Red's attitude is that he's smarter than everyone else," Meat Loaf explains. "especially the people that he's
involved with. He's also pretty callous; he feels that everyone around him is pretty disposable. A couple of
them get killed, it's like, 'OK, great. Let's move on. Where's the next two?'"
Red also rather irreverently quotes the Bible, often while committing evil, but this is just a part of his act.
"The religious stuff scared me a little at first," Meat Loaf points out. "But Red's not being disrespectful, he's
using it to test people's intelligence or to manipulate them."
As the most active villain, Meat Loaf gets to show off his wild side as he orchestrates the pursuit of Jack. He's
the threatening presence that's always on Jack's tail, and their final confrontation is the climax of the movie.
"And I had the best truck!" he adds with a laugh.
(l. to r.) Randy Travis, Patrick Swayze and Meat Loaf
(Click for larger image)
That sort of camaraderie and humor left its mark on Swayze, who summed up his Black Dog experience as
"a lot of laughter, a lot of fun and all of us fighting for a mutual goal... which is a good way to
make something wonderful."
As Red would say, Amen.
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