Q: How do you bring back someone else's franchise, Death Wish?

SS: I think Death Wish, if it were done today, would be volcanic. The idea of Jeff Goldblum being a mugger who breaks into an apartment is very simplistic. It gives you an idea how bad the elevation of violence has become. I would focus on defense attorneys, I would focus on [the people] allowing this crap to happen – not so much the guy on the street, it’s like who permits it. What if it happened to you, that your daughter was grabbed and her eyes were put out; would you want to sit there and defend that guy? So there’s moral questions here that are being presented that have not been answered in 30 years. So by no means is it the pacifist [origin of the original]. Also, I see – I’ll give you a little hint – he was a very violent human being, completely violent, an ex convict who walked the walk, was accepted back into society and did everything he could to be a [good person]. Like these thieves and junkies who now work on the side of the law, they’ve gone that way, but when something happens he reverts back to that guy. So now you’ve unleashed a man who really understands the world of violence; he isn’t burdened with this passive-aggressive, onscientious-objector kind of thing. That’s been done. It’s like what happens when the wolf has gone from wolf to wolf in sheep’s clothing back to the wolf. Now the fellow on the street has a problem because he knows how to deal with that kind of mentality because he was a prisoner. So it would be a different take (laughs).

Q: How do you make Rocky and Rambo relevant today?

SS: If I were trying to go after a youth audience and trying to find something hip, using certain music and whatever, I think that would be pretty obvious and be rejected. There's some things that never change and are universal truths. As you get older, they become more and more apparent about how difficult life is and like the speech in Rocky about taking punches and life gives you punches. The young people who would support Rocky more than even people my age I think really enjoy and embrace those kinds of lessons. I think the lesson that is somewhat presented here, that war is hell and there is no winner ever and unfortunately people just have to find it out the hard way, will translate. And eventually after a man takes that journey, a woman takes that journey, you always hope that you can go back home, that there's still some gateway back to peace, peace of mind where you can start to rebuild. That's the only thing I hope works. I think it does work because they're just universal truths that never, ever change. No matter what society is, just everybody wants freedom, everyone wants peace of mind but it comes at a horrible price.

Q: Was it hard to bring the movie in at an R rating? Did you want more?

SS: I couldn't believe it first of all. When babies are being bayoneted and people are getting killed… I though this will never go. We presented it but I did have a caveat with the MPAA. I said, "Guys, this is happening today. If we're ever going to do something responsible where art has the ability to influence people's awareness, impact the lives of these people, don't dilute it. Don't water it down. It's got to be uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable. It's miserable. It's distasteful. It's horrifying. But if you're not going to do it, don’t do the movie. Don’t do violence light. It's just wrong. Don't cut away too soon. Just let it sit in. I want people to feel it." To their credit, they allowed this film to be as truthful as it could.

Q: What was the most challenging in making this film?

SS: Well, we had a crew in Rocky of about 60 people. There was 570. That's how hard it was to move through the jungle and everything else. It was the hottest temperatures in 94 years. They called it the burning season. I even wrote lines in there about when they're going up the river and it's always hazy and foggy. That was the burning season. The entire country's burning to the ground. They can see it from satellites. They had to send in military. It was just out of control. It was just burning and burning and burning their land. Every time we cleared it, people were just getting sick. There are 165 different snakes in Thailand, 90 that were poisonous. So we lived with the constant problem of people being bit. Centipedes which are the size of your shoe being found in your shoes. It was a rough, rough- - Julie Benz coming from Dexter went, "What?" Welcome to action films. But it was extremely difficult but the Thais were just- - you know what it reminded me of? I was watching the making of David Lean's film, Bridge Over the River Kwai, how much you just had to truck and use brutal manpower and get inland. There's nothing glamorous about it. I'd watch these men shoulder these giant generators and cut trails with a cigarette in the mouth, no shoes. You could never have done it anywhere else on the planet. Believe me, when we were starting to get all the threats from the Burmese, I said, "Can't we shoot this in Puerot Vallarta?" I tried, you don't know. You don't know.

Q: Any more Rocky movies on the way?

SS: No. They talk about Son Of… But no. I got so lucky with the final image of Rocky, the rack focus and the fade. I can't go any further. It was a miracle that it even got done. I'm just glad. That was my finest moment. I was so happy with it. I just wanted to end it on a certain note and was lucky to get that shot.

Q: Are people surprised by your artistic motivations because the characters are so physical?

SS: I don't know if that's quite apparent but I know what you mean. If there isn't some kind of thought behind it, because muscles are easy. Anybody can do muscles. You just go violence, violence, violence, violence, action, action, action. But if you can find those little moments in between that connect to the people that aren't so physical, that's what takes the time and that to me is the challenge and that's what I love about it. Anyway, thank you.

Q: You should do another little character like Shade?

SS: I enjoyed this even though I never saw it in this form.

Q: When did you ask Jackie Chan to do a Rambo movie?

SS: This was during Demolition Man, so 1993. Now you've got Jason Statham, you lucky people.

Q: This is more than just an action film, I felt.

SS: Do you think it's kind of like the reincarnation of The Wild Bunch? Remember how everybody was going along and then all of a sudden you'd have these bloodbaths. It was that part of the movie that actually, he didn’t sell out. Remember in Bonnie and Clyde, the whole thing, what was the most important thing in the movie? It was the whole riddle of death (I think he said riddle). So I don't know, maybe I'm just on some kind of historical treadmill here.