Repo Manis the quintessential cultus moving-picture show : a low - budget , high - concept teardown of early ’ 80 consumer culture , Reaganism , atomic fears , and suburbanism inspire by the destruction of city and the nascence of punk . put out in 1984 and pip by first - sentence author - managing director Alex Cox ( who would go on to makeSid & Nancytwo long time later on ) , the flick starred Harry Dean Stanton as a crusty repo man and Emilio Estevez as his vernal punk protégé on the hunt for a Chevy Malibu that may or may not have radioactive aliens in the luggage compartment .
The pic was so eldritch and so angry that it nearly was n’t released at all . But it connected with child ( and adults ) who finger alienated and marginalize by an increasingly buttoned-down company , and who apprize the film ’s DIY aesthetic and , above all , its soundtrack , which has become an American punk touchstone . More than 30 year afterward , Repo Mancontinues to vibrate thanks to an incredible afterlife on VHS , DVD , and now Blu - ray , thanks to a superlative HD editionreleased by The Criterion Collection . Here are 15 facts to keep the film that was almost too weird to live , but too great to croak .
1.REPO MANWAS ALMOST A SHORT FILM. OR A COMIC BOOK.
The 92 - minute hood classic start out as a17 - page short titledLeather Rubberneckswritten by Dick Rude , who plays Duke in the film . Rude hit out to Alex Cox to require for help in finding money to finance the short , but when that did n’t happen , aspect of the short were incorporated into what eventually becameRepo Man . But even as a lineament , it was a grueling sell for Cox and his producers . It was “ punk rock encounter skill fiction in Ronald Reagan ’s house,”according to Rude , and studio did n’t know what to do with it . So Cox adumbrate a comic - book treatment to help sell the movie . After ascertain it and reading the first scene , former Monkee Michael Nesmith , Repo Man’sexecutive producer , say : “ I ’ll do this . ”
2. THE FIRST PERSON ALEX COX APPROACHED TO PLAY BUD WAS FRANK BOOTH.
From the beginning , Cox want Harry Dean Stanton for one of the leads inRepo Man . ( He had a “ big remnant of the Old West / clay look,”Cox said . ) But by the other eighties , Stanton had been kvetch around Hollywood for decades , appear mostly in affirm role and bit part . So they turned to Dennis Hopper . “ [ He ] was better be intimate than Harry at that time , so we cash in one’s chips after him,”Cox told The Quietus . “ He was very nice but desire a little more money than we could open . ” That start the door for Stanton . Except …
3. IF THE AGENTS HAD THEIR WAY, BUD WOULD HAVE BEEN PLAYED BY MICK JAGGER.
When Cox pop off to Stanton ’s federal agent to get him forRepo Man , he had what he described as a “ super eye - opening ” experience . “ The agent said , ‘ You do n’t require to work with Harry Dean . He ’s past it . You want to work with Mick Jagger,’”Cox call in . But the filmmaker stuck to his guns , and give Stanton his first star role in a lineament ( Wim Wenders’Paris , Texaswould add up out a few calendar month later ) ; Stanton repaid the favour by make one of the most unerasable movie fiber of the 1980s .
Side note : Jaggerwouldend up working with Emilio Estevez on the 1992 filmFreejack . But take a instant to imagine this version of Mick Jagger prance aroundRepo Man :
4. AGENTS ALMOST KEPT EMILIO ESTEVEZ OUT OF THE FILM, TOO.
Cox and his producers ran into management hindrance when trying to drop Estevez as well . His agent and manager also did n’t need him to doRepo Manbecause they desire him to forefend “ small films , ” so they refused to show him the script . But through a friend , Cox and company got the script to Estevez . His chemical reaction ? “ I was fall on my ass laughing ; the script was just hysteric . I said I had to do this picture,”Estevez toldAmerican Filmin 1985 .
5. OTTO GAVE ESTEVEZ GREATER INSIGHT INTO A FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIP.
“ I did n’t really know anything about the tinder movement,”Estevez recalledtoAmerican Filmin 1985 . But he had a world-wide estimation because his comrade , Ramon , wasinto the scene . “ So I started listening to the music and proceed to the night club and I commence to understand what the punk front is all about , and understanding where my brother was occur from at that point . So for me it was an important film on a personal tier . ”
6. ONE OF THE FILM’S MOST ICONIC ELEMENTS WAS THE RESULT OF AN ACCIDENT.
7. THE REPO CODE WAS KIND OF A REAL THING.
The idea to make a movie about repo Man come when Cox drive around with an actual phallus of the professing , a guy named Mark Lewis . “ This would be an interesting theme for a film , ” Cox thought , and he took greenback of how Lewis talked and what he enunciate . A circumstances of that ended up in the Bud ’s dialog , especially the Repo Code , which was also influenced by Isaac Asmiov ’s " Three Laws of Robotics " fromI , Robotand Harry Dean Stanton , who consolidated several bits of screenplay into a his Repo Code spoken language .
8. THE SO-CRAZY-IT-COULDN’T-BE-TRUE JOHN WAYNE STORY WAS A REAL STORY.
The key parole here is " storey . " You know , the one where Miller , the strange repo lot attendant , recalls going to John Wayne ’s house to install two - manner mirror in his pad and when the Duke spread the room access he ’s in a dress ? Miller telling that story is one of the most memorable moments inRepo Man . And it add up from substantial life ! Cox heard a story very like to this from a guy bring up Swatty , who worked at Arrow Glass and Mirror in Los Angeles . “ I had no veridical reason to trust that Wayne was gay,”Cox wrotein an newspaper column forThe Guardian . “ I just liked the story , and the demented idea of the Duke answering his own front doorway in a strapless cocktail outfit . ”
9. MUHAMMAD ALI COULD HAVE BEEN KO’ED BY THE GLOWING CHEVY MALIBU.
While shoot the film , Cox and his producers caught wind instrument that “ The Greatest ” was working out at the old Gold ’s Gym in L.A. So Cox and put manager Victoria Thomas stopped by tooffer him a diminished role : during the climactic view with the glowing Malibu in the repo 1000 , a helicopter descends with a bishop and a rabbi who seek to use religious belief to get into the dense car . Cox would have had Ali join them in trying to approach the Malibu , “ and not even he would be able to approach the car . The power would be too majuscule , even for Muhammad , ” Cox says . “ We proposed this to him , ” he adds , “ and he listened , very nicely , ” Thomas uphold . “ He decline , but also very nicely . ”
10. JIMMY BUFFETT SAID “YES” TO A CAMEO.
Therewasone famous face that made it intoRepo military man : Jimmy Buffett ’s . The original Parrothead was pals with producer Michael Nesmith , and he presumptively had enough time between eating cheeseburgers in paradise to shoot a blink - and - you’ll - miss - it scene near the closing of the moving picture as a CIA agent in aviators snap the dead body of Fox Harris ( J. Frank Parnell ) , the mad scientist owner of the Malibu .
11. WITHOUT THE SOUNDTRACK, THE MOVIE MIGHT NOT HAVE HAPPENED.
Margaritaville and its soft - rock chill is light eld aside from the Edge City hoodlum stone ethos ofRepo Man . And it ’s the latter genre that we have to give thanks for the pic ever being free . It was made at Universal , but a regimen change at the studio buried it … until underling RCA Records regard that the soundtrack , full of cut from soon - to - be kindling icons like The Circle Jerks , Fear , and Black Flag , was doing cock-a-hoop business . So RCA White House visit up their counterparts at Universal and said they had to release the moving-picture show . The sleep is cult story .
12. IGGY POP REACHED BACK TO A MONUMENTAL ROAD MOVIE FOR INSPIRATION WHEN WRITING THEREPO MANTHEME.
The soundtrack , and flick , open with Iggy Pop’sRepo human . The propulsive root is dripping with doom and gas and acerbic witticism — all stylemark of a slap-up tough vocal . ( The five - minute - plus length of the record album version , though ? Not so much . ) But Iggy was n’t influenced by punk as much as he was Roger Corman ’s 1966 biker picture , The Wild Angels . He says he had that motion-picture show ’s motif in mind when compose the one forRepo Man , with the cut carry out a dream to write a “ hot - rod bike badass guitar swiftness - and - death ” song .
13. ONE OFREPO MAN’S BIGGEST FANS WAS A NOTORIOUS SCIENTIST.
Cult films can discover fans in unexpected places , specially something likeRepo Man . “ I bring a call from a guy who tell he invented the neutron dud , ” Cox call back . “ And he really was . It was a guy wire called Sam Cohen , who was a contemporary of J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Teller ’s . ” The two man met for dejeuner , and Cohen share that “ he ’s really proud of the neutron bomb , ” Cox recalled . “ He said he experience a ribbon from the Pope for designing it . ” Cohen also told Cox that his favorite films wereDr . StrangeloveandRepo Man .
14. A DECADE AFTERREPO MANWAS RELEASED, A SEQUEL ALMOST HAPPENED.
In the mid-1990s , Cox , Nesmith , and the rest of the production team went to Universal with the estimate to make a secondRepo MancalledWaldo ’s Hawaiian Holiday . They never heard from the studio apartment , so they raised money independently , which was difficult , Cox told The A.V. Club , because “ [ Estevez ’s ] career as an actor had n’t been very illustrious . Peter McCarthy , one of the manufacturer ofRepo Man , worked and worked and was lastly able to put together a deal . Then , dead , Emilio Estevez just dropped out , and from then all the energy just fell out of it . ”
15. IN THE END, A KIND OF SEQUEL TOREPO MANDID GET MADE—AS A COMIC BOOK.
Waldo ’s Hawaiian Holidaywas eventually put out as a pictorial novel in 2008 . From the book’sAmazon page : “ AfterRepo Man , I became interested in the idea of a continuation , ” Cox save . “ Specifically — what had happen to Otto , during his 10 - class absence from world ? And what would he make of the changes [ that ] had take on spot in his absence ? Otto , it would look , has been held prisoner , in smashing luxury , on the planet Mars . Now he has returned to earth , and modify his name — to Waldo . ”
Additional Sources:2000 DVD commentary with Alex Cox , executive producer Michael Nesmith , casting director Victoria Thomas , and player Sy Richardson , Zander Schloss , and Del Zamora ; roundtable discussion from 2012 with Cox , producers Peter McCarthy and Jonathan Wacks , Zamora , Richardson , and Dick Rude ; and interviews with Iggy Pop and Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks , Rude , Olivia Barash , and Miguel Sandoval , all available on theRepo ManCriterion Collection Blu - Ray .
