Laughlin was so sure of the money-making potential of his grand design that he charged forward with his usual flair. On a Wednesday in November 1985, nearly one year to the day after the final ad appeared in Variety, Laughlin convened a press conference at the Cineplex Odeon Showcase Theater, in Hollywood. Together with his wife, Laughlin stepped to a lectern surrounded by 13 see-through Plexiglas cylinders, each reputedly containing $1 million in cash and each protected by an armed security guard. Against this backdrop, Laughlin announced that filming was about to begin on The Return of Billy Jack, his first film in nearly a decade. The cylinders around him, he said, represented the amount that would be spent on marketing the new film. He then favored the crowd with a recitation of the several and various breakthroughs he had achieved over the years. "Laughlin and his wife," reported Variety, "treated the announcement of The Return of Billy Jack as if it were a religious experience."
But Laughlin had good reason for his fervor. A lot had happened in a year's time. He had convinced 41 private investors to finance not one but three films he had planned. And to their $3.5 million he had added a handshake deal to sell rights to Return, representing another $4.2 million, to a videocassette company. He had rented offices in San Vincente, staffed his production crew, and hired nearly 70 people.
But for all this, there was one thing he had not done. He had not found that "money-conscious, detailed, meticulous" associate he had relied on in the past -- although it was not for lack of trying. For five months before shooting began, Laughlin, through New York City headhunters, searched for his alter ego. One candidate, formerly with Rupert Murdoch's organization, looked especially promising, but negotiations fell apart. "The guy made inquiries about me," Laughlin says, "and heard I was crazy and too difficult to work with. He got nervous and ran away." Laughlin, in the venerable tradition of Greek tragedy, decided to proceed anyway. Trouble was not far behind.
Even a gifted screenwriter would have had a hard time crafting a more appropriate or symbolic plot point to signal the onset of Laughlin's reversals than that which actually occurred.
It is January 30, 1986. Laughlin's crew is filming in a deserted amusement park on the outskirts of Toronto. Laughlin himself, as Billy Jack, of course, is fighting off underworld thugs. Laughlin is punching, karate kicking; bodies fly through the air. A thug grabs him and whacks him on the head with a bottle. Laughlin falls, gets up, staggers around. Cut. It was a great shot -- except for one thing. As everyone on the set soon learned, Laughlin was not acting. The breakaway bottle had not broken away, and the next day Laughlin was flown back to California and hospitalized with a concussion. Although Laughlin recovered satisfactorily, he would soon be facing even larger headaches.
Shortly after he was released from the hospital, Laughlin, who had originally intended to distribute the film himself, decided instead simply to sell the film to a major studio that would handle distribution in its own way. To this end, he held screenings of the partially completed picture for executives from four studios. Laughlin claims they were all interested. Indeed, a later article in Variety confirms that Laughlin was in "serious negotiations" with Paramount Pictures and that "consummation is considered not far off." Although no figures were quoted in the article, Laughlin says Paramount had offered him $12.5 million for the picture.
Laughlin was ecstatic.
But not for long.
One day he received a telegram from Credit Lyonnais stating that because the necessary documents had not arrived at the bank, the deal with the videocassette company could not be completed. In short, good-bye $4.2 million.
Although Laughlin explains that the lawyers entrusted with this task failed him, he admits that he was ultimately responsible for the oversight. Had it not been for this minor, yet at the same time crucial, detail of processing paperwork, Laughlin most likely would not be facing his current embarrassing predicament. More than anything else, Laughlin accepts this one instance as indicating a serious professional weakness. "I would be the last guy in the world to make chief executive," he says. "I have no skill at that whatsoever."
From this point on, Laughlin, like a hard-luck Tarzan swinging through the Hollywood jungle, kept grabbing for new vines as one handhold after another broke away from his grip. Even though the videocassette-company deal was dead, Laughlin still felt he had a way to make himself whole by landing one of the major studios. He chose to pursue the Paramount Pictures offer. But no sooner had he opened negotiations with the studio than dark rumors began to appear in the press. Laughlin, it was said, had never really been hurt. An insurance investigation was launched, and although Laughlin did manage to dispel the rumors, it took time, and in the process his project lost valuable momentum. The worst casualty was the Paramount deal, which soon snarled hopelessly in a tangle of contractual details. Good-bye $12.5 million.
