The actor who played Tank screwed himself out of a continuing role in the franchise after the first movie.
Apparently he thought that he had become a Hollywood hot shot and that Tank was indispensable to the franchise, so he wouldn't take part in the sequel for less than $1M. So they threw Harold Perrineau in there and just said that Tank had died.
If you didn’t finish it you fucking have to watch the last 10 minutes. Hahaha holyyyshitttt peak comedy. What a payoff after spending 45 min on that. My feelings of him throughout the doc go like this: he’s egotistical—->I pity him—->could he be right?——> whoa bro wrong way to handle that——>wtf?——>narcissistist—-> back to pity because he’s mentally ill and ruined everything——> and finally to hahahaha I don’t feel bad for you at all anymore, you’re an asshole and will never work in that town again 😂 (as “live and let die” plays and he provides updates on all his enemies)
My god lmao. So much of that felt like satire and then it just completely went off the rails at the end. Guy is either completely detached from reality or some sort of ultra high level troll that just wants to create as much chaos as possible for everyone around him at any cost.
Haha, I think you had it right the first time. I really want to know more about his name change. Everyone in the thread assumes Tommy Chong is his Dad. It’s even more unhinged that apparently Chong is just a close family friend that is “like an uncle.” So the dude, in adulthood, changes his last name from Wyatt to Chong. Wish the doc went into whyyyyy he did that. Would love to think what Tommy and the Chong family think lol
Ohhh and shit the other hilarious part toward the end was when he’s talking about his war with fucking Warner Brothers and William Morris when he starts throwing out all the hastags like # Matrixgate #therealkeanu #onlyonetank is so incredibly unhinged. I died when he showed his supposed army of supporters from some obscure early 2000s message board that has some acronym for him being like the only one try Tank. Apparently there were just “millions” of die hard Tank fans out there fighting for him to rejoin the Matrix. Just absolute craziness yet so hilarious. Sucks though because before his illness/personality disorder got really out of hand he had a bright future ahead of him. His performances as Tank, imo, was perfect too. His cockiness/awkwardness is perfect for the character’s back story and he’s in a lot of iconic scenes.
According to wikipedia, he was adopted by Tommy Chong in 1978, when we would be, I think, eight or nine (and changed his name when he was 18, presumably when he was legally able to do so). So it's not like he just independently changed his name and claimed to be a relative.
But yes he does seem pretty unhinged. I do feel a little more sympathy for him to learn his backstory, though.
It's true that the worst part about being mentally ill is everyone expects you to act like you're not. You can't just *be* how you feel. You have to be how you *should* feel. And in the end they just say, "well it's no excuse to be an asshole" and it's like... what do you think mental illness is?
Marcus look more Asian than Tommy so seems more fitting to me. Everytime I see a picture of Tommy I'm always curious why the hell does this guy have an Asian last name without ever looking at his wiki. Cheech Marin who I thought back then was the "Chong" look more Asian than him. Lol.
40:44 - "Keanu gives £50 million to the unsung heroes of the Matrix. Here's the truth of what the article doesn't say: Keanu stole all the money..."
So we're tasked with asking ourselves if everything we know about Keanu Reeves is a lie, or if this guy is just a lying self-absorbed greedy fuck. Hint: Keanu has been verified as a good person thousands of times by random people all over the world.
Well, if you paid attention to the documentary instead of just cherry picking one of master thespian Chong’s points you’d also know & definitely mentioned, 1) Keanu only pretends to be nice and is actually just sad Keanu. His life is filled with tragedy 2) Keanu dated a trans.
I love that people like him see #2 as indicative of some sort of extreme moral failing when even most moderate people wouldn't give a shit about it. They act like dating a trans person is akin to dating a serial killer or something.
Watched some of it he has some valid points, but it sounds like he is telling his side of the story, avoiding talking on any controversy of his actions or wrong doing in his part.
He was only paid 30k, he had to move to Australia for 3 months and pay out of pocket, had to walk to work, don't get paid a cent for the use of his likeness for merchandising.
I think he never had an agent or didn't read what he signed.
How unlikeable you have be that you can't hitch a ride with the catering crew or buy a bicycle. Also writing letters to producers/directors wives is scary behavior...
Took me 4 days but I did. Still feel a little bad for him though , getting a role like that for a struggling actor may seem like winning the lottery,. But his ego and lack of experience did him in. Best thing he could have done was agree to everything then use money to lawyer up. Not go Magnum P.I. on production company it was very un orofessional. There's is a reason why representing yourself in a trial is I'll advised .
Definitely. Even if you ignore the narcissism and the bad life choices and everything happening with The Matrix and his "rise" to "fame", it's just a bad documentary. Was this constructed in power point?? He doesn't get any interviews with anybody else and doesn't even pretend to acknowledge any counter arguments or opposing perspectives. His edit did not feel like it was leading from one domino to the next.
It was just technically awful.
Then you add in the, uh, character deficiencies and that bonkers ending? This is fucking garbage and it made my day.
But there is a payoff at the end if you can make it all the way through. It’s so unhinged. I’m laughing just thinking about it right now. Be careful reading below so you don’t spoil it for yourself
I think I found out why. From his wiki: Chong was arrested in October 2000 for allegedly making threatening phone calls to the filmmakers. In his suit, Chong claimed he had since been blackballed from Hollywood and blamed The Matrix creators and Warner Bros. for branding him a "terrorist".
I had heard that he wasn't offered roles in the sequels because he was being homophobic (pre-transition) towards the wachowskis
Probably the person who told me that just got the cause and effect mixed up. I imagine the content of those phone calls is where the homophobic behavior was documented
And everyone is skipping over the fact that his dad is fucking Tommy Chong.
And his sister Rae-Dawn discovered Chris Pratt when he was a homeless waiter. She thought he was cute and funny, so she used her connections to get him a small role on Parks And Rec.
While she did discover Chris Pratt, the part about Parks & Rec is wrong. She discovered Chris Pratt and then cast him in her short film in 2000. Parks & Rec wasn't until 2009.
Discovered? He had been doing many many other works and was a series regular on another show before that called Everwood for 89 episodes from 2002-2006. You're meaning to tell me he was a homeless waiter after squandering all his money while regularly working in random tv shows and movies????
The person was wrong about Parks&Rec. She got him a tiny role in a film in 2000, got his foot in the door in Hollywood, which helped him land roles in Everwood and onward.
Not sure why the person claimed she helped him land the Parks & Rec role.
Especially because that "small" Parks and Rec role was one of the main characters of the show, and treated as such from the jump. Just wrong all the way down.
Am I crazy, or does his wiki page scream "someone paid for this to be padded and specific while technically citing things within the rules to make an actor who hasn't had work since he blew things up paid for"
I've read a lot of wikis in the past that have sounded this way, I always assumed it was the person's agent or the person themselves just scraping the barrel
Have you ever read "Trust Me I'm Lying"? Manipulating small press to create articles to use to manipulate wikipedia to manipulate future press was a pretty standard PR trick.
He was really good in his small role in The Matrix. I guess he got in his head "I was in the fucking matrix, filmmakers should be calling me offering me roles, not the other way round".
Yeah he’s kind of the emotional heart of the movie, with mostly everyone else being ultra serious and intense. and a stand in for the audience, just sitting back in awe of Neo
Same thing happened to the guy who played Clemenza in The Godfather. He demanded a bunch of money, and even insisted that he be able to write his own lines. So they wrote him out and at the beginning of Godfather II the family was in mourning because Clemenza had died
That was Paramount's version. The actor said he refused to be the traitor in the second film, they had already settled on price, and that he had lost a staggering 184 pounds between films and was expected to GAIN IT BACK.
They were even supposed to have an agreement when he backed out that Coppola was supposed to just say "creative differences", but Coppola never found an argument he didn't like.
He once waited for Carl Sagan to DIE so he could file a lawsuit against his estate. He waited 11 years to do so.
I disagree with take that Pentangeli (the obvious stand in for Clemenza) was a traitor. Roth plays both him and Michael. He only goes into federal protection and agreed to testify against Michael because he believed that Michael tried to kill him. He wasn’t to know that the whole thing was a set up meant to fail so he’d turn against him.
Then in the moment, he doesn’t betray the Corleone family and instead perjures himself with his earlier sworn statements.
Obviously it takes Hagen getting his brother to fly in from Sicily to do it but in the end he doesn’t.
I'm more inclined to believe this version, seeing as how Pentageli basically takes on the Clemenza role. Which to me would've sucked; having both of Vito's oldest friends and collaborators turn on the family? Nah, Clemenza was a real one, Castellano was right to tell Coppola/Paramount to kick rocks.
I don't think that's true. Marlon Brando collected more than a million dollars to appear in the film and very few actors of the day would have earned more.
Multiple internet sources claim that Castellanos was highest paid because he had recently been Oscar-nominated. Most of Brando income came from back-end participation, and I assume that is not included in "highest paid" because they were comparing salaries.
Exactly. They couldn't afford Brando's regular million plus salary, so he did it for a quarter million plus 1%of the box-office gross. Worked out to 1.85million dollars so it's semantics to claim he wasn't the best paid actor on set.
I agree with you, was just passing on what the "lore" is about clemenza's salary. That being said, if the movie flops, Brando does not make even close to 1.85M
Walter White: "what do you mean, you'll pay for my cancer treatment?"
Rich man Elliott Schwartz: "we'll give you enough money for you and your family."
Rich woman Gretchen Schwartz: "Walt, just take it."
Harold Perrineau (narrator) : Pause. In this scene, Walt will do what is necessary. He will choose wisely and let go of his ego and take the money. I see his mind. I see his every intent. He'll choose peace. Unpause.
Terrence Howard is crazier than shit, but he was still 100% right. Marvel gave him a contract with stipulations because he was the safe name compared to RDJ, & Disney forcefully renegotiated the contract. Cheadle is great, but his version of the character is less appealing than Crazy ass, & my bet is that Disney could have gotten a War Machine film or show off the ground if he was still there.
Bob: "guys, Terence agreed to our interview. The legend himself."
Guys: "omg i love his explanation of cosmic ladder."
Bob: "remember. I contacted him. I'm the one who made this happen. I want at least of 30% of our math channel's share. 3Blue1Brown ain't got shit on me! Not even Veritasium could get a response from Terrence Howard. I'm big, motherfucker. I'm big."
Guys: "Terrence who?"
Bob: "did I stutter? did I stutter? I said Terrence Howard. The legend."
He's the only one who missed out on a payday but let's be honest the sequels are not as good, memorable or impactul as The Matrix.
I wonder if this might be one of the first Terence Howard "talk myself out of a job" situations.
Lawrence Fishbourne missed out on absolutely not a goddamn thing. That entire cast were paid but no actor is 'happy' for a film to turn out terrible. It won't accept any justification of deliberate meta commentary to sabotage the franchise whatever from Lana Wachowski. Resurrections is absolutely abominable and Fishbourne did well to not be included.
Crispin Glover pulled the same stunt with Back to the Future. He believed he was indispensable, despite his character having a pretty final character arc in the first movie.
Instead of caving to his demands, they just put Michael J. Fox in a mask and hung him upside down for George's only scene, which I think turned out way funnier than if it was just an aged-up Glover as originally planned.
You've bought into the smear campaign Bob Gale has been using for years to make Crispin look insane for having very reasonable issues with the production of those films.
The original BTTF2 had a much larger role for George and Lorraine, akin to the first. Crispin would have had just as much material as Michael J. Fox. However, MJF's salary between films exploded from £250k to £5m, whereas Crispin's was unchanged from £100k to accomodate, despite actually having more to do in the sequel and having become a huge name.
Crispin apparently asked for £1m across both sequels, which was barely a fraction of what they were paying his co-stars. Bob Gale balked so Crispin left. Then, they used Jeffrey Weismann in a Crispin mask as a stand-in without permission to use Crispin's likeness. He sued them out the absolute ass and changed the law permanently on actors having usage rights to their own likeness. Thus, Bob Gale has been spreading stories of Crispin being some kind of unreasonable crazy man for decades because he very fairly called them out for some serious unethical shit.
Terrance Howard thinking he was worth more for Iron Man 2 is probably one of the best examples of an actor not realizing how easy they will be to replace.
I'm surprised Marcus Chong hadn't hopped aboard the right wing grift train. Rule of thumb if you're an out of work, washed up boomer actor: Blame wokeness for "cancelling" you and rake in the cash from the brainwashed MAGAts.
Ironically now Harold is pretty popular. I didn't care for his acting at first (thought he was pretty annoying in Lost) but he really crushed it in From. So I have a lot of respect for his talents now.
That's 1.8 million in today's money. I think that is a fair request for a 2nd billing acting role for a sequel of an exceptionally successful first movie.
Does anyone else think that wasn't a crazy request?
They seemingly could have easily paid him and Carrie-Anne Moss both that amount and been absolutely fine.
I think he did a really good job in that role and definitely would have made the sequels better just by still being present in them.
The only reason to deny him that in my mind is if he was very difficult to work with.
Apparently he thought that he had become a Hollywood hot shot and that Tank was indispensable to the franchise, so he wouldn't take part in the sequel for less than $1M.
What's so wrong with an actor advocating for their share of the value?
From his pov sounds like he was getting jerked around a lot for very little pay for a movie franchise, that by all accounts, was very successful.
Greed and envy is the destroyer of happiness. If the guy had just gone with the flow, he would have made decent money in the 2nd and 3rd movies and possible continued acting. What a fucking dork
4.3k
u/Help_An_Irishman 2d ago
The actor who played Tank screwed himself out of a continuing role in the franchise after the first movie.
Apparently he thought that he had become a Hollywood hot shot and that Tank was indispensable to the franchise, so he wouldn't take part in the sequel for less than $1M. So they threw Harold Perrineau in there and just said that Tank had died.
Haven't seen that guy in anything since.