DENICE HALICKI: Great. I asked Michael Leone to join us; he was a producer on the project too.

DENICE HALICKI: One second, I’ll get him on the line.

MICHAEL LEONE: Hello?

DENICE HALICKI: This is Jen, Jen this is Michael Leone.

MICHAEL LEONE: Hi Jen.

JENNIFER MASHUGA: I was doing some research for this and got curious about the film’s star, Eleanor. She’s a very beautiful car, and I was wondering, did Toby customize all of the cars in the film, or was it just the 48 that his character stole?

DENICE HALICKI: He actually would design cars. Any of the cars he would use, he would paint, or fix them up, or just do something to them.

MICHAEL LEONE: I think Jack [Vacek] actually said that most of the cars were from his collection.

MICHAEL LEONE: I think he designed Eleanor, and some of the other custom cars that were there, and a lot of them he would also collect. I don’t know if you got to see the second film, in that one you actually get to go inside his car collection. Even in the photos on the website. I think the car collection, wasn’t it the size of a football field?

DENICE HALICKI: Yes, it was. Did you see it on the website at all?

DENICE HALICKI: It was the size of a football field, and there were collectables dating back to the 1920’s. He handpicked every single one of those really collectable cars, and the vintage cars.

MICHAEL LEONE: The Manta that was in there, he made that. He customized it and put it together.

DENICE HALICKI: All kinds of ways, he absolutely loved cars, like when we shopped for these little collectables I would say, "Why did you pick this one?" or "why did you pick that one?" and he would just say, I love cars. He was very creative, and he was always ahead of his field in anything he was doing, he was the leader. So even with the way he did the cars, he came up with creative ways that had never been done before.

DENICE HALICKI: I do. I can’t take them apart the way he could, but I love cars, absolutely.

DENICE HALICKI: First, anyone he knew was in the film. If you were his banker, you were in the film. If you were his next door neighbor, you were in the film. His dream was infectious, so they all got to be a part of that, and were excited.

DENICE HALICKI: He was very giving, at Christmas he was like Santa everywhere he went. So I don’t know what all he did, but I know that he was a giver, and whenever anyone does interviews they always say they were thrilled to be a part of it.

MICHAEL LEONE: You weren’t with Toby at the time.

DENICE HALICKI: No, I wasn’t with him at the time, so I couldn’t tell you exactly what the situations were. I just know that as I’ve interviewed people they couldn’t be more thrilled to be a part of it.

DENICE HALICKI: He was a big giver.

MICHAEL LEONE: She interviewed everyone who was there, all his friends, and Agajanian is her cousin.

DENICE HALICKI: J.C. Agajanian was in the movie and his son, he’s now passed away, and his son, they’re my cousins. So we’ve done interviews with them and Parnelli Jones.

MICHAEL LEONE: Jack Vacek, who does the audio commentary with Warren Leighton, became best friends with Toby. When we were doing it, I got to speak to Jack, and Warren was there. What I gathered was, it wasn’t like they would just show up for that movie, Jack ended up working for Toby as one of his business guys on all these films. And Warren did all the editing on every film, including everything all the way up to Gone in 60 Seconds 2, in which he customized the Slicer. Denice has that car, and she also still has the original Eleanor, and it runs. If you go to the end credits, we put Denice in the original Eleanor, and her and the stunt man are driving up to about 120 mph, and then turn 360 degrees with the stunt man, and we put the camera on the dash so you could see it. It’s pretty wild, and you can see Eleanor still burning rubber. It’s an awesome car, the way he built that car, it’s just amazing.

DENICE HALICKI: He was in full swing when we were together doing what was supposed to be Gone in 60 Seconds 2. And of course, that’s what the Slicer was in. When we were traveling internationally, he was doing interviews internationally all the time, talking about the film and all the memorabilia. He also had a hidden garage, and if you were sitting in his office, he would drive one of his cars from the hidden garage into the office. So you would see a Ferrari, or whatever, sitting in his office while you were talking to him. Toys everywhere.

DENICE HALICKI: Well, some of that was lost when we had to go through the probate, so I’m continuing his legacy with these films and franchise.

MICHAEL LEONE: I think all of his friends were cops. I remember Jack talking about that incident, and I think they actually removed the pole.

MICHAEL LEONE: I may be wrong, but I think that’s the story.

DENICE HALICKI: But I don’t think it was him that hid it, I don’t think they were hiding anything.

MICHAEL LEONE: I think they knew who did it, and they were kind of like, "Oh, well."

DENICE HALICKI: I think even one of the police officers said "We have to stop and deal with this." And someone else said, "No, it’s no problem." They were all involved in the movie, all the police in like five cities, the whole police department was involved, they were in the film and were having fun with Toby.

MICHAEL LEONE: Did you see the license plates that come with the DVD?

MICHAEL LEONE: You can get those for your car, also. Denice and I thought that was a great idea, a tribute to Toby and the cars.

DENICE HALICKI: As Toby had done things that had never been done, we wanted to make the DVD really special and do things that had never been done before. Michael, why don’t you explain some of the things we did?

MICHAEL LEONE: Well, first we put it in a clear case, so you could see that. And then putting a small picture frame, or motorcycle bicycle frame in it, and you can actually take it out and use it as a picture frame, put a picture of your own car in there, and put it up on the wall or something, we thought that was a great idea. And if you want your car to have the license plates on it, you can just send them in the mail with shipping and handling and we’ll send them out to you. We also for the first time made a clear DVD wrap, where clearly you can see the frame, and only the artwork in the center is printed, that’s never been done before. Wal-Mart and those guys went nuts because of the shelf spaced it used in the stores. The shelf space is everything with DVDs.

DENICE HALICKI: We made the license plates very bling-bling, in other words, enjoyable for the men to love, that it would be cool for the guys. I wanted the men to love them, but I also wanted them for the girls, so the girls will look at it and say, "I want that on my car." So, we designed it for both. We did it in a way so that it’s very cool-looking.

MICHAEL LEONE: We thought it also might be a cool little gift, something to give your dad or your boyfriend, something for their car, truck, or motorcycle.

DENICE HALICKI: The other thing is we really loaded up the DVD.

MICHAEL LEONE: The game is great. That’s my voice. The Lieutenant Leone, no, I’m kidding. And Denice’s voice is in there, and they guy who did the drawings and the design of the game, his voice is in there, his girlfriend’s voice. And Denice’s sister and sister’s husband are in there too. It’s a family affair.

DENICE HALICKI: Doesn’t that sound just like the Halicki style, including everyone?

DENICE HALICKI: The same thing with the interviews, like on this one we have Lee Iacocca. He’s the father of the Mustang, and Eleanor’s the star, so he actually gets to talk about the history.

MICHAEL LEONE: I like the new commercials on the Chrysler that are out with him. There’s a bunch of them that are out right now. Have you seen them?

DENICE HALICKI: There are about four of them that they’re trying to push.

MICHAEL LEONE: We did the new car crash sequence in each film, like Toby’s file shows the car crash and the chase. We thought that was really fun.

DENICE HALICKI: And E! Entertainment allowed me to use their interview of me —

DENICE HALICKI: Yes, that was the 10-year anniversary of Gone in 60 Seconds 2 and Toby’s accident, when we made the re-make with Nicholas Cage and Angelina Jolie. So that’s on there, and then the featurettes.

DENICE HALICKI: And an audio commentary, that’s one you’d enjoy.

MICHAEL LEONE: And a documentary.

DENICE HALICKI: We have a whole little story behind everything. The DVD is really loaded.

DENICE HALICKI: We were like, ok put this on, and put this on —

MICHAEL LEONE: I think we packed the DVD so much, it’s three and a half hours of stuff. And when you put it in your computer’s DVD-ROM drive, you have 300 pictures you can download. There are pictures from the movies, his car collection, toy collection, posters from on the road, it was just packed.

DENICE HALICKI: Even set up though, because we know you’re going to take the little sheet out for the license plates inside the DVD, so the artwork is set up so you can do that, enjoy that, and the artwork is set up so it looks like its still sitting there when you’ve already pulled it out.

MICHAEL LEONE: Did you get the video for Play Station 2?

MICHAEL LEONE: It’s coming out for the portable Play Station, it doesn’t have all 500 crashes, it only has about 300 crashes, and it only has 2 featurettes. We thought that would be a great idea for the young guys who are playing games and love crashing, and they can just put the game in their portable Play Station and bring it around with them.

MICHAEL LEONE: Same day as the DVD.

MICHAEL LEONE: They’ll go nuts; it’s a great game for the kids.

DENICE HALICKI: Speed Channel is doing something too.

MICHAEL LEONE: Oh yeah, Speed Channel, we’re going to be doing a big monthly push, all the way through Christmas, and then they’re going to be doing a lot of NASCAR, because they just love Gone in 60 Seconds. They aired it before, they’re big fans, and they’re going to be pushing the license plate frames and the game. We’re also pretty excited about the response we got from Wal-Mart and Best Buy and others stores.

MICHAEL LEONE: Yeah, NASCAR and Speed Channel are so big for us. They even did a nice little line-up, we’re going to let them run the original Gone in 60 Seconds, and then they’re going to do all the stuff for it. It’s really a big thing, commercial spots and everything running all the way through Christmas.

DENICE HALICKI: They’re the ones that put together the documentary, and I love it, it has Cage on there and Dominic Sena, who was a camera man on Toby’s second film, the Junkman, and also the director on the re-make. It’s a very small world.

DENICE HALICKI: Yes.

JENNIFER MASHUGA: What did your job entail as executive producer of the film?
DENICE HALICKI: (Laughs) Oh, my job really —

MICHAEL LEONE: She just brought the original stuff, and Bruckheimer really ran the thing, and Dominic, and you’ve got all these stars like Nick. So you just sit there in awe and watch.

DENICE HALICKI: What was wonderful was that they didn’t just incorporate things from Gone in 60 Seconds. And Dominic was involved with Junkman, and parts of Junkman was in there, and parts of —

MICHAEL LEONE: Like the river chase, was from Junkman, and then he put the Cadillac, the burgundy Cadillac from Junkman, he put it in when the guy had the drugs in there, which would have originally been white from the original, he put the burgundy one from Junkman. And there was the same El Dorado. So there were these little things that I think Toby was just upstairs beaming down, "Ok, guys, you’ve got Nick to play me, that’s pretty cool."

DENICE HALICKI: And Nick is a car guy, which is wonderful, and the other thing was, things like the character Toby that got hurt in the re-make, what was his name? So, there are a lot of things in there, subtle little things throughout.

MICHAEL LEONE: It was really great. Eleanor starred in the original, and then she got to star in the re-make, and there was some history, before you even saw the silver Mustang that was Eleanor, there was a history with the cop that new there was another Eleanor, and then at the end, there was the yellow-whitish Eleanor at the very end, so it was just, there were always these problems with little Eleanor.

DENICE HALICKI: Yes.

DENICE HALICKI: There are some things. But I can’t tell you all of them.

MICHAEL LEONE: Do you want to talk about the Car Crash King, story of his life?

DENICE HALICKI: That’s one of them. We’re working on his life story, his great love for chases. He was quite a maverick, and even the character Eleanor, which Eleanor is the picture of Gone in 60 Seconds, she really is something. She’s really special, and to have her in there, and we’re going to bring it all together. All his various films, it’s going to be very exciting.

MICHAEL LEONE: I think there’s a lot of them, I think they’re really stepping up, I mean I just saw that Michael Bay did an incredible job on, I can’t remember the last film he did, but there was a freeway chase scene that was incredible. I liked Men in Black; I thought they did a great job. I think that people are looking at it, the car genre is there and it’s going to stay for a long time.

DENICE HALICKI: What’s interesting is after Toby’s passing the car genre kind of quieted down. In my passion to get the re-make out, it in turn re-birthed into the new millennium the car crash genre. It’s back here to stay now. The thing that makes Toby’s original films so unique is because there are no special effects. Not that they don’t want to do it. For example, in the re-make, it’s not that they didn’t want to do it, I mean, the stunt guys are wonderful, they’re like, "Let me do the stunts." Unfortunately, because of insurance nowadays, they’re not able to. So it’s not that the men and women doing the stunts aren’t able to do them, it’s that they’re not allowed to because of insurance, to do what they did back then.

DENICE HALICKI: Right. And that’s what makes that whole era of what he did so unique.

DENICE HALICKI: When you see the jump of Eleanor and Toby in that original film, they’re going for that rush. And there were situations, for example, he had a friend’s Cadillac dealership, and he said, "Can I borrow your Cadillac dealership," and they greased the wheels on some of the cars that were his, and they came in so hard, they took out the entire front line. The other thing is, in the original film, in the car chase there was only one Eleanor used.

DENICE HALICKI: A lot more than one! And I actually have the original Eleanor that did the car crashes. I still have her. And she has all the bumps and bruises from those chasings, including the pole scene that you were talking about.

DENICE HALICKI: Are you talking about Gone in 60 Seconds 2?

MICHAEL LEONE: Well, he used that diesel truck.

DENICE HALICKI: What’s funny is on this one I told him he had to be extremely careful. Oh, no problem, no problem. And there are scenes of him hanging from a helicopter with no straps. You think he would’ve learned from the first one. You know what, he was just going to do more of the same, and make it even more intense, more cars, and more craziness. So he was going to do everything he’d done, and just do it a step beyond.

DENICE HALICKI: Right. In other words, Eleanor was in there, but he also included the Slicer, which you saw. What’s amazing is, even with the Slicer, when you see those cars flying in mid-air and spinning, there are no special effects; that’s really happening. He knew about cars, and he knew the limits they could go, and he knew where he could take the car. From his childhood working with cars, he loved all types of cars, whether they were pristine or a wreck. I’ve got pictures of him smiling in front of a wrecked Porsche. Some of his favorite cars were wrecked cars.

DENICE HALICKI: For Gone 2 I asked him. I asked him, now please be very careful, and not do any of the stunts yourself, don’t take any risks.

DENICE HALICKI: No, he promised, of course I would never do that; famous last words. No, no, I’ll be careful. But you know what? He loved what he as doing, and did it with a passion, and so if there was anything going on he’d be standing right there. He’d always make sure I was out of range, but he was right in the middle of the action. Everything that was going on, he was right in the middle of. If he’d have been here when the re-make was being done, he’d be right in the middle of it.

DENICE HALICKI: I don’t know. If the road we travel takes us to where we need to get, we wouldn’t change any of it, would we? Or we might not be there. So, I don’t know if it’s so much that I would change things, other than I wish we had never lost him in the first place. That I wish we could change. But that loss is what fuels that determination to not quit, and then my strong belief in God, even at times when I thought I had failed, is a real commitment. And now with this franchise, there are all of these wonderful things I can do in the future.

DENICE HALICKI: Yes, so many wonderful things. And we have all those other films that he did that we re-mastered. I am very involved in every detail, but I also know that I’m as good as the people around me, so I really look to, with every facet that we do, experts to do what they do best.

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Jennifer Mashuga