Michael Lehmann: Adventures of a Young Director

It may seem a stupid and fatuous question to ask why a gifted young director like Lehmann ever signed on to direct Hudson Hawk. It was, after all, an opportunity to make a major studio picture that by its very nature nearly ensured a big audience if it was done competently. It was also, as noted above, a situation in which he could tell himself he'd be covered by Joel Silver's expertise. And it was also a situation in which Lehmann could either laugh all the way to the bank or cry all the way to the bank. However it turned out, he was going to the bank.

"They gave me a lot of money to direct Hudson Hawk," said Lehmann. "But they gave it to me because my agents had already negotiated a very high fee for me on another project. This is the other side of filmmakers being given their shot too early and too big. I was in my own opinion being offered far too much money to direct a third picture, and I told my agents it was ludicrous. My agents [CAA's Jack Rapke and Richard Lovett] said, it's like the real estate market in L.A. Why are people spending a million dollars for a tear-down shack in Santa Monica? The money's there and people want to spend it. They said, you can't turn your back on that if you're going to make movies in this context. Take the money, but make the movies you want to make."

"I want the money," Lehmann continued. "I'm not giving it back." Why the hell should he? He was in a position to be paid a whole lot of money no matter what he directed, as long as it was a commercial studio picture. And though he had made his mark with the deliriously idiosyncratic non-studio Heathers, he was, at the time he agreed to do Hudson Hawk, dead set on moving to center court. The reason for that was not so much big money, as it was a little film called Meet the Applegates.

For all the hoopla over the courage and purity of independent filmmaking--and we do necessarily look in desperation to that arena for movies that have something, anything to do with recognizable human life--it's the same dog-eat-dog world as the studio environment, just smaller dogs. And with the financial crisis in independent film over the last few years, there are some mean and hungry small dogs. New World Pictures was in bad shape as Lehmann finished Heathers and, seeing they had talent on their hands, they were eager for him to go right to work shooting the other project of his they owned, a spaced out "Saturday Night Live"-style satire he and writing partner Redbeard Simmons had written called Meet the Applegates. It was about giant Amazonian insects who infiltrate America disguised as the perfect American family. The kind of thing that can look really stupid if it isn't done carefully. Lehmann knew the script wasn't close to ready. "They basically blackmailed me," he said. "They didn't want to change the script and they said they'd give it away and they had every right to do that and I went nuts.

"I willingly made the movie," Lehmann conceded. "We all decided to make it." But Lehmann wasn't happy with the film. More-over, as New World began to go down the tubes after the release of Heathers--the point at which Lehmann was suddenly flying high--they began screening a rough cut of Applegates to studio executives in an attempt to sell it. Lehmann was embarrassed.

So all the independent film boosters who think Lehmann sold out by going big time should listen up. I asked Lehmann if any of his peers did accuse him of selling out. "Yeah. But in the current generation, the concept of sellout isn't the same. What does sellout mean? I thought about it. I was coming off the Applegates situation and I didn't ever again want to be faced with the kind of choices I faced at the beginning of that movie. And I was humiliated by New World screening the unfinished film. I felt betrayed by my low-budget independent experience. I wanted to make a movie that would get released.

"I didn't have my sights on doing a Joel Silver/Bruce Willis picture. I didn't have my sights on a big commercial movie, or even on a comedy." What Lehmann did have his sights on was a certain stylish, noir suspense thriller that's since been made and he won't name. He'd been offered the project and was excited about doing it. Then the deal went sour. Two days later, the Hudson Hawk script arrived. Lehmann was obviously looking at this script in a particular light. New World was, it seemed, conspiring to end his career. A sure thing had just evaporated before his eyes. And he was pragmatic enough to know that Hollywood doesn't keep doling out the opportunities till you find one just right for your precious sensibilities.

Want to know what it'll be like if Joel Silver ever decides he wants you? Back when Heathers was first being screened in 1989, Lehmann got a call from the big man. "I was home and the phone rang, and a secretary's voice said, This is Joel Silver, can you take the call?' On comes the crackly sound of a car phone and this voice just says, 'Awesome.' I said, 'Pardon me?' And the voice says, 'Awesome.' And I said, 'Oh.' He says, 'I just saw Heathers. Incredible,' and he really played it up. Clearly he'd watched it closely and the things he pointed out were not the things I was embarrassed about. He singled out a shot that had been of some concern to me, so I was impressed. All it told me was that as a producer, he understood the conventions of filmmaking--but not all producers do."

Lehmann consulted his agents, who were bullish on Silver, and a lot of other people ("I heard lots of stories, and they weren't by any means all negative"). He turned down a number of scripts Silver sent to him. But when the Hudson Hawk script arrived, Lehmann saw it as something he could "do really odd-ball things with without violating what a piece of entertainment like this needs to be. I was not interested in making a movie that didn't work for the audiences for which it was intended. There's no point being destructive and saying, good, those fools gave me a big picture and I'm going to come in and turn it into some weirdo art film, ha ha ha. It's more like, how far can you go and maintain the integrity of the commercial action comedy."

Lehmann's agents reassured him that it was just this oddball stuff Silver had liked about Heathers. Silver does, in fact, like this oddball stuff, at least at the script stage, so he agreed to put Lehmann together with veteran Steven E. de Souza, who'd writ-ten the original screenplay for Hudson Hawk based on Willis's idea for the central character, and have the two of them work out a new odder-ball approach. Then suddenly, in a great case of oh-please-don't-throw-me-in-the-briar-patch, Lehmann was informed by Silver that de Souza, whom Lehmann describes as "a very funny guy...but not a hip guy," would have to be torn away from him to work on Die Harder. Too bad. Well, argued Lehmann, you'll have to bring in Heathers scripter Dan Waters.

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