February
13
Jumper's Liman: Crazy Like a Fox?
In keeping with the teleporting theme of Jumper, Twentieth Century Fox mounted elaborate press junkets for this hugely expensive movie in Cairo and Rome last week and finally premiered the pic on Feb. 11th in NYC. Here's the film's website and trailer.
An entertaining male fantasy picture--you haven't seen its like before-- Jumper will be hugely commercial, even though it's a mess and asks audiences to buy a wildly unbelievable plot premise. Here's Variety's review.
I remain fascinated by the enigma that is director Doug Liman. Some studio folks who have worked with him swear they will never repeat the experience (ask Frank Marshall, Stacey Snider or Marc Shmuger about working with Liman on The Bourne Identity). And the task of making Jumper, a movie already saddled with extraordinary continuity issues--it's like Buster Keaton's jump-cutting Sherlock Jr. on steroids--was not made easier by Liman's last-minute creative changes. Editors on the film were tearing their hair out.
Here's the New York Mag profile that attempts to explain the method behind Liman's madness. (See a selection from the piece on the jump.) And here's John Clark's interview on Premiere.com.
Or is Liman (son of the late famed Iran/Contra attorney Arthur Liman) crazy like a fox? The thing is, his movies are fun to watch partly because they keep surprising you. Given the free-spending insanity that is already a given on big-budget Hollywood movies, why not indulge a filmmaker who makes the movies a little less polished, predictable and formulaic? Both Bourne and Mr. and Mrs. Smith actually stand up to repeated viewings.
On the other hand if Liman's out-of-control, kid-in-the-playpen rep keeps dogging him, I'll be curious to see who will keep hiring him. Finally, as long as the movies keep working, he'll have no shortage of offers. Next up: he's directing Nicole Kidman as Valerie Plame.
[New York Magazine photo by Stefan Ruiz; Jumper premiere by Wireimage]
Liman filmed Go himself while carrying around The Sunset Guide to Basic Home Movie Lighting—“to make sure,” as Liman says. Liman didn’t even know how the movie would end until long after the completion of principal photography—he came up with the final scene in a bar with friends. Not only was Go a critical and commercial success, it reassured him in his make-it-up-as-you-go, very rebel style.“ ‘Jumper’ completes my sellout trilogy,” says Liman.
Liman eventually secured the rights to Bourne. He’d just learned to fly, and jumped in a plane to meet Ludlum at his home in Montana. It was his first solo flight, and he nearly ran out of fuel on the way home. Controlling the rights gave Liman some leverage, on a vastly greater scale than the first two films.Still, on Bourne, his filmmaking style nearly ended his career. The weird affect didn’t help. “You freaked me out at first,” Franka Potente, Bourne’s co-star, told him. “You didn’t look at me once.” Liman didn’t really come across as a movie director, a type who takes charge. Liman doesn’t have that switch. “He’s not going to tell anyone not to do anything,” says one colleague. Liman didn’t—or perhaps couldn’t—make decisions until he absolutely had to. “I like to keep my options open,” he says. “I’m known for changing my mind.”
And with Liman, a script is a fluid thing. “I go into a movie sort of saying what it’s not going to be,” he says. Ludwig, who’s worked with Liman since Swingers, says with only a little exaggeration, “He makes a movie, then starts writing the movie.” In Mr. and Mrs. Smith, screenwriter Simon Kinberg says, “I wrote 40 or 50 totally different endings.” (Liman eventually chose the first one.)
“Limania” is how Kinberg refers to the Liman moviemaking process. At the core of Limania is a belief that a film only reveals its nature as you make it. “I’m trying to find the movie during the process, as I did during Smiths. How much of a comedy it was going to be was something I was wrestling with on a daily basis.”
On Bourne, Limania infuriated producers, who were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. “Bourne was overly chaotic; we went into production with a script that was just a mess,” says Saar Klein, Bourne’s editor. Klein later became Liman’s friend, and is now editing Jumper, but he found himself hating Liman during Bourne.
Most maddening, perhaps, Liman seemed immune to the chaos he caused. “He is more comfortable with the chaos than everyone else,” says Klein. “Nothing can embarrass the guy.” Some suggest that Liman’s disruptions are strategic, that he cunningly deploys his disordered persona. “His persona is something he cultivates,” says Favreau. “There’s part of him that is him, part of him he creates. He enjoys the image he projects of being a mad scientist of cinema. It gives him leeway.”
One does notice that Liman’s tales of conflict usually turn out well. “I always get my way,” Liman confides one day, his eyes widening.
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Jumper is going to flop
Posted by: actionman | February 13, 2008 at 11:24 AM
why do you think so? it's going to open big--despite what the critics may say--over the holiday weekend. If it played relatively well for me it's got to play better for the younger target male demo. How it will hold I don't know--it looks very expensive, so it may not make its money back if it doesn't sustain itself.
Posted by: anne thompson | February 13, 2008 at 12:24 PM
Maybe flop is too harsh...it's going to underpreform. Yes, the trailers are slick and cool, but the film is getting terrible reviews and nobody likes Hayden Christensen. There is zero star power in this movie. Granted, I haven't seen the film yet, and I have loved all of Liman's previous efforts; something just doesn't seem right about this one. And like you said, it's an expensive movie. I just don't think it's going to do that well.
Posted by: actionman | February 13, 2008 at 12:42 PM
I could see an opening in the low to mid 20 millions for the 4 day weekend, followed by big drop offs.
Posted by: actionman | February 13, 2008 at 12:46 PM
Nicole Kidman as Valerie Plame? Shirley you jest? You mean George Clooney wasn't available?
Posted by: David C | February 13, 2008 at 01:24 PM
Nicole Kidman hasn't been in a hit since Batman Forever. I have no idea why people think she can successfully carry a movie.
Posted by: Dan | February 13, 2008 at 04:13 PM
"Sellout Trilogy?" What about the fact that he directed the pilot episode of "The OC?"
I am tired of people, and this includes Liman himself, trying to cast him as a rebel. While he may be rebellious in his personality, his films (and television ventures) are among some of the most exciting and broadly accessible pieces of entertainment out there today.
I am a huge Liman fan, who believes that "Go" is probably his worst picture. It's a self indulgent faux-hip remake of Rashomon with some fun moments, but it lacks the heart of the Favreaux scripted "Swingers" or the The OC pilot (which shares the same overt drug references as "Go"). When I saw "Go," I was its target audience and I found it pretty dull, just okay.
Liman's other work, his "commercial" work, on the other hand, I find nothing short of brilliant. "Bourne" reinvigorated the spy genre. Watch "Casino Royale" and while some of the similarities in style -- especially in the action sequences -- come from a shared Second Unit Director (Alexander Witt -- who is arguably the best 2AD out there), the tone of the film is straight "Bourne." Sure older gritty spy films like "The Ipcress File" had that feel, but the modern spy film had become Bond knockoffs with supertech and mastermind villains. Liman reinjected "heart" into the spy film, and let's hope it stays.
Having read the book Jumper, I'm looking forward to see what Liman does with it. The book had a dark edge and an exciting conceit, one that requires suspension of disbelief certainly, but a great conceit none the less. My favorite suspensions in film come when the director just says "Accept it or don't, but I'm not going to waste important narrative time providing exposition why the central conceit happens." People can teleport in Jumper...cool. I don't need a creepy scene discussing the nature of midichlorians to "believe" its possible.
From the moment you see the preview you know what the conceit is, and when you buy the ticket you enter into a contract agreeing to suspend your disbelief.
Brian Lowry, in his snarky review, misses this point entirely. I don't want long discussion of chaos theory and particle physics. George Lucas' attempt to explain "the force" in biological terms was awful, as I alluded above. If you rewatch the, highly rewatchable, original Star Wars, you will find a narrative that has a breakneck pace with no exposition and fits well within Lowry's "video game" style of narrative. Heck, "Stagecoach" and "The Adventures of Robin Hood" do much the same.
I know Lowry is a professional reviewer, and thus never actually enters into the acceptance of suspension contract as he both watches movies without paying and does so as an obligation rather than as a past-time, but he should understand that for most viewers buying a ticket is a choice based on what they have seen. The preview provides no "reason" for the conceit, but I have been jazzed to see this film since last Comic Con.
I apologize for the rambling, in multiple directions, but I somehow managed to push some of my own buttons while wanting to say merely that I think "Jumper" will do well because it looks fun and audiences like fun.
Posted by: Christian Johnson | February 14, 2008 at 11:22 AM
Oh and as far as Dan's "Nicole Kidman can't carry a movie" statement...
In the modern world, there is almost no actor who can carry a movie. More often it is the movies that carry the actors. I find it rare that the people I talk to say "So and so is in it so it must be good." More often, I hear "that looks awesome, and so and so is in it."
We have fewer John Waynes and Cary Grants today. Not even George Clooney, who David likes to take jabs at, can really carry a movie. And no one would argue he isn't a star. What is Angelina Jolie's biggest movie? Matt Damon's? Ben Affleck's? All of them are movies that would likely have done as well with a different "major" star.
Posted by: Christian Johnson | February 14, 2008 at 11:27 AM
I agree that few stars these days are bullet-proof, but Will Smith comes damn close. He's in what a friend used to call "the fluke zone." And Nic Cage in the right commercial pic draws them in. As soon as any star strays away from what the audience wants to see, they're vulnerable--see Jodie Foster in The Brave. Clooney makes intelligent choices. He could play the commercial card down the middle more than he chooses to. To his credit.
Posted by: anne thompson | February 18, 2008 at 04:43 PM
I think it's a little more than a lack of being bullet proof, but I largely agree with the direction of your statement.
One only needs to look at someone like Will Smith or, ironically enough, Will Ferrell (right now at least) to find someone who seems to be able to draw an audience regardless of what film they are in. Take both THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS (sic) and STRANGER THAN FICTION as examples of good films that did better in the b.o., IMHO, than they would have done with another cast. I actually believe that STRANGER wouldn't be as good without Ferrell.
I think there are actors who have periods where everything they make is box office gold (not artistic gold), but that most of those actors a flashes in the pan (Pauli Shore). I also believe that, from a purely economic profitability model, most of Hollywood's "A List" don't deserve the salaries they make. A lot of them, take Clooney for example, are very talented, but the majority of their films don't rake it in like "event movies."
It is usually the blockbuster that makes someone a star and not a star who makes a blockbuster. Will Smith, as you noted, is a good exception. Nic Cage draws me in personally (WEATHER MAN anyone?) regardless of film, and tends to make entertaining popcorn fare.
Clooney makes intelligent choices with regard to the "quality" of film that he makes, and proves that he deserves to be an A list actor, but I am looking more forward to his latest directed film LEATHERHEADS than I have to his past few movies. I wish he could be political, maybe even subversive, while remaining funny. He seems to think his political films need to have a weighty seriousness. He really is one of the better comic actors of our time (the OCEAN's movies excepted due to over-pretense), and Hollywood has shown that some of the best social criticism in film comes in the guise of comedy.
Actually...Aristophanes showed us that too...and Shakespeare.
I much prefer the Clooney of THREE KINGS (a highly political film) to the Clooney of SYRIANA. I won't even talk about the Clooney of PEACEMAKER.
Posted by: Christian Johnson | February 20, 2008 at 09:41 AM