‘INTERPRETER’ PRODUCER FOLLOWS HIS PASSIONS
By ANNE THOMPSON
Deputy Film Editor, The Hollywood Reporter
Risky Business column, 4/15/05
It's
Hollywood's toughest gig: A good studio production president needs
to be talent-spotter, canny script doctor, politician and manager,
not to mention social gadfly. And he or she has to learn to say no
-- all the time -- without making hordes of agents, filmmakers, writers
and actors hate his or her guts.
The burnout factor is huge. This week, the team of Scott Stuber and
Mary Parent, who have been ably running Universal production for the
past four years, announced that they are moving into an exclusive
producing pact at the end of the year. In doing so, they are following
the path taken by their studio predecessor, Kevin Misher, who left
the stressful post as production head in 2001 after three years for
his own first-look deal.
The transition from powerful studio president to independent producer
is not a smooth one. "If you particularly enjoy the exercise
of power as an executive, then the transition is harder," ex-Columbia
Pictures president Lisa Henson says. "Not having power is a big
change for anybody." But with three films under his belt in three
years, Misher makes the shift look relatively easy.
As his third production, Sydney Pollack's "The Interpreter,"
opens April 22, Misher finds himself surprised at the kind of producer
he has become under the deal he negotiated with Universal Pictures'
Stacey Snider when he relinquished his production post.
As soon as Misher started Misher Films, his phone sheet shrank dramatically.
After 12 years of being a studio executive bombarded with incoming
information, Misher was forced to become a self-starter. "You
have no idea what it feels like when you're outside, until you're
the leaf on the wind," he says. "As a producer you have
no choice but to go get your information out of the slipstream. Suddenly
you're rethinking yourself and who you are."
Luckily, even during his tenure as production head, Misher was accustomed
to initiating new projects. Visiting his parents' kitchen in Queens,
N.Y., he read the story behind "The Fast and the Furious"
in the New York Daily News. "Meet the Parents" was lying
dormant at Universal until Misher, who had liked the Emo Philips short
film on which it was based, pushed it forward.
After Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson popped out in the dailies
of "The Mummy Returns," Misher suggested that Universal
nurture him as a new action star and spin him off as the lead of a
prequel. "The Scorpion King" became Misher's first movie
as a producer. It was followed by "The Rundown," yet another
robust Johnson vehicle. And Misher hopes that John Ridley's sci-fi
adventure script "Species Human" will mark his third movie
with Johnson.
Once he had transitioned into producing in 2002, Misher found himself
pursuing his own interests and curiosity. He researched the town of
Gander, Newfoundland, which housed 6,000 stranded airline passengers
after Sept. 11, and optioned the book "The Day the World Came
to Town" for "American Splendor" writer-directors Shari
Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini to adapt for the screen. Having
collected the "Submariner" comic book as a kid, Misher brought
on writer David Self ("Road to Perdition") and director
Chris Columbus to adapt the Marvel property as a potential franchise.
A Ray Bradbury fan, Misher bought the film rights to "The Martian
Chronicles" when he was still at the studio "and stayed
with it," he says. And his love of hip-hop led him to buy "Life
& Def," the autobiography of fellow Queens native Russell
Simmons; Misher is in talks with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ("21
Grams") to direct for Universal's Focus Features.
After 12 years in the business, Misher relies on plenty of relationships,
including those at the studio. "All the people, writers and directors
you have worked with," he says, "if you have been professional
and honest and thoughtful and haven't been cavalier and taken people
for granted, then they'll want to work with you."
After Misher acquired film rights to "Public Enemies," Bryan
Burroughs' nonfiction book about Melvin Purvis, a Depression-era FBI
agent who chased down Chicago's toughest gangsters, he sent the project
to manager Rick Yorn, who showed it to client Leonardo DiCaprio. They
in turn brought director Michael Mann on board.
And having made "Man on the Moon" with Jim Carrey and his
manager Jimmy Miller, Misher approached them with the sports drama
"Strutter," which is set up at Columbia Pictures. Carrey
is now attached to play an aging racewalker with one last chance to
make the Olympic team.
"The Interpreter" came to life during a London meeting with
Working Title partners Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner (who have a Universal
production deal) when Misher was still supervising Universal production.
Misher asked if they had any paranoid Hitchcockian international thrillers.
"I thought there was a void in the marketplace," he says.
"I'm always looking for genres to revisit that haven't been exploited
for a while."
It turned out that Bevan and Fellner had just such a story. "It
was a brilliant idea," Misher says, "an assassination thriller
set at the U.N." They dusted off the script, and after Misher
went indie, Bevan and Fellner asked him to produce it with them. Screenwriter
Charles Randolph wrote a draft strong enough to lure Pollock to executive
produce and direct; A-list writers Scott Frank and Steven Zaillian
reworked the leading roles for Nicole Kidman (as the interpreter who
overhears an assassination plot on the U.N. floor) and Sean Penn (as
the Secret Service agent trying to protect her).
"Kevin was a producer long before he became one," Working
Title's Liza Chasin says. "It was too easy. His transit was as
graceful as anyone's could have been."
Three years in, while Misher might miss the ability to give an instant
"Yes, let's do it" to a project, he is now more comfortable
in his own skin. He's finding out who he is -- and what he likes.
"I am becoming who I should be," he says. "I had to
define my own taste. The things I have a real passion for are the
things I'm working on. Now I've got to get them all made."
Anne Thompson can be reached at athompson@hollywoodreporter.com
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