Caffeinated Clint
“Newsfront”. “Dead Calm”. “The Saint”. “Patriot Games”. “Clear and Present Danger”. “The Quiet American”. “Catch a Fire”. Just a few of the beaut flicks in the filmography of our very own Phillip Noyce. Clint Morris caught up with the good-natured filmmaker earlier this week to talk about his latest film “Salt”, an adrenaline-charged action thriller starring Angelina Jolie, as well as both past and future endeavors.
Phil, does the success of “Salt” help some of your other projects inch forward?
Yeah, of course, but some of the other projects are completely different. Success in one area doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be easier in a completely different genre of film.
Talking of completely different genres of films, this is your first action blockbuster in quite a while. Why did you return to the genre for “Salt”?
Having the resources that a summer studio release gives you is pretty irresistible – particularly if you’ve spent the last ten years, as I have, cutting every corner and then-some to get your film up on the screen. More significantly than that, the Hollywood marketing machine is unrivaled. For the three films I’ve made in the last ten years I had to actually help distributors and exhibitors – which in some cases meant going from cinema to cinema – trying to help them to find audiences. It’s a much better use of your energy if the Hollywood marketing machine finds the audience.
You didn’t have to get out there and shake a can to promote “Salt” – there’s a TV spot on for it every few minutes!
Yep, that’s what they’re good at!
Are you happy with the film?
For a film of this particular genre, yes. This is a story about sleeper spies, but the fact that it was to be a summer tentpole release meant that we had to embrace a certain way of telling the story so that it could appeal to audiences right across the world. If it was a film that was going to come out in the Fall we may have used different storytelling techniques, and the ratio between action and drama may have been slightly different.
Tom Cruise was originally attached to play the lead role in “Salt”. How different a film would it have been with Cruise in it?
It wouldn’t have been as interesting. I think, just on a visceral level, watching Angelina demolish an army of tough guys is far more thrilling than watching another male action star do the same thing. I think we lucked out when Angelina joined the project.
The film is a lot more grounded, and realistic, than other so-called Summer tentpole action blockbusters. Was that intentional?
Yes, for two reasons – I undertake a great deal of research when I do these types of movies because firstly, I’m interested in spy-craft and secondly, because I believe that if the details of a fantastical film like this are grounded in reality then it’s easier for audiences to suspend disbelief.
Now did I read that your father was a spy?
My father worked for Z Special Force, the Australian equivalent of the OSS. He was a spy trainer. He worked on Fraser Island training Indonesians, Timorese, Malaysians, and Burmese how to operate clandestinely behind the Japanese lines. So I was brought up on those very romantic stories of what he was training people to do – for a kid growing up in Griffith in the ‘50s that was very exciting…. and inspiring!
“Salt” ends on a cliff-hanger. Was that something the studio pushed on you?
No. That’s how we wanted to end it. I read with amusement this speculation of a sequel. It can carry on, if we decide to, and if we find a good continuing story to tell but look, I just like the idea of the film living inside the minds of the audience as they walk out of the cinema. I spent the last two years, six days a week, fifteen-hours a day on this movie so at the moment a sequel is the last thing on my mind. I’m trying to cleanse myself of Salt [Laughs].
Too much “Salt” isn’t good for you I hear [Laughs]. In terms of sequels, you’ve really only directed one – “Clear and Present Danger”.
Yeah. There was talk of a Saint sequel for a while but then Sherry Lansing at Paramount left and, I guess, Val Kilmer’s star waned a little so it suddenly became less viable.
There was also talk of a sequel to The Bone Collector. There are other novels written by Jeffrey Deaver about the Lincoln Rhyme character and his relationship with Amelia Donaghy. Then Stacey Snider left Universal so…
…What one exec may have been interested in, another wasn’t?
Exactly. And that would have been great – doing more with the Lincoln Rhyme character. That was a fascination relationship between those two – Rhymes and Donaghy. I guess another reason it didn’t happen is because the whole topic of forensics soon exploded onto TV screens – with C.S.I. But [a Bone Collector] sequel could have been enormously popular. More so, the star power of the two leads is as bright as it ever was.
So is it still a possibility?
I don’t think it’s a possibility now – well, maybe it is, but with different actors. Angelina is no longer the ingénue she was when she first brought the character to the screen.
What are you working on now?
I’m here in Australia working on Dirt Music.
Which you’ve been working at for a couple of years now, right?
Eight.
Eight!?
We were set to go twice – first time with Heath Ledger playing the lead, opposite Rachel Weisz. Heath, of course, decided to do The Dark Knight. He was quickly replaced by Colin Farrell. But then Rachel left – to do Lovely Bones. After the film collapsed the last time, I went off to do Salt. Now we have Russell Crowe attached to play the part of Luther Fox, the character that Heath and Colin had been going to play, but that requires a rewrite because he’s about ten years older than the character in the book. We’re in the middle of a rewrite now.
And then I’m working on a romance – a straight-up romance – called Timeless, which is being produced by Sunil Perkash and was written by Bill Kelly of Enchanted.
Are you still onboard ‘’Captain Blood”?
Captain Blood is being reworked as a story set in Outer Space. When Pirates of the Caribbean 4 was announced we thought the Caribbean might be full of too many pirate ships so we’re reimagining the story in Outer Space. Same story, different setting. It works really well.
Do you have a favourite film among those that you’ve done?
Easy, Rabbit Proof Fence. No doubt about it. It’s a favourite because of what the pundits predicted: That we’d never raise the money and even if we do, nobody in Australia will be interested in seeing a film like this, so it’d be a box-office bomb that I’d never be able to sell outside the country. That gave me three reasons to prove them all wrong.
I remember sitting in theatre in 1988, about to watch a film called Dead Calm, not knowing what to expect, and was blown out of my seat!
Again, a really good story. When I read that book by Charles Williams I said ‘wow! What a great idea! Two boats out on the Ocean. Three People.’ The restrictions of the setting make what happens so much stronger. It really was a case of less is more.
And Billy Zane was such a great discovery. He had done ‘’Back to the Future,” and a couple of little parts here and there, but this was his breakthrough
Yeah, he was. He was cast at the very last moment – I had seen every young actor in America. The casting director called me about two hours before I supposed to catch a plane and sent over a picture of Billy. I thought he looked great. She said he could get over here in an hour-and-a-half. I said, ‘But I’m leaving in two hours’. When he got there, he had no time to learn his lines, so I had him improvise two scenes – and he was just mesmerizing. He was able to take himself right into that whacked-out character. He improvised a lot of that.
How do you feel about the Jack Ryan series going on, once again, without you or Harrison Ford?
I think Chris Pine is a real actor and Jack Bender is a real director so it’s in good hands. The unifying factor is Mace Neufeld, who at 82 years old, is back to produce this latest installment. I believe Moscow starts filming in Eastern Europe somewhere in late February, early March.
How did Mace get the rights to the Jack Ryan character?
Mace brought the manuscript from an obscure publishing on the east coast of America when Tom Clancy was an unknown. He has gone on to produce all of the Ryan films.
Including yours. Which of your Ryan films is your favourite?
Clear and Present Danger is easily my favourite. I love the combination of reality and popcorn. That film dealt with real political issues but it was pure escapist entertainment at the same time. I was going to do The Sum Of All Fears with Harrison Ford but I pulled out because I thought I’d worked within the system for too long and thought I needed a break to reinvent myself as a filmmaker, so I took ten years and that’s when I made Rabbit Proof, Quiet American and Catch a Fire.
“Salt” is now showing
