The “bullshit” moment that changed Ron Howard’s career forever: “I immediately realised”
A director isn’t required to have a mid-career epiphany that takes their career to the next level, but when it happens, it can change everything. Just ask Ron Howard, who used a moment of “Hollywood bullshit” to pivot in a brand new direction, one that brought him his greatest success.
For the first decade and a half of his behind-the-camera tenure, the actor-turned-filmmaker was known for being a genre specialist. Admittedly, not much has changed since he continues to weave between different modes of storytelling with each new picture, but one of the most frequent criticisms lobbed in Howard’s direction was that his films didn’t have much meat on their bones.
He tried to alter that perception with the Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman period piece, Far and Away, but it didn’t go as planned. Titles like Night Shift, Splash, Willow, Parenthood, and Backdraft were all well-received and profitable pictures, but none of them lived and died on the strength of dramatic stakes or an engrossing narrative. They were easily digestible spectacle flicks, and it was time for Howard to grow up.
The Happy Days favourite’s first serious and straightforward drama also happened to be the first time he’d helmed a movie based on real events, and wading into uncharted waters didn’t only yield what’s arguably the best thing he’s ever made, but Howard’s favourite entry in his own filmography.
Some studios put far too much stock in what test audiences have to say, and when Apollo 13 was first screened to a crowd who had no idea what they were about to see, the tale of Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton’s astronauts facing a perilous journey to make it safely back to Earth was deemed too fanciful and far-fetched by one oblivious viewer, who noted their dissatisfaction.
“There was one marked ‘poor,'” the director told The Wrap. “So, naturally, I had to go through all the cards quickly and find the ‘poor’. There were very few comments. He just checked, ‘terrible, ‘wouldn’t recommend it’, in these big, bold pencil strokes. Finally, I flipped over to the back of the card, where it says, ‘Please comment on the ending.'”
Despite being a biographical drama, this guy had deemed Apollo 13‘s finale as “more Hollywood bullshit,” complete with two exclamation marks. Why? “They would never survive,” this time with three exclamation marks. “Of course, he didn’t know it was based on a true story, and he thought it was corny,” Howard added. “And I immediately realised, this is why you choose stories based on real events!”
It had taken Howard until his 11th feature to tell a real-life story, and he was instantly hooked. When he did it for a second time, the end result was A Beautiful Mind, which delivered his crowning achievement when he scooped a pair of Academy Awards for ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’.
Since then, he’s returned to the historical well with Cinderella Man, Frost/Nixon, Rush, In the Heart of the Sea, Hillbilly Elegy, Thirteen Lives, and Eden. Admittedly, the results have been mixed to say the least, but he still has that one disgruntled test audience member to thank for convincing him that he needed to tell more true stories.
