Dennis Hopper vs. Universal: the fight that brought down an icon
After kickstarting his acting career in the 1950s, Dennis Hopper found his breakthrough with the 1969 movie Easy Rider, a project which he directed, co-wrote and starred in. The movie was a seminal entry to the New Hollywood canon, using a nihilistic lens to depict the futility of the American dream.
Easy Rider is an iconic piece of American cinema, with Hopper becoming a symbol of the movie’s countercultural ethos, aided by his real-life reputation as ‘Hollywood’s Original Hell-Raiser’. Due to his penchant for drink and drugs, Hopper engaged in various forms of unhinged behaviour, like shooting an Andy Warhol painting or snorting someone’s ashes. However, stories of his chaotic lifestyle often overshadow his incredible talents for writing and directing, which extend beyond Easy Rider.
Two years after Easy Rider was released, Hopper directed The Last Movie, which won the ‘Critics Prize’ at the Venice Film Festival. He had a promising career as a director underway, yet a dispute between Hopper and Universal Pictures halted his dreams, and it wouldn’t be until 1980 that Hopper would be back behind the camera. However, it must be noted that his direction of Out of the Blue was not a personal endeavour. Hopper, who was cast in the film, was merely asked to replace the movie’s original director, Leonard Yakir, at the very last minute.
Hopper only has a few directorial credits to his name, although he has always wanted to be an accomplished filmmaker. He told The Talks: “I wanted to start directing when I was 20 years old. I was 31 when I directed Easy Rider and 33 when I directed The Last Movie, and every year since then I’ve had a film, every year I’ve tried to get them done, every year I’ve not been able to get them financed.”
When asked what happened to his directorial career following his success with The Last Movie, he explained, “Universal Pictures wouldn’t distribute my movie, and that whole fight was the reason that I didn’t direct another movie for twelve years. That is unfortunate and I never really got back to mainstream Hollywood.” He added that the animosity between him and Universal was “a personal thing between Lew Wasserman and me. He was the head of Universal and the most powerful man in Hollywood. I directed The Last Movie, but somehow, he did not like the result.”
He claimed that Wasserman wanted Hopper to “re-edit” The Last Movie, but he “refused” following his win at the Venice Film Festival. This led to a disagreement between the two, with Hopper stating, “Wasserman said, ‘Look, if you don’t re-edit it, I am only going to show it for two weeks in New York, two weeks in Los Angeles, 3 days in San Francisco, it will never be seen in Europe and then we are going to shut it down.’ I said, ‘That’s ridiculous! Come on, you can’t do that to me!’”
Sadly for Hopper, Universal’s interference with the release of The Last Movie prevented his career as a director from truly taking off. He added: “It is unfortunate because I was a really talented director. I was a forerunner and should have been allowed to make films.”
