Antoine Fuqua: the director who got fired for disagreeing with Sean Connery over the making of ‘Entrapment’
Sean Connery was always known as an actor who liked to exert control over his movies, and this was especially true in his latter years as an undisputed Hollywood icon.
Sometimes, this resulted in the Scottish legend having, shall we say, spirited disagreements with his collaborators. However, many who worked with Connery were adamant that his keen eye for how to make movies efficiently – and cheaply – were boons to his productions. One person who probably wouldn’t agree with that is the director who disagreed with the original James Bond’s iron fist so much that he was fired – and never spoke about it publicly.
In the 1990s, Connery’s filmography went through several peaks and troughs in terms of critical and commercial success. He made hits like The Hunt For Red October, Rising Sun, First Knight, Dragonheart, and The Rock. However, he was also responsible for some embarrassing failures like Highlander II: The Quickening, Medicine Man and, worst of all, The Avengers. That ludicrous big-screen update of the classic TV series was a debacle for everyone involved, and perhaps it made him more determined than ever to be involved in every aspect of his next big-budget effort. After all, the last thing he wanted was to make another incoherent action flick that would see him lambasted by critics and audiences.
Unfortunately for Antoine Fuqua, the director who signed on to helm Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones in 1999’s Entrapment, an action flick was precisely what he thought the studio wanted him to make. At that time, Fuqua was a music video director who had only directed one feature film, the 1998 martial arts thriller The Replacement Killers.
A source close to Fuqua told Variety that he signed on to Entrapment when it was being pitched as a blockbuster heist movie with lots of action and set pieces. However, it soon became apparent that Connery wanted to move away from that vision and reshape it into more of a character-driven romantic caper film. Interestingly, though, the star’s recollection of events is quite the opposite.
The icon told The Los Angeles Times in 1999 that he became worried during pre-production because he felt Fuqua was reshaping Ron Bass’s romantic script into a $100million action extravaganza. He insisted Bass’s vision “was a caper tale, and I wanted it to have a love story as well as a heist. It needed much more conversations with the actors.”
Indeed, Connery’s concerns may have been right on the money because the budget for Fuqua’s version of the film was likely to hit the $75million mark even before he allegedly started adding action sequences. So, a complicated conversation needed to be had, and Fuqua exited the production. Connery admitted “it was a tremendous setback,” not least because the filmmaker’s departure also meant his director of photography and set designer went with him.
Ultimately, Connery and Fuqua’s creative differences delayed the movie by two months, which would usually add a tremendous amount to the budget. Luckily for Fox, it had hired a leading man who was determined that he wouldn’t make another irresponsibly budgeted disaster after what had happened on The Avengers. Studio boss Tom Rothman noted Connery “took his producing job very seriously and was bound and determined that the movie he produced come in on budget.”
In the end, Connery and replacement director Jon Amiel brought the movie in nearly $2million under budget, which is almost unheard of in Hollywood. It banked $212m at the worldwide box office, making it Connery’s second biggest hit of the decade. By contrast, Fuqua – who has always kept his powder dry about the entire situation – made the Jamie Foxx flop Bait instead before finding his true breakthrough with 2001’s Training Day.
