Joe Carnahan: The director who filmed himself quitting a Tom Cruise movie
Hollywood can have a nasty habit of chewing a director up and spitting them out, especially if they have difficulty fitting themselves into the box the industry wants them in. There are countless stories of idealistic young filmmakers entering the business with dreams of making movies their way, before they are beaten down by the seemingly endless ways their creative vision can be compromised.
For most of these dreamers, there isn’t one moment where it all went wrong. Instead, it’s like death by a thousand cuts, and before they know what’s happened, they’re disillusioned, angry, and their careers are hanging by a thread. However, for Joe Carnahan, who was championed by Tom Cruise himself to make Mission: Impossible III, the moment his directing career imploded was painfully clear. In fact, he filmed it for posterity.
When Carnahan was hired to make the third instalment in Cruise’s mega-franchise, he only had one film under his belt: the gritty 2002 neo-noir Narc. That scuzzy, low-budget crime picture starred Jason Patric and Ray Liotta as two detectives investigating the murder of an undercover officer. It was so bracing in its realistic vision of police procedure that The French Connection’s William Friedkin gushed, “I was mesmerised. I thought it was a great, great film.”
Friedkin wasn’t the only Hollywood luminary who loved Narc, though. When Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner screened the film, they were so astonished by it that they became executive producers. Cruise then used his sway with Paramount Pictures to secure a theatrical distribution deal and a release during awards season.
It was evident that Cruise saw something special in Carnahan, but the young director still probably didn’t expect to be thrust immediately into the blockbuster arena. However, when Cruise handpicked him to put his spin on Mission: Impossible, he jumped into the opportunity of a lifetime with both feet. Then, it drove him insane.
From day one, Carnahan’s “punk rock” version of Mission: Impossible didn’t jive with Paramount or Cruise, who envisioned something in a traditional blockbuster mould. Carnahan worked on the movie for 15 months, writing a down-and-dirty script with Nightcrawler’s Dan Gilroy that was the polar opposite of the “parody of a spy movie” he felt Mission: Impossible II became.
It was estimated that Carnahan’s vision would have cost around $50 million to produce, but instead of seeing that as a positive, Paramount felt he hadn’t gone big enough with the script. Legendary screenwriter Robert Towne was brought in to spruce things up, and the executives all loved his draft. Carnahan, on the other hand, thought it was bad, uninspiring, and “more of the same.” He admitted to Grantland, “We started having these vocal disagreements about it. Looking back, I should have just shut up and done my thing, but I couldn’t go down that road.”
So, after over a year of banging his head against a brick wall of cookie-cutter studio sameness, Carnahan decided to cut his losses and leave the production. Amazingly, by this point, cast members had already become attached, including Kenneth Branagh as the villain, Carrie-Anne Moss as the female lead, and a youthful Scarlett Johansson in support. None of that was enough to keep Carnahan around, though, as he knew his heart wasn’t in it anymore. “I wasn’t going to get out of this what I wanted,” he explained to Cinefix, “and I just never bought in. Maybe I should have. I’d have a lot more money now if I did, but I didn’t!”
Amazingly, Carnahan was so mixed up and frustrated at this time that he actually filmed himself telling Cruise that he was quitting the movie, which is pretty unprecedented in Hollywood circles. In retrospect, it was also an idiotic move on his part. “I literally thought that this was the collapse of something integral to me,” Carnahan chuckled with the benefit of hindsight. “So, I just thought, ‘Why not commemorate it by videotaping yourself?’ You know, ‘Let’s actually videotape you doing a faceplant.'”
Cruise had talked Carnahan off the ledge before, including after one marathon three-and-a-half-hour conversation, but this time, it was no use. To be fair, it didn’t help that the director had also filmed himself talking with other studio executives because he’d “lost respect for a lot of people in that process.” If anything, that should have been the first sign that it was time for him to hit the ol’ dusty trail.
In the end, Carnahan probably did his career no favours by quitting Mission: Impossible III, but thankfully, he didn’t torpedo it completely, either. “I was concerned that I would be labelled a problem child,'” he confessed. “I think there was certainly backroom chatter that affected me with the studios.” Over time, though, he forged a career directing mid-budget action thrillers like Smokin’ Aces, The Grey, and Copshop, and he even claims there’s no lasting beef between him and Cruise. It would be astounding if he’s ever filmed another one of their conversations, though.
