The “dream project” Ron Howard always wanted to direct: “This was kind of a secret hope”
The thing about being one of the industry’s most renowned journeymen directors is that dream projects don’t come around all that often, especially when Ron Howard has admitted that he tries not to stamp too much authority on his films.
If he did, then maybe he’d have a few more long-gestating dreams that became a reality, instead of being drawn to stories that span every genre. Not that it’s a bad thing, and it hasn’t stopped him from being one of modern Hollywood’s most successful filmmakers, but it also says a lot about his career that he manifested a wish he’d been holding onto since childhood more than 30 years ago.
That’s not to suggest that he’s been phoning in the last three decades of his career, but it’s also an understatement to say there’s a clear and obvious difference between how much Howard is invested in something like Frost/Nixon or Rush than he is in those Da Vinci Code sequels or The Dilemma.
How long had he been waiting to make Far and Away, exactly? By his recollections, 34 years. The seed of the idea was first planted in 1958 when the Howard clan touched down in Ireland, and the story was formed when his great-grandmother showed him a newspaper clipping from 1893 and told him his relatives were part of the Oklahoma Land Rush.
Putting the two together, Howard and screenwriter Robert Dolman concocted a tale of two star-crossed lovers who travel from Ireland to the United States with dreams of claiming land in the state. Things don’t go to plan, and they end up destitute, forcing them to forge a new path to happiness and a new life on the other side of the world.
“When interviewers would ask, ‘What’s your dream project?’ This is the one I thought of,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “This was kind of a secret hope that one day I’d have the credibility to make this movie. It’s very difficult to pitch at a story meeting. Friends of mine would get this perplexed look when I’d tell them about it; ‘It doesn’t sound contemporary’, they’d say.”
The good news for Howard was that after helming eight features, including box office hits like Splash, Backdraft, Parenthood, and Willow, along with the Academy Award-winning Cocoon, he finally had the credibility he craved to make Far and Away, matters that were helped when Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman signed on to play the two lead roles to drum up more star power and tabloid interest.
At the end of the day, all he had to show for it was a solid-if-unspectacular run at the box office, tepid reviews, and a Razzie nomination for ‘Worst Original Song’, which isn’t an ideal return for a so-called dream project. Still, Howard wasn’t of a mind to give too many fucks, considering he’d finally managed to realise a vision he’d been dreaming of since before his days on The Andy Griffith Show, even if neither critics nor audiences matched his enthusiasm.
