The Kevin Costner movie he called “our generation’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life'”
Confidence is something that’s never been in short supply for Kevin Costner, but even for an actor happy to bet on themselves at huge personal risk, comparing a movie from his own back catalogue to an all-time classic is a bold move.
It may have bombed so hard first time around that it helped kill a studio, but there are few films in cinema history that encapsulate the spirit of Christmas better than Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, which has become annual appointment viewing for anyone desperate to get into the Yuletide festivities.
The redemption story of Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey may have taken a while to be handed its flowers, but these days it’s sitting pretty as one of the most beloved motion pictures ever made. In one respect, Costner already has it beat, because his film managed to become a hit at the first time of asking.
Fantastical baseball drama Field of Dreams recouped its budget almost six times over in ticket sales, with the sports flick quickly filtering into the pop culture consciousness. “If you build it, they will come” has been repeated ad nauseam for 35 years and counting, with Costner’s Ray Kinsella learning some important lessons along the way as he embarks on his supernatural odyssey.
Field of Dreams did echo It’s a Wonderful Life by earning an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Picture’ and it’s definitely a classic in its own way, but it’s entirely up for debate as to whether it deserves the lofty moniker bestowed upon it by the guy who played the lead role.
“That movie is, I think that’s our generation’s Wonderful Life. It’s a Wonderful Life” he insisted to Conan O’Brien. “And it happens. And it doesn’t matter how often you watch that movie, when you ask your dad, ‘Have a catch?’. It seems to get people and I’m just glad to have films like that.”
Costner furthered his comparison by pointing out how they’re both “about things that go unsaid between fathers and sons,” which he described as “pretty biblical.” One area where Field of Dreams definitely has It’s a Wonderful Life beat, though, is that only one of them stars the subjects of Hollywood’s greatest-ever love story.
A pair of aspiring teenage actors named Ben Affleck and Matt Damon appeared as extras when the production pitched up in their native Boston, so there’s that. It’s a risk to declare anything as existing on the same exalted plane as Capra’s classic knowing the internet age guarantees knives are permanently sharpened and always ready to be unleashed, but when Costner is willing to sink his fortune into four movies that nobody was really asking for, he’s well beyond caring about the consensus.
