The most “devastating” failure of Emilio Estevez’s career: “I was broken for a period of time”
Ambition is something that should always be commended in a place like Hollywood, but when Emilio Estevez flew too close to the sun for the first time, his confidence was shattered into a million pieces.
On the plus side, he was still young when it happened, so it didn’t derail his career entirely. That came later, when the early buzz that followed the second-generation star and the rest of his ‘Brat Pack’ brethren started to wear off, with Demi Moore and Rob Lowe arguably the only ones who showed any longevity.
Estevez didn’t piss his professional life down the drain, though, but neither did he enjoy a sustained run at the top level of the industry. By the late 1990s, he’d decided that chasing fame and mainstream adulation wasn’t worth the hassle, which was probably the right call, looking at what it did to his brother, Charlie Sheen.
After The Outsiders, The Breakfast Club, and St Elmo’s Fire had strapped a rocket to his back and established him as one of American cinema’s fastest-rising and most recognisable young talents, he didn’t want to rest on his laurels. Instead, he sought to add several more strings to his bow by writing, directing, and starring in his own feature.
Looking back, 1986 was not a great year for Estevez. Less than six months after Stephen King’s abysmal directorial debut, Maximum Overdrive, had been released to withering reviews and non-existent box office, Wisdom premiered, and it would be an understatement to say his first attempt at pulling triple duty on a picture was not well received.
Playing the title role alongside his then-partner, Moore, the scribe, helmer, and leading man’s John Wisdom is an ex-con who embarks on a cross-country crime spree, robbing banks and siphoning some of the proceeds off to those in need. It was lambasted as a second-rate Bonnie and Clyde, which it was.
“Wisdom, for me, was a very disappointing experience, the outcome of it,” he admitted to Paul Willistein, before correcting himself. “I shouldn’t say disappointing, I should say devastating. The response, how it was received. I tell you what; it was not a great film, but it was a good film, and I believe that now.”
He was wrong because it’s not a good film, but that was beside the point. It was a huge knock, with Estevez conceding that “I took a beating from critics and I took it personally,” going so far as to say “I was broken for a period of time” after his first film from behind the camera was burned at the stake.
Estevez was only 24 years old when Wisdom was released in cinemas, and as impressive as it was for someone so young to wear that many hats on a studio-backed production, the fact that it didn’t make any money and could barely scrape together a decent review knocked the wind right out of his sails.
