“There was some pressure”: The movie that had its budget cut by 80% because Harrison Ford wasn’t interested
Spending decades as one of cinema’s biggest and most famous stars will inevitably drive up their price tag, and an eventual cult classic lost most of its proposed funding when nobody in the same stratosphere as Harrison Ford showed any inclination to sign on.
It was a bit of a double-edged sword, though; while the movie was fantastic and has become a fixture of the annual viewing calendar for those who fancy something a little bit different in the run-up to Christmas, it also bombed at the box office after barely recouping the meagre budget it was given.
The film also lit the fuse on one of modern Hollywood’s most remarkable ascensions, which may or may not have happened were the actor in question sharing the screen with a towering icon like Ford. It’s all hypothetical, of course, but there could have been a version of Shane Black’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang where Robert Downey Jr shared the screen with the Star Wars and Indiana Jones icon.
The blackly comedic festive crime paper remains Downey Jr’s favourite of his own pictures, and it impressed Jon Favreau so much that he knew he’d found his Tony Stark, with the filmmaker developing Iron Man for the fledgling Marvel Studios at the time. However, Val Kilmer is so good as Perry van Shrike in one of his best-ever turns that Ford seems like a bizarre alternative.
Kilmer’s comic timing, flamboyance, and deadpan delivery elevate Black’s razor-sharp screenplay, and his chemistry with Downey Jr is electric. Would it have been the same with Ford playing the part? Maybe, maybe not, and as much as it would have been a novelty to see him playing a gay private eye partnered with a thief masquerading as a thespian, more fiscally responsible heads prevailed.
“There was some pressure initially, since they didn’t consider Downey to be a box office draw at the studio,” Black explained to CHUD. “Now that we’ve got Downey, yes, we can make the $15 million movie, but let’s get Harrison Ford, somebody to play Gay Perry, that’s stratospheric, and then we can do an $80 million version of this.”
Those conversations went on for “about eight months or so,” which the Lethal Weapon creator acknowledged was “far too long,” until producer Joel Silver effectively said, ‘Fuck it’. “You know, let’s just make this movie for 15 million bucks,” Black recalled him saying. “Get two really good actors, we’ve got one, and let’s not worry about making the extravaganza.”
It was the right call, since the dynamic between the central duo is what carries Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and it’s become an alternative Yuletide favourite for those who prefer their Christmastime flicks to be a little different from the sweet, saccharine, and overly sentimental fare that swamps the final month of every year.
On the other hand, it would have almost certainly made more money with Ford, but it worked out in the best interests of both parties, seeing as it led directly to Downey Jr snagging his career-transforming gig as a superhero, and he personally recommended Black as the director of his third solo adventure, which cleared $1.2 billion in cinemas to become the fifth highest-grossing movie in history by the end of 2013.
