The one movie Harrison Ford instantly regretted making: “I should have known better”
With almost half a century of superstardom under his belt, Harrison Ford is well past the point of holding any major regrets from a career spent almost exclusively at the top of the A-list.
Ever since Star Wars seized the zeitgeist by the scruff of the neck and refused to let go in the summer of 1977, Ford has been among Hollywood’s biggest names. Even though he really wishes people would stop asking him stupid questions about the franchise, it’s been the gift that keeps on giving.
Combined with the Indiana Jones saga, his two-film stint as Jack Ryan in Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games, and other successes like The Fugitive and Air Force One, he’s also established his credentials as one of modern cinema’s most effortlessly bankable leading men.
Ford somehow manages to find the positives in almost everything, which is arguably more impressive when he’s got a reputation for being the industry’s grumpiest elder statesman. He’s never been out of the spotlight for too long, but the turn of the millennium was an undeniably tricky period for his commercial prospects.
1999’s Random Hearts didn’t make a splash in cinemas and was roundly trashed by critics, Ford upgraded himself to executive producer for the first time, only for K-19: The Widowmaker to lose a fortune, and Hollywood Homicide suffered a similar fate, leaving Robert Zemeckis’ What Lies Beneath the only hit of a fallow period.
“I have built up an audience, and they did not accept me as a Russian,” he confessed after Kathryn Bigelow’s submarine thriller had flopped hard. “That is fair enough.” As for Hollywood Homicide? Ford had an inkling that the end result wasn’t going to be anything worth writing home about long before the derided buddy caper landed with a thud in multiplexes.
“The script was not ready when we started Hollywood Homicide,” he told The Times. “I should have known better.” One minor positive is that the headlines surrounding the film didn’t stem from its shoddy screenplay, but the alleged feud between Ford and his co-star Josh Hartnett.
The latter described the former as “the bane of my existence” and shared that the veteran had been needling him throughout the shoot, only for Ford to have no idea he was even embroiled in on-set tensions. The erstwhile Han Solo only signed on because he was looking to try something different, and a light-hearted odd couple comedy seemed to fit the bill.
Unfortunately, he didn’t raise his misgivings about the script, and Hollywood Homicide left Ford wracked with frustration and regret that he didn’t use his status to speak out on forging ahead with a movie carrying a script that was nowhere close to being in shooting shape.
