The one movie Richard Gere always wanted to make but never did: “Too complex and expensive”
Richard Gere has made some phenomenal movies.
Early in his career, he cut his teeth with films like Looking for Mr Goodbar and American Gigolo, before becoming a mainstay of 1980s headlines with the likes of An Officer and a Gentleman and No Mercy. Now, he occupies something of an elder statesman role, exploring some of the most interesting parts of his entire career even as he enters his late 70s.
However, as with every performer, for every great movie he’s appeared in, there are plenty of others he missed out on. Gere was one of the many big names to turn down the role of John McClane in Die Hard and was Oliver Stone’s first choice to play Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. At least those movies got made, though. Sometimes, a Gere project didn’t even leave the planning stage.
Around the turn of the century, the actor became attached to a project called Emperor Zehnder, a biopic about Swiss wildlife photographer Bruno Zehnder. Director Gregory Hoblit, with whom Gere had worked on the movie Primal Fear, was also said to be on board. However, as the years rolled on, news about the film became scarcer and scarcer. Then, in a 2005 interview with Chud, the star confirmed the worst.
“I don’t think it’s going to happen,” he said, “At least not with me. It was too complex and expensive to shoot in Antarctica. I went down there—we almost got stuck down there two months, waiting for the weather. It costs minimum a 1000 dollars a day to shoot. When you take everyone down there and make them wait for the weather so you have a day to shoot, you may have a window of three to four weeks where you could shoot. And in those three to four weeks, you may never have the weather. You couldn’t even insure that movie.”
Zehnder was passionate about Antarctic wildlife, particularly the emperor penguin. He dedicated his life to photographing the magnificent cuddly creatures, spending months at a time in the Tundra, hoping to get a glimpse of his favourite animal. Then, one day, in July 1997, he got stuck in a snowstorm, and his body was found two days later. The grim circumstances of Zehnder’s death, plus his mysterious lifestyle and supposed links to various US government agencies, make his life fertile ground for a movie adaptation.
Gere’s version of the story was set to focus not only on Zehnder’s work but also on a romance he shared with a doctor from New York, who once accompanied him on a trip. Unfortunately, the practicalities of filming in such a harsh environment caught up with the production, and Antarctica is a notoriously unforgiving place, as evidenced by Zehnder’s demise. As a result, the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program was established to assist anyone mad enough to venture onto the icy continent. They famously helped out Werner Herzog when he made his documentary, Encounters at the End of the World. This was released in 2007, just two years after Gere confirmed Emperor Zehnder had been cancelled.
Even with two decades’ worth of technological advancements, nobody else has dared attempt Emperor Zehnder. It would be a shame if this incredible story is never told, but the chances of Gere ever playing the character are now basically zero.
