The movie Robert De Niro will always regret not making: “We just never got there”
Whatever you make of him as an actor or as a human being, Robert De Niro is a great example of a life well lived. The son of two artists, a young De Niro studied acting at various schools around New York before getting his big break in Brian De Palma’s Greetings. Five years later, he teamed up with another director, one who would become integral to his story – the great Martin Scorsese. Since the release of Mean Streets, the man known as ‘Bob’ has done pretty much all there is to do, won most major awards, and is the living embodiment of the term ‘legend’.
You don’t get to the position De Niro is in today without making a few stinkers. During his ill-advised comedy period in the 2000s, the acclaimed star demeaned himself with a number of embarrassing roles. From Little Fockers to Bad Grandpa to The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, he did his damnedest to erase the memory of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull from people’s minds. Thankfully, his legacy has endured, but he’s got to have a few regrets about making some of those so-called ‘funny’ films. However, when it comes to regrets, one of De Niro’s biggest is over a movie that never went into production.
2006 saw the release of The Good Shepherd, a spy adventure starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie. De Niro also played a role in the movie but was also behind the camera in just his second-ever directorial job. “Directing is a much more consuming thing, which I like very much,” he told Life Beyond Sport. “You have to make all the decisions, you have to make them quickly at times, you’re under the gun schedule wise, budget wise, it’s hard to give up certain things, but you have to. When you shoot them you might have to give them up anyway for the overall story, the overall picture, and sometimes it’s hard to give them up because you’ve put so much effort into those scenes and you don’t have enough objectivity.”
He had previously sat in the big chair for A Bronx Tale, a coming-of-age drama set in De Niro’s beloved Big Apple. Unfortunately, he never got the chance to make another movie, something he laments. “I wanted to do a sequel to The Good Shepherd,” he continued. “We just never got there, unfortunately.”
The film is based very loosely on the life of James Jesus Angleton, one of the most important figures in the history of the CIA. De Niro has said that he wanted to make two sequels to the film, progressing through time up to the modern day. There was talk of a TV show at one point, but sadly, it would seem that the idea is dead in the water.
It might not have generated a sequel, but The Good Shepherd got decent reviews and turned a profit. Damon has spoken fondly of his time working with De Niro, so he clearly could have inspired him to return for a second film if he’d gotten the go-ahead.
Given De Niro’s age, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see him return to directorial duties. At least we’ll always have these two examples to judge him on, and, in the grand scheme of things, he could have done much worse.
