The Oscar-winning movie that Ron Howard couldn’t bring himself to love: “I didn’t get it”
There are movies that certain people can’t, won’t, and will never understand, which is fine. However, being completely bemused by the prospect and premise of one didn’t dissuade Ron Howard from producing it, which paid off handsomely when the film turned a tidy profit and won an Academy Award.
Of course, filmmakers are obliged to love their own films; otherwise, there’s no point in making them. Anyone who commits years of their lives to a couple of hours of cinema needs to be deeply invested from the first day to the last, but the sentiment doesn’t necessarily apply when they’re not behind the camera.
Since founding the company in 1985, Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment has backed dozens of productions, covering the good, the bad, and the ugly of Hollywood. Of course, the outfit is involved in every picture that Howard helms himself, but the company’s portfolio is wildly eclectic.
Some of the titles bearing the Imagine logo over the years include Mike Myers’ atrocious The Cat in the Hat, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Kindergarten Cop, Jim Carrey’s Liar Liar, Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot Psycho remake, Eddie Griffin’s Undercover Brother, the Coen brothers’ Intolerable Cruelty, Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, Clint Eastwood’s J Edgar, Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, and Katy Perry: Part of Me.
As mentioned, it’s eclectic, and Howard doesn’t need to have skin in every game. As a two-time Oscar-winner and one of the highest-grossing directors in cinema history, he’s got a decent idea of what works for a general audience. And yet, when he was presented with a semi-biographical drama that had a global superstar attached to play the lead role, he couldn’t quite wrap his head around it.
When Variety asked if there were any pictures that Grazer was determined to make that he couldn’t comprehend, the Happy Days alum only had one answer. “For me, it was 8 Mile,” he said. “Brian kept saying, ‘I want to do a hip-hop movie. It’s a fascinating world.'”
It’s easy to assume that Howard didn’t get 8 Mile because he’s hardly renowned for being immersed in current trends and the appeal of hip-hop, but never let it be forgotten that he starred in the video for Jamie Foxx’s ‘Blame It’, which only happened because he’d been pressured into it after an inadvertent assist from Barack Obama, obviously.
Curtis Hanson’s film would go on to earn almost $250 million at the box office, earn strong notices from critics, win Eminem plenty of praise for his first, and still only, foray into leading a motion picture, and claim the Academy Award for ‘Best Original Song’ with ‘Lose Yourself’, possibly leaving Howard to stroke his chin and ponder what all the fuss was about.
When the shoe was on the other foot, Grazer didn’t fancy making a Formula 1 biopic: “That’s the beauty of the company and why we’re prolific; I don’t have to love 8 Mile, he doesn’t have to love Rush.” Howard wasn’t the target audience, but he put his confusion to one side for the betterment of Imagine, adding another Oscar-winning movie to its catalogue in the process.
