The movie Morgan Freeman knew was doomed from the start: “Didn’t turn out very well”
Ever noticed how often the storylines behind movies seem to inexplicably revolve around far-flung exotic islands like Hawaii, necessitating three months of shooting in what is essentially a paradise? There are several reasons for it, some virtuous, some otherwise, but as Morgan Freeman will tell you, they don’t always make for good films.
One reason is that countries, or even cities, will often offer movie studios sizable tax breaks in order to get them to come and make films there, stimulating the local economy and providing a nice bit of PR when movie stars get spotted out and about. But the other reason is that often you’re more likely to get one of those stars to sign up for a film if they get to lie about on a beach between takes rather than sitting on a rain-soaked bench somewhere.
Does Morgan Freeman have history where this is concerned? Well, it’s tough to say, but cast your mind back to the final few moments of The Shawshank Redemption, one of the finest movies of all time, where Freeman’s character Red is seen hugging his buddy Andy Dufresne next to crystal blue waters on a deserted beach. Total running time of the scene? About 90 seconds. But you can only imagine what it cost to fly an entire film crew out to the Caribbean island of St Croix to do it.
Freeman was also a leading actor in a film that you probably don’t remember, because nobody really does, despite it featuring a pretty star-packed cast, the director of Grosse Point Blank, and it being adapted from a novel by Elmore Leonard. The name of the movie was The Big Bounce, and it was about a small-town con artist teaming up with a real estate agent’s mistress to land a huge amount of money.
Starring Owen Wilson, Charlie Sheen, Freeman, and bizarrely Vinnie Jones, it necessitated a lengthy shoot in Hawaii, at an eye-watering cost of $50million and managed to bring in less than $7m on release. A disaster, then essentially. Freeman, as you might imagine, said that the shooting of the film wasn’t exactly unpleasant, which is entirely predictable.
He said: “It was a wonderful experience. (The late philanthropist) Steve Bing was the producer and was very generous. But the movie didn’t turn out very well. The director fell ill and we shut down production for a few weeks while he recuperated. And I think when he came back he just didn’t pick up the ball and run with it the way he should have, and the movie suffered greatly for that.”
So not only were they in Hawaii to shoot the thing, but for a number of weeks, they didn’t even have to work while they were there. The trials we must bear. Or rather, actors must bear. Funnily enough, the director Armitage, who got sick, has a similar recollection of filming The Big Bounce, saying: “It was just an extraordinary experience, and I credit the producer, Steve Bing, with that. He put up his own money, and I think he had $250,000 in bar bills, just picking up drinks for the crew and cast for all that time. So he couldn’t have been more wonderful.”
At this point you may well be thinking to yourself that an entire film crew and some A-listers basically decamped to Hawaii for six weeks thanks to a multi-millionaire offering to bankroll the whole kaboodle, all in exchange for just giving him a producer credit on it, which he then used to interfere on how the film was made, resulting in it being a huge flop.
I’m not saying that’s what happened, but I’m also not saying that’s not what happened. Either way, the trailer is below, and the Rotten Tomatoes score is 16%.
