“It’s really depressing”: the unmade 1987 movie that pulled the rug from under Gene Hackman
You’ve probably seen the phrase ‘development hell’ when reading about certain movies, ones that get scrapped or take several years to come to fruition. But it’s quite amazing just how long certain projects can get stuck in it, like one book adaptation starring Gene Hackman from the late 1980s.
As anyone knows who has bothered to sit through the endlessly scrolling credits at the end of a film, there is a frightening number of moving parts that go into producing a movie, from the script to casting to locations to budget to the right director, and trying to align them all can be an incredibly difficult prospect.
And that was why the Hackman movie in question was almost ready to be made back in 1987, but didn’t hit screens until 2022, some 35 years later. The actor was in his late 50s as the production began for the adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway novel, Across the River and Into the Trees, and was experiencing something of a renaissance after becoming one of the world’s foremost actors in the 1970s for movies like The French Connection and The Poseidon Adventure.
First published in 1950, the book tells the story of a WWII US Army general who is diagnosed with a terminal heart condition and decides to visit Venice, only to find love with a young woman in an arranged marriage.
Hackman also had another recently hit movie, the acclaimed sports film Hoosiers, under his belt, so hopes were high that the Hemingway adaptation could be another success, but he was left frustrated.
He told the LA Times, “We spent weeks in Italy last winter working on the script. And we were set to start shooting in three weeks’ time. Now I just found out it’s been cancelled”.
Hackman wasn’t the first to be dragged into the mess of trying to put the book on the big screen, however, as more than half a dozen leading actors and directors, including Burt Lancaster, had been attached to the project, with some 20 versions of the script written over the years, only to see it fall through.
Hackman added at the time, “It’s really depressing. I worked hard with John [Frankenheimer, director] on the script revisions, and we did some good work, I think. And he tested Mariel Hemingway for the girl. She was very excited at the idea of being in something of her grandfather’s. We were going to film in winter to get that wonderful, grey look of Venice. Now it’s all off.”
However, it proved to be something of a blessing in disguise. Hackman went off and made Mississippi Burning, the searing Deep South crime thriller that became one of the highlights of his later career, earning seven Oscar nominations, including one for the lead actor.
Eventually, Across the River and Into the Trees would make it onto the big screen with a completely different generation of actors in 2022, starring Liev Schreiber, Matilda de Angelis and Pierce Brosnan. Once again, things weren’t simple; the Covid-19 pandemic made getting insurance for the stars difficult, although filming in Venice was actually made easier due to the fact that most people in the city were in lockdown, allowing the crew to have locations like St Mark’s Square entirely to themselves.
