"When I was hired," says screenwriter Michael Schiffer (Crimson Tide), who worked from unpublished material by journalists Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, "DreamWorks didn't have their first movie, so it was fun gunning for that. There were at least six projects ahead of me. But I like to work hard and fast, so I made it my artificial target." Spielberg sped matters along by using his clout with Universal (home of his company Amblin) to free Clooney from a $3 million commitment to star in The Green Hornet, thus making him available during his 1996 ER hiatus. He reached further into ER's ranks by hiring Mimi Leder, who'd won an Emmy for directing the botched-birth episode "Love's Labor Lost," for her feature debut.
"Steven felt Mimi was perfectly capable of telling an action story," says Clooney. "He said 'Love's Labor Lost' was really an action story set in that tiny trauma room." Leder admits to being "shocked. I thought I'd be offered a small, three-character piece." Instead, she found herself filming for three weeks in outdoor locations in New York City before moving on to Slovakia and Macedonia, where she staged train wrecks, car chases, helicopter battles, and even a simulated nuclear blast — all for a relatively economical $50 million. "DreamWorks didn't want their first film to be a $100 million movie," adds Clooney. "So we went to places where we could get things done for less money."
And how daunting was the burden of filming DreamWorks' first feature? "In the beginning, everyone was pretty nervous," confesses Leder. "But they were very supportive and let me make my movie. I talked with Steven a lot in the beginning, and he gave notes during the editing. But I actually didn't meet Jeffrey and David until after I'd finished the movie." (Sept. 26)
UPSIDE As the first movie to sport DreamWorks' new logo, it
won't go unnoticed.
DOWNSIDE Selling a Tom Clancy-type
thriller without the Clancy name is no cinch.
A THOUSAND ACRES
STARRING Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jennifer Jason Leigh,
Jason Robards, Colin Firth, Keith Carradine, Kevin Anderson
DIRECTED BY Jocelyn Moorhouse
Fans of Jane Smiley's 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller may be shocked at what this adaptation leaves out — the chapter in which Ginny, a sympathetic farmwife until this point, cooks up a poisoned meal for her cold, possessive sister, Rose. Even on the set, a debate flared over including the scene; Robards didn't know the outcome until he viewed Acres last month. "When I saw it I said, 'Gee, I'm surprised that was out,'" he says.
Even without a culinary touch of evil, the film hardly flinches from Smiley's tale of child abuse, cancer, adultery, and sibling betrayal. Robards' dictatorial farmer sets the plot in motion by turning over his land to his three daughters, then turning against them. "Halfway through shooting, my husband read the script," says Pfeiffer, who plays Rose and optioned the book with Lange six years ago. "And he said to me, 'There's malignancy on every page.'" Says producer Marc Abraham: "In Michelle's case, I have rarely seen a star as willing to be that tough and unrepentant and angry." She wasn't the only one; after Disney demanded a recut, Moorhouse reportedly threatened to take her own name off the film. (Sept. 19)
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