''I read the script a long time ago, and it wasn't great,'' says Gibson. ''But the premise was fantastic, and the fact that he doesn't want to pay the ransom, that's intriguing.... He has a beautiful place, priceless artwork, and a successful marriage, and in one moment all of that is torn away. To me, it's interesting to see him freaking out in a corner biting a chair.''
But chair chewing is hard to sustain for two hours, even with enough running, dodging, and punching to satisfy action buffs. ''You can't just walk around angst-ridden, because that's boring,'' says Gibson. His $20 million paycheck lessened the pain of weeks of preproduction while he worked on the script with Sinise (who plays a detective), Russo, Howard, and co-screenwriter Richard Price (Clockers). ''I knew there was going to be a problem in terms of tone,'' says Russo. ''Because it's like, 'Oh, my God, my son's been kidnapped, just give me some Valium and put me out.''' In the final script, Russo's role was fleshed out, the anatomy of the kidnapping became more detailed, and Gibson's character became ''less of Captain America,'' Gibson says. ''He's a guy, not a superguy. Everyone thinks he's being nuts. He is nuts. He's stressed-out to the max.''
Filming wasn't totally relaxed either: Between New York's endless winter, the time Gibson took to pick up two BraveheartOscars (including a win over Howard's Apollo 13 for Best Picture), and a stop at the hospital to have his appendix removed, Ransom's production fell so far behind that Disney bumped its release from the summer to the fall. Still, it wasn't the schedule that made Howard nervous. ''The scariest part is wondering if you know what the hell you're doing,'' says the director, who's more accustomed to astronaut action than chase sequences. ''Every day, you have any number of opportunities to totally screw up and destroy everything.'' (Nov. 8)
Buzz Fat chance. This smart thriller should bring home a king's ransom.
Jingle All the Way
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Phil Hartman, Sinba, Rita Wilson, James Belushi, Robert Conrad
Directed by Brian Levant
Ever the booster, Schwarzenegger calls this $75 million family flick ''a very, very funny sitoo-ational comedy.'' The situation wasn't so funny for Twentieth Century Fox last winter when development bogged down on its Planet of the Apes remake, long a pet Arnold project. But when Fox pitched him Jingle, he was taken with the idea of playing an ''ordinary'' (if muscle-bound) suburban dad who's desperate to buy his son the hot Christmas gift, Turbo Man, on Christmas Eve. And what makes kiddies so covet this do-gooder action toy? For one thing, says Arnold, he's got a turbojet (that's pronounced TYUH-bow-chet, of course). ''He can fly very quickly to any location,'' Schwarzenegger explains. ''He also has various different boomerang type of shooting devices that come out of the hand. Not guns, but the kind of weapons that are funny to watch.'' Producer Chris Columbus courted Joe Pesci to play the pugnacious postal worker who battles Arnold for a doll, but Sinbad got the part instead. ''Arnold versus Joe, physically, it's not a fair fight,'' says director Levant (The Flintstones, Beethoven). ''Sinbad's 6 foot 5, 240 pounds. So it's more like, clear the ring, you know?'' (Nov. 15)
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