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You and James
have an amazing bond in this film?
Jerry Bruckheimer: Yeah. I
think Jim is an amazing director. We’ve
been chasing Jim for 5-6 years. We’ve
always admired his commercial work. They
say how can you hire a commercial
director to direct a feature film? How
can you tell he has the ability to do
it? And when you see the scope of his
work and you see the thirty, forty
minutes of the commercial feed…you see
he’s got heart. He’s got a wonderful
sense of humor. The commercials look
special. They look different. He’s got a
great eye. And, what’s interesting about
it is, he’s a really wonderful story
teller. And everything that he does is
so unique, from everything else that he
does on television and that’s why we’ve
been chasing him for a long time. He’s
very difficult to land because he wants
to do things that have some kind of
social conscious. And he doesn’t want to
do an R rated movie. So when this script
came along, we felt he would be the
perfect director. And he agreed. You
know, he really liked the story and the
fact it was a true story I think engaged
him also.
This story is
so powerful on so many levels, what
attracted you to the script?
Jerry Bruckheimer: Pat Riley
told me the story around 10 years ago
because he played in the Kentucky game.
It wasn’t a shiny mark on his career. It
was a game he should have won. But we’ve
been looking into the rights and a lot
of people had some of the rights to some
of the players stories and we just
couldn’t get any traction, till Chris
Cleveland who’s a wonderful screenwriter
came to me and said that he had the
rights to Don Haskins. He’d gone down to
El Paso and talked to Don and got it.
And we found that ESPN, which is owned
by Disney, had the rights to the rest of
the remaining players. And that’s how we
melted the two together and had Chris
write the initial screen play.
Sports
sometimes carry’ an instrument of social
change. Why is that?
Jerry Bruckheimer: Because
sports and entertainment are things that
change images of individuals. Of groups
of people. When you constantly see
phenomenal African American athletes,
you want to be like them. You forget
their skin color. You forget everything.
Kids are walking around with Michael
Jordan jerzees. White kids from the
suburbs in wealthy homes. They want to
be Michael Jordan. They want to be 50
Cent. They want to be these celebrities
that are really great at what they do.
Cause they tell us things. Back in 1966,
great basketball players never had the
opportunity to get on a court on a
national stage. They were sandbox
players. They couldn’t get out of the
sandbox. They had about 3 African
American players on the north teams and
that was it. In the south they had none.
In the Atlantic Coast conference they
had none. And what’s interesting, if
you’re a sports fan, a lot of you saw
the Texas football game. That was a
national championship game. Texas didn’t
have an African American playing in
their football pro until 1969. and
that’s unbelievable. Think about it.
Would you
categorize yourself as someone who likes
to do stories about racial equality?
Jerry Bruckheimer: I like to
do stories that change people for the
better. I like to tell these kind of
stories. These are fun stories to tell.
I grew up in Detroit; which was a
racially charged city as we all know. I
was bused as a kid. I was 9 and 10 years
old. I was sent in the inner city. Even
though I lived in Detroit. I was sent;
my school was all white, I was sent to
an all black school. It was great. To me
it wasn’t a detriment. I gained a lot
from it. So that…it interests me.
With doing
public television, do you find that that
has changed you as a filmmaker in
certain ways?
Jerry Bruckheimer: I think
the more work you do, the better you get
at it. Television of course we spend a
lot less money and we do it in a very
short period of time. Movies take 3, 4,
5 years; it’s a journey to the screen.
Our TV shows are 8, 9 months and their
up and running. it does make you work
quicker and you see you can get things
done just as well in a very fast time
frame just as well.
Can you talk
about the casting process?
Jerry Bruckheimer: First of
all, Ben Affleck wanted to do the movie.
What his representatives want for him
and what Disney wanted to pay him didn’t
match so we couldn’t get him to do the
movie. Josh is somebody we’ve been
watching for a long time. We saw 'A
Beautiful Mind', 'Sweet Home Alabama'.
We saw a lot of his work. We felt he was
right for the project and went after
him. As far as the other kids are
concerned, Derek Luke is the only real
serious actor. I mean, we have a couple
of white kids who are trained actors.
But everybody else is great basketball
players.
Can you talk
about some of your upcoming projects?
Jerry Bruckheimer: National
Treasure; we started filming yesterday
in the Caribbean, Bahamas. We’re
finishing 2 and starting 3. I think we
have about 5 days left to shoot on it
and then we’re done with it. And we’ll
break in march, edit 2 and go back at
the end of the summer and finish 3. We
started a picture in New Orleans. I
think it’s the first movie shot in New
Orleans since Katrina in February with
Denzel Washington playing the lead.
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