In a way, producers are among the most under-recognized players in Hollywood, although they very well hold the most important role. For starters, producers often come up with a production’s budget. So, whenever there’s talk about the most expensive films made in Hollywood (or even the most expensive shows ever released), it helps to remember that a producer made that happen.
Over the years, one of the producers who has remained prominent behind the scenes is film and television producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Throughout his career, Bruckheimer has had his share of hits and misses on famously huge productions. Here are some of the very best and the very worst.
Best: Farewell, My Lovely, 70
The 1975 movie revolves around an ex-con who hires a private eye to find his girlfriend. The movie stars Robert Mitchum as the private eye although initially, he wasn’t the actor being eyed for the role. “They wanted Richard Burton,” the actor recalled while speaking with RogerEbert.com. “He was doing something else.” Nonetheless, things turned out fine in the end.
According to The Hollywood Interview, Bruckheimer once told Venice Magazine that Mitchum was “a lot of fun.” Meanwhile, the producer added that the actor was “a nice guy, but real complicated.”
Best: The Amazing Race: Season 1, 72
Today, The Amazing Race is a highly successful competition reality show that’s already received 81 Emmy nominations and 15 wins.
That said, one of the things that most fans didn’t know about the show is that it struggled to remain on CBS’ air in the beginning. “Staying on the air was more of a challenge,” Bruckheimer’s production partner, Jonathan Littman, recalled while speaking with The Hollywood Reporter. “We went cycle to cycle for a few years.” After the show won its first Emmy though, Littman said that The Amazing Race became “harder to cancel.”
Best: CSI: Season 9, 74
CSI is a crime procedural that arguably played a critical role in shaping today’s fictional crime shows. Throughout its 15-season run, Bruckheimer served as one of the show’s executive producers alongside series creator Anthony Zuiker.
Based on Metacritic scores, the show’s most highly rated season is its ninth which also includes one of the show’s most unforgettable episodes, Turn, Turn, Turn. In this episode, the agents deal with a case that starts with a 16-year-old girl found dead in a hotel parking lot with George Eads’ Nick Stokes taking the lead in the investigation.
Best: Black Hawk Down, 74
Directed by Ridley Scott, Black Hawk Down follows the events that led to two Black Hawk aircrafts getting shot down during an operation in Somalia. The movie is based on a book written by Mark Bowden.
And once Bruckheimer got the rights to the book, the producer explained, “You have to do some condensing, but we didn’t want to try to tell a Hollywood tale, a big Hollywood movie.” That said, he also told One Guy’s Opinion that he “didn’t want to graft a love story onto it.” In the end, Black Hawk Down became one of Scott’s best films.
Best: Thief, 78
The 1981 movie is one of the first feature films that Bruckheimer had ever produced. It also happens to be the movie directorial debut of Michael Mann. In Thief, James Caan stars as an expert safecracker who decides to pull off one final big heist before walking away from the job.
As it turns out, it was Caan who put the team behind the movie together. While speaking with Cinephilia & Beyond, Caan revealed, “I got Jerry Bruckheimer to produce it… along with my brother, Ronnie, which was hysterical.”
Worst: Gone In Sixty Seconds, 35
When Bruckheimer decided to do a remake of the 1974 car movie, he was quite enthusiastic. “A great car movie, a great chase movie, hasn't been around,” the producer explained in a DVD featurette (via Salon). “So it's time to do one.”
Bruckheimer and the film’s other bosses did a brilliant job of putting together a stellar cast, one that includes action star Nicolas Cage, Oscar winner Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Timothy Olyphant, James Duval, Robert Duvall, and Scott Caan. Despite the movie’s star power, however, Gone in Sixty Seconds only enjoyed moderate success at the box office.
Worst: Coyote Ugly, 27
Prior to working on this movie, Bruckheimer had already produced the 1983 movie Flashdance so he was quite confident that he could pull off this 2000 film just fine.
The movie is set in a New York City bar that was run by women and for them, dance was more than just an entertainment feature. “Dance is part of the whole ethos of those bars,” Bruckheimer explained while speaking with Variety. “That’s what those women do.” Meanwhile, the movie also featured a cameo from director Michael Bay. As it turns out, it was Bruckheimer who asked him to do it.
Worst: Modern Men: Season 1, 24
The 2006 sitcom centers on three childhood friends – played by Max Greenfield, Eric Lively, and Josh Braaten - who seem to be having trouble with women. In their desperation to get better, they turn to a well-known life coach portrayed by Jane Seymour.
The premise of the show may be amusing but the plotlines are generally too predictable. Over the years, Bruckheimer has proven that he’s capable of creating television hits, as much does movie blockbusters. Unfortunately, Modern Men isn’t just one of those entertainment success stories.
Worst: Geostorm, 21
There are some natural disaster movies that are so bad, you’d start to think they’re good, but that is just not the case for Geostorm. For the record, the veteran producer was only brought on board later on in the film’s production after the movie was rated in test screenings as “not bad but room for improvement,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
By then, however, it seemed that the movie was anything but salvageable, despite undergoing reshoots. It’s just too bad because the disaster film surely had money-making potential, especially considering that Gerald Butler was cast in the lead role.
Worst: Kangaroo Jack, 16
From the start, it seems that this 2003 comedy was a disaster waiting to happen. Kangaroo Jack centers on two friends – played by Anthony Anderson and Jerry O’Connell – who is forced to deliver $50,000 to Australia but ends up losing it to a kangaroo.
While speaking with BBC, Bruckheimer explained that he decided to do the movie because he’s never done one featuring kangaroos. That said, the producer later admitted that he didn’t really end up working with an actual kangaroo for the movie. During production, they discovered that kangaroos couldn’t be trained so they used a CGI kangaroo.