The Brothers Grimm (2005)

Die Gebrüder Grimm

Interview with Charles Roven

Charles Roven might not be one of the best known faces in Hollywood but he is surely one of the most important players in the film industry. Responsible as a producer for more than twenty movies - among which you can find jewels like Twelve Monkeys or Three Kings - he has been working in L.A. for more than thirty years now. On the occasion of the Biennale di Venezia and the premiere of Terry Gilliam's new movie The Brothers Grimm OutNow.CH got the chance to talk to him. Together with a bunch of other journalists from all over the globe Mr. Roven invited us to a cosy suite at the Hotel Des Bains to tell us some things about his daily life as a producer.

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OutNow.CH (ON): Everybody is talking about the trouble with Terry Gilliam.

Charles Roven (CR): You know, every movie making experience is different. They are all unique. I have made twenty-five films in my career and I have found that the experience of making the movie during the course of making it has very little to do with how the movie turns out. I have made movies that were a pleasure to be on the set and the movies did not come out so well. And I have made movies that had a lot of turmoil on the set and the movies came out extremely well. One of the movies I made, that had some very public disagreements between the director and the star was Three Kings. Where George Clooney did not get along very well with David O'Russell. But I think it was certainly one of David O'Russell's best movies, one of George's best movies and one of my best movies. So, even though they had troubles on the set, it did not affect, or maybe it did affect the movie in a positive way. Terry is a director, that creates better when there is a lot of, what I call tumult. We did 12 Monkeys, which was a very successful film, and that movie had a lot of tumult making it. So I think, on different movies the press picks up on different things. I do not think it really has much to do with the final outcome of the movie. Most important thing on this movie is: it is a Terry Gilliam Film. He rewrote the script and he had final cut.

ON: How would you describe the attraction of Terry Gilliam's world?

CR: When you come to Terry Gilliam and ask him to be the director, you know that you are going to get a unique vision, that is why you go to him. And everything else that comes with it is part of creating that unique vision. I felt as a producer, he was the perfect director for this movie. He has such a distinct style that people compare. They say, oh this film is very gilliamesque. So that is what you want, when you make a movie with him. And that is what we have in this movie.

ON: Your relationship, has been an ongoing relationship. When did you first meet Terry Gilliam?

CR: We met when I gave him the script for 12 Monkeys. My first wife was a woman by the name of Dawn Steele. She was the president of Colombia Pictures when Baron Munchhausen came out. And their relationship was tumultuous. And even so, I gave him the script for 12 Monkeys. He asked me: "Did you talk with you wife about this?" And I said, I did and I have also seen your movies. We have been good friends since then, I would say about twelve years.

ON: Have you been involved in the Don Quixote film as well?

CR: Very early on, but before the French. I forgot what French company was financing most of it... I was involved very early on. And then we disagreed on what the movie would be made for. I did not feel like I could get the movie financed with the budget he wanted and so I left the project and started to do work on other things. He ultimately got it financed, but he got it financed with the number I told him I could finance it. (laughs).

ON: You have produced a bunch of different movies. What kind of movies do you prefer to make? Do you have a secret behind your choices?

CR: First of all, Atlas is part of a larger entertainment company. And I want to say that the movies that Atlas makes are movies that engage me. So I like the fact that I make all different kinds of films as a producer. I like to be able to make movies that can have a big broad appeal like Batman begins or Scooby Doo, which are very different movies. But I also liked Three Kings, 12 Monkeys or City of Angels. So I hope to continue to make all different movies, all different kinds of genres with all different kinds of filmmakers. And the most important thing to me, is that I am interested in the subject now.

ON: This time the subject is a fairy tale. Could you tell us about your childhood memory with fairy tales.

CR: You know, I come from an Eastern European background, my father was Czech and my mother is Hungarian. As a little boy, I grew up hearing the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, I knew who they were already as a little boy. One of the unfortunate things about America is, if you asked most young people who wrote Sleeping Beauty they would tell you it was Walt Disney.

ON: So would a lot of people...

CR: You think so? Beyond the United States?

ON: I think so, it was rarely mentioned on the posters. And Disney always had his name on the poster.

CR: It is an interesting point, is it not? But I think particularly in Europe, people know at least who the Brothers Grimm are. I like fairy tales because they always have an interesting moral. I make enough movies, that deal in the fantastic, it is an area that I also like and I know that Terry has an affinity for it.

ON: Was it in your eyes a problem - or even a chance - that the Grimms are not that well known in America? For the financial success?

CR: Yeah, I think that we hoped would do well in the United States. But always felt that the film had a chance to do more business internationally than in the United States. For the reasons that I have just mentioned. You know, I was interested in the fun of this reinvention of who the Brothers Grimm were. This fairy tale within a fairy tale, or fantasy within fantasy. You know, it is interesting, the word fairy tale has a different connotation in the United States than outside the United States.

ON: What is the difference?

CR: Fairy tale inside the United States is a very old fashioned word. You cannot really sell the movie as a fairy tale. You have to call it a supernatural thriller or fantasy works too. Is that not funny? So in all of the marketing material, we made sure that we did not use the word "fairy tale".

ON: What is your favourite fairy tale?

CR: At the moment, it is Brothers Grimm. (laughs).

ON: What about one within their world?

CR: Wow, that is a hard one. If I was give to produce one of those fairytales separately, I would probably make more than one. So I do not think that I can give you the answer.

ON: How was it to shoot in Prague?

CR: As I said, my family background is partially Czech, so I think Prague is a beautiful city, I have very much enjoyed my time there. When I was there, there were a lot of movies being shot. Therefore they had not had enough production there, so we had to import a lot of crew from around Europe. And that was a problem, it actually cost us more money than we thought it was going to cost us by going there. One of the reasons that we went there was we thought that we would have taken some advantage on the currency. But I found the people and the crews there to work hard and to be very generous. I am in preproduction of another movie right now, and one of the places we are looking at is Prague. Again.

ON: How much time do you spend on a set of your films normally?

CR: It depends, really. I produce a lot of films and my job as a producer is different on each one. Depending on if there are other producers involved and what those other producers do. On Batman begins for example I spend about forty percent of the time on the set, but that film had a fantastic line producer by the name of Larry Franco and Emma Thomas was also a producer on it. I just finished a musical with Outcast and that was a movie, where I was on the set about sixty percent of the time. So I would say the least amount of time that I would ever spend on a set would be about thirty and the most would probably be about sixty percent of the time. Because most of the time now, I am shooting more than one movie at the same time.

ON: Is it true that it is hard to find a good script in Hollywood? Could that be the reason why people do not go to the movies that often anymore?

CR: I do not no if the scripts are not good. I think there are many reasons for the box-office fall-off. One reason is certainly that this year the movies could have been better (but the movie year is not over yet). I think also that the window between movies and DVD is shortened. I think part of it is also the fact, that all of the technology has become so sophisticated that you can have this fantastic home entertainment environment inside your house, so maybe you do not want to go to the movies so fast. And piracy, I think, is a real problem too. The day after Batman begins was released I could get it in Los Angeles - on DVD in really good quality.

ON: How is this possible?

CR: I think that somebody is stealing a print or borrowing one from a movie theatre for one night. That is what I think is happening.

ON: What do you think should people do against it? Is there anything they can do?

CR: I do not know, but whatever it is, they should do everything the can. You know from finding a technological solution to prosecute pirates vigorously, because it is a very sad state of affairs.

ON: Do you see any chances in this whole development?

CR: We have to solve it, if we will not, there will not be any business. Look what happened to the music business. Part of our company is in the music business, and we were involved in 1998 with the first free downloads of mp3-files. And we begged the heads of Warner Brothers at that time "You have to deal with this now" and they did not. And every record company was guilty of the same thing, they obviously suffered greatly for it. You have to educate the public that it is illegal. You have to vigorously go after the real pirates. You have to bring the cost of what it is they are buying down to a level where it does not really pay to mess around with the illegality of it. Like what Apple is doing with the Itunes. So those are all possible solutions.

ON: Do you think, that there is a possibility that movie theatres and DVD will melt together to an entertainment box or something like that? Will they at least have the same release dates sooner or later?

CR: I do not know. I think that the movie going experience is a unique enough experience and a unique enough environment that it will always be there. I think that you will see a lot more direct to video releases, even with stars that you know who they are. And maybe the cinema experience will have fewer movies. But it will always be there. And I will be surprised if every movie is released on the same day in all media. I do not think that will happen. You might have seen Charly and the Chocolate Factory and Batman Begins in an IMAX-Theatre. It is incredible. As good as the movie is - I do not know whether you like it or not - in IMAX it is even more amazing. And I think those kinds of things keep the motion picture experience singular.

ON: So you do not think "movie theatre" will be a word like fairy tales?

CR: I hope not! I do not have much of a future as a producer if that is true.

ON: What is your favourite kind of movie?

CR: Gosh, I really have very broad tastes in my movies and I would hope that there is no genre of films that I cannot produce. There are producers whose work I admire and I know that if I produce a movie it will not be like theirs. But I also know, that if they produce a movie it will not be like mine.

ON: Some names...?

CR: Jerry Bruckheimer, Brian Grazer, Lawrence Gordon are all fantastic producers. And I am sure that there are others that I forgot.

10.09.2005 / mazemaster, andri, rm