Post by The Low Dweller on Mar 4, 2022 15:28:25 GMT
this was a project that at some point was set to star bale and sean penn with niels arden oplev directing. oplev recently talked about what happened with it on a danish podcast. here's a google translated article about what he said:
Sean Penn ruined Danes' big movie with Christian Bale and Zack Snyder
Director opens for the first time about the sunken Hollywood project
Director opens for the first time about the sunken Hollywood project
As one of the few Danish instructors, Niels Arden Oplev has managed to balance a career both at home and abroad.
With major international projects such as Flatliners and Mr. Robot and popular Danish films such as The Dream and Do You See the Moon, Daniel on the CV is the director in high gear.
Right now, Niels Arden Oplev is current in Danish cinemas with his deeply personal film Rose, which depicts his sister's journey by bus to Paris in 1997.
On that occasion, the filmmaker visited our podcast, and here Niels opened, among other things. for the first time up on one of his big sunken Hollywood projects with Christian Bale and Zack Snyder, which was destroyed by Sean Penn in 2011.
In clinch with the bad side of Hollywood
After the international breakthrough with Men Who Hate Women in 2010, Hollywood stood in line to hire the Danish director for their film:
- You get thrown the eurotrash pile in your head. All those manuscripts that no one bothers to make, and then you sit and read them.
But there was a manuscript that caught Niels' attention:
- There was actually a project that I had said yes to that went completely awry with Christian Bale written by a Kurt Johnston, and Zack Snyder was the producer along with his wife.
- The manuscript was called ‘The Last Photograph’. Super cool story about a photographer who travels into Afghanistan to find an old elite soldier who disappeared a long time ago and it was really good. Dark. But good.
However, not everything was quite right. Something went completely wrong:
- You could say that is one of those where I really get in clinch with the bad side of Hollywood. But it was also a project that landed in the middle of a divorce, so I also do not know if I was 100% clear in my head.
Good dialogue with Bale, but Snyder will take over the director position
When 'The Last Photograph' was under development, Christian Bale's popularity was at its peak. He had just won an Oscar for The Fighter, and was world famous as Batman in Christopher Nolan's beloved trilogy.
- Christian Bale and I actually have a very good dialogue in meetings with Kurt Johnston, and I kind of go in and work with Kurt, and also somehow think that I am improving the script over six to seven weeks.
- Suddenly, what is called "a hot commodity" in Hollywood, becomes a very attractive project that everyone starts talking about.
- It created a much greater awareness suddenly. And I also think it created a situation where Zack Snyder, who is the director himself, really wanted the project back. What I did not know at the time.
With major international projects such as Flatliners and Mr. Robot and popular Danish films such as The Dream and Do You See the Moon, Daniel on the CV is the director in high gear.
Right now, Niels Arden Oplev is current in Danish cinemas with his deeply personal film Rose, which depicts his sister's journey by bus to Paris in 1997.
On that occasion, the filmmaker visited our podcast, and here Niels opened, among other things. for the first time up on one of his big sunken Hollywood projects with Christian Bale and Zack Snyder, which was destroyed by Sean Penn in 2011.
In clinch with the bad side of Hollywood
After the international breakthrough with Men Who Hate Women in 2010, Hollywood stood in line to hire the Danish director for their film:
- You get thrown the eurotrash pile in your head. All those manuscripts that no one bothers to make, and then you sit and read them.
But there was a manuscript that caught Niels' attention:
- There was actually a project that I had said yes to that went completely awry with Christian Bale written by a Kurt Johnston, and Zack Snyder was the producer along with his wife.
- The manuscript was called ‘The Last Photograph’. Super cool story about a photographer who travels into Afghanistan to find an old elite soldier who disappeared a long time ago and it was really good. Dark. But good.
However, not everything was quite right. Something went completely wrong:
- You could say that is one of those where I really get in clinch with the bad side of Hollywood. But it was also a project that landed in the middle of a divorce, so I also do not know if I was 100% clear in my head.
Good dialogue with Bale, but Snyder will take over the director position
When 'The Last Photograph' was under development, Christian Bale's popularity was at its peak. He had just won an Oscar for The Fighter, and was world famous as Batman in Christopher Nolan's beloved trilogy.
- Christian Bale and I actually have a very good dialogue in meetings with Kurt Johnston, and I kind of go in and work with Kurt, and also somehow think that I am improving the script over six to seven weeks.
- Suddenly, what is called "a hot commodity" in Hollywood, becomes a very attractive project that everyone starts talking about.
- It created a much greater awareness suddenly. And I also think it created a situation where Zack Snyder, who is the director himself, really wanted the project back. What I did not know at the time.
Very bizarre experience with Sean Penn
But it was with the advent of a special star that the project suddenly went awry:
- Then Sean Penn came in and it went like wrong. So he and I did not go into tension together. It was a very, very bizarre and strange experience to get him inside. And he was not my choice, it was Christian Bale who really wanted to work with him. I would much rather have had another actor on who had more pondus. The role that was kind of written was such a great man. You know, a lot more Liam Neeson-like.
- But then Christian Bale had just won an Oscar for ‘The Fighter’, and then you think, you better give it to him, and I could also see Sean in the role, even though it was written in a different way. My agents warned me against it. And I should have listened to that. In fact, I've never really talked about it.
- But it was not fun. And then it kind of ended up that I was pushed out of the project, and that was something that happened to Zack Snyder and Sean Penn, and then it never came to anything.
Different approaches
The entire development of 'The Last Photograph' took place 11 years ago, but Niels Arden Oplev still believes that the project lives on with Zack Snyder, who hopes to direct the film himself. As recently as 2017, news was written in the US that Snyder expected to start production soon. It still has not happened.
In the podcast, Niels dives a little deeper into why it went completely awry between him and Sean Penn:
- Even though I came with this great success [Men who hate women, ed.] In the background, I'm not the kind of person who shows up and does a "song and dance" for my actors. I never ever thought about going in conceptually and informing him [Sean Penn, ed.] About what my movie should look like and stuff like that. And I think he was used to that.
- It was not something I was aware of, nor was it something I would bother at all. I do not work that way. I feel that if they do not trust what I do, like when I work with Danish actors, then they know that it is quality.
- And somehow I thought: "I have made 'Men who hate women', then they must know that I make quality". It was not like I came up with pictures and stood with a pointer for them to feel satisfied.
Will not fat for Sean Penn
- I think if I were to give him "the benefit of the doubt", Sean, then I think it made him insecure, because he was used to people coming, and as they say in American "brown nose" him , so greasy for him. And I did not do that at all. So I was not in that car at all.
- But I do not really think it dawned on me that he expected it. There was simply some communication that went completely, completely crazy.
It seems that Sean Penn's working methods generally totally crashed with the hard-working Dane:
- But he was also the kind of person who invited us to a private dinner, where we were out in his house, which was really supposed to be such a relaxation. He was going to travel and I was about to finish the start of a TV series. But then it was not really a private dinner, then it was really a meeting, and he had just not told.
- So he was constantly changing the agenda. I was not prepared to come and have to present anything in any way, well. Plus there was like alcohol involved, and you can not do anything serious with it.
In conclusion, however, Niels concludes: "I learned really, really much from it."
- I think if I were to give him "the benefit of the doubt", Sean, then I think it made him insecure, because he was used to people coming, and as they say in American "brown nose" him , so greasy for him. And I did not do that at all. So I was not in that car at all.
- But I do not really think it dawned on me that he expected it. There was simply some communication that went completely, completely crazy.
It seems that Sean Penn's working methods generally totally crashed with the hard-working Dane:
- But he was also the kind of person who invited us to a private dinner, where we were out in his house, which was really supposed to be such a relaxation. He was going to travel and I was about to finish the start of a TV series. But then it was not really a private dinner, then it was really a meeting, and he had just not told.
- So he was constantly changing the agenda. I was not prepared to come and have to present anything in any way, well. Plus there was like alcohol involved, and you can not do anything serious with it.
In conclusion, however, Niels concludes: "I learned really, really much from it."