Chapter 120: Richard Gere’s Interview
Chapter 120: Richard Gere’s Interview
“The male lead’s setup is bizarre. He possesses a doctorate degree and is proficient in a mysterious Eastern art called Tai Chi, yet willingly works as a bar bouncer. Then the director awkwardly tries to shape him into an obsessive avenger, yet not a qualified one. He can mercilessly kill minor henchmen, but softens toward the tyrant he hates the most, nearly getting himself killed in return. In short, this is a film whose plot leaves people feeling awkward and conflicted.” — Chicago Tribune
“The film is filled with anarchic vigilantism, lawless destruction, and unrestrained violence. It is practically a farce.” — Film Guide magazine
“All I saw were thug brawls, shattered beer bottles, a bunch of busty women, and splattering blood. The plot is pale and completely unconvincing. The muscles Richard Gere deliberately trained for the film also fail to generate the slightest interest. His action scenes are not even as clean and sharp as the villainous supporting character’s.” — Montreal Film Magazine
“A ridiculous and noisy fable of fists.” — Scroll Film Review
“This is completely a film that could remove its male lead entirely, and events would still proceed exactly the same way. The Double Deuce bar gets cleaned up, attracting the local tyrant’s greed, followed by violence, arson, and murder. Then the townspeople, driven beyond endurance, rise up and kill the tyrant. Richard Gere abandoned Eric Williams’ Pretty Woman for a movie like this. One wonders whether regret is costing him sleep.” — Hollywood Information Daily
“Other than the rock soundtrack woven throughout, this film is utterly worthless.” — Rolling Stone magazine
Because of United Artists’ aggressive pre-release promotion, Road House achieved an occupancy rate of over seventy percent across more than 1,900 theaters on opening day. However, as overwhelmingly negative reviews spread after release, attendance plummeted sharply.
Three days later, the Easter season’s first weekend box office results were released.
In its sixth week, Pretty Woman unsurprisingly experienced a box office rebound, earning more than 2.4 million dollars above the previous weekend. With a three-day weekend total of 11.27 million dollars, it claimed first place at the box office. Its cumulative gross after six weeks reached 97.69 million dollars. Once the full week ended, Eric would welcome the third hundred-million-dollar film he had participated in.
Considering Eric still had several months before turning nineteen, this achievement would undoubtedly trigger another wave of heated media frenzy.
Although Road House had nearly two thousand opening screens, its attendance collapsed drastically on Saturday and Sunday, resulting in only 5.25 million dollars during its opening weekend. With less than half the earnings of Pretty Woman, it ranked second.
Third place went to Universal Pictures’ crime comedy Fletch Lives, which earned 5.04 million dollars across more than 1,400 theaters.
Thanks to increased support from Columbia Pictures and the Easter season boost, Home Alone quietly earned another little over four million dollars in its eighteenth week of release, steadily advancing toward the three-hundred-million-dollar mark.
For this dark horse film, which had occupied the number one box office spot for twelve consecutive weeks and stubbornly remained in the top five more than four months after release, everyone had already become numb.
Perhaps only when Home Alone suddenly accumulated three hundred million dollars would the public stare wide-eyed at the number again and let out another astonished “wow.”
With the beginning of a new week, Eric finished the casting auditions for Running Out of Time. After handing the auditions for The Others and Scent of a Woman over to the two directors, he began traveling throughout Greater Los Angeles scouting filming locations for the movie.
Although Running Out of Time did not require many locations, a large number of scenes required road closures for filming. Finding suitable places was not easy.
At the same time, Eric also discovered the shortcomings in his own foundation and influence.
As Hollywood’s home base, Los Angeles provided tremendous policy support for filmmaking, but that did not mean film crews could do whatever they wanted. Many filming locations required approval from various municipal departments. While the system was flexible, the process itself was extremely cumbersome.
Furthermore, connections and relationships were indispensable.
Although Eric was already very famous, he still could not compare with veteran directors and elite producers who had been established for years. Sometimes others could resolve matters with a single phone call, while he had to personally appear and negotiate repeatedly.
Fortunately, Columbia Pictures valued the film highly. To ensure Running Out of Time could begin shooting as quickly as possible, they specially assigned an experienced producer to assist Eric with preparation work, greatly shortening the pre-production period.
While Eric was busy scouting locations for Running Out of Time, another matter quietly began to unfold.
The storm started with Richard Gere.
Ever since the opening weekend box office results for Pretty Woman had been released, the nearly forty-year-old former superstar had become increasingly resentful over losing the male lead role in Pretty Woman. He knew he had missed an extremely valuable opportunity to return to A-list superstardom.
Especially after the box office failure of Road House, his frustration and regret only deepened.
After Road House, Richard Gere desperately wanted another film contract to restore his career. He had his eyes on a medium-budget film at Universal Pictures that CAA was currently handling.
Objectively speaking, the request was not excessive.
But Horner Wille refused to fight for the role on Richard Gere’s behalf.
Using the reasoning that Universal would never cast an actor who had already fallen to the lower ranks of second-tier status and had just ruined a major production, he directly rejected Richard Gere.
Horner Wille was one of CAA’s elite agents. Even many A-list actors treated him politely, which gradually inflated the agent’s arrogance.
Meanwhile, Richard Gere completely blamed CAA for losing the opportunity with Pretty Woman. Three days after the incident, through a friend’s introduction, he joined another major talent agency, William Morris Agency.
Originally, this would have been an entirely ordinary actor transfer.
Such defections occurred countless times each year among Hollywood’s major talent agencies. Even CAA’s so-called “betrayal cost” system — which claimed to maintain a complete structure discouraging betrayal — mainly existed to prevent its own agents from becoming independent.
Because CAA possessed an enormous entertainment industry resource chain, most celebrities would not leave the giant tree lightly unless offered sufficient temptation.
However, after Richard Gere joined William Morris Agency, he fiercely smeared CAA.
The very next day, Hollywood Information Daily published an article titled Exclusive Interview with Richard Gere: The Full Inside Story Behind Losing the “Pretty Woman” Lead Role.
“Recently, famous actor Richard Gere, who had once been expected to star in Eric Williams’ blockbuster Pretty Woman, suddenly left the long-time agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA). In the interview, Richard Gere stated:
‘At the time, I was already in a career slump. Because I feared being shelved by CAA, they used reassurance as an excuse and handed me the lead role in United Artists’ action film Road House.
When I read the script, I told Horner Wille: “No, this role doesn’t suit me. Although I’ve acted in action films before, this character is too violent. Perhaps finding a muscle-bound actor would be more appropriate.”
But Horner Wille said I had no choice.
Soon afterward, I had no option but to accept Road House for a very low salary. To better fit the male lead’s image, I underwent an intense period of physical training.
But the film still failed in the end.
The reason I’m exposing all of this today is because I believe CAA has begun treating actors like chess pieces to be manipulated at will. Sooner or later, it will destroy itself.’”