A Legacy of His Own: A Doug Liman Profile (Part 2)

With his latest film Fair Game released later this year, Trevor Hogg profiles the career of director Doug Liman in the second of a two part feature... read part one.

“I’ve always been a huge action film fan and a couple of friends of mine were in marriage therapy,” explained screenwriter Simon Kingberg as to the origins of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). “The way they were talking about it sounded kind of aggressive and mercenary. I just thought it would make an interesting template for a relationship inside of an action film.” Mayhem and chaos ensues when two married assassins are contracted to kill each other. “One of the ways that you write it is that all of the action sequences in the film have to be, in some form, expressions of where these characters are in their marriage… Instead of two people having a fight at the dinner table about the salt, they’re actually doing it with assault rifles.” The film student found himself a supportive mentor in Oscar-winner Akiva Goldsman (A Time to Kill); the script which served as Kingberg’s thesis for his Masters of Fine Arts captured the attention of Nicole Kidman (The Hours) who got Brad Pitt (Se7en) to play her husband. Unfortunately for Kidman, she had to drop out because of her commitment to the remake of The Stepford Wives (2004). “Because of all the romantic controversy around Mr. and Mrs. Smith, there was a lot of talk about the casting of that movie,” stated director Doug Liman. “Angelina Jolie [Salt] was not my first choice. When people hear about the other actresses we were considering, they say, ‘Wow, you were really lucky that that didn’t work out and you ended up with Angelina.’ What people don’t realize is, had it worked out with a different actress, I would have created a different character.” The action-comedy which cost $110 million to make stars Vince Vaughn (Be Cool), Adam Brody (Jennifer’s Body), Kerry Washington (Ray), Keith David (Platoon), Chris Weitz (About a Boy), Rachel Huntley, and Michelle Monaghan (Trucker). Mr. & Mrs. Smith earned $478 million worldwide and received nominations from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films for Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film and from the Irish Film and Television Awards for Audience Award Best International Star (Brad Pitt).

Venturing once again into television, Doug Liman directed the pilot episode of Heist (2006). The seven episode series created by Mark and Rob Cullen centres around a gang of crooks that attempts to rob three different Beverly Hills jewelry stores at the same time. The NBC aired program stars Marika Dominczyk (Who Do You Love), Dougray Scott (Enigma), Steve Harris (Minority Report), Michele Hicks (Northfork), David Walton (Fired Up!), Billy Gardell (The Deported), Reno Wilson (Crank), and Seymour Cassel (Rushmore). Riding on the commercial success of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Liman helmed the pilot episode of a proposed 2007 TV spin-off featuring Martin Henderson (The Ring), Jordana Brewster (The Fast and the Furious), Lauren Birkell (The Babysitters), Shane Brolly (Underworld), Anthony De Longis (Roadhouse), Michael Kelly (Changeling), Julia Ormond (First Knight), and Rebecca Mader (The Devil Wears Prada). Relocated to the suburbs, contract killers John (Henderson) and Jane Smith (Brewster) commit assassinations while trying to deal with their marriage issues. Set six months after the original picture, Simon Kingberg described the series, which failed to be picked up by a television network, as being “Married… with Children with guns.”

Adapting a science fiction book by author Steven Gould, was next on the cinematic agenda for Doug Liman. David Rice (Hayden Christensen), who posses the ability to teleport himself to anywhere around the world, is pursed by a shadowy government organization. Jumper (2008) was an elaborate production which filmed in 20 cities in 14 countries between 2006 and 2007. “The teenage boy inside of me was just fascinated with the idea of how outrageous teleportation could look,” confessed Liman, who decided to change the actor portraying the main character two months into filming. “I recast the male lead because Tom Sturridge [Being Julia], who was playing David Rice, just couldn’t play twenty-five. He was eighteen.” Impressed by his performance in Shattered Glass [2003], the director hired Hayden Christensen to replace Sturridge. The cast switching had a ripple effect as Rachel Bilson (New York, I Love You) took over from Teresa Palmer (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) in the lead female role. The $85 million science fiction production features Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot), Diane Lane (The Perfect Storm), Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction), Michael Rooker (Cliffhanger), AnnaSophia Robb (Race to Witch Mountain), Max Thieriot (Nancy Drew), Jesse James (The Butterfly Effect), Tom Hulce (Amadeus), Kristen Stewart (Panic Room), Teddy Dunn (The Manchurian Candidate) and Barbara Garrick (The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond).

Along with the casting issues, there were special effects matters that needed to be addressed. “I was just thinking, ‘How could a guy who can teleport, fight?’” stated Rob McCallum, one of the six storyboard artists who worked on the picture. “So you were really pushing yourself to try to think of inventive, cool, spectacular ways that you could use the jumping talent that these characters have.” In charge of translating the storyboard images to the big screen was Weta’s visual effects supervisor Erik Wingquist. “The concept of what a jump looks like changed and evolved a little over the course of post-production,” remarked Wingquist. “There are shots in the film that use still array footage but not in the same way we saw in The Matrix [1999]. The Matrix was largely about stopping time whereas this is about using slower shutter speeds on those still array cameras to end up with a streaky motion-blurred image as the perspective is changing.” The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films nominated Jumper for Best Music; at the Teen Choice Awards Rachel Bilson won for Best Movie Actress – Action/Adventure, while Samuel L. Jackson contended for Best Movie Villain. In response to the suggestion that Jumper, which earned $222 million worldwide, is the first installment of a proposed trilogy, Hayden Christensen replied, “This has been definitely been set up in a way that will allow for more films, and Doug has been careful to make sure he’s created characters that will have room to grow.” Empire magazine agreed in its movie review which stated, “[It’s] Limans’ least charismatic action and the least developed, but it stills packs some crackling action into its brief running time and lays foundations on which a great franchise can be built.”

Trading fiction for facts Doug Liman chose to adapt the memoir Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House by Valerie Plame. In retaliation for her husband’s (Sean Penn) public accusations that the intelligence reports on Iraq had been falsely manipulated, the American government reveals Valerie Plume (Naomi Watts) is a CIA operative. “When I read [Jez & John-Henry] Butterworth’s first draft on Fair Game [2010],” explained the New York filmmaker, “I got to page five and thought, ‘I love the characters of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson.’” The theme of the story resembles an action-comedy blockbuster previously helmed by Liman. “Anyone who has seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith knows that [the subject of] husband and wife married spies is something that I find particularly interesting. There are some similarities with Fair Game too. Only one of them is a spy, but it’s still a husband and wife maintaining a marriage against the backdrop of all the lies that come with that kind of job.”

“I personally wanted to go to Baghdad and see with my own eyes before talking about an operation that takes place in Iraq in Fair Game,” revealed Doug Liman. “Every location we went to, the security team would say how many minutes we could spend at that location. They showed us the classified report from the day before of how many attacks there had been in the city. It was about thirty-five pages long. Little of this stuff is in the press but it really brought home how real the danger was for us.” Time was not a commodity the moviemaker could afford to waste. “The longest we got in any one spot was twenty minutes. The rationale was that the moment the car stopped and we were spotted getting out to film, someone was making a phone call and forces were being mobilized to attack us.” Liman made sure to take extra security measures while conducting the principle photography. “As much as possible I delegated the filming, trying to keep as low a profile as possible. If we were told it was a very dangerous location, sometimes I wouldn’t even get out of the car. The camera was a gigantic ‘look at me’ and it was safer for everyone if it was held by an Iraqi crew member.” Questioned about Iraqi War pictures being cursed at the box office, Doug Liman replied, “A lot of the other movies that have been about the war or dealt with the war have not been great movies. In fact, they’ve been motivated more by politics than by story, and that’s been a turn-off to audiences.” Fair Game stars Ty Burrell (The Incredible Hulk), Iris Bahr (The Last Exorcism), Bruce McGill (The Insider), Sam Shepard (The Notebook), Satya Bhabha (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), David Denman (Big Fish), Brooke Smith (The Silence of the Lambs), Michael Kelly and Noah Emmerich (The Truman Show).

Doug Liman remains active in television as he is involved with producing I Just Want My Pants Back (MTV, 2010); a group in their twenties struggle to make a life for themselves in New York City. The cast for the comedy features Kim Shaw (Greetings from the Shore), Chris Parnell (Looking for Kitty), Peter Vack (Consent), Jordan Carlos (Ghost Town) and Elisabeth Hower (New York Lately). Another small screen project for Liman is the CIA operative series Covert Affairs (USA, 2010) staring Piper Perabo (The Prestige), Christopher Gorham (The Other Side of Heaven), Anne Dudek (Park), Peter Gallagher (The Hudsucker Proxy), and Kari Matchett (Civic Duty).

Next on the cinematic to-do list for Doug Liman is an adaptation of the alien invasion novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka about a solider trapped in a time loop which sees him reborn each morning to fight again. “All You Need is Kill [2012] is a project that I’m developing at Warner Brothers. It’s an amazing script,” stated the director. “It delivers all of the wiz-bang satisfaction of a big Hollywood effects movie, but it does it in a completely original way.” Attica, a film in the works about the 1971 prison uprising, has a personal significance to the moviemaker. “After the uprising was put down, the inmates were weary of talking about the events – guards had been killed and no one wanted to add a murder charge to their record. My father’s job was not to prosecute; it was to find out the truth about what had actually occurred.” Liman continued, “Ultimately he succeeded, and his report is a riveting page-turner. But the people whose job it was to prosecute the crimes wanted my father to reveal who had admitted to what. When my father refused, they threatened to hold him in contempt of court and throw him in jail. The commissioners with whom my father had produced the report gave my father a hacksaw as an act of solidarity.”

There is also an untitled moon project rumoured to be starring Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko). “I think the greatest accomplishment in our lifetime really was the Apollo program,” observed the director. “And rather than just tell a history of the first lunar landing, I want to make it relevant to a young audience by having the group today recreate what the Apollo program did forty years ago.” Other possible movies include Jumper 2 and a fantasy tale. “Nick Tungsten, Nightmare Hunter is a project I’ve been developing for years because it’s an action movie set entirely inside a child’s nightmare… It’s an adventure film for the proletariat.” Contemplating his cinematic philosophy, Liman mused, “I really believe that filmmakers should entertain. There’s nothing I hate more than a movie that preaches.” The director added, “A Doug Liman movie is one where there is no villain. Everyone has their different viewpoints, so who says that the person you’re following has to be the hero? I think it’s much more interesting to have the grey areas”.

Visit Doug Liman's official blog at 30 Ninjas.

Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada.