Why did you feel that this was the right time to make this movie both creatively and professionally?
Because it hit me. The last time a script hit me, where I could sit down and write every day, all day until it all came out was 20 years ago: Swingers. I know enough now to get out of the way of that. And if I’m lucky enough to be inspired to do something, it’s not something that you can make happen, so when it does happen, you have to respect it.
And it turns out that it was the right thing for me. It was the best experience I can ever remember having of making a movie. It just felt really good to see that I can still do that. I didn’t know. I haven’t done that in a long time. To be able to act and make a movie where I got to have the final say in how I shot it, where I shot it, who's in it, what the script is, what the edit is, and not to be part of a committee, but to be a lone voice on a much smaller canvas, was potentially scary. I could've found out that I lost my voice and was just good for studio movies. So it was really good to go back to my roots. I feel reinvigorated and excited to be working on Jungle Book now. After doing a really little one like this, to go back to something that’s huge and extremely collaborative — it’s a nice change of pace.
You sound excited about making Jungle Book. Why do you still want to make blockbuster movies or big-studio movies? What makes you go back?
I can’t write a script every year that comes from that place. When it happens I’ll do it again. I hope. For right now, I’m really having a lot of fun. I love working with visual effects. Right now, at this moment in history, you can’t do an effects-heavy small movie. To be honest with you, as we come up to the release date in the summer — I’ve been the windshield, and I’ve been the bug — when you do the big movies, it’s nice to know that people give you room to release your film, and you don’t have to claw your way to the screens. When you work on a little one, you can disappear in a blink of an eye and that’s sad. It doesn’t keep me from doing it, but when you’re doing a big movie that a big studio put a lot of money behind, has a good brand — and it comes out well, you sleep a little easier at night than you do with a little independent film.
The old auteur theory talks about how movies are ultimately defined by the visions of the director. When you’re making blockbusters, especially within an operation like Marvel's, is there room for a clear vision?
I think the bigger the movie is, the harder it is to maintain the idea of an auteur. You’re servicing something beyond just your own vision. Whenever there’s a lot of money on the line, it is your responsibility to make sure that you’re doing your best to have people not lose their money and to actually win by betting on it. You’re balancing things other than your own personal tastes. That’s partly what we’re hired to do, and I’ve always been very comfortable with that arrangement.
Nowadays, there’s no excuse. If you want more creative control, just go smaller. Back at the time we made Swingers, it cost six figures to make a movie. Now you could make a movie now for hundreds or thousands. They’ll be small, they’ll be digital, you’ll be editing it on your laptop, but you can make a movie.
The sad part is that there’s no middle ground anymore. There are big movies and then there are small movies and then those mid-range movies — where you could be an auteur — the business model doesn’t seem to support those any longer. But what’s replacing it now is all the great work that’s happening on television and in other media. So I don’t think that it’s gone, I think there’s great work's being done, I just think the nature of what plays in the movie theater has changed a lot.
When you see what the Marvel universe has become, since Iron Man 2, how much do you see it as a point of pride, for setting the tone and paving the way for this giant thing, and how much regret do you have for not being more involved?
The first thing it feels like is weird because, at the time of Iron Man, it was a new studio. There was a tremendous amount of doubt swirling around whether Marvel Studios would have worked at all outside of the established superheroes that already were successful. So it could not have been a smaller, more independent-feeling environment when we began. Everything was about keeping it within a certain budget parameter. If we went too expensive, the movie could have been taken over by the bond company, and if the movie wasn’t successful, Marvel could have lost all of their intellectual properties that they were using as collateral. It was very precarious at first. Now, [there's a] 180-degree difference. I think Marvel is the highest grossing franchise in history, if you add up everything. It really all started with Iron Man and a few tonal decisions that we made and some casting decisions that we made. That grew into Iron Man 2. Then, fortunately, other filmmakers came in like Joss [Whedon] who helped flesh out the world. So I’d say the bottom line is it feels very weird to see how big this little thing can become.
What’s nice is I’ve gotten to stay involved, whether it's acting in Iron Man 3 or being an executive producer on the Iron Man and Avenger films, so I still feel very much part of the family. But I also feel like I get to do different things like working on Jungle Book, still in the Disney family. Then I get to go off and make little movies like Chef. I really think that I found the right balance, and I certainly have been very grateful for the opportunity that the Marvel stuff has presented me with. But also it was very hard work doing those two movies back-to-back. My hat’s off to the filmmakers who work on those because it’s two years of nonstop concentration.
