Kevin Costner and Francis Ford Coppola Open Up About Their Love of Filmmaking and The Pain That Comes With It

Kevin Costner and Francis Ford Coppola both have big film projects that they are currently developing with Costner’s Horizon Western films and Coppola’s Megalopolis. These filmmakers are both self-financing these projects and have put in well-over $100 million of their own money into them.

Costner said: “I’ve mortgaged 10 acres on the water in Santa Barbara where I was going to build my last house. But I did it without a thought. It has thrown my accountant into a f*cking conniption fit. But it’s my life, and I believe in the idea and the story.”

As for Coppola, he sold his Winery to finance his film. These projects are just that important to them. So why are they taking these kinds of risks to make these movies? Because they freakin’ love the art of filmmaking and these are stories that they feel the need to tell. When explaining their drive behind this, Costner told Deadline:

“The story will speak loudly to Francis; others will scratch their heads. I commissioned this story in 1988. Single movie, two-hander. A conventional Western with a beginning, middle, and end. I couldn’t get anybody to make it. Then, right after I made Open Range and it performed pretty well, I had a chance with Disney. We had a $5 million difference. They had had a lot of money success with Open Range, but a $5 million difference kept them from making this movie. Now, I’m stubborn, and I think probably Francis is too. Eight years later, I started thinking about the story, started writing with a partner, and it ended up being four screenplays. So I reverse-engineered everything from 1988. I thought it was really good. But I still couldn’t get anybody to make it.

“At the end of the day, I’m a storyteller, and I went ahead and put my own money into it. I’m not a very good businessman, so, scratch your head, if you will. I don’t know why, but I have not let go of this one. I’ve pushed it into the middle of the table three times in my career and didn’t blink. This is my fourth. And probably one of the few people in the world I could talk with about this would be with Francis.”

When Coppola was asked if he could relate to any of that, he said:

“It does. For me, when you do go into the great unknown, you don’t want to say, ‘Oh, I wish I had done this or that.’ You want to say, I got to do it.’ And you’ll be busy thinking of what you did that you wanted to do, that when death comes, you’re not going to even notice it.”

Costner responded, saying, “That’s how I feel about it.” Coppola went on to share, “I’ve always operated under this vague idea of trying to do stuff, because if you don’t achieve it, it’s no worse than if you didn’t try. At least by trying, you have the possibility you could pull it off.”

During the interview, Coppola’s famous fights with Paramount Studios over The Godfather were brought up and by self-financing Megalopolis it makes him the studio. In regards to that, he said:

“You used the word authorship — the idea of auteur theory, where there’s one voice. But even that one author is basically standing on the shoulders of previous giants. There’s no avoiding it. So authorship only means the film is honest to the theme and the premise. It has to be personal, real; it can’t be a synthesis of what people have decided would be a good formula for a movie. I acknowledge fully that any film I make is filled with things I learned from watching the greats that came before me.”

At this point, Kevin Costner chimed in and talked about how every movie that gets made is plagued with challenges, and it seems like it’s a miracle that any kind of original movie actually gets made:

“When you go into a studio and walk down the halls, you see all these posters of the movies they made. Unless you’re the filmmaker, you really can’t understand, forensically, how those movies went down: who almost killed it, who could have ruined it, who tried to ruin it and now puts it front and center on their wall. We go in brave and certain about what we feel, but those voices can get inside you. There’s fear about doing something that’s a little bit original. Like, we know in a romantic comedy that, first base, they gotta hate each other. Second base to third base, maybe there’s something between them. And then you get to home and you have your movie. There’s a formula in comedy. Nothing wrong with the formula. But God curses a person like me or Francis; if we decide to do a straight-up comedy, we’re gonna hit those bases, but we might hit them in our own way.

“And God forbid they go test screen it. Then holy hell breaks loose. That’s when the movies are at their most vulnerable when we start giving them scores. Because, really, these are emotional experiences, not intellectual ones. I know, absolutely, that because of testing, studio executives live or die depending on what happens Friday night. But movies can have a life long after that. I believe in the life of the movie more than I believe in the opening weekend, so every decision I make has to do with that.”

These are the kinds of filmmakers that I admire! The ones that will go out there and take these kinds of risks, the ones that are passionate to the bone, and filmmaking is so embedded in their souls that they will do whatever it takes to tell their stories and share them with the world.

There’s a lot more to this interview and you can read it here.