Michael Douglas aims to revive classic thrillers
70-year-old even arranged his own transportation in indie film Beyond the Reach
Actor Michael Douglas says he’s drawn to contemporary roles, confessing he doesn’t have the legs to do period parts. “I don’t look good in tights. My legs are very skinny,” he jokes.
But the 70-year-old star of Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction and Wall Street was happy to do something with a 1970s feel — and add his star power to an indie film — with Beyond the Reach, opening Friday and going VOD same day.
He stars as John Madec, a ruthless corporate titan who believes it’s his right to illegally bag a bighorn sheep in the New Mexico desert.
Douglas even helped arrange the spectacular ride that probably deserves its own co-starring screen credit: a one-of-a-kind $600,000, sixwheel, luxury off-road Mercedes Benz.
Madec drives it around the desert with young local tracker Ben (Jeremy Irvine of War Horse) reluctantly guiding him to his prize kill. Things go wrong when an overzealous Madec accidentally shoots Ben’s friend, a reclusive elderly prospector. When Ben tries to go for help rather than help hide the evidence, Madec finds new prey to track.
Douglas also produced the movie, directed by French filmmaker JeanBaptiste Léonetti ( Carré blanc). It premiered at TIFF 2014, where he and Léonetti chatted with the Star last September.
The next day, Douglas started filming Ant-Man in Atlanta, among the slate of new Marvel titles opening this spring and summer.
Douglas looked fit, saying he is in remission from the throat cancer he was diagnosed with in 2010.
“I feel great! I just had my fourth year check-up and I’m clean, so after four years, you’re considered cancerclean,” he said. “But certainly, this whole cancer battle gave me new appreciation, a new momentum to work as hard as I am. I enjoy it passionately and we’ll continue.”
Léonetti, who said he’s “a big, huge ’70s fan” looked to directors like Sam Peckinpah ( Straw Dogs) and John Schlesinger ( Midnight Cowboy) for inspiration for Beyond the Reach.
“I learned cinema with them. This period was really special to learn cinema because it was with the studio (backing), it was different,” said Léonetti.
Douglas said he wanted his character of Madec to be instantly recognizable.
“I wanted a character that you could go ‘Bingo!’ I know exactly that rich guy from Southern California who’s a trophy hunter, whether it’s the trophy companies or whether in his case it’s the (game) trophies,” said Douglas.
Ben is a perfect foil for Madec, Douglas pointed out. At the worldpremiere screening the day before, he’d spoken about classic white hatblack hat characters in westerns during a Q&A session. He saw Ben as “a young John Wayne; a kid from New Mexico, good character, pure of heart and values. You want those classic characters in disparity.”
As for Madec’s over-the-top luxury ride, which features a fold-out minikitchen complete with martini bar and espresso machine, “we were really lucky on that,” said Douglas. “I have a friend of mine who is involved in Formula One racing and he’s partnered with the Mercedes team and I was just talking about the movie and said we were looking for the car and he showed me this car and I went . . . this is incredible. He says well there’s only one in the world.”
Douglas hopes Beyond the Reach, based on Deathwatch, Robb White’s 1972 young-adult novel, will expose a younger generation of movie lovers to the classic thriller genre.
“I love the thriller. How to pull off the thriller aspects in bright sunshine? In a wide-open desert? And I also thought this was a movie that would appeal just as the book did for a younger audience,” he said. “Jeremy is a good looking, really good actor, he’s done a great job. And I think as we get this out I’m really curious to see if we can attract a younger audience for it.”
Douglas said he has “a number of projects” percolating with his production company but wouldn’t elaborate, although he did say there’s one actor he’d love to work with onscreen: Jack Nicholson.
“He’s a dear friend of mine and I produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest but Jack Nicholson is an actor . . . he’s a dear friend, I’d love to work with. I haven’t had a chance.”