An Interview With Paramount’s Top Guns

Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer are another of Hollywood’s odd couples, as disparate a production team as Peter Guber and Jon Peters and at least as successful. Since joining forces in 1982, their names have been attached to the top-grossing films of 1984 (“Beverly Hills Cop”), 1986 (“Top Gun”) and 1987 (“Beverly Hills Cop II”)--a track record that makes them, along with Eddie Murphy, Paramount’s most prized assets.

In full-page ads placed after their new five-year studio package was announced on January 31, Paramount called the relationship a “visionary alliance.” Simpson calls it simply “the biggest deal in Hollywood,” reportedly worth between $350 million and $500 million including marketing and production.

Simpson (on the left), 43, a brash ex-actor, joined Paramount in 1975 and was appointed president of worldwide production in 1981. Over the years, he has proven to be as adept at ruffling feathers as pitching ideas and unearthing top-notch scripts and talent.

Bruckheimer , 44, is as subdued as his partner is vocal, as grounded as Simpson is free-flying. Before moving into feature films Bruckheimer produced TV commercials, honing the polished, high-tech look that typifies each “Simpson-Bruckheimer project . “

Times staff writer Elaine Dutka caught up with the producers in Florence, S.C., where they are busy on the new Tom Cruise film “Days of Thunder.” The three-hour interview covered a wide range of topics but the producers declined to discuss either the details of their 200-plus - page Paramount contract or to evaluate current management.

Dutka: You once described yourselves as “different parts of the same brain.” Is that responsible, in part, for your success?

Bruckheimer: Probably. I’m introverted, shy. My partner is extroverted . . . someone who likes to be the center of attention. I’d rather put the process together, then stand back and let the well-greased machine work. He prefers to be on the mantle.

Simpson: Now that you’ve said all these derogatory things about me, let me say that it’s not an accurate assessment. It’s just that I have a particular aptitude for the conceptual and no love of process for the sake of process. I’m an active, competitive person, not methodical in my approach to things. That’s part of my Alaskan upbringing.

Q: How so?

S: I grew up in a tough environment--an athlete, very focused on accomplishment. It wasn’t “success” per se, but getting from A to Z that concerned me . . . and getting there first. Jerry is so well-balanced, brilliant at detail and follow-through. If we were painting by numbers, I’d look at the big frame while Jerry filled in all the blanks. At the outset, I was the “verbal.” Jerry was the “look.” But we’ve cross-pollinated in every area.

B: Except the personal. Don is a bachelor. I’ve lived with my girlfriend for 13 years. We have different orientations, different life styles. But we have a common appreciation for a certain aesthetic.

Q: How would you describe it?

S: We’ve developed our own particular argot . . . a silent-hand, not even a short-hand . . . we don’t have to talk. The aesthetic is: ‘That’s clean’ . . . which can apply to art, a jacket, a shot in a movie, even a girl. It means ‘it works.’ The design works.

Q: Is there a central thread running through all of your movies?

S: To date, they’re generally about people confronting the reality of daily life in a headlong fashion, vanquishing their internal and external demons.

Q: A topic with which you identify?

S: We’ve been accused of being autobiographical . . . and, yes, I’ve had my share of demons. I come from a religious Southern Baptist family, went to church four or five times a week at the age of 10. I was a straight-A student until girls and baseball came along. Then I had a confrontation with my minister about some sexual feelings I had towards a lady I met at a prayer meeting. When he told me that those thoughts would send me to hell, I knew it was a world of insane people. For the next three or four years, I became a juvenile delinquent and was pretty successful at it. My freshman year of college marked the end of the tailspin. I was voted president of my class--but was also in the midst of my third juvenile trial.

Q: On the face of it, you’re drawn to the “popular” rather than to the “esoteric.”

S: I am inclined to the esoteric. I read philosophy in college and enjoy tackling abstractions. But in choosing a film, I never start out intellectually. I commit to my instincts. It’s gut to heart to mind to mouth. ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ isn’t Dostoevsky, but it does have a theme: It’s the story of an inner-city cop who goes on a mission of value into a bastion of excess and privilege. People assume there’s an inverse ratio between success and aesthetic quality. That’s the problem with critics. You can’t apply the same parameters to a “Top Gun” as you do to a “Room With a View.” You have to assess the original intention.

Q: Does it bother you that you’ve never walked off with an Oscar?

S: The best rock ‘n’ roll band in the world--the Rolling Stones--never won a Grammy . . . and, frankly, we like to think we’re the Rolling Stones. It doesn’t bother me at all because I feel like we’re at the beginning of our career. It would if I felt we were even in the middle of the end.

Q: You’re considerably more hands-on than most other producers . . . almost co-directors at times. And tough task-masters: 37 drafts on “Cop” and 19 on “Top Gun.”

S: We’re not only hands-on but feet-on. We don’t take a passive role in any shape or form.

B: If I fail, I want to fail with my own two feet . . . not someone else’s. I want to make decisions and not let another person fail for me.

Q: Fair to say that you hire directors, often inexperienced, to carry out your vision . . . the antithesis of the auteur theory?

S: I don’t believe in the auteur theory. Some directors who shall remain nameless do regard movies as an extension of their internal emotional landscape, but Jerry and I decide on the movie we want to make. We then hire an all-star team who can implement the vision. The movie is the auteur, the boss. It tells us what it needs to be. We’re to serve the movie as mistress. No one person, director or writer, is above the call of the final result.

Q: What about the creative process?

S: We map out the narrative direction, but there’s room for ebb and flow. We know the beginning and the end . . . and between those two poles, everything is fair game. But we’d be fools to line up a director with whom we didn’t see eye-to-eye. We’re not producers for hire. ‘Yes, massa, we’ll make the movie you want.’

Q: How do you respond to critics who claim that “Top Gun” was your only hit developed from scratch? “Flashdance” and “Cop,” they maintain, were handed to you.

B: “Cop” was Don’s idea at Paramount. Michael Eisner, president of the studio, claimed credit, but all the original memos have Don’s name on it.

S: The trail of paper work began four years before Michael got stopped by Beverly Hills police in that beaten-up station wagon (which he claims was his inspiration for the film). Michael is the best, the single most creative executive alive, but he’s also given to hyperbole. It pains me if he forgets what happened. Hollywood is exceedingly painful sometimes.

Q: And “Flashdance?”

S: We bought a script that was awful, a soap opera--a tawdry comic book of sex, alcohol and stupidity. We only kept the title and idea that the girl would become a dancer. I came up with a 17-page outline and we hired writers to work with it. Dawn Steel bought the project and fought for it. We were the producers. Anyone who wants to share whatever credit is left . . . fine.

Q: The people at Paramount under Barry Diller have gone on to do pretty well for themselves. (Diller is now head of Fox, Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg are running Disney, Frank Mancuso is the Paramount chief and Dawn Steel held the top job at Columbia.)

S: I was on a chairlift with Diller four years ago and we were reminiscing about those days. No matter what the nature of the problem, I said, someone on the team would solve it. There was a sense of possibility as a function of everyone’s individual and mutual talents. It was extraordinary.

B: When we started out, it was a disaster. Paramount was a nonentity.

S: It was a ghost town. There were no bodies in the building. Then this tiny little movie, “Saturday Night Fever,” changed all of our lives. Eisner said, ‘This is the beginning.’ And then we had 10 years.

B: There was a work ethic there unlike any other in the business. Saturday mornings at 6 a.m., everyone else would be hung over and we’d be ready to dig in. We were like SEALs, an elite division ready to storm any beachhead. There was a competitiveness, not unlike being at war.

S: It wasn’t obsession, really. We operated more out of passion.

B: And fear.

Q: Was there a competitive bidding situation when your contract expired?

S: Our deal with Paramount fell apart three times. The second time, I said we were gone. We had better offers from two other studios--they found out the parameters of the deal and told us we could have everything plus. Also an offer of $1 billion from a consortium of bankers and lawyers. But Paramount made us partners in the ancillary areas, giving us an unprecedented opportunity to control areas such as music. There’s a formula they can apply to ensure that we don’t go off the deep end . . . but it’s clear to them that we’re not going to do a picture about a lesbian nunnery in Rhodesia. The significance of our deal is not the money but the freedom. We’re essentially a guerrilla operation behind enemy lines . . . taking no prisoners . . . so our needs aren’t the same as most. And the studio hasn’t failed us yet. Why screw with success?

B: It’s their marketing, distribution, post-production. If you give them the horses, the guys at Paramount ride them better than anyone in town. They take them farther faster. They win more races.

Q: Was the signing of Jon Peters and Peter Guber by Sony/Columbia the clincher in your negotiations? Certainly their deal must have given you additional leverage.

B: It might have . . . but we’d been negotiating for two years and had come to an agreement long before Guber and Peters were hired.

Q: As you probably know, there was some snickering in Hollywood over those full-page newspaper ads publicizing your deal. Any second thoughts?

S: The ads weren’t our idea . . . though we certainly didn’t fight it. The studio wanted a way to express the ‘historical’ nature of this financial and creative partnership and that was an adjunct. No regrets. As in anything else, your friends think it’s great. Your enemies think it’s not. No one gives you a helping hand in Hollywood.

Q: Paramount is in for a lot of cash. Does it represent a great risk on the part of the studio?

S: That deal is structured out of success. Life is clear-cut in that area. Our films have brought $2.27 billion into the studio. That’s worldwide revenues, including ancillary markets. Paramount’s profit has been frighteningly astronomical.

Q: You haven’t turned out a film since “Beverly Hills Cop II” in 1987. What took you so long?

B: We had done five pictures in a four-year period and decided to take six to eight months off to get our mental and physical selves in shape. A schedule like that wrecks a lot of your personal life. The writers’ strike extended the period to 1 1/2 years. . . . By the time we caught up, we were looking at 2 1/2 years.

Q: Has the $2.5-million suit filed against you (Simpson) by your former secretary (alleging that Simpson used cocaine in the office and exposed her to pornographic materials) been an additional drain on your energies?

S: I’m not giving a thought to that suit. It’s beyond insanity. Beyond the realm of caca. (This past month) Eddie Murphy was sued twice. If you have a modicum of success, if you’re a well-known player in the game, there are envious, weak, frankly sick people out there who make you a target. They focus on you and blame you for their own failure. Jerry is nice and sedate. I’m not. So I’m an easy mark. The suit hasn’t interfered with my life in any way. If there’s an insane show on the sidelines, you pay people to handle it.

Q: And the drug charges?

S: There are two things I have at this point in my life: A couple of bucks and a reputation as a dangerously honest man. A lot of people know the trajectory of my life. . . . I haven’t hidden my light under a bushel. I’m confident about where I am and have no regrets about the past. Zero. It’s all about choices . . . and I don’t play it safe. It’s a long way from Anchorage.

Q: Has the success you’ve achieved diminished your hunger, your drive?

S: Ambition, in my case, has been a function of knowledge--not a desire to get fame and money. If you’re a conscious human being, you’re ambitious about improving yourself spiritually and philosophically. Contrary to the old shibboleth, money doesn’t bring you more headaches. That’s a lie told to those without power. In fact, it frees you from worrying about the light bill, the rent, and enables you to go head to head with who you are every day. Neither Jerry nor I is passive. Nothing is ever good enough. Neither of us will settle or pull back.

Q: Is a “Top Gun 2” on your agenda?

S: No. Jerry and I have an agreement: We won’t make sequels to our movies. We want to do “fresh” and “better.”

Q: How do you explain “Beverly Hills Cop II,” then?

S: In our mind, it was a “series,” not a “sequel.” We see the character of Axel Foley along the lines of a James Bond.

Q: Paramount seems to think a “Top Gun” sequel is a distinct possibility.

S: Then they are exceedingly misinformed. If Paramount has a “Top Gun 2” in mind, I’m interested in buying a ticket to it--because it certainly won’t be starring Tom Cruise . . . or produced by the guys who invented it.

Q: How is the “Days of Thunder” shoot going?

S: Mechanically and logistically, it’s a killer. We had to build 40 race cars. . . .

B: Sixty.

S: Sixty race cars--and provide for their maintenance. We’ve got 175 crew members working for us and 25 stunt drivers. We’re essentially running our own race circuit while making a movie. After the 80-day shoot, we’ll have to do post-production in six weeks--the shortest time ever for us.

Q: You’re playing a featured role in the film--the part of a race car driver. Can we expect to see you on camera again?

S: I began as an actor. I love acting. That’s an important part of the equation . . . very close to my heart. I like dealing with actors more than anything. It’s magical to me. I grew up with no magic in my life. All I wanted to be was a magician. Movies permit me that. Jerry and I get to make magic . . . and that’s great.

Q: And if the magic runs out?

S: We’re willing to live by our successes and our failures. If we blow three films in a row, we deserve to be thrown out. If the next three are dogs, Paramount would have every right to say “let’s tear the thing up.” It wouldn’t be legal, of course. But it would be understandable.