Hollywood Meets Its New French Connection

Introducing Hollywood’s next would-be movie mogul: The King of Concrete.

Francis Bouygues, the Frenchman who for nearly four decades was a master builder of tunnels, roads, bridges, prisons and waste treatment plants, now hopes to become a master filmmaker.

His massive projects have included the tunnel being dug under the English Channel, the national library in Paris, the sprawling University of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and the nuclear power plant in Iraq that was bombed by Israel.

But today, the 68-year-old engineer--who created one of the world’s largest construction companies and bought controlling interest in the biggest television station in France--has emerged as a key foreign player in Hollywood.

Already, Bouygues has forged a $70-million deal with American director David Lynch (“Twin Peaks”) to make four pictures, and a two-picture deal with Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci (“The Last Emperor”), including a planned film on the life of Buddha that is budgeted at $30 million to $50 million.

In all, Bouygues (pronounced Bweeg) reportedly plans to spend $350 million on film projects over the next three years. But it isn’t only his pocketbook that has caught the movie industry’s attention. It is his vision.

At a time when studios continue to spend megabucks looking for the ever-elusive blockbusters that will justify their budgets, the French construction magnate talks of filmmaking as a “great art” and is scouring the world for directors and screenwriters who will produce prestigious films that will have, in his words, a long “shelf life.”

“Rather than go for pictures that have a very strong box office for a very short time, we are looking for pictures that then could become classics so those pictures would have a long life in front of them,” said Pierre Edelman, head of international pictures for Bouygues’ Paris-based film subsidiary, CIBY 2000.

“We are not opposed to big stars and big-budget pictures, but only if the substance of the picture is so fundamental and strong and contemporary that . . . these pictures exist by themselves even without stars,” Edelman said.

“Those films do exist in Hollywood,” he added, “but people who carry on in that direction are essentially independent producers who have great difficulty to find necessary money to make those pictures.”

While such idealism has drawn praise in many quarters of Hollywood, some insiders question whether Bouygues can succeed in an industry where “nobody knows anything.” They particularly wonder if he can succeed with David Lynch films.

“He is making really interesting director-oriented movies that may do well in Europe and may or may not do well here,” said one studio executive. “David Lynch is not the most commercial of film directors, but he will certainly do well in Europe.”

Of Bouygues’ late-in-life venture into movie making, the executive added: “He will end up making really interesting movies and he probably won’t lose any money. That’s a good way to get into the business. Hey, it’s a lot better than Dino De Laurentiis or Jerry Weintraub spending $500 million and having nothing to show for it!”

Among the obstacles confronting Bouygues is one faced by all film executives: There is no predicting the future.

“Who knows what’s going to happen three years from now?” said one veteran Hollywood observer. “They could get into this game and start playing it and realize it isn’t something they enjoy.”

To learn the business first-hand, Bouygues recently set up an American subsidiary called CIBY Pictures in modest offices on Sunset Boulevard and staffed it with people who know the industry. Bouygues then flew to Los Angeles this month to meet some of the reigning powers of the film world, men like MCA chairman Lew Wasserman, MCA president Sidney J. Sheinberg, Universal president Tom Pollock, Creative Artists Agency chief Michael Ovitz and others.

Bouygues said that CIBY 2000 wants to position itself for the next century, one he believes will be dominated not only by movie theaters, but also by laser-disc technology, high-definition television and in-home TV projection.

“The cinema is on the eve of great technological discoveries and changes,” Bouygues told The Times. “Filmmaking and the movie industry will become a very modern technology which will have quite a big influence on the world. In a few years, we won’t be forced to go to a film theater. Each television will be able to project images larger than (present day) television.”

Just as the world needed to rebuild itself structurally after World War II, Bouygues said the next century will be one centered on communication. This led him in 1987 to acquire controlling interest in TF1, France’s most popular television channel.

Two years later, Bouygues traveled to the Cannes Film Festival where he said he “tried to grasp the phenomenon of our time--the film and TV industry.”

“I was very surprised by the last picture in the festival, ‘Wild At Heart,’ a film by David Lynch,” Bouygues said through an interpreter. “I found it was an extraordinary picture.”

The two men eventually inked a contract for three films. In addition, CIBY Pictures agreed to co-produce “Twin Peaks--Fire Walk With Me,” the movie sequel to the offbeat, highly acclaimed but canceled television series.

Bouygues then struck a deal with Bertolucci, whose film on the life of Buddha is scheduled to begin shooting late next year.

CIBY has also sought out other noted international filmmakers. It has co-produced “High Heels,” a Pedro Almodovar film about the tenuous relationship between a mother and her daughter that is tested when a shared lover is killed, and Jane Campion’s “Piano Lessons,” a period piece about a mute woman who arrives in New Zealand for an arranged marriage with her beloved piano in tow.

Bouygues also has held preliminary discussions with Joel and Ethan Coen (“Barton Fink”) on possible projects.

“With my collaborators, we try and surround ourselves with the best filmmakers, the best screenwriters,” Bouygues said. “. . . Our concept is to get close to the people who are the most passionate and competent as filmmakers.”

Jerry Berkus, a partner at United Talent Agency, said he came away from his meeting with Bouygues believing that CIBY could gain a foothold in Hollywood given its huge financial base.

“Their feeling is today the real artists are the people like David Lynch, Almodovar, Bertolucci and Coen brothers and these are the people they want to invest in,” Berkus said.

“As a group, they are the premier filmmakers in their genre,” Berkus added. “The films they make are always treated as events. They also have a worldwide audience. Their films are venerated in France, Germany, Italy and Japan.”

Some believe that if anyone can pull it off, it is Bouygues, who is something of a legend in France.

Born to modest means in the hard-scrabble Massif Central area of Auvergne, he borrowed $1,700 from his family, hired some men and began by fixing up a run-down sugar plant. Throughout the next two decades, his company built many of the government-subsidized housing projects outside Paris.

His big break came when he built Paris’ Parc des Princes soccer stadium. From there, he underbid other giant firms and received a contract to build arenas for the 1974 Asian Games in Iran. Fortune magazine said Bouygues dubbed his workers “centurions of the modern age” and dispatched them to Tehran to construct 5,000 dwellings and repair the Shah’s three palaces.

Bouygues’ trademark orange cranes became a familiar sight throughout Europe and the Middle East. Today, his work force stands at nearly 80,000 with operations in 64 countries.

He has been depicted as a tough taskmaster. According to news accounts, Bouygues is a mustache-hater who once made an employee shave before getting a raise. Legend has it that he used to roam through offices at night, overturning desks that weren’t clean.

To work for Bouygues, some say, is like entering a religious order. Those who achieve are inducted into an elite corps of workers--who wear orange hard hats--called the “Ordre des Compagnons du Minorange.”

At “Challenger,” the main Bouygues headquarters outside Paris, 3,000 employees work in a futuristic complex replete with an atrium, fountains, restaurants, a bank, gymnasium, swimming pools, saunas and Jacuzzis. Workers also can attend classes in any subject that interests them.

Bouygues turned over his construction empire to his youngest son, Martin, and has relinquished the directorship of his television channel to one of his faithful lieutenants. But he has retained control of his new-found hobby: CIBY 2000.

According to associates, Bouygues chose the name CIBY because it is a contraction of “cinema Bouygues.”

But others wonder if the name isn’t intended as a pun. CIBY 2000 spelled out in French is CIBY-Deux-Mille--pronounced Cee Bee De Mille.