Reynolds Resurfaces

Kevin Reynolds is no stranger to controversy. The director was once one of Kevin Costner’s closest friends, working with him on both 1991’s “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” and 1995’s “Waterworld.” But as the budget climbed on “Waterworld,” and pressure from the studio and scrutiny from the press intensified, the Reynolds-Costner friendship shattered.

“187,” Reynolds’ first project since “Waterworld,” is also controversial, but this time, the controversy has everything to do with its subject and nothing to do with behind-the-scenes drama. The film’s title refers to the California Penal Code for murder.

“187,” which Warner Bros. is releasing later this spring, is a spare, character-driven thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson as a dedicated science teacher who barely survives a stabbing by one of his gang-member students at a Brooklyn high school, only to face a similar ruthless breed in Los Angeles a year later as a substitute teacher. Although his physical wounds have healed, Jackson’s character comes to realize that the experience has changed him forever, and the consequences are tragic.

“This is not ‘Dangerous Minds.’ . . . This is a movie written by a teacher [Scott Yagemann, a former L.A. public school teacher] about what teachers suffer daily. These are people who started with all of the right tools, the enthusiasm, who become beaten down and sapped of everything good that drives them because they are forced to work in a system that ultimately works against them. Many, finally, just give up the fight and take home the paycheck.”

Reynolds might have been describing his own experiences in Hollywood over the last few years.

In his first interview post- “Waterworld,” a reserved yet friendly Reynolds, 45, reflected on his move from Los Angeles to Seattle, his lost friendship with Costner and his newfound friendship with his old self.

His move to Seattle, made in the wake of “Waterworld” fallout, has given him a chance to reconnect and to lick his wounds. After nearly two years, Reynolds sums up the “Waterworld” experience: “It was a logistical monster. In the end, a big action picture is all about shots and whether we’ve got the 300 extras we need for that particular day. It’s about worrying if we’re losing the position of the sun over the water.

“It’s about dodging the hailstorm of bad stories daily in the press. I can remember one day where the wind kicked up and, because of the potential danger of shooting this particular scene, I chose to shut down for safety reasons.

“The next day, stories were out saying it was because several people were hurt. It was ridiculous. But everyone had been told to keep their mouths shut. In hindsight, that was a bad move because the media had to rely on rumor and innuendo. I think everybody learned from it.” What Reynolds learned is that another big-budget movie was the last thing he wanted to do. He concedes that because of all the negative publicity surrounding “Waterworld,” he might have had a rough time getting the backers for one anyway.

“Maybe people won’t believe this, but it is the truth: I wanted to do a smaller picture, something that was a performance piece, something creative, something where I could revive my soul as a filmmaker,” he says. “I didn’t want to think about logistics. I got lucky.”

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He was attracted to the subject matter because he worries about the state of education as the father of Nicole, 4, and Dylan, 1. “I went to public schools as a kid. I don’t know if my children will ever experience that with the way violence rules now,” he says.

He wouldn’t rule out directing big-budget movies in the future, he says, but there’s no way he’d ever do another film shot on water.

And Costner?

“I’d like to say no” to any future collaboration with him, “but I’m sure at some point it could arise. That’s the way Hollywood is.” As for the friendship, he says: “It doesn’t exist anymore. Am I saddened? Sure. But life goes on, things change. People change.”

Reynolds received his bachelor’s degree in history and then a law degree, although he had entered college as a drama major, writing plays. After a brief stint as a lawyer in Texas, he decided to become a filmmaker and enrolled in the film school at USC. His student film, “Proof,” which he wrote and directed, caught the eye of Steven Spielberg, who turned it into 1985’s “Fandango,” which put Reynolds and Costner, both unknowns, on the Hollywood radar.

Reynolds later wrote the screenplay for “Red Dawn” and directed the 1988 film “The Beast.” He even helped counsel Costner on Costner’s Oscar-winning “Dances With Wolves.”

But it was “The Beast,” not his big-budget Costner-related endeavors, that got the attention of another Hollywood heavyweight. Mel Gibson and his Warner Bros.-based Icon Productions became interested in getting Reynolds for “187” because of “The Beast.”

“ ‘The Beast’ is one of my favorite films,” says Gibson’s Icon partner, Bruce Davey, one of the producers of “187.” “To me this film just fits in with Kevin’s body of work. He is a very talented filmmaker, and because of what has happened on some of [his past] films, some people have judged him unfairly. . . . There were a number of people who came to us, significant names, who wanted to direct this movie. But we never really spoke seriously to anybody. We were the ones who sent the script to Kevin’s agent. We knew he would deliver a stunning piece of work.”

Some sources at Warner Bros. said that before Icon’s involvement, the studio had been a bit concerned about another Reynolds-directed film after the behind-the-scenes battles between Reynolds and Costner during filming of “Robin Hood” and the utter failure of “Rapa Nui,” which Reynolds directed and Costner co-produced in 1994.

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After Reynolds signed on, attention turned to the cast, specifically to Jackson.

“I actually had to convince them to hire me because this story was written about a white teacher,” Jackson says. “I told them someone like me would erase the whole race issue and put the focus on what this story is really about--authority.”

Asked about his working relationship with Reynolds as a director, Jackson laughed and said: “I had heard the criticisms of him being dogmatic, but a lot of it came from people who are dogmatic themselves. You never heard Morgan Freeman complain about him on ‘Robin Hood,’ did you?

“I come from the theater, and one of the first things you are taught is that theaters are dictatorships. You learn to work with a director and work around certain aspects so he can hear your point of view. You don’t get angry. You don’t go crazy. You don’t stamp off to your trailer if you don’t get your way. If a director wants something from you, you find a way to get there, to work around it. Kevin listened to me. It was never an issue.

“Sometimes I think people don’t get where he’s coming from,” Jackson says. “For example, there’s this one scene near the beginning of the film, [my character] Trevor’s initial foray into the California school a year after he was attacked.

“In my mind, I felt Trevor should follow the natural inclination and not show any fear when he first steps into the classroom. Kevin kept saying, ‘You have to be totally fearful because Trevor is fighting to get himself back.’ What I didn’t know until I saw the scene later is that Kevin shot the students out of focus with the camera, from Trevor’s mind’s eye. He was letting the audience in on Trevor’s fear.

“It was a brilliant trick.”

Now the trick for Warner Bros. is to figure how to release a film with potentially explosive subject matter. While Davey and Reynolds expect it to hit theaters in late April or early May, no date has been set. Out of concern for any potential violence at theaters, all want to see it released before the summer movie season, when theaters are packed.

“We hope this movie will trigger debate in higher places,” Davey says. “To coin Kevin’s phrase, what’s happening in our schools isn’t an American tragedy, it’s an international tragedy. We’re hoping maybe this film will move people to talk about it.”