Word: hollywoodism
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Moonlight Mile's finest performance is by a virtual unknown, Ellen Pompeo, as a bereft soul who becomes Gyllenhaal's love interest. Forging a deep bond with the actor and the audience, Pompeo is lovely, funny, intense--star quality in the making. Now let's see if she and Hollywood know what to do with it. --By Richard Corliss
This week, nearly a quarter-century after Harris got the Big Idea, Red Dragon hits the big screen, the latest film in one of Hollywood's least likely but most lucrative franchises. The critically hailed The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and last year's bloody, operatic Hannibal--both adapted from best-selling Harris novels--have grossed $623 million worldwide. If Red Dragon can match Hannibal's performance, the total could approach $1 billion...
Lecter, who once drugged a man and persuaded him to peel off his own face with a knife, has also incited some unseemly behavior at Hollywood studios. MGM--which owns the movie rights to Harris' Silence of the Lambs--threatened to sue before Universal rolled the cameras on Hannibal. MGM laid legal claim to the character of fbi agent Clarice Starling, who had been introduced in Lambs. Ultimately, Universal made MGM a partner on Hannibal...
...Hollywood is willing to do almost anything to keep the doctor in business, even if that means making the same movie twice. Michael Mann's 1986 thriller Manhunter was also based on the novel Red Dragon. Studios adore the Lecter movies because they share an attribute extremely rare among violent thrillers: fascinating female characters beloved by both actresses and female moviegoers. Jodie Foster won a Best Actress Oscar as Clarice Starling in Lambs; Julianne Moore stepped into Clarice's sensible shoes in Hannibal. Red Dragon's female lead is British actress Emily Watson (see following story), who plays a tough...
Despite the appetite for more Lecter movies, the $80 million Red Dragon almost didn't get made. "Hannibal was a big hit," says an agent, "but most people in Hollywood thought it was an awful movie that almost killed the franchise." With its baroque gore and pitch-black humor (Ray Liotta ate his own brains), the movie was jarring compared with the more subtle Lambs, which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. And even though Manhunter made peanuts at the box office, it is highly regarded by some filmmakers...