With more than six decades in the industry and having worked around the world, Jackie Chan knows a lot about the movie business. And the fact that I just wrote “business” would probably send him up a wall (in a stunt he’d no doubt do himself).
Jackie Chan used a recent opportunity during a Q&A at the Locarno International Film Festival to shame Hollywood on how they approach movies. As he put it, “I think the old movies are better than today. Right now, a lot of big studios, they’re not filmmakers, they’re business guys. They invest 40 million and think, ‘How can I get it back?’ And you can’t go over. It’s very difficult to make a good movie now.”
There are some varying messages in there and we know that the movie industry has always been a business (sure, the moguls of Classic Hollywood wanted great products but they absolutely had to get that money back in ticket sales), but Jackie Chan still has a point regarding studio heads needing to get that money back as quickly as possible nowadays. It’s part of the reason folks like David Zaslav go about shelving Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme – so there’s a tax incentive that can help recoup expenses without gambling on box office numbers. And as the business continues to shift its models, Jackie Chan should be wondering how Warner Bros. will handle Rush Hour 4 if it ever officially gets greenlit.
While Jackie Chan remains in good form, that movie – along with several others – will need to move along if we want to continue to see him on the big screen. After all, Chan turned 71 this year. On this – and his expectations for audiences – Chan added, “I cannot do this forever. It’s just so dangerous. Whatever station I would go to [when promoting movies], they ask me how to punch and kick. I thought, What should I do? I should learn how to sing. Then I started trying to learn how to sing.”
Whether singing, clinging or flinging, Jackie Chan remains one of the most important and influential international stars ever. What is your favorite movie of his?
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