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articles.sun-sentinel.com/1986-03-02/features/8601130418_1_golan-and-globus-president-yoram-globus-runaway-train
March 2, 1986|By Joseph Litsch, Special to the News/Sun-Sentinel
It`s getting harder for movie critics to dislike Cannon`s films, and it`s virtually impossible for the Hollywood establishment to shrug off the ambitious young company`s owners as merely ``B movie kings.``
Cannon Chairman Menachem Golan and President Yoram Globus can no longer be dropped casually into the ``action film`` category -- not with such time- honored stars as Katharine Hepburn, Lee Marvin, Jon Voight, to name a few, already on the Cannon marquee, and Julie Andrews, Alan Bates, Sylvester Stallone (in Over the Top) and Dustin Hoffman (in La Brava) on Cannon`s 1986 itinerary. The ``Go-Go Boys,`` as Golan and Globus were nicknamed by some old Hollywood guard members, really are movers and shakers with 20 films scheduled for release this year, more than any major studio.
Last year was one to remember for Cannon. Not only did it have such commercial successes as Invasion U.S.A. with Chuck Norris and King Solomon`s Mines with Richard Chamberlain, but at Christmas it also released Fool for Love, Sam Shepard`s film adaptation of his play, directed by Robert Altman, and Runaway Train, directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, both hits with critics and at the box office. In the midst of the successful flurry came the announcement that Konchalovsky would direct Julie Andrews and Alan Bates in Duet for One.
Cannon also screened a couple of Konchalovsky`s films, Maria`s Lovers and Runaway Train, at the Directors` Guild, and who hosted the reception? Shirley MacLaine. Talk about press attention and credibility.
But success for Golan and Globus was not an easy achievement. They arrived in Hollywood in 1979 with enough know-how, an admirable record including four Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Film (Israeli entries) and a stubbornness that would shame a mule. It was that third quality that made the other two worthwhile.
``Hollywood, when I came the first time, was a shock to me,`` said Golan, who changed his name from Globus during the War of Independence when Israelis were encouraged to take Hebrew names. ``It was not what I dreamed about. The word `Hollywood` always to me was like . . . palaces and mansions and Gone With the Wind houses. Big premieres and shiny lights. Very colorful and dreamlike. Then, you come to a normal town where people live and go to restaurants and go to shop, and the glamour sort of disappears in real life. People come here and they cannot find jobs and they work in restaurants and they drive cars.``
As if that initial shock weren`t enough, Golan and Globus soon found many doors slammed in their faces. They weren`t included in the social gatherings, and they soon discovered that those four Oscar nominations mattered more to the Hollywood crowd when foreign filmmakers stayed in foreign countries making foreign films. Not even the fact that Golan and Globus had in 1979 bought majority stock in Cannon Films, a small, independent production company, commanded much respect.
`The beginning was very tough,`` said Golan. ``You come to this town and they don`t speak to you, the meaningful people. It`s always `Who are you?` and `What did you do last?` and `Where are you coming from?` To break into Hollywood society was an impossible situation.``
Said Globus: ``Many times we would say: `Let`s go back to Israel. We left a successful company there. Let`s go back home.` Of course, our ambition and drive didn`t let us. And we kept pushing and pushing.``
Behind that drive was a childhood dream both had shared in Israel. They grew up going to American movies. Globus` father owned a small theater and he recalls that any time an American movie, especially an MGM product, came, it meant packed houses and big box office. Once the two cousins teamed and began producing films, it was a logical goal to be accepted by the community they had idolized all their lives.
``I think if I`m trying to analyze what is the major difference between us and what we found here is we were already moviemakers when we came here; we came with a kind of moviemaking and spirit and tradition and habits that are more familiar to Europe,`` said Golan.
After knocking on doors that never opened, Golan and Globus decided to try working the only way they knew how. So, they rolled up their sleeves and began, first with action pictures. These became what Globus called ``our bread and butter.``
``(We took) the control of the studio, the control of the lawyer, the control of the producer and the agent and we gave the director much more freedom,`` said Golan. ``And that`s why we could work with really great talent. They liked what we were doing and they came to us. It took some time for them to find out about us, that we are honest and that we mean it. When they started to see John Cassavetes working for Cannon, people began to talk.
``The rumors went on and it was easier and easier to get better talent. But we understood that if we went in (Hollywood`s) direction, we would fall because movies cost money, a lot of money. And in this town, to fall is easy. To make it is almost an impossible mission.
``So, we kept on doing what we knew how to do from before,`` Golan said. ``Call it mass public pictures. We didn`t understand the American scene in the beginning, so maybe we didn`t make the right pictures. But we kept on. We had had huge success in the international market, and that supported us.``
Abroad, as well as in the United States, Cannon has built a reputation for producing hugely successful action films with Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris. In fact, it is a Norris film, Missing in Action, that made doubters take a second look. It quickly grossed more than $25 million and was the most successful independently distributed film of 1984.
``Those are movies that have a crowd of people who will go to buy a ticket, especially abroad,`` said Golan. ``So, we didn`t give up on them. But side by side, we developed what you would call more challenging pictures.`` And people said, `Those people who are making Ninja are making (Robert) Altman (movies)? How can that be?`
``But nobody really looked at our track record. That we were nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film more than any other (foreign) producer in the world. We did movies like that in the past. But we protected ourselves.``
``We make a movie only when we believe in the movie,`` continued Globus. ``In the industry
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today, movies are being made because you know him and he knows them and so on. This is one of the big problems in Hollywood.
``Now, if this will ever change, there will be better pictures on the average, for all of us,`` Globus said. ``If you have many good pictures, you can train the public to go out to the cinema. If you have bad pictures, the public says, `Aw, let`s stay home, watch television.` ``
Either way, the public is seeing more and more Cannon films and seems to like them more and more. Hollywood, too, has taken a not-too-surprising interest in what`s happening at Cannon.
``Suddenly they are our friends,`` said Globus. ``But we are not remembering bad times. It was a challenge which we achieved, and we are very grateful to ourselves and to the people who helped us. But I`m more satisfied from the fact that we didn`t change. We are not going to Hollywood parties. We eat movies, we go to sleep with movies. We do not play tennis; we do not golf. And I think that`s what the industry is lacking today, because most of the major companies today are financial institutions.
``We just love movies,`` Globus went on. ``We have not changed. I can sit with the messenger or the secretary. My door is open to everybody. And I think that is the beauty of success.``
March 2, 1986|By Joseph Litsch, Special to the News/Sun-Sentinel
It`s getting harder for movie critics to dislike Cannon`s films, and it`s virtually impossible for the Hollywood establishment to shrug off the ambitious young company`s owners as merely ``B movie kings.``
Cannon Chairman Menachem Golan and President Yoram Globus can no longer be dropped casually into the ``action film`` category -- not with such time- honored stars as Katharine Hepburn, Lee Marvin, Jon Voight, to name a few, already on the Cannon marquee, and Julie Andrews, Alan Bates, Sylvester Stallone (in Over the Top) and Dustin Hoffman (in La Brava) on Cannon`s 1986 itinerary. The ``Go-Go Boys,`` as Golan and Globus were nicknamed by some old Hollywood guard members, really are movers and shakers with 20 films scheduled for release this year, more than any major studio.
Last year was one to remember for Cannon. Not only did it have such commercial successes as Invasion U.S.A. with Chuck Norris and King Solomon`s Mines with Richard Chamberlain, but at Christmas it also released Fool for Love, Sam Shepard`s film adaptation of his play, directed by Robert Altman, and Runaway Train, directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, both hits with critics and at the box office. In the midst of the successful flurry came the announcement that Konchalovsky would direct Julie Andrews and Alan Bates in Duet for One.
Cannon also screened a couple of Konchalovsky`s films, Maria`s Lovers and Runaway Train, at the Directors` Guild, and who hosted the reception? Shirley MacLaine. Talk about press attention and credibility.
But success for Golan and Globus was not an easy achievement. They arrived in Hollywood in 1979 with enough know-how, an admirable record including four Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Film (Israeli entries) and a stubbornness that would shame a mule. It was that third quality that made the other two worthwhile.
``Hollywood, when I came the first time, was a shock to me,`` said Golan, who changed his name from Globus during the War of Independence when Israelis were encouraged to take Hebrew names. ``It was not what I dreamed about. The word `Hollywood` always to me was like . . . palaces and mansions and Gone With the Wind houses. Big premieres and shiny lights. Very colorful and dreamlike. Then, you come to a normal town where people live and go to restaurants and go to shop, and the glamour sort of disappears in real life. People come here and they cannot find jobs and they work in restaurants and they drive cars.``
As if that initial shock weren`t enough, Golan and Globus soon found many doors slammed in their faces. They weren`t included in the social gatherings, and they soon discovered that those four Oscar nominations mattered more to the Hollywood crowd when foreign filmmakers stayed in foreign countries making foreign films. Not even the fact that Golan and Globus had in 1979 bought majority stock in Cannon Films, a small, independent production company, commanded much respect.
`The beginning was very tough,`` said Golan. ``You come to this town and they don`t speak to you, the meaningful people. It`s always `Who are you?` and `What did you do last?` and `Where are you coming from?` To break into Hollywood society was an impossible situation.``
Said Globus: ``Many times we would say: `Let`s go back to Israel. We left a successful company there. Let`s go back home.` Of course, our ambition and drive didn`t let us. And we kept pushing and pushing.``
Behind that drive was a childhood dream both had shared in Israel. They grew up going to American movies. Globus` father owned a small theater and he recalls that any time an American movie, especially an MGM product, came, it meant packed houses and big box office. Once the two cousins teamed and began producing films, it was a logical goal to be accepted by the community they had idolized all their lives.
``I think if I`m trying to analyze what is the major difference between us and what we found here is we were already moviemakers when we came here; we came with a kind of moviemaking and spirit and tradition and habits that are more familiar to Europe,`` said Golan.
After knocking on doors that never opened, Golan and Globus decided to try working the only way they knew how. So, they rolled up their sleeves and began, first with action pictures. These became what Globus called ``our bread and butter.``
``(We took) the control of the studio, the control of the lawyer, the control of the producer and the agent and we gave the director much more freedom,`` said Golan. ``And that`s why we could work with really great talent. They liked what we were doing and they came to us. It took some time for them to find out about us, that we are honest and that we mean it. When they started to see John Cassavetes working for Cannon, people began to talk.
``The rumors went on and it was easier and easier to get better talent. But we understood that if we went in (Hollywood`s) direction, we would fall because movies cost money, a lot of money. And in this town, to fall is easy. To make it is almost an impossible mission.
``So, we kept on doing what we knew how to do from before,`` Golan said. ``Call it mass public pictures. We didn`t understand the American scene in the beginning, so maybe we didn`t make the right pictures. But we kept on. We had had huge success in the international market, and that supported us.``
Abroad, as well as in the United States, Cannon has built a reputation for producing hugely successful action films with Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris. In fact, it is a Norris film, Missing in Action, that made doubters take a second look. It quickly grossed more than $25 million and was the most successful independently distributed film of 1984.
``Those are movies that have a crowd of people who will go to buy a ticket, especially abroad,`` said Golan. ``So, we didn`t give up on them. But side by side, we developed what you would call more challenging pictures.`` And people said, `Those people who are making Ninja are making (Robert) Altman (movies)? How can that be?`
``But nobody really looked at our track record. That we were nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film more than any other (foreign) producer in the world. We did movies like that in the past. But we protected ourselves.``
``We make a movie only when we believe in the movie,`` continued Globus. ``In the industry
ADVERTISEMENT
today, movies are being made because you know him and he knows them and so on. This is one of the big problems in Hollywood.
``Now, if this will ever change, there will be better pictures on the average, for all of us,`` Globus said. ``If you have many good pictures, you can train the public to go out to the cinema. If you have bad pictures, the public says, `Aw, let`s stay home, watch television.` ``
Either way, the public is seeing more and more Cannon films and seems to like them more and more. Hollywood, too, has taken a not-too-surprising interest in what`s happening at Cannon.
``Suddenly they are our friends,`` said Globus. ``But we are not remembering bad times. It was a challenge which we achieved, and we are very grateful to ourselves and to the people who helped us. But I`m more satisfied from the fact that we didn`t change. We are not going to Hollywood parties. We eat movies, we go to sleep with movies. We do not play tennis; we do not golf. And I think that`s what the industry is lacking today, because most of the major companies today are financial institutions.
``We just love movies,`` Globus went on. ``We have not changed. I can sit with the messenger or the secretary. My door is open to everybody. And I think that is the beauty of success.``