Filmmaker Guy Ritchie made a name of himself directing stylish, often lower-budget British crime dramas like “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” “Snatch” and “RocknRolla.”
He has since graduated to the big-budget Robert Downey Jr. version of “Sherlock Holmes,” but he hasn’t made a movie in four years, since the last “Sherlock” sequel.
Now Ritchie is back with “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” a movie version of the TV series from the 1960s that has been kicking around Hollywood for years. The film stars Henry Cavill as Solo opposite Armie Hammer as Illya.
Ritchie and his "Sherlock" writing partner Lionel Wigram penned the screenplay, but the movie’s writing credits have four people listed. We were curious about how the writing credits for this movie worked out. Ritchie says:
We pretty much write everything. Everything we've done since the Sherlocks. I don't care about who's really taken the credit, but it was Lionel [Wigram] and I. It's a funny thing the world of credits. Once you've been in it a while you realize there are people taking credit left, right and center who have done absolutely nothing. There's no way around that system...With this script, we inherited something which had 30 writers on it and there was nothing we could do with it at all, so we just started again. Then we got told we have to share a story credit with two guys we'd never heard of, but because there was a relationship or someone was called the same name, or I couldn't remember what it was. They had to take a credit, that's just the nature of these things and also if you inherit them, there are people that, I think in their contract says they need to take a credit although it has nothing to do with what has been manifest on screen.
Ritchie came on The Frame to talk about the long time it took to get "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." to the screen and his secret love of animated children's films.
Interview Highlights:
This movie took decades to come together. There were several actors and directors involved. Was there any idea in your mind why it had taken so long to get all the stars to align into a movie that made sense?
There were so many cooks in the kitchen that there was nothing we could do with the script we inherited at all, it didn't make any sense and it wasn't worth making. What it needed was a team or someone to pick it up and go 'this is what we're doing." And to stop being lead by committee. It just needed someone to commit. When someone mentioned "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." to me, I had enough fun memories of what I thought "Man From U.N.C.L.E." was to commit. There were all sorts of different projects that were offered to us after "Sherlock," so we waited and waited and then "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." and within 30 seconds I said, yeah, I can do something with "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."
This is your first film in four years, what took you so long to get back into the director's seat?
It's hard to find projects. U.N.C.L.E. is the first one that came along. I'd like to make a movie a year is the position I'd like to be in. We make all efforts now to get that up to speed, but it's hard if you don't find the projects. And I can see directors that do do it, and there's a price.
Meaning that if you work on something you're not in love with you start doing things that aren't the best ideas, which is a different reason for making a movie.
Yeah they just shot something and you can tell their heart wasn't in it, you know? And that's kind of sad when you're doing that 'cause then you're thinking, are they just chasing a dollar? If you're going to go into the business of making money, you're just better off going into the business of making money and not into the business of making films. I've had hard times making movies and people have really not liked some of my movies, and some of the have been popular some of them haven't, and it's a whole process of evolution. And I feel more confident about making films now than I have done just because I suppose I'm more experienced, but partly because I've been burned. And I think the burning process is necessary.
You have gone back in time with this movie into the 1960s, you've gone back in time with "Sherlock Holmes," you're really going back in time with "Knights of the Roundtable"...Does that mean that the only challenge left is a children's animated musical?
Very funny you should say that, by the way. I'd quite fancy that. The other thing is out of my top 10 movies I think five of them are animated kids' films. I have five kids so inevitably it means I end up watching a lot of animated kids' films. I think "Incredibles" is probably my favorite of all the kids animated movies, not just, it's one of my favorite movies. I'm embarrassed to say "Frozen," but I have to partly, because I know every word of "Frozen" from the beginning to the end. If you have a small daughter, you will too. And I've got to tell ya, as you watch it again and again, it's pretty clever. Clever, not lazy, filmmaking. So, guilty as charged, your honor.