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Sony Puts "Ali" Down for the ($105 Million) Count
Faced with an escalating, $105 million-plus movie budget, nervous Sony execs have halted production on director Michael Mann's biopic starring Smith as the legendary boxing champ, fearing that the high-profile helmer is going to surpass his already-hefty cash limit.
Sony's Columbia Pictures pulled the plug on the much-anticipated feature, titled Ali, last week. But according to published reports, Mann made a last-minute plea to the studio in a meeting Monday afternoon, and the verbal rope-a-dope was expected to continue today. Columbia refused to comment on the matter.
In short, studio execs apparently don't think Mann--whose reputation for films like The Insider and Heat is preceded only by his tendency to bust budgets--can control his costs on the project. According to the Los Angeles Times, the 57-year-old director initially signed on to make the film for $105 million, but he reportedly failed to convince studio heads that he could pull it off without going at least $10 million over.
Mann, meanwhile, is steamed that Columbia gave the go-ahead on the film, and now is threatening to can it. In meetings with the studio, the director reportedly offered to cut some expensive locations, and Mann, Smith and producer Jon Peters have all agreed to take "substantial cuts" in their upfront fees, the Times reports. But if the studio doesn't budge, Mann may be forced to shop it elsewhere.
One person reportedly "close" to the tussle told Inside.com that the production is already kaput. "We've done everything we can to try to make this work. There was a definite agreement from the get-go on what the price was and that changed."
Production on the film was scheduled to begin in January, with news of the film announced at this year's ShowWest conference in Las Vegas. In a suitably buzz-building moment, the studio trotted out Mann and the Man, Muhammad Ali, to pique interest in the flick. And since then, the once gangly, 32-year-old Smith has furiously trained to turn himself into a beefy boxing machine.
But the budget was troubling to the cost-conscious folks at Sony, who have pulled in the reins, or altogether given up on, several high-profile flicks. That includes The Shipping News, starring Kevin Spacey and possibly Julianne Moore, which has now been taken over by Miramax.
Meanwhile, Smith doesn't have much time to sit around and wait for the suits to stop bickering. He's already talking about another much-anticipated role--donning the black shades for a Men in Black sequel.
"The whole gang is back!" Smith told TV Guide last week. "It's great when a sequel can have a better script, because it is so rare that the second film is better than the first one. But this one is ridiculous! ... [Director] Barry Sonnenfeld has the script and is working on it now, but the [threatened actors' union] strike is kind of holding things up."
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