Movies - TV
Sean Connery's Advice For John Milius On His Hunt For Red October Rewrite
By JEREMY SMITH
The late legendary actor, Sean Connery, joined Paramount’s $30 million adaptation of author Tom Clancey’s “The Hunt for Red October,” but with a few demands. The Academy Award winner, being the studio’s “good luck charm,” wanted screenwriter John Milius to write the dialogue for his character, Marko Ramius, to which the studio had no choice but to accept.
In an interview, Milius shared an exchange between the two men where Connery made extensive requests, "I said, 'What do you want me to do?' And he said, 'Make it about me.'" This becomes tricky when you consider that the protagonist of the story (and the then-ongoing novel series) is CIA analyst Jack Reacher, but to avoid issues, the studio mainly gave in to his requests.
The film is still a Jack Reacher story, but Connery dominates in his performance. Milius claims that he wrote most of the “Russian stuff” for the movie, including the paraphrased Ahab speech from “Moby Dick,” but he couldn’t change the story as there needed to be some mystery behind Ramius’ motives.