Movies - TV
Why Glen Powell’s Hit Man Was Rejected By So Many Studios
By SANDY SCHAEFER
Glen Powell's "Hit Man," now streaming on Netflix, features an original story with adult subject matter and an absence of franchise potential, which ultimately made studios wary.
Loosely inspired by real events, nothing about "Hit Man" suggests it was manufactured in a lab at the behest of studio executives, which prompted many studios to reject it.
While speaking with the BBC, director Richard Linklater revealed, "Glen and I wrote it speculatively and we didn't get paid anything, we just tried to get the film made."
According to him, he and Powell "had written a film noir, a crime film that's also a screwball comedy about a couple [...]," but studios "really didn't want to make the film."
Linklater added that he and Powell had "frustrating conversations" with studios who wanted the film to be an action rom-com about an actual hitman like "Grosse Pointe Blank."
"Something they'd seen before," as he put it, and would therefore be seen as a safer bet. "You don't get in trouble for what's obvious and commercial," Linklater observed.