In all of North America, there might be 10 people who have never watched at least one of Jerry Bruckheimer's massively entertaining (and massively popular), unabashedly middlebrow, blow-'em-up-good productions. Yes, I'm looking at you, Michael Ignatieff.
A superproducer cut from the same mould as David O. Selznick, Jon Peters, Irwin Allen and Sherry Lansing, Bruckheimer is the organizing force behind such decade-defining films as Flashdance (1983), Armageddon (1998) and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (from 2003, and until they stop making money), to name only a very, very few.
His imprint on television has been equally profound. As I write this, his CSI shows (Las Vegas, Miami, New York) have just begun their winter seasons, and the latest instalment of the award-winning reality show The Amazing Race begins in two weeks. And, come late May, you'll be lining up for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, a likely blockbuster based on a bestselling series of video games (yet another popular distraction obviously influenced by Bruckheimer's explosive style).
Given the frantic pace of Bruckheimer's career, it's a miracle he had a quarter-hour to chat, or even breathe. I expected our conversation would be similar in tone to his movies: fast, to the point and loud. Instead, Bruckheimer was careful with his answers, pensive and enviably relaxed. I should have asked him for the name and number of his meditation coach.
According to the always reliable Internet, you have 16 projects in development right now. When do you sleep?
Ahh, yeah 16? Maybe more. I have a great staff that really works very hard with me to move things forward, so, you know, it takes a team to get all this stuff done.
How much are you involved in the day-to-day, the on-set work?
Well, you know, I'm involved in everything when drafts come in, we read them, make notes on them. I get involved in stuff, I sit in on the meetings on stuff, work on development with the writers, and all the casting, and situations with directors, directing, with the actors. Obviously, I'm not on-set all the time, but I'm certainly very involved in most productions, even the music, and editing, sound all that stuff. But television, not as much. Most of that I leave to the show runners.
Do some projects require more, shall we say, supervision than others?
It depends, you know? Some projects cry out for a little more help and other ones kinda take care of themselves, so it's, um We're like firemen. Wherever there's a fire, we've got to bring the hoses.
Your shows have dominated television for the last decade, in an era that has seen the television audience shrink. What's going on with TV?
I think the most defining thing about television in the last 10 years is the loss of the audience.
Where did they go?
They went to video games, they went to DVDs, they went to the Internet, they went to cable, from traditional network television. Network television has more competition now than it ever did before. Here's an example: John Travolta told me once that when he was on Welcome Back, Kotter, that show regularly got about 30 million viewers a week. Nothing now gets 30 million viewers a week. Maybe once a season American Idol, at the end of the show, gets close to that, but nothing gets that on a weekly basis.
My sainted mother claims there's nothing on television any more but bad singing and corpses.
Ha! Well, maybe. I don't know about the singing, but there are a lot of dead bodies.
How do you respond to the criticism that your CSI franchise and its imitators are too gory, or the further, related criticism that the shows fetishize violence against women?
I don't accept that criticism. If you look at popular entertainment in any era, there is violence. These shows are ultimately detective shows, and the detective story has been popular for over a century. People said the same things about the penny dreadfuls in the 19th century. And if you look at any bestseller list today, you're going to find a lot of detective fiction, a lot of violence, but also a lot of crime-solving. People like these shows because the shows present puzzles, puzzles that have to be solved. Are they too gory? I don't think so. There is a level of concern about violence in our society, and these shows reflect that concern. And, they're on late at night. They are not meant for children.
When you started producing, you must have had a wish list of talent you wanted to work with. Have you scratched every name off that list now?
Oh, no, no! Not at all. There's no way I could. There are hundreds of people on that imaginary list, all the time. There's no limit to the talent out there, there's only a limit to the amount of time, the number of projects. I'm nowhere near the end of my own wish list, and I would never want to be.
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Particulars
Born
Sept. 21, 1945, Detroit.
A man of action
At the University of Arizona, the man behind such deafening blockbusters as Armageddon and Bad Boys was a member of the stamp-collecting club.
Everyone needs a muse
For Bruckheimer, that seems to be Nicolas Cage, who has starred in six of his films, including the back-to-back hits The Rock and Con Air. Strangely, Tom Cruise, who starred in Bruckheimer's baldly homoerotic hit Top Gun, hasn't worked with the superstar producer since the loudly disappointing 1990 film Days of Thunder. It's never as good as the first time.
What's next?
Oh well, there's just too many to mention, really.
