If you were to create a formula to ensure a Hollywood movie did NOT get made, you might concoct something like this:
Sign on a first-time producer.
Attach a first-time film director.
Cast the movie with names that are familiar only to the people who live with them.
It’s almost easier to defy gravity than it is to get a movie made under these circumstances, but all those elements are true of “Hoot,” the film based on the Newbery Honor-winning book of the same title.
Of course, the producer is Jimmy Buffett, whose name carries quite a bit of cachet in many circles, including Hollywood. Buffett read the book–a wry adventure story about three middle-schoolers who face down a restaurant developer intent on bulldozing a burrowing owl habitat–on his daughter Delaney’s recommendation. He snapped up the film rights as soon as he learned they were available.
“I’d never produced a movie before, but, heck, I run a rock ‘n’ roll band. How hard can it be?” Buffett said. “I just thought, ‘Let’s see how far we can get.’ “
Buffett began intent to build on author Carl Hiaasen’s considerable fan base–there are 2 million copies of “Hoot” in print–seeking a director familiar with the author’s work. Wil Shriner is a comedian and actor by trade, and had directed episodes of “Frasier.” More importantly to Buffett, he was a “rabid fan” of Hiaasen’s novels, and a Ft. Lauderdale native.
Shriner, like Buffett, was a newcomer to films, but he was game–and ambitious.
“Our goal was to keep the movie as smart as the book,” he said.
He wrote the first draft of the screenplay himself. He and Buffett–a New York Times best-selling author himself–then revised it many times before showing it to Frank Marshall, producer of more than 50 films, including “Seabiscuit” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Marshall liked it so much, he signed on as co-producer.