Tom Hanks is one of the most celebrated actors of today’s time. The actor, very effortlessly, manages to grip his audience with his performances and leaves them staring at the screen in awe. He’s just that good! His films, including Forrest Gump, Cast Away, and the more recent A Man Called Ove, have left a huge impact on his audience.
However, even someone of Tom Hanks’ caliber is not devoid of coming out with a few flops. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) is one such film that didn’t turn out quite how the team might have thought. And as far as Tom Hanks is concerned, there are a couple of things why the film didn’t work and one of them is the director himself.
Tom Hanks Puts Brian De Palma on Blast
Based on Tom Wolfe’s bestseller of the same name, Brian De Palma’s The Bonfire of the Vanities didn’t quite have the same effect on the audience as its source material did. With a score of 15% on Rotten Tomatoes, the critical consensus blasts the film for “a vapid adaptation of a thoughtful book” and for its wrong casting choices.
The film stars Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, among others, and Hanks believes there was no place for him in the movie. Talking to Empire magazine back in 2009, the Apollo 13 actor had a lot to say about why the film failed and he puts a large portion of the blame on the casting.
“When we were making it, that movie was huge. We couldn’t make a move anywhere in New York City. Everybody was talking about it: ‘They took this book that had entered into the national consciousness and now they’re making a film out of it and everybody is miscast.’ Everybody was miscast, me particularly.”
He even blasted De Palma stating,
“Brian De Palma deals with iconography more than filmmaking. He is the most uncompromising filmmaker — both in a good way and a bad way — that you’ll ever come across. This is the guy who made Scarface. Motherf*cking Scarface. So his take on it was just one of those things. You can’t take a book like that, that has changed the way people talk and think and change it into a palatable movie, or alter the thrust of what the source material is talking about. It may not translate in a way that is going to work.”
The film was made on a budget of $47 million which is a pretty good number considering it was released in 1990. Unfortunately, there were no profits in sight as The Bonfire of the Vanities could only bring in $15 million at the box office, along with a ton of negative reviews from both fans and critics.
Tom Hanks Felt Intimidated by Another Director
The little fiasco with De Palma wasn’t the only time Hanks spoke out about his experiences of working with renowned filmmakers. Hanks and Clint Eastwood came out with Sully: Miracle on the Hudson in 2016, based on the real-life story of airline pilot Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger.
The film was well-received by the audience and boasts an 85% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Talking about his experience working with Eastwood, the actor told The Graham Norton Show that the filmmaker treated the actors like horses.
“He treats his actors like horses because when he did the 60s series Rawhide, the director would shout ‘Action!’ and all the horses bolted.”
Hanks also explained how Eastwood could get a little too intimidating with his calm commands on set.
“So when he’s in charge, he says in a really quiet soft voice, ‘All right go ahead,’ and instead of shouting ‘Cut!’ he says ‘That’s enough of that.’ It’s intimidating as hell!”
Hanks also told the host that no one would “want one of those Eastwood looks” as they are enough to intimidate the strongest of the people out there.