Bob Shaye: thin skin, thick hide, tough sell

ON the wall of Bob Shaye’s office at New Line Cinema is a letter from the Directors Guild of America, which has been on a campaign to protect filmmakers from bullying studio chiefs during the post-production process. The letter reminds Shaye, director of “The Last Mimzy,” in theaters March 23, that he shouldn’t let the studio interfere with his 10-week window to complete his cut of the movie.

The DGA officer adds: “I understand you also have final cutting authority [on the film]. Congratulations!”

Of course, if there’s ever been anyone who doesn’t have to worry about final cut on a movie, it is Shaye. He’s in the unusual position of having directed a movie that is being released by the studio he’s been running for 40 years.

Famously prickly with everyone, including actors, agents and reporters, Shaye made the sci-fi themed family film his way, casting it without stars and sticking with a strange title almost nobody understands. Even though the film is produced by Michael Phillips, Shaye refused to use the catchy phrase “from the producer of ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ ” in the trailer, explaining that “I don’t agree to everything the marketing department comes up with.”

You can’t say that Shaye took advantage of his role as company chief. Given 61 days to shoot the film, he came in seven days early and nearly $6 million under the original $41-million budget. The result, based on a classic science fiction story, is a warm, intimate tale about two children who discover a black box containing a jumble of odd rocks and an old stuffed rabbit. When the boy and girl begin to display magical powers, levitating in their room and knocking out all the electricity in Seattle, we discover they’ve been chosen to communicate a message from an imperiled future civilization -- if anyone will listen.

Even with Rainn Wilson from “The Office” in the film as a quirky science teacher, it will be an uphill battle to find an audience during the crowded Easter holidays. Though the film had well-attended sneak previews this past weekend, it will still have stiff competition -- New Line’s sister company, Warner Bros., has moved an animated version of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” a franchise originally created by New Line, onto the same release date. “It’s mano a mano,” Shaye said the other day in his office as he critiqued a series of “Mimzy” TV spots. “We enter the game as combatants, not as brothers.”

Shaye is unfazed by the prevailing wisdom that his film has little chance to succeed. Even though the New Line founder is fabulously wealthy from selling the studio and travels in high-powered art and film circles, he still sees himself as an underdog. At 68, imbued with a ‘60s-boho sensibility, Shaye is unlike any of today’s risk-adverse studio caretakers.

“New Line is the only company where an intern could become head of production or an assistant could sell a script for $1 million -- and that’s all because of Bob,” says “Rush Hour 3” director Brett Ratner, who’s made five movies at the studio. “He has a real passion for film. At other studios, you feel like a guy for hire. But at New Line, I’m dealing with the guy who started the brand, who bought the original pencils.”

Even though New Line has enjoyed great success over the years, launching the “Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Austin Powers” and “Rush Hour” series, Shaye’s signature moment in the movie business came when Peter Jackson, turned down flat everywhere else in town, pitched New Line his idea for slimming down the three-part “Lord of the Rings” series into a two-part film. It was Shaye who not only hired Jackson, but also said, “It can’t be two movies. It has to be three.”

For all his affinity with artists, Shaye is a fierce protector of his company’s interests, a position that often puts him at odds with the same artists he values so much. When Jackson filed a lawsuit over profit from the first film in the “Lord of the Rings” series, Shaye lashed out, saying Jackson “will never make any movie with New Line again.”

It’s telling that when I pressed Shaye about why he got into a nasty fight with Jackson, one that from a public relations standpoint he couldn’t possibly win, he quoted Shakespeare, saying, “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” Translation: Shaye took the lawsuit personally. In a town full of dissemblers, Shaye is a straight-shooter, perhaps to his detriment.

The best way to understand Shaye is to realize that although he has the resume of a studio chief, he has the temperament of an artist -- he’s just as easily wounded as any high-strung director. It’s telling that when he is asked about his curmudgeonly manner, he cites Robert Altman as a role model, noting that someone said of the filmmaker that “it’s not that he didn’t suffer fools, but he made fools suffer.” In his youth, Shaye wanted to be a filmmaker. He even directed a short that shared first place in an art film competition with a short by Martin Scorsese. But Shaye didn’t have the brash nerve or implacable will that filmmakers need to endure rejection.

He recalls himself as a shy, uncertain young man. After law school back East, itching to get a job in Hollywood, he wrote a letter to Sam Arkoff, then the king of B-movies. It went unanswered, which Shaye says “only confirmed my shyness.” Finally he delivered a drive-away car (for baseball star Orlando Cepeda) to the West Coast, but he largely struck out, paying his bills writing term papers for frat boys at USC.

“I got a little taste of Hollywood and it scared the dickens out of me,” he says. “I just felt completely out of my league -- I guess I was daunted.”

These days he appears daunted by New Line’s poor box-office performance. Since “Wedding Crashers” was released in the summer of 2005, the studio hasn’t had anything close to a $100-million hit. That should change when “Rush Hour 3” arrives this summer along with “Hairspray” starring John Travolta and Queen Latifah. But Shaye’s foray into directing has turned up the heat on other filmmakers at the studio. After all, if the boss can bring his movie in on schedule, why can’t they?

Shaye has been especially unhappy with the progress of “Rush Hour,” which is over-budget and behind schedule. Shaye’s biggest issue is with Ratner, who has been the key to keeping the “Rush Hour” franchise together but is famously glib, sociable and media friendly -- in other words, the opposite of Shaye. During filming Ratner has spent so much time on the phone that New Line first tried to ban cellphones, then investigated jamming cell signals to the set, all to no avail.

“I take it personally with Bret,” he says. “It’s still going to be a great movie, but going over budget is a betrayal of the trust New Line has put into him.”

Ratner responds: “Whenever a movie falls behind, Bob takes it personally. But the numbers are really so minuscule -- it’s like my grandfather eating at IHOP to save money.”

Shaye clearly wishes more filmmakers would reflect his view of filmmaking, balancing personal artistry with fiscal responsibility. For Shaye, the ultimate judge of a movie is the moviegoer, whom he calls “our customer.” During test screenings on “Mimzy,” when some parents complained about a scene in which the science teacher opened his fridge wearing only a pajama top “and they could see his butt crack,” Shaye spent $20,000 to clothe him in a digital pair of leopard-skin undershorts.

“Why risk offending someone if they like the rest of the movie?” Shaye says.

Unlike many family-oriented films of today that are as sugary as Cap’n Crunch, “Mimzy” has precious little schmaltz. “I just tried not to talk down to anybody,” says Shaye. “I told everyone, ‘This story is so full of fantasy that the only way we could pull it off is if everyone believes it’s completely true.’ It’s really a grown-up film about children.”

Shaye must know that the critics, rarely predisposed to studio executive-directed films, may not be kind. An early Variety review complained about “awkward” cinematography and a lack of long shots, prompting Shaye to dismiss the reviewer as “very schmucky,” saying someone “should give him a video camera and let him make a movie himself.”

It proves that even after 40 years in the business, Shaye is as acerbic -- and as sensitive -- as ever. “I’m very thin-skinned and in Hollywood that’s a malady where you’ve got to see a skin doctor right away,” he says with a shrug. “But I’m developing calluses everywhere.”

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“The Big Picture” runs every Tuesday in Calendar. If you have questions or criticism, e-mail them to patrick.goldstein@latimes.com.