When Ed Burns came on the scene in 1995 with his film The Brothers McMullen he was the independent hero of the year. That film was made in the $25,000. range with a loan from his father who was tired of hearing Burns complain about his screenplays not getting made.
The Brothers McMullen won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in ’95 and went on to make over $10 million, which was very impressive until 1997 when The Blair Witch Project with an original budget around $35,ooo grossed well over $100 million.
But Burns has outlasted The Blair Witch gang in the long run. He’s not only directed nine features but he’s picked up work acting in movies and TV shows including Saving Private Ryan. Because his style of writing is more in the style of Woody Allen he’s a little off the radar because his films tend to be dialogue driven films.
But he continues to build his career brick by brick and find innovative ways to distribute his films. In 2007 he became the first filmmaker maker make a feature straight-to-iTunes release. You can hear an interview with Burns speaking about that film, Purple Violets, on NPR. In that interview he talks about the drop in art house audiences over the years due to TiVo, My Space, You Tube and the other ways that people are finding entertainment these days.
So I thought it would be good to go back and look at a quote from Burns about his life before The Brothers McMullen found its way to Sundance and before he found himself acting in a Steven Spielberg movie.
“I wrote seven screenplays that nobody wanted. I’d turn on the light, and there would be thousands of cockroaches. But that was the least of my concerns, because we also had mice and rats.”
Echoing again the process it often takes finding your voice and for your words to make it to the screen. Finding the audience to watch those words on the screen is a whole different process altogether. The good thing about Burns’ commitment to his style of writing and filmmaking is I think his best work is yet to come and he’ll probably be making films into his 60s & 70s.
[…] When Ed Burns came on the scene in 1995 with his film The Brothers McMullen he was the independent hero of the year. That film was made in the $25,000. range with a loan from his father who was tired of hearing Burns complain about his screenplays not getting made. The Brothers McMullen went on to make […] Original Source… […]
Good piece but use a spellchecker!