Kent Church Interviews Don Carmody / cannon.org.uk

DON CARMODY

-Interviewed by KENT CHURCH

Link to this page: www.cannon.org.uk/kcdon.htm

Don Carmody is one of the most respected producers in Hollywood. He’s produced such classics as Cannon’s The Hitman and The Wraith – one of my all time faves. He also produced the highly enjoyable actioners The Art of War and 3,000 Miles to Graceland and has been involved with heftier fare like Sean Penn’s The Pledge. Believe it or not, he also produced 2003 Oscar winner Chicago.

Mr. Carmody was kind enough to participate in this interview. Without him, it wouldn’t have been possible. The interview took place during some down time he had on Amelia - the Hilary Swank movie he's shooting. It sure does give some serious insight into Cannon and how bad things were for them around the 1990s.

THE INTERVIEW:

KC: As the writer of The Hitman, how did you come up with the idea for the screenplay?

DC: Robert Geoffrion and I were working on a screenplay that was similar and I submitted it to Cannon.

KC: How did Chuck Norris become involved?

DC: Cannon gave it to Chuck and his brother Aaron to read. They liked it and we got together and did revisions and Cannon agreed to finance it.

KC: Was anyone else ever considered to star or was it always Chuck?

DC: Originally I was thinking of Charles Bronson

KC: Was it your/the studios intention to make a more gritty/nasty Chuck Norris movie than usual?

DC: It was Chuck and Aaron’s idea to have Chuck go in a different direction.

KC: Was it hard to shoot the film with Cannon being on shaky financial ground?

DC: I didn’t know from week to week whether the payroll for that week would show up and after filming the lab seized the negative and held it until Cannon finally came up with a payment schedule.

KC: Where you happy with the script-to-screen treatment of the film?

DC: The film was much sexier and the relationship with Alberta Watson was quite steamy, but Chuck kept getting squeamish about doing these scenes, which I think would have helped the plot and character arc.

KC: Did you hope that the film would have performed better than it did? (I know I did)

DC: Of course, but Cannon were broke and couldn’t afford to promote it better.

KC: Do you collect memorabilia from your films? And if so, what memorabilia from Hitman do you have?

DC: I think I have a rubber replica of Chuck’s sawed off shotgun which was made for a stunt sequence. Generally I collect weapons of some sort from my action films – knives, gun replicas and things like that - key props that figured in the plot or character.

-Kent Church

July 2008

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The Hitman is on DVD from Warner Home Video in North America.

Disc reviews

www.chud.com/articles/articles/4041/1/DVD-REVIEW-HITMAN-THE/Page1.html

www.joblo.com/arrow/index.php?id=15433

Amazon Canada www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000AYEL42

Amazon USA www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000AYEL42

Amazon UK www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000AYEL42

There are numerous other releases too in mainland Europe (including France, Poland, Portugal and Germany).

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Thanks to Kent for bringing us this interview and of course to Don Carmody for taking the time to give us a look at his work for Cannon Pictures. More on Don Carmody at the IMDb here

He’s obviously had some very interesting and varied projects in his long career.

Don’s excellent official site: www.doncarmody.com

See the trailer for The Hitman (1991) here

Kent Church Menu

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The Chuck Norris Cannon Stars' Gallery

www.cannon.org.uk/norris.htm

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