In his first significant move as Paramount's new chief, Brad Grey created a splash in March by greenlighting "Babel," a sprawling multiarc drama starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Gael Garcia Bernal. While the decision was hailed as everything from visionary to offbeat, one fact went largely unmentioned: A major studio was betting a reported $25 million on a film with a Mexican director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, and a Mexican screenwriter, Guillermo Arriaga.
Although Latinos have enjoyed success for decades in the world of independent and international cinema, few until now have stormed the gates of the major studios. But with high-profile helming projects on the horizon from Inarritu and fellow countrymen Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro, Hollywood seems ripe for a Hispanic invasion.
And as more Latino directors gain access to studio projects, more opportunities will likely trickle down and improve the group's overall prospects in Hollywood, says Julissa Garcia, a WMA talent agent who specializes in representing Latino clients. "We're headed to a better place because of the direction (achievements)."
In fact, WMA, CAA and other major talent agencies are beefing up their Latino-dedicated representation in order to court and cultivate the next generation of talent, which includes up-and-coming studio directors like Patricia Cardoso, who will take the reins on the Halle Berry starrer "Nappily Ever After" for Universal.
Leading the current Latino establishment, Cuaron -- who helmed last year's "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" for Warner Bros. Pictures -- has no fewer than three studio directing projects in development: "The Memory of Running" and "The History of Love" for Warners and an adaptation of P.D. James' futuristic mystery "The Children of Men" for Universal. Cuaron also is in advanced talks with Fox 2000 to replace M. Night Shyamalan on "Life of Pi," based on Yann Martel's Booker Prize-winning novel.
Del Toro, too, is parlaying the boxoffice success of his most recent directorial effort -- Sony's 2004 release "Hellboy" -- into more studio work. He is set to direct "Hellboy 2" for Sony-based Revolution Studios and produce the shark thriller "Meg" for New Line, with Jan de Bont attached to direct.
Like Cuaron (2002's "Y tu mama tambien") and Inarritu (2001's "Amores perros"), del Toro made his mark in Mexican cinema before tackling Hollywood tentpoles. After his first feature, the 1994 Spanish-language horror movie "Cronos," won eight Ariels -- Mexico's Academy Awards equivalent -- and nabbed the grand prize at the Festival de Cannes' Critics Week, del Toro was offered the chance to direct 1997's "Mimic" for Miramax.
"At that point, I had been writing two or three or more screenplays after "Cronos," and I had gotten pretty frustrated getting them off the ground, so I took the ('Mimic') job," del Toro recalls. "It was completely different. It carried a lot of shock with it because ('Mimic') was done in a big-studio format, which was very different from the almost guerrilla-style filmmaking that we were used to in Mexico. Yes, we got a lot more toys to play with, but you also were much more restricted in terms of freedom to tell the story."
The experience working with the mini-major helped prepare del Toro for directing studio franchise films, including 2002's "Blade II" for New Line Cinema and "Hellboy."
"Hollywood is a large machinery. I think any time you operate with machinery the first time, you lose a few fingers," quips del Toro, who is now in preproduction on Warners' small-budget, Spanish-language horror drama "Pan's Labyrinth," with Cuaron producing. "Now, I navigate in both (studio and nonstudio) production formats much more easily."
Likewise, Cuaron is successfully straddling both worlds. In a departure from the big-budget slate he has lined up, he is set to direct "Mexico '68," a Spanish-language film set against the backdrop of the country's violent student revolt in 1968. And he and del Toro -- who forged a close friendship in the mid-'80s when they worked together as directors on the Mexican TV series "Hora Marcada" -- recently reteamed to produce Palm Pictures' upcoming "Cronicas," an Ecuadorian film starring John Leguizamo and Alfred Molina that played at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
Also learning to shift between studio and art house sensibilities is novelist and screenwriter Arriaga (2003's "21 Grams"). The transition, so far, has required little adjustment. "I wrote ('Babel') thinking of it as a story to be told, not if it was going to be a big-budget or a small-budget (production)," says Arriaga, who also wrote the Tommy Lee Jones-directed "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," which recently won the screenplay award at Cannes. "I was concentrated on telling the story the best way possible."
But for all of their recent writing and directing successes, Latinos are still woefully underrepresented as Tinseltown producers and in key decision-making studio positions. "It's a short list," laments Luis Reyes, who co-wrote with Peter Rubie "Hispanics in Hollywood: A Celebration of 100 Years in Film and Television." He cites veteran producers Moctesuma Esparza (1997's "Selena") and David Valdes (1992's "Unforgiven" and 1999's "The Green Mile") among the exceptions.
Reyes insists, however, that the phenomenon might be partly attributable to cultural forces. "Traditionally, a lot of minorities or ethnics try to go for secure positions or jobs," explains Reyes, a seasoned film and TV publicist whose credits include 2004's "Man on Fire" and 1992's "American Me." "So, for someone to say, 'I want to go into the movie business,' when your parents have struggled as immigrants, it's not something that (Latinos) have necessarily gone after."
Other Latino filmmakers simply aren't interested in playing the studio game. Robert Rodriguez and wife Elizabeth Avellan eschew the majors in order to retain their autonomy.
"When you're working within a studio system, you're basically talking to a chain of people," says Avellan, who has produced all of Rodriguez's films for Miramax's Dimension label. "It's very layered. Whereas I pick up the phone and call Bob Weinstein, and the buck stops there. That's the way Robert and I like to work."
In fact, Venezuelan-born Avellan and Mexican-American Rodriguez have turned down the opportunity to make $100 million-budgeted movies for the majors. "All the studios want to work with us because we make the movies for such a good price," she says, citing $40 million as the budget she and Rodriguez usually stick to. "Mind you, if any studio wants to make movies with us the way we make them, OK. But if I'm going to have 10 executives questioning everything I do and five producers on top of Robert and me, (it's not going to work)."
By sticking to their formula, which has brought them a string of boxoffice hits, Avellan and Rodriguez plan to continue making films for Dimension, long after their current collaboration on "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D," now playing in theaters.
"Our main purpose, which I think is part of the secret to the success we've had, is you always make money for your partners," says Avellan, who lives in Texas with Rodriguez and their four children. "For example, (the April release) 'Sin City' was made for $45 million, so basically, it made its money back in 10 days. That's usually what Robert and I try to do."
Avellan and Rodriguez are not the only Latinos affecting the industry from the outside. "We now have international co-financing," says Reyes, who cites Focus Features' 2004 drama "The Motorcycle Diaries" -- directed by Brazilian Walter Salles, executive produced by American Robert Redford and starring Mexican Garcia Bernal and Argentine Rodrigo De la Serna -- as a prime example of the potential of movie globalization.
"It's an international cinema much more so today, so you have actors who are being brought in from different parts of Latin America and Spain, as well as homegrown talent, Hispanic Americans," Reyes explains. "Star power is driving the new wave of Hispanic cinema. Today, we have stars who are able to command certain things in films."
But star power can be a double-edged sword. Once Latino actors gain enough boxoffice cache -- as is the case with Jennifer Lopez, Eva Mendes and Andy Garcia -- they no longer want to be pigeonholed in Latino-driven stories, preferring instead to appear in crossover projects. The result is Latino directors sometimes have to de-Latinize their movies in order to appeal to bankable stars and, thus, the studios. "Soul Plane" director Jessy Terrero says he created three Latin male roles for his 2004 urban comedy, but MGM cut them.
"It's not easy. Everybody wants a Latin project. But when you pitch it to the studio, they wonder who they're going to put on the poster," says Terrero, who grew up in a Spanish-speaking Dominican home in the South Bronx. "As much as everyone wants to tap into the Latin market, nobody wants to take that chance."
Nevertheless, Julissa Garcia argues that writers hold the key to Latino's overall success in Hollywood because they create the vehicles for the rest of the talent chain. "I think it starts with the writer," she says. "A good story obviously is told through the eyes of a director because the director is that filter. But I think initially stories about the Latino experience have to come from the writer."
In the meantime, filmmakers Cuaron, del Toro and Inarritu will continue to foster a collaborative spirit and nurture their respective successes.
"Alfonso, Alejandro and I are slowly forming a good circuit of friends that extends to people in Spain and Latin America and other filmmakers in Mexico," says del Toro, citing Mexico's Carlos Reygadas and Spain's Pedro Almodovar and Alejandro Amenabar. "It's a pan-American friendship because we realize the only way to make each other stronger is to be together."
Published June 14, 2005