On April 1st 2010, I was in Mexico prepping my CARTEL, when I got a phonecall that the movie was folding and we had to pack it up and leave. I thought it was an Aprils Fool joke of course, but it wasn’t! Turned out the US State Department had called my producer, Brian Grazer, and told him we had to shut it down for security reasons. This was the second shut down on Cartel.. The first time around, we had to shut it down because of a melange of Sean Penn’s lovelife - and my own big mouth. Long story.
Well, anyway, the second time almost killed me.
I decided to take it standing up, not throw in the towel, and take the first available and doable movie, and so three months later I was in New York, prepping Man On A Ledge. What a mad ride that was.
I ended up having probably the worst - and best - time of my life at the same time. The worst, because the movie was becoming something that was not me, and I could do nothing about it. The best because I was finally shooting something. The fifth movie since moving to LA, the one I had worked the least on, was getting committed to film. So weird.
Life is what you make it.
The critics killed it. The audience loves it - and it is still on the All-Time Bestseller list on US iTunes.
