Jeff Miller is a producer whose latest film is Once Upon A Time In Deadwood. We had the chance to talk with him about the film and his career. Here’s what he had to say.
How does one get into producing?
Jeff Miller: Save up your nickels and dimes so you can help finance someone else’s project. If it’s a good project with good people, use that opportunity to learn. If you don’t have nickels and dimes, be good at finding or developing material; cultivating relationships with directors, talent, and financiers; and be skilled at organizing and planning.
Was the the goal from the beginning – to produce, rather than direct?
JM: Originally I wanted to just be a screenwriter. I wrote a bunch of scripts throughout college and right after. A mentor was James Lineberger, who’d written the movie TAPS (1981), starring Timothy Hutton and a young Tom Cruise. We wrote a good script and a treatment together, but they didn’t sell and I couldn’t get that career off the ground. Plus I realized it could be lonely and frustrating. Not that producing isn’t often that either. I got into producing so I could help get interesting stories told, not just mine but others’. I directed once, many years ago. Who knows? I may do it again. It would have to be the right project at the right time.
There’s a number of famous producers – everyone from Jerry Bruckheimer to Mario Kassar – anyone whose career you’ve especially tried to emulate?
JM: I’ve never met him, but I like Jason Blum. Fun trivia: He was the acquisitions executive at the company who bought the first movie I ever helped produce. It was called FREAKSHOW and was released by Arrow Entertainment in 1995. I don’t believe I ever spoke with Jason then, but I was privy to all the business. I also like Joel Silver‘s career. Jerry Bruckheimer of course. And who can forget William Castle? I don’t really try to emulate any of them, though, per se — I’m just trying to do my own thing and make movies I’d want to see.
And would you say there’s a genre you normally gravitate towards?
JM: Horror. Then action.
How do you think you’ve improved as a producer since the first film you did?
JM: I’ve been doing this for a long time, so I’ve learned a lot. And I still have more to learn. I know more about actor contracts, distribution … I guess the big difference is knowing more about business and sales. The first films I did as “spec” films, where we raised the movie privately and made a movie hoping people would want to buy it. Now I usually run ideas by sales agents/distributors and sometimes partner with them, doing pre-sales occasionally. DEATH KISS was different, though. I just thought it was a “can’t miss” project and decided to just roll the dice on that one after a sales agent said he couldn’t partner on it at the time. Fortunately that one worked out well.
As the films you do become more successful, does your say at the table become even greater?
JM: I’d like to think so. You’d have to ask the others at the table.
When did your relationship with actor Robert Bronzi begin?
JM: On DEATH KISS. I remember meeting him in a bar in Cottonwood, CA the night he flew in from Hungary. I asked him what he wanted to drink, and he said “Budweiser.” So I knew we’d hit it off. No pretensions on his part.
Are people genuinely surprised by just how good Bronzi is in these films?
JM: It’s hard to take your eyes off him. He’s great as the “strong man of few words” type. Plus I think people want a hero to right the wrongs of the world, deliver justice when needed.
In what ways would you say he is similar to Charles Bronson?
JM: Obviously facial features, the mustache … But he also carries himself well, as I imagine Bronson would do.
Is there another film from Bronson’s back catalogue, you’d love to do a homage to in the future?
JM: I haven’t seen them all, so I need to start researching. But honestly the ones I have planned aren’t homages as much as films in the same vein. I think audiences will be excited to hear what we have in store for Bronzi.