As a filmmaker, John Lee Hancock has a penchant for coming at a real-life story from a surprising angle, whether it's recounting the bumpy road to Disney's "Mary Poppins" in 2013's "Saving Mr. Banks" or revealing the warts-and-all story behind the creation of McDonald's in 2016's "The Founder."
"I'm always on the hunt for a good story, whether it's made up or whether it's true, and these are just the ones that got made," says Hancock, who also directed the 2009 feel-good real-life sports drama "The Blind Side," which earned a best picture Oscar nomination. "But whenever you have a great story and it says at the end of it, 'And it's all true' _ that has weight. It's like a cherry on top."
True to form, Hancock's latest film, the Netflix drama "The Highwaymen" _ currently playing in limited release and also now streaming _ recounts the oft-told tale of Depression-era bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow from an unfamiliar perspective.
Rather than focus on the young couple whose criminal exploits, most famously depicted in Arthur Penn's seminal 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde," turned them into glamorous folk heroes, Hancock follows the two hard-bitten, dogged Texas Rangers, Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner) and Maney Gault (Woody Harrelson), who pursued the duo _ and eventually took them down in a hail of bullets.
For Hancock and his collaborators, screenwriter John Fusco and producer Casey Silver, "The Highwaymen" has been a long time coming. Originally conceived more than a decade ago, the project was in development for years at Universal. At one point, Hancock and Silver even met with Paul Newman, who died in 2008, about a role.
The Times spoke with the 62-year-old Hancock _ who originally hails from the Texas Gulf Coast _ about how the meaning of Bonnie and Clyde's story has changed over the years, the place of Netflix in to-day's film landscape and why he wishes he had listened to those who told him not to let the Weinstein Co. distribute "The Founder."
Q: Most people are primarily familiar with Bonnie and Clyde from the 1967 movie. Growing up in Texas, do you think you had a fuller picture of their story?
A: Maybe slightly fuller than the average American, just because Texas Rangers are huge in Texas lore, and they cast a big shadow, and Frank Hamer is the most famous Texas Ranger of all time. But when this script first came to me 13 years ago, in terms of the details of the manhunt, I didn't know that much. I came kind of knowing some but wanting to know more.
To me, the reason to tell the story wasn't because it was about the hunt for Bonnie and Clyde. That's the sexy headline, but the reason I wanted to be involved was thematic. Here were these two men who had a terrible gift and they go on this lonely journey. They know it's going to be bloody. They've been there before. And what is the toll it takes on their souls?
The other thing that was always interesting to me was the cult of celebrity. Bonnie and Clyde understood branding before the word existed. Bonnie referred to Americans as "her public." She treated herself almost like a movie star. They fed off the glamorization. And as much as that kind of thing was certainly around years ago, it's on steroids today.
Q: Frank Hamer is portrayed very differently in Arthur Penn's film than he is here _ he's a bit bungling and at one point he gets captured and humiliated by Bonnie and Clyde. Do you see "The Highwaymen" as a corrective to that depiction?
A: No. Man, it's too hard to make a movie to make one that's just denying another movie. You want to be a voice, not a response. Yes, there's a byproduct of this movie in that it casts Frank Hamer in a more historical light. But my take on it has always been not as an antidote to "Bonnie and Clyde" but as a companion piece.
Q: Early on, you hoped to make this with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. How far did that idea get?
A: [Producer] Casey Silver and I spent a day in Westport, Conn., with Paul Newman _ which was kind of a highlight of my career, I have to say _ talking about not just the script but movies and Newman's Own sauce and everything else. But it was pretty obvious to us, and to Paul as well, that because of his health, he was not going to be able to do the movie.
Q: This is the kind of movie that in an earlier era would have been squarely in the wheelhouse of a major studio. What does it say about the state of the midrange adult drama that it was ultimately made at Netflix?
A: Through the years, there's no doubt the audience has changed for the theatrical experience because, you're right, this is the kind of movie that 15 years ago would have completely been a studio movie. Part of it is we see how social media and iPhones and all those things have slowly pushed some people away from the theater experience, which is an experience that I dearly love. Because of that, you're catering to a 25-and-under crowd. I lose count every year of how many "Avengers"-type movies there are. But I also understand it because they're making money, and that's what the viewership demands.
That said, I think at every studio there is a desire to do more than that. They're always looking for that one or two they can do that are adult dramas if they can find an audience. When you look at "Dunkirk" and things like that, it's not as though they're saying, "We're not doing them anymore, so we don't care." They are trying to do them. It's just tougher in this model.
Q: There's a lot of debate these days over Netflix. Some say it's undermining the traditional theater-going experience, while others say it is supporting movies that might not otherwise get made. Where do you come down?
A: I understand the bigger global argument, but from my perspective, with this movie, it's been nothing but positive. They delivered on everything they promised _ and with a lot of joy too.
I don't think any of us _ certainly not me _ wants to somehow see the theater-going experience go away. But it's not as simple as, "What's a real movie?" _ because I tend to think "Roma" is a real movie, and I think Martin Scorsese's movie coming out on Netflix ["The Irishman"] is probably a real movie. That reduces the argument in a way that I don't think is helpful.
Q: Everything is being seen these days through a political lens. In its day, "Bonnie and Clyde" certainly had political overtones. Do you see "The Highwaymen," which reframes that story to focus on the law and order side, as political in any way?
A: I don't. I just made the movie for the reasons I made the movie. Somebody might make an argument that this movie is about two old white guys and it's a story of toxic masculinity. I don't approach it that way, but I can understand the argument. I can also understand the point that, yes, some of that is bad and is of a past time, but it's accurately portrayed, I think.
There are also some things about the code that these guys had that I admire _ like when Frank Hamer is offered $1,000 in Depression-era Texas for an exclusive interview and he just walks away. These were guys who believed that you should not benefit in any way, monetarily or otherwise, from someone else's grief, pain and blood. Whereas, today, we call that Tuesday.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
