Michael Keaton reprized his role as Ray Nicolette in “Jackie Brown” just 6 months after the film’s release… in a film directed by another filmmaker and produced by another studio! And it was Tarantino himself who made it possible…
Jackie Brown is the only Quentin Tarantino film not to have an original screenplay. And that’s the main reason why it has a secret sequel!
Jackie Brown is in fact the adaptation of the novel Creole punch by Elmore Leonard, a prolific writer who wrote dozens of novels throughout his career. In several of them the character of Ray Nicolette appears, an FBI agent who, in Tarantino’s film, is played by Michael Keaton. However, before the release of Jackie Brown, Steven Soderbergh also directed a feature film based on another book by the same author, Out of Reach, in which Ray Nicolette also appeared. He then had an idea: hire the same actor for the same role…
However, before playing the character, Michael Keaton initially rejected the offer of Quentin Tarantino, going so far as to try to convince him that he was not the right actor for the role. However, the director of Pulp Fiction did not give up and resorted to a very practical solution: getting him drunk so that he would change his mind – an anecdote told by Michael Keaton in an interview with Empire in 2016.
“We go out to Sunset Boulevard, Quentin makes us drink Jagermeister. Firstly, who drinks Jagermeister? Anyway, I don’t know what happened, but here I go home and I have to make the movie.”
The next morning, he had to explain to his agent, perplexed but delighted, that he had accepted the role – without knowing why!
“So I say, ‘I guess I do’,” he said of his conversation with his representative. “My agent gets excited and says, ‘Really? For what ?’ And I say, ‘I don’t know, I just woke up an hour ago and I don’t remember.’”
This is how he ended up starring alongside Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson and Robert De Niro in Jackie Brown.
To reprise his role, Keaton has one condition
For his part, when making his film (and before the release of Jackie Brown), Steven Soderbergh is looking for an actor for the role for his own film. Knowing that Michael Keaton already embodies him for the feature film of Quentin Tarantino, he finally contacted the latter in order to obtain images of Keaton in the role before deciding. Convinced, he decided to call on him.
Miramax
However, several problems appear: first of all, Jackie Brown is a Miramax production and Out of reach a Universal production: would the first studio agree to “lend” the character to the second for free? And then, we had to convince the main interested party, Michael Keaton.
“Nobody had ever done it [jouer le même personnage dans un film sans rapport] at the time and that’s what attracted me when Soderbergh called”, the actor explained, adding that he wanted the character to be so familiar “whether it’s like you’re in a Starbucks and you see Ray Nicolette and you don’t even think about it.”
However, Michael Keaton had one essential condition for accepting the role, as he clarified to EW:
“I’m a big fan of Steven Soderbergh, and the script was so good”, he says about the film with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. “I said, ‘I will do it on one condition. [Ray Nicolette] has to at least have the same wardrobe, the same haircut, the same look, so we can say, ‘Oh, that guy.’ The idea of a character reappearing in a completely different film, a completely different studio, a completely different director, that’s for me what’s fun about it all.” He also jokes: “I was Jennifer Lopez’s boyfriend way before Alex Rodriguez. I always wanted to remind him of that.”
Steven Soderbergh quickly agreed but the question remained how Miramax would react. And it was Tarantino who managed to convince the Weinstein brothers, then at the head of the studio, that it was necessary that Michael Keaton also appears in Out of reach and that they do not ask for any compensation for this.
Universal Pictures
Ultimately, the two films, released a few months apart, achieved great critical success as well as similar box office receipts. Jackie Brown (released in December 1997) earned $74.7 million (against a budget of “only” $12 million) and received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the late Robert Forster. Out of reach (released in June 1998), meanwhile, grossed $77 million (against a budget of $48 million) and received two Oscar nominations for best adapted screenplay and best editing.
However, due to budget differences, Soderbergh’s film was considered a commercial disappointment, unlike Tarantino’s. However, he subsequently became cult, just as much as his colleague.
Jackie Brown is currently streaming on MyCanal. Out of reach is, for its part, to be rediscovered on VOD.