Renny Harlin - Later Career in Hollywood

Later Career in Hollywood

Returning to Hollywood, Harlin and his new wife formed a production company known as The Forge. Through this company Harlin produced comedy film Speechless for director Ron Underwood which got star Davis a 1995 Golden Globe nomination.

In 1995, Harlin set to work on a pirate movie called Cutthroat Island with Michael Douglas attached to star. Harlin convinced producer Mario Kassar that, despite being known for light-weight comedy roles, his wife Geena Davis was perfect for the female love interest in this action blockbuster. After Kassar agreed Harlin set about beefing up Davis’ role until Douglas left the production giving her the lead. The $92 million production, in which Harlin cameos as a pirate, went on to be a major critical and commercial failure entering the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest loss of money for a studio ever. That studio, Carolco Pictures, went bankrupt as a result. Undeterred Harlin returned to New Line Cinema in 1996 for his next production and action/thriller called The Long Kiss Goodnight starring Davis and Samuel L. Jackson. The screenplay for the film was written by Shane Black and the bidding for the filming rights lifted the price for the script and the salary for Black on the new level of salaries paid for the screenplays of Hollywood films. The film was a commercial success earning over $89 million dollars in the theaters internationally. During the promotional tour for The Long Kiss Goodnight Harlin was seen partying in Stockholm, Sweden with his personal assistant Tiffany Browne. After returning to Hollywood the married couple, Harlin and Davis went on to executive produce the HBO TV movie Mistrial. Soon after this they announced that their marriage was over.

Harlin and Davis were divorced in 1998, after he acknowledged fathering a son in 1997 with Tiffany Browne, an assistant on several of his films. That same year (1998), looking for a summer blockbuster for 1999, Warner Bros. re-teamed Harlin with Jackson for the shark movie Deep Blue Sea. The film, in which Harlin cameos, made a respectable $73 million domestically and $164 million worldwide. Harlin went on to produce the comedy Blast from the Past through both The Forge and Midnight Sun Pictures for director Hugh Wilson. The following year, 2000, he returned to TV appearing in a couple of episodes of old friend Markus Selin's Finnish series Susi rajalla and directing the pilot episode for Fox Television's T.R.A.X. which was not picked-up. In 2001 Sylvester Stallone asked Harlin to become a producer and director of his upcoming race-car movie Driven in which he also cameos as a race-car driver saying goodbye and kissing his real life son, Lucas. Harlin also has a line in a film in which he mentions how much he loves his son. The final film was a critical and commercial failure which Harlin later on criticized for its bad script.

Harlin's next project was to be a movie adaptation of Ray Bradbury short story A Sound of Thunder but the director was changed because Harlin made a creative decision making Ray Bradbury very unhappy. Although the director of the film was changed Harlin is credited as a producer for the finished film released eventually in 2005.

Harlin picked up the reins on action mystery Mindhunters when original director Peter Howitt dropped out and spent a long time editing and re-editing this thriller but the release was delayed by studio conflicts. Harlin then went on to re-shoot a more traditional horror version of Exorcist: The Beginning when the studio were unhappy with the psychological drama cut from director Paul Schrader. Due to the delays with Mindhunters both films ended up being released in 2004 and both were moderate successes.

In 2006, Harlin re-teamed with old friend and collaborator Markus Selin to direct a biopic of Finnish President and Marshall of Finland Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, but the budget projection spiraled and the project was put on hold. Instead Harlin made yet another foray into low-budget horror with The Covenant, which was another moderate commercial success. In 2007 the Mannerheim film project temporarily moved on, and Harlin returned to Finland. Production began in 2008 with Mikko Nousiainen starring as Mannerheim. However, 30% of the funding was cut by one of the financiers with reference to the current global economic recession, and the delay over winter meant that the time window for shooting the winter scenes during the spring of 2009 passed. The project has an uncertain future, but Harlin remains confident.

Harlin directed the WWE Studios action movie 12 Rounds, starring John Cena, which was his first film collaboration with 20th Century Fox since 1990's Die Hard 2. It was released 27 March 2009.

In 2009 Harlin directed an independent war film in Georgia The film, 5 Days of War is a story about the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia in the region of South Ossetia. Filming began in the beginning of October 2009, and ended mid-November. In the film, President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili is played by Cuban-American Hollywood actor Andy García. The film premiered in Tbilisi, Georgia in June 2011 following festival premieres in London, Poland and USA.

Harlin had been involved with the film Mannerheim, based on the life of Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, since 2000. Despite a decade long problem with financing the movie its pre-production commenced in 2010. In August 2011 the project was assigned to director Dome Karukoski. Harlin has expressed interest in filming his own version of Mannerheim in the future.

In 2010, Harlin served as a judge in screenwriting contest The Script-a-thon and selected "Crawl" by Gregory Scott Houghton as the winner in the action category. In 2011, Harlin directed the episodes Fail Safe and Breaking Point on the TV series Burn Notice. In 2012 it was announced that Harlin will direct an as-yet-untitled thriller set in Russia’s Ural Mountains. The fact-based film deals the Dyatlov Pass incident in 1959, when nine experienced hikers were found dead. The film is set for release in 2013.

Harlin is ranked as one of the top-grossing directors of all time, with his movies having produced a combined U.S. domestic gross of $506,543,064 as of June 2010, which places him 86th on the list of highest grossing directors (based on U.S. domestic gross revenue alone).