Renny Harlin - Success in Hollywood

Success in Hollywood

Harlin moved to the U.S. where he was initially put to work directing low-budget horror movies, but commercial success was soon to follow. In 1988, Irwin Yablans of Empire Pictures hired him to direct Viggo Mortensen, Chelsea Field and Lane Smith in the low-budget horror film Prison filmed at a former state prison in Rawlins, Wyoming. That same year Robert Shaye of New Line Cinema, after some initial doubts, hired him to direct another low-budget horror film, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, which became the highest grossing independent film at that time by earning $49 million in the US. Harlin cameos in the film as a student while a publicity poster for Prison can be seen in the background of a scene in a movie theatre.

Following this success 20th Century Fox approached Harlin with science fiction/horror sequel Alien 3. After working on the trouble-prone project for a year, he left in 1990 claiming not to be satisfied with any of the multiple scripts that had been drafted and stating that he wanted to do something completely different. The next day the studio offered him rock-and-roll comedy The Adventures of Ford Fairlane starring stand-up comic Andrew Dice Clay. Studio executives were so impressed by the dailies on this film that they offered Harlin action sequel Die Hard 2 starring Bruce Willis, which he set to work on immediately. The two films were edited simultaneously and were released just a week apart after being shipped to the theaters as "wet prints". The former flopped but the latter was another commercial success for the director. He achieved critical acclaim the following year, 1991, when he produced Rambling Rose, through his own recently formed Midnight Sun Pictures, for director Martha Coolidge which won him the Best Feature award at the 1992 Independent Spirit Awards and got his star and then partner Laura Dern a Best Actress Oscar nomination at the 1992 Academy Awards.

1993 was a big year for Harlin. Mario Kassar of Carolco Pictures, who had worked with him on Rambling Rose, offered him Gale Force, a film about hurricanes with Sylvester Stallone attached to star. Harlin initially turned down the offer due to the script's similarities to Die Hard 2 but Kassar kept offering a bigger salary, changing the pay scale of Hollywood directors, until Harlin accepted. The film's projected cost spiraled and eventually the plug was pulled, but the project went on to evolve into Cliffhanger. This film was another commercial success and is credited with reviving Stallone’s flagging career. The actor became good friends with Harlin. This same year Harlin married American actress Geena Davis and also found time to return to his homeland to write and direct the TV series Gladiaattorit (the Finnish version of American Gladiators) with old friend and collaborator Markus Selin.