Producer Jerry Bruckheimer becomes a rare type of star

LOS ANGELES -- Regardless of what movie critics say about his explosion-packed movies like "Armageddon" and "Con Air," producer Jerry Bruckheimer is neither big nor loud nor dumb.

The slim moviemaker with the low voice, brown hair and gray beard is one of few Hollywood producers whose box-office successes have made him a celebrity. His name is proclaimed in movie ads often as a shorthand for gunfire and wisecracks.

In the new "Bad Boys II," the mayhem and jokes are provided by Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as two loudmouth Miami detectives.

"I always say we're in the transportation business. We transport people to other places and other times," said Bruckheimer, 55, sunk into a black suede easy chair in his Santa Monica office, a former warehouse now divided by glass partitions while giant movie posters hang on the exposed brick walls.

Bruckheimer describes the job of a producer in terms of managing a baseball team. "We're not the coach -- that's a combination of the writer and director. We don't own the team, it's owned by the studios. But we're the managers. We put all the pieces together. We decide who gets traded, what players to play, what players to sign. We hire the coach, and then we sell the whole package to the owner, the studio."

Growing up "lower middle class" in Detroit, he said he developed a love for visual arts using hand-me-down cameras from his uncle, and Steve McQueen action films turned him on to movies.

The talents of a producer came naturally, meanwhile. "I had an ability to organize things and put them together," he said, citing two stories from when he was 8 and 12. "I was never a good athlete, but I put together a baseball team so I could play. Got a sponsor, got uniforms. Then got together a hockey team so I could play."

Although he works solo now, a title card at the start of "Bad Boys II" identifies it as a Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer production.

That's a reference to his late former partner, who worked on the 1995 original and died the next year as the result of heavy drug use. "Even though he's not here anymore it's part of his legacy," Bruckheimer said of "Bad Boys II."

The pair started out in 1983 with "Flashdance." The slick, temperamental Simpson, a former publicist, navigated the politics of Hollywood, while the soft-spoken Bruckheimer -- who had previous credits with "American Gigolo" and "Cat People" -- managed the filmmaking operation.

"I was always the 'good cop,"' Bruckheimer said. "He was a great 'bad cop,' you know, because he was angry all the time. It was very easy for him to get hold of somebody and scream at them and make them pretty uncomfortable. I'd come in, try to calm them down and clean up the mess."

The collaboration resulted in a string of blockbusters that included "Top Gun" and the "Beverly Hills Cop" movies, and the producers became renowned both for their sensory-pounding action stories and their pop music soundtracks.

After Simpson's death, Bruckheimer said many in Hollywood thought he'd falter, even though Simpson's intense drug use had left him largely in control of their business for two years before his partner's death.

"He had to become Don and Jerry," said Kathy Nelson, the head of film music for Universal Music Group, who supervised the songs on most of Bruckheimer's movies. "Don always shot from the hip. Don was very instinctive and aggressive and confrontational. ... Jerry accomplishes the same thing, but goes about it in a much more methodical, thought-out manner."

After Simpson's death, Bruckheimer said he had to prove himself again to the industry -- and did, with action hits such as "Pearl Harbor," "Gone in 60 Seconds" and "Black Hawk Down" along with uplifting underdog tales like "Remember the Titans" and "Coyote Ugly."

Even peers acknowledge that Bruckheimer has turned his name into something that catches the interest of the fickle moviegoing public, much like a big-name star.

"It all goes into the branding idea," said Kathleen Kennedy, who has produced such movies as "Twister," "Jurassic Park" and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." "Clearly, Jerry has branded a kind of genre that he makes over and over, and he does it exceedingly well ... With that comes a certain kind of celebrity."

Bruckheimer said some of his most crucial decisions come late in the development stage. "Dangerous Minds," the 1995 inner-city teacher drama with Michelle Pfeiffer, had disastrous preview screenings. "At the end of the movie you could shoot deer in the theater because there was nobody there. They all left."

He shortened the movie by cutting out an entire romantic subplot (along with all of co-star Andy Garcia's scenes) and infused the soundtrack with Coolio's throbbing "Gangsta's Paradise" rap single. Bruckheimer said those changes saved the picture, which went on to earn about $85 million.

A similar thing happened with the recent "Kangaroo Jack," which was originally raunchy buddy-comedy called "Down and Under." Audiences didn't like it, he said, so he decided to transform it into a kids movie, insisting on more kangaroo scenes, including a fantasy sequence in which the beast jabbered in Aussie slang. The film turned into a modest hit.

Critics didn't like it any better, but critics rarely praise his movies. They didn't like "Top Gun," "Pearl Harbor" or "Armageddon" either. One recent exception was "Pirates of the Caribbean," which collected generally positive notices.

"That scared me a little," he said, laughing. "Because if the critics love it, I think: Is it going to open?"