Going behind the scenes of Rain Man and Blackbird, a pair of films where the respective directors had a lot of control over the finished film.
The film Rain Man became a huge box office hit at the end if 1988, and an Oscar-winner in 1989. Yet here was a movie that went through the hands of at least three directors who didn’t make it, including Steven Spielberg, who was attached for nearly half a year.
But Barry Levinson did make the film – and he was able to take advantage of a situation that gave him a surprising amount of control.
Michael Flatley meanwhile had seemingly total control over his passion project, Blackbird. He wrote, directed, produced and starred in the movie, which debuted in 2018 – but then seemed to disappear.
The stories of both films are told in this episode…
