Jerry Bruckheimer on Making Prince of Persia: Insights from Hollywood's Power Producer

Jerry Bruckheimer Discusses Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time...

QUESTION: You must get loads of film ideas pitched to you. What was the appeal of doing Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time?

JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: I think it's a throwback to old movies, to Lawrence of Arabia. I love the old David Lean films and this is a fantasy version of it. Jordan [Mechner] did such a wonderful job, the game is so successful, and they gave us such a wonderful pitch that we fell in love with it.

QUESTION: Did you all play the game yourself? And will there be sequels?

JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: I had played the game before Jordan [Mechner] came in, but not the one that he talked about when he first created it. It was a much more recent version of it.

QUESTION: How do you see your role in a movie, when you're referred to as the most powerful man in Hollywood?

JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: That's fiction by the media, it's not true. We just try to have a set that runs smoothly, where people can have a good time even though they're working very hard. I think that's because Mike and our actors handled the set so well. Everybody had a good time, and that's what it's about.

QUESTION: Was there ever a desire to make Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time in 3D? And how do you feel about the 3D revolution?

JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: I think we talked about it briefly, but Avatar hadn't come out, so we couldn't see the impact 3D would have. Plus Avatar was done all on a soundstage, pretty much, in a hangar and this picture was done in Morocco, the majority of it. So it was much more difficult, with the two cameras and the sand and the heat. But 3D is here to stay, it's taking over cinema.

QUESTION: How do you feel looking back over your career - does it give you a sense of pride to think that you're the man who made Top Gun?

JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: No, I always worry about the next one. It's never the past. You learn from the past but I worry about this one and Sorcerer's Apprentice, which is coming up next, and the next Pirates Of The Caribbean is about to start. So I'm always looking way beyond. I don't look back too much. Maybe someday when I'm in a retirement home somewhere I'll think ‘Oh wow, I did all these things?'. But not now.

QUESTION: It is said that you have 17 films in various stages of production, plus all your TV work. How do you manage to do all that you do and maintain the standard?

JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: It comes down to working with really talented people, this is a great example of the talent that we create. We create the same kind of talent behind the cameras, so we have a lot of people in our company who are enormously talented. And then the show owners in television run their business along with our executives. So it's just finding great people to work with.