Find a movie director with a great script and Batman star Michael Keaton is willing to work for $100 (Dh367) a day. That is what Keaton, Robert Downey Jr and Bebe Neuwirth were paid for the movie Game 6, which opened on Friday in two Manhattan theatres and moves to the American West Coast in coming weeks.
Based on a screenplay by novelist Don DeLillo and directed by Michael Hoffman, it cost less than $1 million (Dh3.67 million) to film, even though it was shot in pricey Manhattan and features a special effects scene showing an explosion of asbestos-laden steam.
Challenging
"It's so hard to get anything as well written or as challenging, or a cast or director this good, so I just had to do it," Keaton told Reuters in an interview. "It kind of haunted me."
Keaton, the 54-year-old star of two Batman movies who reportedly turned down tens of millions of dollars to star in the third installment, said he "went into the hole" financially to do Game 6 but reaped psychic fortunes playing the tormented playwright. DeLillo's script had been kicking around for almost a decade before it wound up in the hands of director Hoffman and ultra-frugal Serenade Films, which offered all cast members the same lowly pay.
Interest
"Everyone in the cast had done a ton of theatre," Hoffman said about his actors' acceptance of the downsized scale and lack of creature comforts of Game 6.
Even so, the cast may well receive extra money if the movie is sufficiently profitable, said Hoffman. He added that investors have expressed interest in backing more than a dozen other Serenade movies.
Tough time
With no fat whatsoever in the Game 6 budget, Keaton said the cast had to fend for themselves. "I know the public restrooms in New York now because I'd use them to make sure my hair was combed and my wardrobe was on; they were my trailers," the razor-thin, fast-talking actor recalled. Likewise, to catch occasional naps, Keaton said he would pitch a mat on whatever lawn or sidewalk was handy.
The film
The minibudget film Game 6 focuses on New York playwright Nicky Rogan (Keaton) and his anguished decision whether to attend the premiere of his Broadway show or watch fateful Game 6 of the 1986 World Series between the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox.
Rogan, a perennially tortured Sox fan, must also contend with the potential threat of a New York theatre critic who has already destroyed the career and life of his best friend Elliot Litvak (Griffin Dunne) and his own complicated love life.
