Paul Schrader briefly returns to Xtreme City to talk failed Leonardo DiCaprio movie

During his promotional tour for Oh, Canada, Schrader appeared on the Schrader-focused podcast Pod Casty For Me and offered his most detailed account of his attempts to make the movie. However, it’s a tale as old as show business: complications arose, and egos followed. Schrader explains that he, Scorsese, Khan, and DiCaprio met in Berlin to discuss the movie. It soon became apparent that “Shah Rukh was the boss,” and he wasn’t about to play “second banana” to a director or Leo.

“[Khan] hires directors. Sometimes he hires multiple directors: he’ll hire somebody for the musical number; he’ll hire somebody else for the action; he’ll hire somebody else for the personal-relationship scenes,” Schrader said. “He can do that. He has never really worked under the harness of an auteur, and that, I could see, was starting to grate on him. And he had never done a film in the West before, and he had never been a second banana to somebody like Leo before.”

Schrader visited with Khan several times in Mumbai, but Schrader “could feel the ground slowly eroding underneath him.” Soon, his commitment became “provisional,” and the film fell apart. “Once his commitment went from ‘firm’ to ‘provisional,’ Leo’s went from ‘firm’ to ‘provisional.’ Now you have two ‘provisional’ commitments, which means you have no commitment at all.” Showbusiness is the same everywhere, and there’s no business like it. Still, while the movie sounds interesting, we encourage Mr. Schrader to consider reusing the title Xtreme City.

[via The Film Stage]