IFH 451: Being Blindsided, Oscar and Blockbuster Directing w/ John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side)

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I have an epic conversation in store for you all today. Our guest is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, filmmaker, John Lee Hancock. While working as a lawyer by day back in 1986, John moonlighted as a screenwriter, writing script after script. His spec script A Perfect World caught the eye of Steven Spielberg and eventually was directed by Clint Eastwood. After that success he went on to direct the crowd pleasing The Rookie. After the box-office success of The Rookie, John tackled the epic story of The Alamo. Hancock’s famous five-year hiatus comeback film, The Blind Side, an adaptation of Micheal Lewis’s 2006 book, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game yield and performed outstandingly. The film received countless major awards nominations including an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and a win for Best Actress for Sandra Bullock. The Blind Side is the story of Michael Oher, a homeless and traumatized boy who became an All-American football player and first-round NFL draft pick with the help of a caring woman and her family. The Blind Side went on to make $309.2 million internationally on a $29 million budget. Not too bad. He shared how he usually starts with loose plots and very quickly thereafter, allows the process to becomes about the characters and then let the characters inform the plot. Just this year, Hancock released his latest HBO Max neo-noir crime thriller, The Little Things, starring Academy Award winners and heavyweights Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto. I had a ball talking with John about filmmaking, how he almost broke Steven Spielberg's Rosebud prop from Citizen Kane when they first met, and so much more. He really goes into detail about his creative process, how he was able to navigate Hollywood, how to deal with the highs and lows of the business and so much more. Enjoy my conversation with John Lee Hancock.