It didn’t look like Secretariat could pull it off.
Coming out of the gate at the 1973 Kentucky Derby, the chestnut colt
fell behind all but two horses and dropped more than nine lengths off
the leaders down the backstretch. Under the whip from jockey
That stirring come-from-behind race — the opening
leg in the horse’s ridiculously lopsided Triple Crown triumph, the
first such sweep in 25 years — is at the center of “Secretariat,” a
It’s the kind of feel-good family film — “Secretariat” is rated PG — that evokes the quintessential
films of the era it’s set in: “Freaky Friday,” “Pete’s Dragon” and “The
Love Bug.” At the same time, the movie recalls the studio’s rousing
sports dramas of the past decade, a slate that includes “The Rookie,”
“Remember the Titans” and “Miracle.”
executives believe “Secretariat,” a project begun by their
predecessors, distills their creative and commercial ambitions, and
they are promising to make more modestly budgeted, uplifting films in
its hoof prints.
“It’s a movie that speaks to who we are today and where we are going,” studio chief
has evident heartland appeal — the perfect inspirational film, he
believes, for these recessionary times.
Nearly a year after
company is assembling a film lineup that in many ways looks like the
of yesterday. The studio has stumbled recently with “The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice,” “Step Up 3D” and “You Again,” films that were inherited
from Cook’s regime but marketed by Ross’ team.
“A quote was shared with me from
who said: ‘When you have a brand, it’s like a bank account. With every
offering, you’re either making a withdrawal or a deposit on the
brand,'” said new production President
Directed by “Braveheart” screenwriter
Ciardi and Gray, who had previously produced the hockey movie “Miracle”
and the football story “Invincible,” had wanted to make a film about
Volponi, the 44-1 long shot winner of the 2002 Breeders’ Cup. Ciardi,
Gray and Rich had discussed making a movie about Secretariat — arguably
a better horse than racing legends Seabiscuit, Kelso, Citation and Man
o’War — “but we didn’t know what the story was,” Gray said, adding that
there was no suspense “because he killed everybody.”
Rich, who previously had written “Radio” and
“Finding Forrester,” films focused on overcoming seemingly
insurmountable odds, did research and decided that the most dramatic
Secretariat movie would focus on Chenery, a
housewife and mother of four who took over her father’s Meadow Farm.
Under her leadership, the farm turned out Secretariat and, a year
earlier, Kentucky Derby winner
The movie itself, though, faced several obstacles.
— less than half of what Universal committed to 2003’s “Seabiscuit.”
When Roberts and Foster passed, Wallace was able to persuade the studio
to hire Lane, who hadn’t been in a
In a way, the studio was mimicking the strategy that
Cook and Aviv used on “The Proposal,” which originally was offered to
Roberts. When the “Pretty Woman” star passed,
“Penny has a well of dignity and quiet strength. And
I believe Diane had that quality, that you wouldn’t see how tough she
was until you punched her,” Wallace said. “The exterior was soft and
genteel and the interior was steel, and that’s what I thought Penny
needed to be.”
“Secretariat” represents one of three genres of film
the studio is pursuing under Ross, whose own film slate is at least a
year away from reaching theaters.
films, Bailey said he is primarily focused on making movies that fall
into three broad categories: family-friendly comedies with heart
(Bailey and his team cite “Splash,” “Big,” “Enchanted” and “Elf”),
epics that create worlds (“Avatar,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Pirates of
the Caribbean” and the upcoming “Tron: Legacy”), and inspirational true
stories (“The Blind Side,” “Searching for
The studio also will occasionally make movies aimed
at a narrowly defined demographic — next year’s high school girls’
movie “Prom” and the young adult adaptations “Fallen” and “Matched” are
current examples — but is scaling back on adult dramas.
more grown-up Touchstone label is basically gone, and potentially
expensive highbrow movies like “Gemini Man,” a long-in-the-works
hit-man thriller, face longer odds.
Even though
didn’t wager a lot of money in the making of “Secretariat,” the studio
is placing big bets on a surprising number of big-budget projects
helmed by prominent directors such as
Fincher, fresh off “The Social Network,” is
developing a remake of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” a movie that
Ross shut down under director McG, whose vision was deemed to be too
dark. Raimi, of “Spider-Man” fame, is set to direct a “Wizard of Oz”
prequel, while
But modestly budgeted stories like “Secretariat” will continue to factor in
theatrical lineup. The studio and filmmakers aspired to make the racing
movie more than a straightforward retelling of Big Red’s prowess on the
racetrack — a sort of equine rags-to-riches story that one news account
from the era described as “a compound of good genes, good training and
good luck.”
Landing on the covers of Time, Newsweek and Sports
Illustrated in the same week, Secretariat achieved the kind of pop
culture fame reserved for only elite athletes like
Rich’s script, which Wallace revised, was loosely adapted from sportswriter
followed Chenery’s emotional journey and the obstacles she faced in
trying to fulfill her father’s vision for the 2,600-acre farm in
“I have an approach to historical stories which
makes people really uneasy — and that is you don’t let the facts get in
the way of the truth,” Wallace said. “A movie is not a documentary, it
is an impressionistic portrayal that, in those two hours you have, you
have to capture what are the deeper truths. That means you have to
synthesize and condense.”
Wallace, who attended seminary and speaks with a
preacher’s rhetorical flourishes, used the gospel song “Oh Happy Day”
and a verse from Job to emphasize the film’s spiritual themes of
rebirth and transcendence. “It’s not a sports movie. It’s from the guy
who created ‘Braveheart.’ And it’s much more akin to ‘Chariots of
Fire,'” Wallace said. “I never did want the movie to be about a given
dogma. But I wanted a sense with each character that they were looking
for some experience of the sacred.”
“Secretariat” emphasizes Chenery’s isolation from her four children (who remained with her husband in
worth of syndication rights in Secretariat — essentially, an ownership
stake and breeding privileges in the broad-chested beast — well before
post time at the Kentucky Derby.
“Penny said to me, ‘You know what your movie does? I
didn’t understand how hard it was and how lonely I was until I saw your
movie,'” Wallace said after the 88-year-old Chenery watched the movie.
Given the limited budget, Wallace re-created two of
the races in the Triple Crown but used television footage for the
Preakness Stakes. For the Derby, his cameras focused on the smallest
details, like how the horse rolled its eyes and how the jockey curled
the animal’s mane in his hand.
At the
where Secretariat set a world record for that distance just as he did
in the Derby (marks that still stand), Wallace heightened the feat with
a slow-motion start, emphasizing every footfall until the gates spring
open.
“Hanging between there, like a rose between the two
dramatic thorns, was the Preakness,” Wallace said. “I had heard that
her family was left behind, and this was the most agonizing part to me.
The sense that Penny has been presented with a choice, at the beginning
of the movie, which was passion or family. And the miracle is that she
gets both.”
Because it’s a feel-good movie, Wallace chose not to
include Chenery’s subsequent divorce. But Ross said Chenery’s
willingness to follow her passion through adversities makes the film
relevant to contemporary audiences.
“This is about a woman who bet the farm, literally
and figuratively,” Ross said. “If we were going to tell the story and
the perfect happy ending for a Triple Crown winner, that would be a
very uninteresting movie. This is not about that.
“When we at
talk about believing in dreams, the dreams do not have to be our
princess and fantasy. This is someone who believed in her dream … a
dream that she could do what no one had done before. That to me is the
ultimate
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