Rating 4 out of 5: Disney had the ‘guts’ to make this thriller inspired by a true story with the great Russell Crowe

25 years ago in 1999, filmmaker and screenwriter Michael Mann released what would become one of the greatest dramas of its era. Starring Al Pacino, Russell Crowe and Christopher Plummer, he and co-writer Eric Roth adapted the story of chemistry professor and whistleblower Jeffrey Wiegand (masterfully done Russell Crowe) in the feature film that went on to earn 7 Academy Award nominations: Revelations. To celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary, Collider spoke to the esteemed director about his experiences during the film’s tumultuous production, and especially the courage it took to bring this true story to life.

As Collider notes, Michael Mann Met with big companies who could easily sue the filmmakers. And asked what it was like to make a film where he needed lawyers to get backing from Disney and Fox, the director explained why he persevered.

“This is a very good question and I will tell you why. We knew it very well. Disney’s general counsel and I worked to confirm absolutely every element of the script. When we wrote the script, we wrote it with the standard of proof that Lowell Bergman applies to everything he does, which is that he’ll never accept anything as true unless he’s verified it about three times. Eric Roth and I were equally challenging ourselves. No dramatic license.“

He went on to specify that there was a 300-page version of the script, with all the confirmations they could annotate: “So we created a document that is a script with all the confirmations annotated. It has been used for years by the Columbia School of Journalism. I gave a lecture there. It’s an incredible document because the script was 150 pages long – this confirmed version is about 300.“

The Courage of Disney

And in front of the companies that could complete the project, even with research and work, there was Disney and some courage on the part of the company and Michael Mann Completing this difficult undertaking – enhanced security and yet…

“That’s how they were treated. At Disney, we’ve been bold in our approach. There was some nervousness – there was a threatening letter. Film operations are relatively porous, and I didn’t want to do our editing room or anything. So we had pretty tight security before we got into those editing rooms and into our office. I had a guy who had just retired – he put up security for the American embassy in Moscow – and he was working on the whole physical structure of our set up. And then I heard that someone had hacked into what we were doing. One of the law firms we talk about in the film, based in Kansas City, hired a person who came to work as a transcriptionist to do a lot of dictation. At least that’s what happened. But they campaigned.“

And yet, in spite of that”Wallace and Hewitt launched a campaign against the filmThis intrusion into their editing rooms and the threat they faced, they continued and thus was born. RevelationsSuccess with best performance.

Revelations can still be seen on VOD.