Hollywood has faced increasing scrutiny over the past decade over how the business works behind the scenes, even down to the treatment of the underlings serving Tinseltown’s all-powerful executives. There have even been narrative films about the headline-making subject, such as She Said (2022) and The Assistant (2019), and the excellent current HBO series, The Franchise. But 30 years ago, Hollywood was also turning the lens on itself, with meta features like Swimming with Sharks. In the satirical comedy-drama, Kevin Spacey plays an esteemed but abusive producer who treats his latest assistant (Frank Whaley), as expected, like garbage.
Decades later, the topical film was adapted to the small screen for a series of the same name, starring Kiernan Shipka and Diane Kruger. MovieWeb recently spoke with George Huang, the original film’s writer and director, amid the release of his latest feature Weekend in Taipei and learned more about how the original Swimming With Sharks still resonates with audiences. At the same time, it’s eerie to think about the casting, with Kevin Spacey playing the abusive monster; 30 years later, with what we know about Spacey’s actions behind the scenes, the film is all the more disturbing.
“One of the incredible privileges of having made a movie like that… it’s still in the zeitgeist even 30 years later,” Huang told us. “As a filmmaker, to have a film that is still being talked about 30 years later is an incredible privilege. And so, yeah, it’s amazing. Whenever I get press calls or people wanting a comment on it — especially now with, you know, sort of the #MeToo landscape and all that we’re facing, it’s really just fantastic to be a part of that cultural exchange.”
Guy (Frank Whaley) is a young film executive who’s willing to do whatever it takes to make it in Hollywood. He begins working for famed producer Buddy Ackerman (Kevin Spacey), a domineering, manipulative, coldhearted boss. When Guy also finds out that his cynical girlfriend, Dawn (Michelle Forbes), has been using sex as a career move, he reaches his limit. Guy decides to exact revenge on Buddy by kidnapping him and subjecting him to cruel and unusual punishment.
- Release Date
-
April 21, 1995
- Director
-
George Huang
- Runtime
-
1h 33m
- Writers
-
George Huang
- Distributor(s)
-
Trimark Pictures
George Huang Goes from Hollywood to Taipei
Another film that moviegoers might be discussing these days is Weekend in Taipei, Huang’s new thrilling action flick that was just released to the masses. It stars the reliably hardcore Luke Evans as a down-and-out DEA agent who ends up pummeling his way through a whole spread of corruption in Taiwan for the sake of justice and public safety. And on that note, Huang’s new film succeeds in particular by bringing audiences overseas to Asia for all the action, rather than the usual North American backdrop we’re used to. He shared more about how they chose the city of Taipei as the film’s unique setting:
“We thought that we might be able to shoot this in Hong Kong, so originally, it was called Weekend in Hong Kong. But we got the budget numbers back, and it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, there’s no way we’re gonna be able to execute this there,'” explained Huang, who added:
“But Luke [Evans] said, ‘Well, you know, I really had a great experience there. You’re from Taiwan. Why don’t you go check it out and see if we can… relocate the whole story to Taipei?’ And so, yeah, I went back for a month, sort of scouted the whole island and, yeah, was happy to report back… and was like, ‘Yeah, we can definitely make this and in Taipei.’ And yeah, so it evolved from there.”
From Ketchup Entertainment, Weekend in Taipei is now playing in theaters.