Kurt Russell in a scene from ‘Breakdown.’
Breakdown is a thriller that continues to surprise director Jonathan Mostow almost 25 years after it landed in theaters.
The thriller sees Kurt Russell play a man searching for his missing wife, who vanishes after their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Made for $36 million, Breakdown was a critical and commercial hit, grossing $50.2 million at the domestic box office. In the years since its release, it has continued to find new audiences.
The fan-favorite is getting a long-awaited Blu-ray release as part of the limited-edition Paramount
Simon Thompson: I remember seeing Breakdown in movie theaters when it originally came out. I was living in the UK at the time, and it felt like it came out of nowhere and grabbed audiences. It has gone on to build this loyal, growing fan base. Did you have any idea that was going to happen?
Jonathan Mostow: Not at all. I was more afraid of the opposite happening. I had initially conceived Breakdown as something I could do on a super low budget. I could shoot it out in the desert, I didn’t need to pay for lights because we’ll be mostly in daylight, and I didn’t need location permits or expensive locations because it was out in the middle of nowhere. Breakdown was very early in my career, and the film I’d done right before this, I’d made for only $1 million, so in my mind, it was a movie that I was going to make for maybe $4 million. When it suddenly turned into a studio-sized film, with a big movie star, who was commuting to set every day from his house in Los Angeles by private jet, and I had this huge crew, I started to worry it was going to be the Emperor with no clothes. I feared that the film would come out, and audiences and critics would go, ‘What are you doing? This is like a low-budget, Roger Corman movie. Why are you trying to pass this off as something more and making me spend full ticket price on a ticket for this?’ Understandably, I was thrilled when it got the response that it did. Breakdown seemed to be embraced within the Beltway of Hollywood because it was almost an antidote to the big special effects, tentpole films that had already started take hold. Kurt Russell’s character was just a guy running around in the desert. There were no special effects; there were no spaceships or anything. We’re a generation of producers and executives and other people in Hollywood who had grown up inspired heavily by the movies of the 70s, and Breakdown was almost a throwback to that. I think people were gratified to know that the kind of movies that inspired us to get into filmmaking in the first place, there was still a home for those commercially.
Thompson: Breakdown opened at the top of the domestic box office with $12.3 million. What do you remember about that weekend debut?
Mostow: One of my favorite compliments about the film is when people say they remember seeing Breakdown in the theater. There are certain films I remember seeing in a movie theater because they imprint in your brain, they stick with you, so I always think it’s great when I meet people that happened to with one of my movies. As most movies do, Breakdown opened on a Friday, and there was one other movie opening against it. That movie was the first Austin Powers. I remember going around theaters in Los Angeles to make sure that it sounded okay and the projection wasn’t off because I knew that people in the industry would see the film. I remember going into the auditoriums, I checked, and everything looked okay, and I was like, ‘That Austin Powers movie is playing in the next theater. I’m going to go check that out. I hope it’s not good because I don’t want to lose to that.’ So I went in and loved it. I was laughing so hard, but every time I laughed, I thought, ‘Damn. This is going to beat us.’ I subsequently met and became friends with Jay Roach, the director of Austin Powers, and it turns out he was doing the exact same thing with Breakdown. Breakdown launched my career. I think it was on the Sunday morning when the chairman of a studio that had passed on the script, every other studio had passed on it, called my agent and said, ‘How early tomorrow morning can you have your client in my office?’ 7.30 am, Monday morning, I meet with this guy who set me up with a deal at that studio. That was very transformative, personally and professionally.
MORE FOR YOU
Jonathan Mostow, the director and co-writer of ‘Breakdown.’
Thompson: Breakdown came at a really interesting point in Kurt Russell’s career.
Mostow: Kurt was always a very durable movie star, but in the couple of years before Breakdown, his star had risen quite exponentially. He had been in Stargate, and that did really well. Studios looked at that, and they said, ‘Wait a second. We didn’t think these movies could do so well. Why did it open so big?’ They thought it must have been because of Kurt Russell, and that elevated his star. Just look at Kurt’s resume. He’s been a star since he was a kid. There might have been moments where that ebbed a little bit, but that’s only because he got interested in other things, such as when he was trying to be a professional baseball player. He’s a guy who has always valued his own life. He’s never obsessed about his career in a way that perhaps some other movie stars have, at the expense of their personal life. For him, a good quality of life is essential. In fact, that’s the whole reason why we were flying him to set by private jet every day. He had an arrangement with his wife, Goldie Hawn, that one of them would always be home with the kids, so they would take turns doing movies. Kurt would be finishing Escape from LA, so he said to Breakdown’s producer, Dino De Laurentiis, that he would have to wait until the following year because it was Goldie’s turn to do a movie. Dino, in his classic way, said, ‘No problem. I’ll solve that.’ Flying him back and forth was the solution, so every night Kurt was home for dinner, he’d be back in his bed, and the following morning he’d fly to set in Utah or wherever and do his scenes, then he’d fly home again.
Thompson: What if Kurt wasn’t available? Did you have a backup plan?
Mostow: Not in my mind because he was the guy I wanted, and Dino and Martha De Laurentiis backed me up on that. The moment he said yes, I felt it in my gut and knew that it would work creatively if I didn’t screw anything up because I knew he was the right guy for the job.
Thompson: Breakdown was such a success. Hollywood being Hollywood, even though the ending of the movie is pretty final, did anybody ever float the idea of a sequel, perhaps with another couple or maybe Kurt’s character or someone else stumbling across similar activities elsewhere?
Mostow: It’s interesting because I know that people have approached the producers wanting to remake Breakdown, and they have said, ‘What? No. Breakdown is not a film that should get remade.’ It didn’t feel like there was a sequel here. I don’t know what that would be. The title of that movie would have to be something to do with the man who had the worst luck in the world. He survives that, and it happens again? That’s hard to believe.
Kathleen Quinlan and Kurt Russell in a scene from ‘Breakdown.’
Thompson: Many movies like this tend to get forgotten, but this continues to be celebrated and finds new audiences almost 25 years later. Why has Breakdown stood out?
Mostow: What’s interesting is when the film was announced for preorder on Blu-ray. That happened about six weeks ago, and I wouldn’t even know it was available unless I got a message from Paramount letting me know. I didn’t see any press about it, but it went to number one on Amazon
Thompson: Recording these new commentary tracks with Kurt, were there stories that you’d forgotten or perhaps never even told before that popped into your head when you rewatched Breakdown?
Mostow: Oh, it was a great experience because we went to the lot, and we were on their largest mixing stage, so it had this 60-foot screen. Not only had neither one of us seen the film on a screen that big since it came out, but neither one of us has sat down and watched the film from start to finish. Once I’m done with a movie, I don’t typically go back and watch it. It was a great walk down memory lane. Both Kurt and I remembered things that the other hadn’t. Kurt has a steel-trap memory, so that was cool. The commentary is just two guys who really enjoyed working with each other, coming back together to reminisce and then talk about stuff. Kurt has a great reputation for his commentary tracks being particularly entertaining, so I hope people will find that interesting. I know I did.
Breakdown lands on Blu-ray as part of the Paramount Presents series on Tuesday, September 21, 2021.
