PART II

06/25/2000

By Robert Miller / The Dallas Morning News

Last Sunday, as we left Dallas' Richard M. Hull Jr. - now a successful Hollywood film producer - he was reflecting on how a 30-minute entry in the Sundance Film Festival magically produced return phone calls, a mound of scripts and pleas to do lunch.

The year was 1996, and Mr. Hull was only 26.

The entry - his first produced film - was a 30-minute video called The Spartans.

"Five strangers are held at gunpoint in the back room of a convenience store only to find that their captor is, above all, a gambling man. In the end, a simple roll of the dice determines each hostage's fate."

In the made-for-TV movie, that event changed their lives forever. The same could be said about the video and "Rich" Hull.

"The film was later selected as an 'official finalist' at the USA Film Festival and debuted domestically on The Sundance Channel," Mr. Hull says.

"The William Morris Agency came knocking to help me with my next movie, and suddenly people who never returned my calls were explaining how my messages must have gotten misplaced, but how they miraculously had just found them.

"I had found another script called Within the Lines, a sports volleyball movie, one that I thought would make money.

"So I went back to Texas and sat on a lot of living room floors [soliciting funds]. The biggest hurdle was other people had been there before, and all had lost money."

Mr. Hull, however, was convincing, and the film was made and distributed domestically by New City Releasing with its debut on Showtime and in 30 countries by Skylar Entertainment.

"All the people who invested in it made their money back and a bunch extra.

"It cost under a million and it took three weeks to film." And, unlike The Spartans, "I paid everyone - the crew, the actors, the film supplier, everyone."

Increases success

"In 1997, I produced Mulligan Men, a golf comedy, while concurrently serving as executive producer of director Ryan Haidarian's Race, which premiered at the Act III Theaters Alamo Inaugural and has headlined The President Clinton Initiative on Race series."

His next project was an action-thriller movie that took place on a desert island.

"Rather than produce it in Los Angeles, where people don't care, I wanted to shoot it on Jekyll Island, off the coast of Georgia, and play up the island, where I had been while in college.

"It was formerly a winter retreat for some of the world's richest families - the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Morgans, etc.

"I made the movie in late 1998. It was a great experience. The people went out of their way to be nice. One night the local sheriff gave us every squad car and uniformed officer in the county to use in the movie."

They all worked just for food. "Of course we fed them well," Mr. Hull said.

The film premiered domestically on Starz! and is currently airing on Showtime Artist View Entertainment, which is handling foreign distribution.

Jekyll Island also cost about a million dollars and made money, which led some of his Texas backers to encourage him to try bigger-budget movies.

Ironically, his decision to follow their advice meant they would become the odd men out.

To make movies that cost $5 million to $10 million, a producer needs widespread theater distribution. "I had to go to a studio," Mr. Hull said, and studios handle their own financing. "Otherwise, it's a crapshoot to get it into a theater."

The script for She's All That came along in February 1999.

"I went to all the studios and had to get introduced to them." He chose Miramax Films, a Disney subsidiary, for two reasons, he said wryly - it seemed the best fit, and Miramax said yes.

"I shot it in six weeks at a cost of almost $10 million.

"By Hollywood standards, that's a low-budget movie. By [Miramax's] standards, it was huge, especially in taking a chance on me."

The script "was written by R. Lee Fleming Jr., a Houston native of my vintage, whom I met when I was living in Dallas after college and while he was in graduate school at SMU.

"Lee and I lost touch, we both moved to LA and then ran into each other through a mutual friend. Shortly thereafter, She's All That was born."

If you're not of a certain age, Mr. Hull explains, She's All That is My Fair Lady - some would say Pygmalion - in high school.

"A guy bets his best friend in high school [Freddie Prinze Jr.] that he can't take the ugly duckling [Rachel Leigh Cook] and turn her into the prom queen."

It was "released in over 2,200 theaters nationwide in 1999 by Miramax Films, the largest launch ever given to a Miramax movie - the largest Super Bowl weekend opening ever.

"She's All That generated weekend receipts of $17 million in its first three days ... the second largest opening ever for the month of January, second only to Star Wars," he said.

Giving back to Texas

Mr. Hull may have left Texas, but Texas hasn't left him.

He returned to the Lone Star State about two years ago between Jekyll Island and just before She's All That.

"I felt really frustrated with Hollywood and all of the nonsense that goes along with it. I really wanted to do something that got me out of Los Angeles for a few weeks, and I really wanted to be back in Texas," Mr. Hull said.

As a lifetime sports fan aware of the iconic stature of former University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal, Mr. Hull set out to make a documentary, The Story of Darrell Royal.

"Coach Royal agreed ... and we were able to bring in some fun people to help us with it - Matthew McConaughey narrated, Austin legend Cactus Pryor hosted, and we interviewed Willie Nelson, Larry Gatlin, Earl Campbell, Governor Bush, Keith Jackson, Tom Hicks, Jim Bob Moffett and more."

Mr. Hull hired Mr. Haidarian, who's from Houston and a University of Texas graduate, to direct.

"He did a fantastic job and helped retain its Texas integrity," Mr. Hull said.

"The result was a 60-minute documentary which won a bunch of awards," he continued.

"I wanted to set up a scholarship in Coach Royal's name. At [his] suggestion, we set up a scholarship at the University of Texas in the name of Coach Royal's late defensive coach and friend, Mike Campbell, to benefit from the proceeds of the sales of the video.

"It's been fun to watch that scholarship grow and, in fact, I just found out that an anonymous donor in Houston saw the video and was so moved that he donated $10,000 to the scholarship."

The video is available on the Internet at www.SportsHollywood.com.

The scholarship fund at UT is only one example of Mr. Hull's and his family's strong sense of giving back to the community.

His father, Richard Sr., a partner at Gardere & Wynne, is a founder of the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program, in which successful attorneys devote some of their evenings to pro bono work in low-income areas.

The program is a model for such legal community service nationwide.

As a Father's Day gift last year, young Hull made a documentary about the program and donated it to the DVAP.

Talent never takes a holiday - it won the State Bar of Texas Pro Bono Award this year.

Meanwhile, his mother, Sherrie Hull, has focused her volunteer service on the Dallas Arboretum and Preservation Dallas, and sister Tracey runs the nonprofit American Institute of Musical Studies in Snider Plaza.

The present

Now Mr. Hull is working on Getting Over Allison, another youth-oriented comedy.

It's currently in production in Canada, where costs are lower and the exchange rate favors American companies.

As producer, he's allowed to bring in only the stars and the director. Everything else has to be Canadian.

The film stars Kirsten Dunst, who was in Virgin Suicides and Dick; Ben Foster, who was in Liberty Heights; Ed Begley Jr.; Swoosie Kurtz; and Martin Short, who just joined the cast.

"The movie is about a high school senior who gets dumped by his first 'true love' girlfriend for what he considers to be no apparent reason.

"His buddies spend the rest of the movie trying to get him over this girl, only to realize that the little sister of one of these friends has grown up and just may be the unlikely girl who 'gets him over Allison.'"

Lee Fleming also wrote the script for this film.

Recognizing Jesuit

Mr. Hull, who's now accustomed to receiving awards, has a couple of his own to hand out - to a former teacher/counselor and to his high school.

"David Oglesby, my freshman English teacher and senior guidance counselor at Jesuit College Preparatory School in Dallas, was responsible for pushing me towards Vanderbilt, and he was one of the most influential people in teaching me how to think for myself."

Mr. Hull's record shows theirs was a job well done.

Staff columnist Robert Miller writes about people and events of interest to the business community for The Dallas Morning News.

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