Slouching toward Hollywood

There was mounting pressure on Wes to drastically re-cut the picture again--to make it as short, as flashy, and as obvious as possible. There was talk of substantial reshooting and more test screenings.

Wes had delivered more or less the film the studio always claimed they'd expected. So how could they act bewildered or disappointed? He decided to be absolutely straight with them. He would tell them, in no uncertain terms, that Bottle Rocket was what it was.

"This is the kind of movie where either you get it or you don't," Wes said. "If somebody doesn't get it, there's nothing any of us can do that will make them get it."

Wes went to Columbia and made his pitch. To his relief, the studio thought it made sense.

At press time, Bottle Rocket, originally scheduled for a nationwide fall release, had been pushed back to February 2, 1996. The plan now is the same as it had been two years ago. Columbia would premiere the film at Sundance in January 1996, see how viewers responded to it, and determine a release pattern from there.

What would probably happen, Wes speculated, was a stint on the festival circuit followed by a brief run in a few key cities. If it did well, the studio would open it wider.

Looking back, he says he has no regrets. Why should he?
"We made the kind of film we wanted to make," Wes said. "We had the most supportive people we could ever meet--Jim and Polly. The time I spent on that set was the best time I've ever had in my life doing anything."

He has only one major regret: he was unable to get the Charlie Brown music for Bottle Rocket. Wes wrote a "big, huge" letter to Charles Schulz, but never actually made contact with the cartoonist. All his communication was with Lee Mendelssohn, the cartoon producer who'd overseen most of the Charlie Brown TV specials.

"I went to a lot of trouble to explain exactly why we wanted the music and what it would mean to the movie, how it would romanticize certain scenes and help explain to the audience exactly what the film was about, but Lee Mendelssohn pretty much blocked my letter from ever getting to Charles Schulz," Wes says.

"I confronted the issue in a series of faxes to him. They got quite heated. His job, obviously, is to protect Charles Schulz and protect the Peanuts characters, and he said that he absolutely did not want that music used in any movie that contained four-letter words. I questioned whether or not it was more noble for him to approve the use of Peanuts characters in Dolly Madison commercials and commercials for Met Life, as opposed to this little movie about these characters who really love the Charlie Brown music, a movie where that music actually means something personal. That made him pretty mad."

He and Owen are working on a couple of new scripts, but he'd rather not say what they're about till they're finished.

Owen, Bob, and Andrew are auditioning for roles in other people's movies, trying to build independent acting careers in Los Angeles. No matter what happens, they intend to continue working together.

Bob is thriving. He's auditioning for parts left and right. This is the most exciting time he's ever had. Bottle Rocket planted a seed in his head; he wants to win more parts, go to Hollywood, and build a brilliantly varied career like Robert DeNiro, or Harvey Keitel.

"I want to do everything," he says. "There's no kind of part I won't play. I want to be all over the place, a real chameleon--the kind of guy who digs down so deep that he sort of disappears, you know, and just becomes the character."

He's so loyal to his friends from Dallas that when he talks about his feelings toward them, he sometimes begins shaking his head incredulously, as if he can barely believe the depth of his affection. He feels his debt to them is more than professional.

"If I go on to have a really great, long, interesting life as an actor," Bob says, "I'll always remember that these guys believed in me and gave me my start. I'll owe my career to them. And I gotta tell the truth, man--in all honesty, I feel like I owe them a lot more than that."

Owen Wilson, now 26, feels the same way about his Bottle Rocket buddies. But while he still sees himself as pretty much the same guy, he realizes other people might not.