Director: Richard Lewis
Writer: Michael Konyves, based on the novel by Mordecai Richer
Producer: Robert Lantos
Production companies: Serendipity Point Films in association with Lyla Films
Key cast: Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver, Rachelle Lefevre, Bruce Greenwood, Scott Speedman, Macha Grenon
International copro partner: Fandango (Italy)
Distributor: eOne Films
International sales: Essential Entertainment
Budget: $30 million

Ask most producers to choose from among their films and they will usually say they can’t – they’re a parent to all their projects. But one can’t help but think Barney’s Version is a personal favorite for Robert Lantos. “That’s true,” the Toronto producer says. “You can safely say that.”

In an earlier interview, Lantos went so far as to say that with this production he set out to make the best film of his storied career. So now that it’s in the can, has he done that?

“The people shall vote. I don’t have a vote,” is all he will offer.

Lantos has had the film rights to Mordecai Richler’s book of the same name – first published in 1997 – for a dozen years. It was the author’s last novel, telling the life story of Barney Panofsky, a thrice-married Jewish Montreal TV producer who is implicated in the mysterious disappearance of his friend Boogie. Richler began working on the screenplay for Lantos before becoming ill, and got only so far as the treatment stage before passing away in 2001. It was their second collaboration, following the 1985 adaptation of Richler’s autobiographical Joshua Then and Now, which netted five Genie Awards.

“I have always been in awe of Mordecai Richler – long before I ever met him, and even more so after I met him,” Lantos says. “Barney’s Version is his magnum opus. I think it is the best book he ever wrote. So, making a movie out of the best and final novel written by perhaps this country’s literary giant comes with a lot of responsibility, and that responsibility got multiplied when he passed away.”

It is believed that Barney’s TV company, Totally Unnecessary Productions, was satirically modeled after Lantos’ Alliance Communications. “It is entirely possible that some of the book’s minor passages and characters are taking shots at members of the Canadian film and television industry, and it’s not impossible that I was a prime target of those, which amuses me and I found very endearing,” he says.

Translating Richler’s book to the screen proved daunting, not only for its sprawling nature but because it is narrated by Barney at a point in his life when he suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease, which makes some of his recollections questionable. Lantos hired several writers – including a couple of expensive Oscar-winners – to take a stab at it, but none crafted a script to his satisfaction.

Enter director Richard Lewis, who collaborated with Lantos on the 1994 feature drama Whale Music, which captured four Genies and caught the eye of William Petersen, executive producer and star of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Petersen brought Lewis aboard the series phenom, where he would go on to have a long and successful run directing, writing and producing. But he never lost his interest in features, and was determined to film Barney’s Version, and so set out to woo Lantos. The producer, however, initially had reservations.

“He had spent years in television, and I thought this was going to be too big and ambitious after only having done Whale Music,” Lantos explains. He adds that while he doesn’t believe TV and movie directing require different skill-sets, “the difference is perception. The director is the single most important criteria to persuade stars to be in the movie. Stars like to work with directors whose films they respect and admire, and who have directed other actors they know. This just wasn’t going to be the case with Richard.”

But Lewis would not be deterred and convinced Lantos of his commitment by writing his own Barney’s script. Although it did not quite hit the mark, Lantos found it superior to the other drafts he had and bought it. While Lewis continued honing it, Lantos’ old producer friend Garth Drabinsky slipped him a spec script by Montrealer Michael Konyves, who had just a few TV credits to his name but who Drabinsky insisted was the man to write Barney’s.

Impressed, Lantos met Konyves. “He persuaded me that he had a tremendous knowledge of this book and the dream of his life was to be able to write this,” the producer recalls. “So, I decided to go for it with somebody who was untried, but who had the passion, the obsession, and the relentless drive and commitment.”
Konyves’ subsequent draft found the heart of the story – Barney’s relationships with his third wife Miriam and his father Izzy, a retired cop. After a fair bit of rewriting, they were camera-ready.

“It has no voice-over narration and it’s very fluid and wonderfully character-driven,” says Lewis of Konyves’ script. “When I read Michael’s draft I called up Robert and I said, ‘You know what – it’s better than mine,’ and he said, ‘Wow, great. And you’re still directing it.'”

The film realizes another dream for Lantos – working with Dustin Hoffman, who plays the randy jokester Izzy. Hoffman proved difficult to court, but he was won over by the script, a screening of Whale Music, and an eventual meeting with Lewis. The director admits it was intimidating to work with the 73-year-old legend, but says the two forged a strong relationship, and that Hoffman provided an acting master class.

“He still has a very pronounced ‘Method’ approach to his work,” Lewis says. “He likes to stay inside the scene without cutting. Sometimes he’ll say ‘Do it again’ at the end of the take, and we’d go through entire rolls of film – seven minutes long. He makes everybody better around him, and is often known to pull the other actor into his Method, which for the most part works brilliantly.”

And, of course, there was the matter of casting the central role.

“I had no idea who could play Barney,” Lantos says. “And then I saw Sideways, and to my own shame I had never heard of Paul Giamatti before, and I said ‘Whoa, he exists. He’s right there on screen.’ After that it was hard to imagine anyone else.”

The film shot for 53 days in Rome, Montreal and New York. In the book, Barney spends his young and hungry days in Paris, but that was moved to Rome in part because Richler is a rock star there, and so it was not hard to find an Italian partner to come in for 20% – in this case Fandango’s Domenico Procacci (Seven Pounds). Coproducer Lyse Lafontaine (Mama est chez le coiffeur) of Montreal’s Lyla Films ran the nuts and bolts of the production in Rome and her hometown, and came in with financing from SODEC.

The movie will vie for the Golden Lion in Venice ahead of its unspooling at TIFF. It also has a date at Spain’s San Sebastian fest. It officially goes on the market at Venice and Toronto, with international sales handled by Hollywood’s Essential Entertainment, run by John Fremes, who previously worked under Lantos at Alliance. Lantos reveals he has already been in discussions for rights in the U.S. and a couple of European territories.