Jerry Bruckheimer shares the secret of his success and why he had to make Young Woman and the Sea

Daisy Ridley in Young Woman and the Sea (2024). Photo / Disney

Young Woman and the Sea is about the most important athlete you’ve never heard of. Ahead of its release on Disney+ next Friday, Hollywood heavyweight Jerry Bruckheimer discusses the secret of his success, his “emotional” new film and the woman lost in time with the New Zealand Herald’s Karl Puschmann.

In the movie world, there are superstars, super-directors and even superstar composers. But there are very few superstar producers. Jerry Bruckheimer is one of them.

After leaving his advertising job in the 1970s to try his hand at film production he proved something of a natural, with minor hits like Richard Gere’s American Gigolo and the cult horror Cat People. But it was after forming the production powerhouse company Simpson/Bruckheimer Productions with pal Don Simpson in the early 1980s that his name become synonymous with the term “blockbuster”.

The duo produced era-defining movies like Flashdance, Beverly Hills Cop and Top Gun. After Simpson’s unexpected death in 1996, Bruckheimer continued, bringing mega-hits like Armageddon, Black Hawk Down and The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise to the big screen.

Recently, he’s taken to updating his 80s classics, making well-received new entries for both Beverly Hills Cop and Top Gun. But his newest film is a very different beast indeed. And something of a personal project.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer on the set of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. Photo / Andrew Cooper / Netflix

Bruckheimer has been trying to make Young Woman and the Sea for close to a decade. Based on the novel of the same name, the movie is a historical sports biography about Gertrude Ederle, who, in 1926, became the first woman to swim the treacherous 34km of the English Channel.

“Movies are very difficult to get made,” Bruckheimer says. “You’ll have to tell me, but I think it turned out terrific. I think it was worth the nine-year wait to get this made. When we latch onto something, we make sure we get it done. And that’s what we did with this one. We just hung in there until we got people who wanted to join the journey with us.”

There’s a lot to talk about, but I’m struck by his first answer. It seems incredible, unusual even, that someone at his status, level and stature in the film world would have trouble getting anything made. A conservative estimate of the financial success of his films in the last five years alone would be in the ballpark of US$1.5-2 billion.

So, perhaps, it’s the years he spent battling to get the movie made resurfacing, but there’s more than a hint of frustration in his voice when he says, “There’s always somebody smarter than you... Or who thinks they are. And it’s always some young kid out of Harvard who says, ‘I know how to make movies and this is what we should be making’.”

It sounds like he’s about to launch into a mini-rant but before he gets carried away, he stops, composes himself and slips back into professional mode to give us a producer’s answer.

”Fortunately, Disney latched onto this and helped us and financed it. They were great partners to get this movie made.”

Daisy Ridley during production of Young Woman and the Sea. Photo / Disney

He doesn’t say how many doors he knocked on, how many “no’s” he received or how many Harvard kids he pitched to before getting the nod from Disney. But, given the timeframe, it must have been a lot.

It must have gotten discouraging. How many times do you flog a horse until realising that it is, in fact, dead? If you’re Bruckheimer, you keep flogging it until that dead horse gets back up and starts running.

”You never give up,” he says, simply.

The secret of his success turns out to be equally as simple.

”I make movies I want to see,” he says. “I don’t know what you like. I don’t know what an audience likes. But when I want to see something, I make sure it gets to the screen. That’s pretty much my mantra.

”It really is as simple as that. And, after reading the novel, he simply wanted to see the movie of Ederle’s life.

“It’s a story about a woman who was forgotten in time. She created an extraordinary event. Her record held till 1950! Can you imagine that? It stood from 1926 to 1950,” he says, his voice equal measures disbelief and admiration. “She was an international champion. She won a gold medal in the Olympics and two bronze medals - she would have won more had they let her train. They wouldn’t let her train for the Olympics.

”She was partially deaf and from an immigrant family. Her father wanted to get her married and said she shouldn’t leave the kitchen. And yet she said, ‘No’. Her mother had to raise the money herself, she had to go to work to afford the swimming lessons. She had to overcome all these obstacles”.

He smiles. “Those are the kind of stories you want to see”.

Daisy Ridley in Young Woman and the Sea. Photo / Disney

Like all great sports movies, Young Woman and The Sea is a dramatic watch as the athlete battles to triumph over adversity. But it’s not just the athletic hurdles that Ederle has to conquer, it’s also the brutally sexist attitudes of the 1920s. These prove every bit as treacherous as the choppy waters of the Channel.

Worse, they still feel relevant today, a century on, as women in America fight over-zealous conservatives for equal rights, body autonomy and the right to have an abortion. It may have taken nine years to get to screens, but now feels like the right time for this movie.

”The movie shows what women have overcome and how they can overcome things,” Bruckheimer says. “It shows how they have to fight against it. Trudy was a leader. She set the way for all athletes. Look at all the phenomenal female athletes we have in the world right now who are really recognised.

”Trudy’s been forgotten in time. Had we not made this movie, you would have never heard of Trudy Ederle, this heroic character. She happens to be a woman, but that’s the best part of it. She’s somebody who had more obstacles to overcome than a man would ever have. And she proved everybody wrong. We don’t think that way today. We see all these great female athletes so we never think that way.

”It’ll be good for kids and people who do not understand what women have gone through to see this movie and understand the pressures that women were under in those days and how they’ve overcome it through time.”

Then Jerry Bruckheimer, superstar producer, says, “We want the movie to inspire women. And men.”

LOWDOWN

Who: Superstar producer Jerry Bruckheimer

What: New movie, the historical sports drama Young Woman and the Sea

When: Streaming on Disney+ from next Friday

Karl Puschmann is an entertainment columnist for the New Zealand Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people. Recently he’s turned his attention to Eddie Murphy’s new vehicle, a “remarkable” new show about robbing banks, and interviewed Irene Taylor, director of the harrowing Celine Dion documentary.