In the new film “Danny Collins,” Al Pacino
plays a downtrodden, aging rocker who gets a new outlook on life when
he receives a letter from John Lennon written to him 40 years ago. The
movie is loosely inspired by a real-life tale:
In 1971 John and Yoko Ono wrote a letter to a young folk musician
Steve Tilston after reading an interview with him in ZigZag Magazine.
Tilston was concerned about getting too popular and how wealth changes a
person for the worse. Lennon was reaching out with advice. But the
letter didn’t reach him until 2005.
Using this story as inspiration, screenwriter/director Dan Fogelman
started penning the script and wrote in scenes with Lennon originals
accompanying them. He hoped he’d be able to clear one or two original
Lennon songs for use. “I didn’t have a back-up plan,” he says.
It was a big gamble. Securing the rights to master recordings from
the Beatles and their solo work is notoriously difficult. A few years
ago, the producers of “Mad Men” made headlines when they paid a reported $250,000
to use “Tomorrow Never Knows” in a season 5 episode, marking the first
time a Beatles tune was used in a contemporary TV show. The band members
for years refused to release their catalog on iTunes and
still haven’t embraced Spotify (although Lennon’s catalog joined the
streaming service last fall.) Often times, the song rights are easier to
procure and sound-alikes or cover versions are used in place of the
actual recording.
How would Fogelman, a first-time director of an indie film with a
budget of approximately $10 million, pull this off? It turned out that
one of the producers, Jessie Nelson, had a connection to Ono, who approves the use of Lennon’s music in media. Nelson directed the 2001 Sean Penn film “I Am Sam,” which featured an all-star soundtrack of musicians like Aimee Mann, Eddie Vedder, and Sheryl Crow
covering Beatles songs. She started the conversations early with Ono’s
team about the music and the nature of the “Danny Collins.”
During the post-production edits, Fogelman cut a version that used
the Lennon material in the ways he wanted. They sent a rough cut of the
film to Ono and hoped for the best. “I’ve had many times in films where
[we used] big-ticket artists [and] had a song built into the early cut
of the film and the artist said no or it was too expensive,” says
Fogelman, who has written films including “ Crazy, Stupid Love.”
Fogelman says the film didn’t have a lot of money to spend on songs,
but wouldn’t say exactly how much of the budget was allotted.
Also working behind the scenes were the film’s music supervisors,
Matt Sullivan, Julia Michels and Julianne Jordan, who used their
connections at Downtown Music Publishing, which controls the rights
to Lennon’s work. Michels and Jordan worked on films like “Pitch
Perfect” and “Swingers,” and have two decades of experience in licensing
music for film and TV. This request was abnormal for them. “It was such
a big ask,” Michels says.
Ono approved the request, however, granting permission for nine
Lennon masters that are used throughout the movie, including “Imagine,”
“Working Class Hero,” and “Beautiful Boy.” Ono and Downtown Music
Publishing declined to comment.
The filmmakers say they think one reason they succeeded is that
Lennon’s music dominates the film. “The process would have been harder
if it was a Lennon song amidst a bunch of other tracks,” says Jordan.
“It was a story with a clear point of view.”
Nelson, the producer who had a connection to Ono, also says it’s
likely the theme of “Danny Collins”—about an aging rock star trying to
redeem himself from a self-indulgent past–was the catalyst. “Yoko really
wants to feel that a movie has a message of peace,” she says.
“Danny Collins” is in theaters now.
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