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Sydney Pollack’s 1993 thriller “The Firm” was the first film in a long series of mega-hits to be based on the literary output of John Grisham. Grisham, for those unfamiliar, was a lawyer-turned-writer who authored many supra-best-selling legal thrillers throughout the 1990s, including “The Pelican Brief,” “The Client,” “The Chamber,” “A Time to Kill,” and “Runaway Jury.” There was a time when no one at an airport was without a Grisham novel in hand. Most of Grisham’s books were about a young, upstart lawyer, new to the profession, who uncovers a vast legal conspiracy. To date, Grisham has written about 50 novels and four non-fiction books, and many of his bigger hits have been adapted into equally successful films.
Pollock’s “The Firm” was made for $42 million and starred Tom Cruise as Mitch McDeere, a recent law school graduate, who finds a money laundering and tax fraud scheme — and possible violence — connected to the firm where he takes a job. It boasted an impressive cast, including Holly Hunter, Ed Harris, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Hal Holbrook, Wilford Brimley, Gary Busey, and David Strathairn. Gene Hackman appeared as the character named Avery Tolar who served as Mitch’s mentor at the titular Firm. “The Firm” grossed over $270 million. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $590 million today. It was the fifth highest-grossing film of that year, behind “Jurassic Park,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “The Fugitive,” and “Schindler’s List.”
Hackman plays a sizeable role in “The Firm,” but his name does not appear on the poster. From a publicity perspective, this was an odd choice. Why not sell the fact that an actor of Hackman’s stature is in your film? It seems that Hackman’s name was left off of “The Firm’s” publicity materials due to some last-minute casting, and a somewhat messy contract tangle. The story was covered by a 1993 article in the Los Angeles Times.
Gene Hackman’s name was left off of the posters for ‘The Firm’ because of last-minute casting and contract messiness
The Los Angeles Times noted that Hackman wasn’t the original choice to play Avery in “The Firm.” The filmmakers were actually hoping to gender-flip the character from the book and cast Meryl Streep in the role. Streep was still part of the project when production officially began, but John Grisham chimed in with his objections. He didn’t want Streep in the role, feeling that Avery should remain a male character. Hackman was brought in as a replacement, late in the production process.
Hackman’s late join-up, however, caused a bit of an advertising snag. Cruise, the uncontested star of “The Firm,” had already negotiated with Paramount that his name appears first on posters, billboards, and other ad materials. A look at the poster does indeed reveal that his name is listed prominently across the top. Hackman, however, also wanted above-the-title billing, as he felt he was more-or-less Cruise’s co-star. A publicist at the time said that “this is a town of precedents and [Mr. Hackman is] so firmly established above the title, why should he be below the title?”
But it seems that Hackman was denied his request by Paramount because of bad timing. Hackman’s rep noted that “he came to the project late, after they started filming, and was offered the role after they had constructed a marketing plan built around Tom. He had the choice of saying ‘no’ or working out some other billing situation.”
Rather than force the issue, Hackman merely requested that his name be removed from any publicity materials altogether. In the film itself, Hackman is second-billed in both the opening and closing credits. But his name appears nowhere in the advertising for “The Firm.” The L.A. Times article was written to assure audiences that yes, Gene Hackman is indeed in “The Firm.”
Hackman went on to appear in the John Grisham adaptations “The Chamber” in 1996 and “Runaway Jury” in 2003. He was on the posters for both of those.
