“New movie scripts come across my desk all the time,” Zwart said. “The best ones already have stars attached.” “Karate Kid” will be produced by Will Smith and star his son Jaden and Jackie Chan.
With his feet firmly planted in Hollywood and as the person behind Norwegian blockbusters such as “Long Flat Balls” and its sequel, Zwart is arguably the most accomplished filmmaker to come out of Norway. He claims not to have gone out of his way to promote himself, but always concentrated on creating a good product. “If you are good enough, Hollywood will track you down,” he said.
About 10 years ago, he received a phone call from the agency International Creative Management, with an invitation to have lunch with Steven Spielberg in Los Angeles. Zwart already had a successful career producing commercials in the United Kingdom, and Spielberg had been impressed by the Norwegian director’s show reel. “Having lunch with Spielberg opened many doors,” Zwart said. It most significantly led him to directing “One Night at McCool’s,” starring Liv Tyler, Michael Douglas, Matt Dillon, and Paul Reiser. A black comedy about three men who fall in love with the same woman on the same night, the film showcased Zwart’s talent for complex narrative, edgy humor, and inspired casting.
Zwart went on to shoot “Agent Cody Banks,” an action film starring Frankie Muniz and Hilary Duff in the story of a teen secret agent with the tag line: “The CIA spent $10 million on his training, but didn’t teach him how to talk to women.”
“Michael Douglas became a mentor of sorts,” Zwart said. And through Douglas he met Steve Martin, who was the lead in “The Pink Panther II,” which Zwart directed in 2008. The movie got a lukewarm reception by critics, something Zwart seemed unfazed by. “Our target audience was not critics or those who always will think that anyone other than Peter Sellers can’t be the Pink Panther. It is like when you make a movie based on a book, people who loved that book will think the book was better than the movie,” he said. Producer, and wife, Veslemøy Ruud Zwart chimed in: “If you feel you always have to take other people’s opinions into account, it can block your creativity.” She feels a movie based on something that already exists should still be a stand-alone product, something new, which also goes for the upcoming “Karate Kid.” It is not meant to be a movie for those who grew up with Ralph Maccio in the lead. “We want to make a movie for a new generation, those who haven’t seen ‘Karate Kid,’” she said.
Veslemøy Ruud Zwart is founder and chief executive of the feature company Zwart Arbeid and the commercialproduction company Motion Blur, operating in Norway and Los Angeles. According to Harald, she is the backbone of their filmmaking operation. “She has extraordinary creative flair and pushes me to do my best. She is inseparable from my success,” he said. The filmmaking couple will now spend three months in China working on “Karate Kid.”