A Bronx Tale, Robert De Niro’s 1993 directorial debut, starred as the Tribeca Festival’s closing gala with the famed actor acknowledging that he never got asked to direct again following the film’s inauspicious box office debut.
“I was lucky to be able to make the movie. I made it the way I wanted to make it. I didn’t compromise at all. And I took longer to do [it] than was scheduled. And I had a lot of pressure…So I never got asked to do movies after that. That’s okay,” he said, sitting down with Chazz Palminteri in an interview with New Yorker editor David Remnick after a screening of the newly remastered film.
Remick reminded him he’d also directed The Good Shepherd (2006, starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie). “I did The Good Shepherd. But that was another uphill battle,” De Niro said.
A Bronx Tale opened to $3.7 million at over 1,000 theaters, said Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal in opening remarks. “That’s not a good number.” But, she added, “The film never died. It kept growing in popularity.” Palminteri noted that it ended up grossing $17 million, on a $21 million budget.
It’s based on an autobiographical one-man play originally written and performed by Palminteri (Bullets over Broadway, The Usual Suspects). De Niro stars as a devoted father battling a local mob boss, played by Palminteri, for the life of his son, in racially divided 1960s New York.
The show was big success and Palminteri said he had many offers for a film version but chose to go with De Niro, who had his heart set on the project for his first outing as a director and agreed to let Palminteri write the screenplay and play the gangster, Sonny.
“I just wanted to direct and I couldn’t find anything,” said De Niro. “It’s a lot of work to develop something. And I saw this is one man show and I said, ‘Let me try and do this…I know I could add to it and contribute to it.’”
Palminteri wrote the play when he was short of cash after being fired from a bouncer job for refusing to let super agent Swifty Lazar enter a venue. “It was his party, and I didn’t let him in. Because he was really rude. He said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ I said, ‘Yeah, the guy who’s not getting in.’”
Screenings and events for the 22nd annual festival, which runs June 7-18, continue tonight and tomorrow but the film, produced by Jane Rosenthal, was chosen as the official closing event.
Rosenthal and DeNiro founded festival after 9/11. “I’ve always been hopeful that it would become part of the fabric of New York City, like many great traditions in New York. And it’s done that so far, and so I’m very happy,” De Niro said.
This year’s edition features over 100 films, musical performances as well as games, virtual reality and audio competitions.