Director Martin Brest Revisits the Triumphs of ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and ‘Midnight Run,’ and Reflects On His Post-‘Gigli’ Hollywood Exile (EXCLUSIVE)
Martin Brest, the legendary — and legendarily reclusive — director of “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Midnight Run,” it was tough not to immediately think of Xanadu, the protective enclave Charles Foster Kane retired to at the end of “Citizen Kane.” It seems like a fitting place for a former prince of the movie business to spend exile. Upon arrival, I quickly discover that the impeccably manicured property doesn’t, in fact, belong to Brest but to an artist friend, as does the lumbering, pitch-black Saint Bernard watching benevolently over our poolside conversation about the filmmaker’s career. By all accounts (most of all his own), that career came to a fiery end because of “Gigli,” but Brest soon explains how he made peace with the cataclysmic flop — even if he still can’t bear to mention it by name.