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Sat 22 August 2026 20:15, UK
Even though he made his feature-length debut in 1977, it would take almost another decade before Ron Howard really established a foothold in his behind-the-camera career.
A lot of that is because he went five years without helming a picture between Grand Theft Auto and Night Shift, but it didn’t take him too long after that to make a name for himself, and he did it with a movie that nobody was remotely interested in making, which is why Splash ended up with Disney.
Howard wasn’t entirely sold on the concept, every other major studio had turned it down, and there was plenty of resistance to Tom Hanks playing his first big-screen leading role, but when all was said and done, everyone involved had a hit on their hands, and the Happy Days alum’s second career was off to the races.
He followed it up with Cocoon, which became his first Academy Award-winning effort when it took home the prizes for ‘Best Visual Effects’ and ‘Best Supporting Actor’, and by the end of the 1980s, having added his first big-budget blockbuster, Willow, to the collection, along with his first passion project, Parenthood, Ron Howard: Actor was no more, having been officially replaced by Ron Howard: Director.
However, it’s worth wondering if things would have turned out the same had he helmed another of 1984’s most popular and iconic pictures, one that cost slightly less to make than Splash, but earned much more money at the box office, scored a pair of Oscar nods, and became a pop culture staple.
“When I did Footloose, the first person I offered the movie to was Ron Howard,” producer Craig Zadan recalled. He’d read the script for Kevin Bacon’s breakthrough role and enjoyed it, but he wasn’t confident in his abilities to tackle the musical numbers, letting his fear get the better of him.
The production turned to Oscar-winning auteur Michael Cimino instead, but apparently having learned absolutely no lessons whatsoever from Heaven’s Gate, he was fired for making unreasonable demands and asking for too much money, which cleared the path for Herbert Ross to cut looks and kick off his Sunday shoes.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
“We spoke to Ron recently,” Zadan elaborated. “And he said, ‘I still don’t know how to shoot the musical numbers, but now I’m more adept as a filmmaker after all these years, so I think I might take the chance and try and figure it out.” Clearly, that was bullshit, because he’s still never directed a song-and-dance caper.
Either way, 1984 was a breakthrough year for Howard as a filmmaker, so he wasn’t too distraught about missing out on Footloose, which was pretty much the opposite of Bacon, who was distraught for years about agreeing to star in it.
