![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Ron-Howard-Director-2024-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still<\/p>\n
Sat 22 August 2026 20:15, UK <\/p>\n
Even though he made his feature-length debut in 1977, it would take almost another decade before Ron Howard<\/a> really established a foothold in his behind-the-camera career.<\/p>\n A lot of that is because he went five years without helming a picture between Grand Theft Auto and Night Shift, but it didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n Howard wasn\u2019t entirely sold on the concept, every other major studio had turned it down<\/a>, 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\u2019s second career was off to the races.<\/p>\n He followed it up with Cocoon, which became his first Academy Award-winning effort when it took home the prizes for \u2018Best Visual Effects\u2019 and \u2018Best Supporting Actor\u2019, and by the end of the 1980s, having added his first big-budget blockbuster, Willow, to the collection, along with his first passion project<\/a>, Parenthood, Ron Howard: Actor was no more, having been officially replaced by Ron Howard: Director.<\/p>\n However, it\u2019s worth wondering if things would have turned out the same had he helmed another of 1984\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I did Footloose, the first person I offered the movie to was Ron Howard,\u201d producer Craig Zadan recalled. He\u2019d read the script for Kevin Bacon\u2019s breakthrough role and enjoyed it, but he wasn\u2019t confident in his abilities to tackle the musical numbers, letting his fear get the better of him.<\/p>\n The production turned to Oscar-winning auteur Michael Cimino instead, but apparently having learned absolutely no lessons whatsoever<\/a> from Heaven\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe spoke to Ron recently,\u201d Zadan elaborated. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018I still don\u2019t know how to shoot the musical numbers, but now I\u2019m more adept as a filmmaker after all these years, so I think I might take the chance and try and figure it out.\u201d Clearly, that was bullshit, because he\u2019s still never directed a song-and-dance caper.<\/p>\n Either way, 1984 was a breakthrough year for Howard as a filmmaker, so he wasn\u2019t too distraught about missing out on Footloose, which was pretty much the opposite of Bacon<\/a>, who was distraught for years about agreeing to star in it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/far-out-magazine\/img\/google-discover.svg\")
<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still Sat 22 August 2026 20:15, UK Even though he made his feature-length…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1164374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3935],"tags":[81823,274592,286299,77,134527,19524,3943,20770,16,15],"class_list":["post-1164373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-1980s","tag-274592","tag-drama-movie","tag-entertainment","tag-footloose","tag-kevin-bacon","tag-movies","tag-ron-howard","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117143407578312785","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1164373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1164374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1164373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1164373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1164373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}