This New-to-Netflix Thriller Was in Developmental Hell for 30 Years

The Big Picture

• The Little Things
  took nearly 30 years to get made due to various Hollywood players passing on the dark script.
• Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto shine in this 2021 psychological crime thriller set in 1990s Los Angeles.
• The movie faced challenges during its release due to the pandemic, resulting in a hybrid theatrical and streaming debut.

If you’re looking for an electric psychological crime thriller to sink your teeth into, look no further than John Lee Hancock‘s 2021 feature The Little Things. Boasting the talents of Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto in perfectly cast roles that will make your skin crawl, The Little Things wasn’t an easy movie to make. Hancock sat on this project for three decades before anything came of it, but in the meantime, it was attached to some pretty big-name players in Hollywood who were interested in helming it themselves. “Some things never let us go,” says the tagline for the film, and for Hancock, that was certainly true of The Little Things. Here’s why this movie wasn’t made right away.

‘The Little Things’ Was First Developed Back in the ’90s

Sometimes, in Hollywood, it takes a while to convince a studio to make a movie that feels like a great idea. Whether it’s not what’s selling at the moment, or not quite the audience they’re intending to reach, there are countless reasons why a script might be passed on at first glance. In the case of The Little Things, it just wasn’t the right time. “I had a three-picture deal at Warner Bros based on A Perfect World and one of those was a blind picture deal with Steven Spielberg,” explained director John Lee Hancock, who also wrote the screenplay to The Little Things, to Deadline back in 2020. Having written the script before Se7en was released in 1995, Hancock believed in his story, even when no one else seemed to.

“At the time, Steven was attached for a bit and then felt it was too dark for him. He had just done Schindler’s List and wanted to do something else,” Hancock noted. But Spielberg wasn’t the only big-name director attached to the project. “[Clint Eastwood] was attached for a bit, I went through many discussions with Warren Beatty about it, then Danny DeVito when he was directing a lot.” And yet, none of these directors would commit themselves to the harsh and frightening realities of 1990s Los Angeles explored in The Little Things. At the time, the film was a contemporary neo-noir crime drama with dynamic characters and an unforeseen conclusion that many struggled to wrap themselves around, but the longer Hancock went on without making the film, the faster it aged into a love letter to a bygone era of low-budget psychological thrillers that died out by the time Insomnia dropped in the early 2000s.

“There was a lot of excitement over the script, but one executive said, ‘We’ll make the film if you change the third act,’ Hancock revealed in a separate piece by Deadline, explaining that the powerful ending was the very reason he wrote the film. As a result, the picture was at a standstill. By the 21st century, Hancock had shifted to directing with the 2002 Jim Morris sports biopic The Rookie. Soon after, he tackled an unpopular remake of John Wayne‘s The Alamo and later helmed the Oscar-winning picture, The Blind Side. The screenwriter-turned-director continued to dazzle audiences with films like Saving Mr. Banks, The Founder, and The Highwaymen throughout the 2010s until he was finally ready to tackle The Little Things himself. “Mark Johnson had always been the producer, and he would come to me every two or so years when someone was interested. He’d ask, do you want to direct it?” Hancock pushed off directing it for years, wanting instead to keep away from the darkness the project would bring given his young children––but eventually he caved.

Nearly Thirty Years Later, Denzel Washington and Rami Malek Got Attached to ‘The Little Things’

“I didn’t know if Warner Bros would necessarily be interested in making it. But they owned it and there was no underlying material,” Hancock explained. He re-read the script and decided that if Warner Bros.––who he had been working for when he first wrote the picture––didn’t want to make it themselves, he might be able to convince Netflix to produce the project. But eventually, after working with the folks over at Warner Bros., he eventually got the green light, and the first step was casting the lead. From the get-go, Hancock and Johnson wanted Denzel Washington for the leading role of Joe Deacon, a character who feels very much like the driven, conflicted heroes the actor usually plays. When Washington––who had done his own psychological crime thriller in the ’90s––got on board, the rest was history.

Rami Malek was the next actor cast after Hancock, Johnson, and Washington thought about who might play Jim Baxter, and he was happy to take the part. With the two leads cast, the only big role left would be Albert Sparma. “I had a little bit of a relationship with Jared Leto, who was a fan of a movie I’d directed, The Founder,” Hancock explained, though Leto was more interested in pursuing music with his rock band, Thirty Seconds to Mars. But Leto agreed to take on the role when Hancock explained it to him, and frankly, there’s no one more suited to play the creep-fest that is Albert Sparma than Jared Leto. If you think his Joker is scary, wait until you get a load of this guy.

When asked how close The Little Things is to the original script Hancock wrote back in 1993, he noted that it was basically the same. “When I wrote it, it was a contemporary piece. Now, all these years later, it’s a period piece; 1990, when the story was set, was pre-DNA,” he explained. This forced Hancock to go back in and further embellish the criminology aspects of the story. “I also took about seven pages out that were repetitive or overwritten,” he noted. “[The final product] was probably 85-90% what was written in 1993, or ’92.” Of course, good writing is good writing no matter what decade you’re reading it, and with the project ruminating in the director’s mind for almost thirty years, he knew exactly the sort of picture he was going for.

‘The Little Things’ Was Slept on During Its Initial Theatrical Run

Unfortunately, by the time The Little Things was ready to be released, the world was a much different place than it was in the ’90s––and not just because of our advancement with DNA. Because of the global COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020, theaters were closed internationally. Sure, some movies like Tenet and Wonder Woman 1984 were granted theatrical releases, but neither film did particularly well given the circumstances. It wasn’t a surprise then when Warner Bros. revealed that they would be releasing their entire 2021 slate of feature films both in the theaters and on streaming via HBO Max (at least for the first 30 days). This came as a shock to filmmakers and audiences everywhere, and while it might have seemed like a good idea at the time, it was a controversial decision that broke Christopher Nolan‘s trust in the studio (among others).

“As the pandemic raged on, and appeared never-ending, and then the news came out about Wonder Woman, I can’t say the thought hadn’t crossed my mind that there might be some similar move for Warner Bros on The Little Things,” Hancock admitted. “Anybody could see that coming, but what I didn’t see coming was, no conversation about it. What I didn’t see coming was a call 20 minutes before the press release, which was how I found out about it.” The Little Things was the first Warner Bros. release of the new year, hitting theaters and streaming simultaneously on January 29, 2021. As a result, the film, which cost $30 million to make, only made back $31 million at the box office. Even not counting the streaming numbers, combined with mixed reviews, it didn’t make The Little Things look so hot, which is a shame.

If anything, The Little Things is an echo of a type of slow-burn filmmaking we don’t see too often anymore, outside long-form television (such as True Detective), which takes its time to establish these sorts of characters and cases. But that’s part of what makes this film an interesting character piece, and a notable time capsule for ’90s thrillers. Both Washington and Malek are immaculate here, playing flawed heroes who do wrong while trying to do what’s right. The Little Things may have been slept on initially due to the pandemic, but the film’s strong performances and tight script prove it to be one of John Lee Handcock’s best works. Maybe its recent turn to Netflix will bring in a new audience this time around.

The Little Things is available for streaming on Netflix in the U.S.

Watch on Netflix