Michael Douglas and David Smick on the timely Doc ‘America’s Burning’

David Smick tried to decide on a title for his new documentary about the division that took place in America. “I had some smart, abstract titles for the film,” he notes. He says that it was executive producer Barry Levinson who told him: “Dave, have you ever heard of the movie” Dangerous Marine Animals on the Cape Cod Coast “? No, because they call it ‘Jaws’. So I went to burn with ‘America’, because I thought: you can imagine that.

Smick premiered a year ago with ‘America’s Burning’ at the Tribeca Film Festival. Told and Executive produced by Michael Douglas, the film contains interviews from figures such as James Carville and Leon Panetta, because it describes the disagreement between people on either side of the political spectrum. It also preaches optimism in encouraging people and politicians to strive for unity. At the time of his premiere, Douglas notes: “It may have been seen as an exaggeration. Now it almost underestimates what has happened since then.” But still, he says: “The message is more important and stronger than ever.”

Smick, the chairman and CEO of the macro -economic consultancy Johnson Smick International and a bestseller author and filmmaker, tries to retain those positive prospects. “I am an optimist by nature, but there are many challenges that we didn’t have a year ago,” he notes. “We discover that we are one recession removed from a great social unrest if we are not careful.” Smick points to ‘so much underlying economic anger’ about the distribution of wealth in the country, despite the fact that our economic system is ‘the envy of the world’.

Smick adds: “We are doing great, except that we have this underlying potential cancer that could spread, and everything we need is a stiff recession, and then we will see the anger coming out of the woodwork, and people will be shocked, I think.”

Despite how much the world has changed since the film’s premiere, Smick says he saw no need to add an epilogue or a coda for the streaming release. “I didn’t think it had to be updated,” he notes. Although he is open to further explore the subject, perhaps in a longer form. “You go to these impressions, and I look at the audience. I wish I had two hours because there are so many problems that you could get into, but you are limited. I think if we ever expanded it, it would be because someone wanted to come by and a series.”

The man who integrated the famous “greed” line in his Oscar -winning performance in “Wall Street” in “Greed Is Good” was a genius, but Smick also received a welcome employee at Douglas. The actor came on board when the director sent him an early cut from the film, in which Smick had given his own story. “It had his excellent voice over. They didn’t need me,” he notes. It does not agree: “I have a very soft voice, not very distinctive. I told my producer, Ian Michaels:” We should see if there is a celebrity that can dominate this. ” “He hired a casting director to work” I said: “I would like to have someone that center, but from the center of the middle of [people] Can find out a film that can represent around 70% of the country or 80% of the country. “And first was Michael on the list. ‘

Douglas was taken immediately. “It resonated with me, with all the worries I had, what the loss of our middle class was, the enormous amount of money that the Supreme Court allowed our elections and our lack of dual. I thought it was a good message if I could help it.”

And Smick wants everyone to know that Douglas’s EP credit has been earned – he has not only read a script and did some promos. “His contributions were huge,” says Smick, adding that Douglas had suggestions about moving chapters around and rearranging some things. “I would say, at least, his changes have injected 55% more energy into the film.”

Douglas says he liked to borrow his name to the film to attract attention. “But the interesting and frustrating point was how difficult it was to get distribution,” he reveals. “There were many companies that, when we initially showed this, I think there was a bit afraid of it. Although the attempt was to be really two -parties, not to choose some party.” He adds: “So a compliment for Amazon, and I am glad they have come around. And a compliment for David, in terms of [how] He foresaw what would come. ‘

Although he says one of the greatest presidents of the cinema in Rob Reiner’s film ‘The American President’ from 1995, says Douglas, Douglas says that in real life he is not interested in striving for the White House. “No, no, I’m 80,” he assumes. “That is the magical exit time.”

Smick says that people constantly come to Douglas to repeat the lines from the film. “That must happen like 10 times a month,” he says.

Douglas replies: “In” American President “I knew how the script ended. That is the big difference.”