In early 1987, Michael Cimino agreed to direct an epic saga chronicling the life of the Irish rebel Michael Collins, based on a screenplay by Eoghan Harris.[1][2] The film was backed by Nelson Entertainment and would have re-teamed Cimino with British producer Barry Spikings, who had co-produced The Deer Hunter (1978).[3] David Puttnam of Columbia Pictures gave Cimino the greenlight to begin shooting.[4] The project reportedly generated controversy from the start, drawing criticism from both Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. Northern Irish Protestants were particularly vocal, believing that Collins was less a national hero than a terrorist, and that the film should not be made.[5]
Upon disagreement with Harris over Collins as a character, his draft was heavily rewritten by Cimino with the assistance of Robert Bolt, which the two developed at his home in London over the course of three months.[6][7] A production representative noted that Bolt, who at the time had recently suffered a stroke, was "not working very rapidly."[5] Their script, retitled as Blest Souls, was described subsequently by the Los Angeles Times as "a love story set against the backdrop of the Irish rebellion."[3]
Cimino spent countless hours reading the work of Irish poet W. B. Yeats for inspiration and to better "insinuate [him]self into another culture". He began location scouting in Edinburgh, Liverpool and in Ireland, accompanied by assistant director Michael Stevenson, who had previously worked on the productions of Heaven's Gate (1980), Year of the Dragon (1985), and The Sicilian (1987).[6] While on a recce, Cimino and a team of production managers gained permission from the Irish Parliament to use their army for the production. Cimino also "nudged" the Liverpool City Council into making a modest investment—£200,000 a year for two years—in municipal film finance. As Liverpool's film liaison officer Paul Mingard recalled, there were plans in place to close off a street for a month, and Cimino had "offered to pay handsomely."[9]
Cimino's producer/collaborator Joann Carelli found the relatively unknown Sean Bean and Tilda Swinton to play the leads.[6] Other actors who had been considered for the Collins role included Mickey Rourke, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne and Robert Redford.[1] Irish rock musicians Bono and Bob Geldof were additionally hired early on during pre-production to compose the score.[6]
Principal photography was due to begin in September 1987.[6] On 1 August, Cimino shot rehearsal footage of Bean and Swinton at Burghley House in Lincolnshire, but on 18 August, the project was "temporarily postponed". By this time, Nelson had spent $2 million on pre-production costs alone.[6] According to Carelli, the cancellation did not occur as a result of "budget, weather and script problems" as reported at the time,[5][10] but rather political pressure:
One day, the Columbia production team call Michael in London and tell him to come to California. He gets on a plane. Meanwhile, a company producer goes to the team office in London and says to them: "This is ancient history! Finished!" The reason they gave: at the Atlanta headquarters of Coca-Cola, some Irishmen had threatened to blow it up if they shot a film about Michael Collins. I said to myself, "Rubbish! How dumb! Who would believe that?"[6]
This news took Cimino by complete surprise. Carelli, nor Stevenson, were aware of the real cause considering Columbia's apparent satisfaction with the script, and since it was highly unlikely that anyone from the studio could have been worried about the weather in England and Ireland in August.[6] Bolt later admitted he didn't know what came of the project or their script: "[Cimino] fled back to America, and all of a sudden, that was that. I don't know what happened."[11] Afterwards, Nelson executives assured Cimino that they were going to store the Blest Souls sets in readiness for a later start date if he took on an alternative project in its place. The film, entitled Santa Ana Wind, was not produced either.[6] A separate project about Collins written by Neil Jordan later resurfaced and was made into a film in 1996 starring Neeson as Collins.[2]