Thomas Tull: On Dark Knights, Hangovers, and Baseball

How does a man of modest background become a billionaire Hollywood player?

For Thomas Tull, his status as a Tinseltown powerhouse is the result of a combination of fortuity, hard work, and relentless drive. It is the byproduct of his forming his own film company and producing or executive-producing such box-office blockbusters as The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and The Hangover (2009) and its two sequels (released in 2011 and 2013). Granted that in his heart of hearts he is a comic-book geek and a superhero fanboy, but he also is a baseball zealot who has made two highly regarded, high-profile sports films: 42 (2013), a biopic emphasizing the struggles of Jackie Robinson to play major-league baseball; and Fastball (2016), a documentary that offers a knowing overview of baseball in the twenty-first century.  

If one wishes to “make it” in the movies, having a famous parent to place a phone call and request a favor opens doors that otherwise will be shut. But Tull has no such pedigree; his childhood was as far removed from Hollywood as Paris, Texas, is from Paris, France. He was born in 1970 and grew up in Endwell, New York, a hamlet west of Binghamton. His dental-hygienist mother was a single parent, and he helped support her and his two younger sisters by shoveling snow and mowing lawns. “Struggling as a family financially, I grew up within the confines of constantly worrying (whether) the light is going to get turned off,” he recalled in 2016. “I think you can get drive from that.”1

As a youngster, Tull played baseball and football and even earned a gridiron scholarship to Hamilton College, in Clinton, New York, from which he graduated in 1992. His initial intention was to become a lawyer but he entered the business world instead, first opening Smart Wash, a chain of laundromats, and eventually founding Tax Services of America, the owner-operator of Jackson-Hewitt tax-preparation franchises. He then became a venture capitalist. Most significantly, in 2001, he moved on to the Convex Group, an Atlanta-based private-equity firm, eventually becoming its president. 

Tull then turned his interests westward, to Southern California and the movie industry. In 2003 he left Convex, raised between $500 million and $600 million to bankroll film projects, and co-founded Legendary Pictures, a production company. Two years later, Legendary linked up with Warner Bros. to co-finance and co-produce films. In 2009 Tull became Legendary’s majority shareholder. In 2013 the company connected with Universal Pictures in a union that was similar to Tull’s Warner Bros. hookup. Then in 2016, Legendary became a subsidiary of the Dalian Wanda Group, a Chinese conglomerate.

Tull’s fascination with superheroes has greatly impacted his choice of projects. Many of his films are name brands: Superman Returns (2006); Ninja Assassin (2009); Watchmen (2009); Clash of the Titans (2010); Jonah Hex (2010); Man of Steel (2013); Godzilla (2014); Dracula Untold (2014); Jurassic World (2015) … These are the kinds of films that are box-office record-breakers. According to Hollywood.com, Legendary is “perhaps the most progressive and successful motion picture production company to be formed in the 2000s. …”2 In a 2013 New York Times profile, it was noted that Tull’s “aggressiveness and aw-shucks charm made him one of the most successful walk-on players in movie history.”3

His passion for baseball has resulted in the production of 42 and Fastball, films that never will rake in the box-office bucks of a Dark Knight or Hangover. This fervor is emphasized in the first line of the Times piece: “During the baseball strike of 1995, Thomas Tull, then a 24-year-old laundromat owner, was audacious enough to turn up at a training camp for the Atlanta Braves. They looked at his swing and sent him home.”4 If Tull was fated to never sign a pro contract, his accomplishments have allowed him a different kind of access to professional sports. In 2009 he became a part-owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team he had been rooting for since he was 4 years old. Then in 2012, he tried but failed in a bid to purchase the San Diego Padres. The following year, he was elected to the board of directors of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Tull additionally produced 42, which of course is not the first film to spotlight Jackie Robinson’s integrating the major leagues. Back in 1950, three years after Robinson first played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, he starred as himself in The Jackie Robinson Story; other aspects of his life were examined in the made-for-TV movies The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson (1990) and Soul of the Game (1996). Notwithstanding, given his importance not just in baseball history but in twentieth century American culture, a retelling of Robinson’s story has never ceased appealing to filmmakers. Since the mid-1990s, Spike Lee had been attempting to mount a Robinson biopic, but the project did not materialize. Robert Redford also wished to produce one, in which he would play Branch Rickey.

Then in 2011, Tull and Legendary Pictures announced their plans to make the film with the assistance of Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s widow. Chadwick Boseman, whose previous credits primarily were on TV series episodes, was cast as Robinson, with Harrison Ford playing The Mahatma, and rising film and television actor Nicole Beharie portraying Rachel. A who’s who of baseball names appear in the scenario, with actors cast as Leo Durocher, Dixie Walker, Pee Wee Reese, Wendell Smith, Ben Chapman, Clyde Sukeforth, Burt Shotton, Clay Hopper, Bobby Bragan, Eddie Stanky, Red Barber, Ralph Branca, and Happy Chandler, among others. C.J. Nitkowski, ex-major leaguer-turned writer/radio host/TV analyst, plays Dutch Leonard.

42 was released in April 2013. That July, Tull was honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and I asked him if he was familiar with The Jackie Robinson Story. “I’ve seen clips, but I haven’t seen the entire film,” was his response. He added, “I talked about it with Rachel. But it was a different voice, and I didn’t want it to influence 42.”5 It is understandable that the creator of a new film would discourage comparisons with earlier, similar projects because of the desire to focus on its marketing. In this case, as Tull explained while addressing the crowd at Cooperstown’s Doubleday Field, 42 is “the most important film I’ll ever do.” He recalled, “I had the privilege of bringing Hank (Aaron) to set. And I can assure you, even Harrison Ford was nervous that day.” Finally, Tull observed, “After making Batman, Superman, and other superhero movies, the greatest ‘superhero’ movie that could be made is about Jackie Robinson.”6

Fastball, Tull’s baseball-centric follow-up, spotlights the heralded fastball pitchers, from Walter Johnson and Bob Feller to Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson to Nolan Ryan and Aroldis Chapman. Fastball also offers a knowing overview of baseball in the twenty-first century as it stresses the phenomenon of pitcher after pitcher entering games for an inning and challenging hitters by throwing horsehides 95 or 100-plus miles per hour. And given Tull’s profile within the film industry, it is no wonder that a gallery of baseball celebs were enlisted as interviewees, from current superstars – this list begins with Justin Verlander, David Price, Bryce Harper, Andrew McCutchen, and Derek Jeter – to such “old-timers” as Joe Morgan, Goose Gossage, Mike Schmidt, Al Kaline, Ernie Banks, and Hank Aaron. There is a direct connection between Fastball and 42 that transcends baseball; as Bob Gibson is interviewed, he cites the racism American-style that so defined the late 1950s and ’60s, when he was establishing himself as a future Hall of Famer.

And speaking of Hall of Famers, a number of ballplayers who were present in Cooperstown in May 2016 for the Hall of Fame Classic were queried as to how they felt about the content of Fastball. What were their opinions on the demise of the complete game and the arrival of the speedballing specialists? Rollie Fingers, the mustachioed relief pitcher, declared, “It’s probably the biggest change (in the sport). It’s much more specialized, and it seems to be working.” But he added, in relation to his own career, “I don’t think I could do it.” Noted borderline Hall of Famer Alan Trammell, “We all are used to the way the game was played during our era, but times change and we have to be open-minded.” And he was quick to note that “the game today is very healthy.” Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg observed, “It’s just different today. It’s the nature of the game. There are very different arms in the bullpen, and you want to (use them). … It’s a new piece to the puzzle.”7

Given Tull’s Cooperstown connection, it was no surprise that Fastball was the opening-night selection of the Hall’s 10th Annual Baseball Film Festival, held in September 2015. And it was Tull who approached Jonathan Hock, an Emmy-nominated documentarian, to helm the film. “First, he wanted to create the film every parent, kid, and baseball fan in the world will want to put in the DVD player every March for the next 50 years to get psyched for the baseball season, and fall in love all over again with the game,” Hock observed. “And second, he wanted to put a stake in the ground and do the impossible – to compare pitchers from different eras and figure out who threw the fastest ever.”8

Several years earlier, Tull returned to his alma mater to address students on his “journey from Hamilton to Hollywood.” “I never in a million years planned to be in the movie business,” he noted, adding that the two questions any filmmaker should ask before embarking on a project are: “Is it a great story?” and “How are you going to market the film?” He added, “No matter how fascinating the techno toys are, if the story isn’t there (people will walk out disappointed).”9 Finally, in relation to his out-of-left-field success, Tull on another occasion observed, “If somebody came in and pitched me it as a script, I would say it’s too far-fetched.”10

ROB EDELMAN is the author of Great Baseball Films and Baseball on the Web (which Amazon.com cited as a Top 10 Internet book), and is a frequent contributor to Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game. He offers film commentary on WAMC Northeast Public Radio and is a longtime Contributing Editor of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide and other Maltin publications. With his wife, Audrey Kupferberg, he has coauthored Meet the Mertzes, a double biography of Vivian Vance and super-baseball fan William Frawley, and Matthau: A Life. His byline has appeared in Total Baseball, The Total Baseball Catalog, Baseball and American Culture: Across the Diamond, NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, The National Pastime: A Review of Baseball History, The Baseball Research Journal, and histories of the 1918 Boston Red Sox, 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, 1947 New York Yankees, and 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates. He is the author of a baseball film essay for the Kino International DVD Reel Baseball: Baseball Films from the Silent Era, 1899-1926; is an interviewee on several documentaries on the director’s cut DVD of The Natural; was the keynote speaker at the 23rd Annual NINE Spring Training Conference; and teaches film history courses at the University at Albany (SUNY).

 

Photo credit

Thomas Tull, photo by Gage Skidmore.

 

Notes

1 Natalie Robehmed. “Box Office Billionaire: How Legendary’s Thomas Tull Used Comics, China and a Secret Formula to Remake Hollywood,” Forbes, February 29, 2016. 

2 hollywood.com/celebrities/thomas-tull-57636550/.

3 Brooks Barnes and Michael Cieply, “Film Financier Faces a Critical Juncture,” New York Times, February 3, 2013.

4 Ibid.

5 wamc.org/post/rob-edelman-now#stream/0.

6 Ibid.

7 Interviews by the author conducted in Cooperstown on May 28, 2016.

8 https://m.mlb.com/news/article/118994038/fastball-dials-up-heat-on-the-big-screen.

9 hamilton.edu/news/story/thomas-tull-92-discusses-his-journey-from-hamilton-to-hollywood.

10 imdb.com/name/nm2100078/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm.