‘Field of Dreams’ hasn’t lost its lure

HOLLYWOOD — If you screen it, they will come.

The 20th anniversary of “Field of Dreams” — celebrated Wednesday by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — presented an opportunity for a cast and crew reunion of the beloved sports fantasy.

Based on the novel “Shoeless Joe” by W.P. Kinsella, the film starred Kevin Costner and Amy Madigan.

A box-office hit, “Field of Dreams” garnered Oscar nominations for best picture, original score by James Horner and writer-director Phil Alden Robinson’s adapted screenplay.

Robinson, Costner and production designer Dennis Gassner recently discussed their memories of making the film during the summer of 1988 in Dyersville, Iowa.

Robinson: “I was a big baseball fan, but it never occurred to me to do a movie about it until I read the book in the early ’80s and was just enraptured by it. I thought instantly, ‘This is a great movie.’ No one agreed.

“Lindsay Doran was the only executive who said this is a great movie. Certainly at that time, conventional wisdom was that baseball movies weren’t commercial. Larry Gordon, who was the producer, had put it into development when he was president at Fox. When he left, he took this with him as one of his producing projects. He sent it to Tom Pollock at Universal. Fortunately, Tom and all the senior executives all loved it.

“We had made a casting list, and Kevin, who was one of the first names we talked about, we immediately took off the list because he had ‘Bull Durham’ coming out. No one in his right mind would do two baseball movies in a row.”

Costner: “I was scheduled to do another movie called ‘Revenge’ before that. Phil was willing to wait for me, but at some point, as ‘Revenge’ kept getting delayed he wouldn’t be able to grow his corn in time. Finally, I got so upset that ‘Revenge’ was taking so long to start, I got into a very heated discussion with Ray Stark, the legendary producer. I said, ‘I’m doing this little movie called “Field of Dreams,” ‘ and he said, ‘No, you’re not,’ and I said, ‘Yes, I am.’ Before it went to a lawsuit, I said ‘You’re a smart guy, figure it out.’ And he did.”

Gassner: “Phil and I started to look at photographs of farmhouses in Iowa. I went for a very classic wood farmhouse with a veranda, and Phil had found this stone farmhouse that I thought looked a little too much like the French countryside. So we kind of made a deal. He said, ‘We will go with your house, but I get to decide where to build the field.’

“The thing that was fascinating about the farm was this little bridge that you had to drive over to get to the house. There was this little spring creek that ran underneath the bridge and the water was running. It was the first drought in 50 years. What we ended up doing is damming that little creek and irrigated from the creek. That is how we grew our corn. The farmers came from everywhere to see our corn because our corn was the only corn that was 6 feet at that time.”

Costner: “Most movies can’t be about the subject themselves. ‘Bull Durham’ is set against baseball, but it’s really about the fabric of men and women and their relationships. In this instance, this movie had this mythical thing. It has a lot to do with things unsaid in your life. I always considered this our generation’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’”

Robinson: “Not only is the field still there, they are still getting some 50,000 tourists a year. They have charity games and old-timers’ games there. People from all over the country have driven there to get married on the field.”

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