Director Martin Brest Revisits the Triumphs of ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and ‘Midnight Run,’ and Reflects On His Post-‘Gigli’ Hollywood Exile (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Martin Brest, the legendary — and legendarily reclusive — director of “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Midnight Run,” it was tough not to immediately think of Xanadu, the protective enclave Charles Foster Kane retired to at the end of “Citizen Kane.” It seems like a fitting place for a former prince of the movie business to spend exile.

Upon arrival, I quickly discover that the impeccably manicured property doesn’t, in fact, belong to Brest but to an artist friend, as does the lumbering, pitch-black Saint Bernard watching benevolently over our poolside conversation about the filmmaker’s career.

By all accounts (most of all his own), that career came to a fiery end because of “Gigli,” but Brest soon explains how he made peace with the cataclysmic flop — even if he still can’t bear to mention it by name.   “I had a good run, and I enjoyed success and freedom,” says the affable Brest. “I would’ve liked it to go on longer, but everybody likes everything to go on longer.

But I feel very grateful for what I experienced.”  As a great admirer of Brest’s groundbreaking comic work, and later by his surprising but seamless transition into more dramatic fare, I’d begun reaching out to Brest in the spring of 2023 to see if he’d be interested in participating in a chat for one of three anniversaries for his films — 35th for “Midnight Run,” 25th for “Meet Joe Black” or 20th for “Gigli.” After some vetting — he had never before spoken publicly about what went wrong with the last of those movies — Brest agreed to sit down with Variety for an extended conversation about his work, and the stories that still burn inside him, whether or not there’s anyone in Hollywood willing to pick up a torch on his behalf.  You have avoided the public eye, but