Ron Howard: Part 3 of 5 - Apollo 13

By the late 1980s, Ron Howard had already made the jump from actor to director, but the years from *Willow* to *Apollo 13* showed just how wide his range could be. In this stretch, Howard moved from large-scale fantasy to ensemble comedy-drama, from a firehouse thriller to a period epic, then to a fast newsroom picture and finally to a carefully built space docudrama. Born on March 1, 1954, Howard is 72, and this middle chapter of his career helps explain why *Apollo 13* became such a pivotal film for him. It reunited him with Tom Hanks, whom he had directed in *Splash*, and it arrived after several movies that sharpened Howard’s sense of pace, teamwork, technical detail and mainstream storytelling.

How did Howard begin this stretch with *Willow*?

Howard’s run to *Apollo 13* began with one of his biggest productions to that point. *Willow* was a 1988 fantasy adventure directed by Howard, executive produced by George Lucas and written by Bob Dolman from a story by Lucas. The film starred Warwick Davis in the title role, along with Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Billy Barty and Jean Marsh.

Lucas had conceived the idea in 1972, and he approached Howard to direct during the post-production phase of *Cocoon* in 1985. That timing places *Willow* not as a one-off assignment, but as a project that grew out of Howard’s earlier collaboration with Lucas on *American Graffiti* and his rising stature behind the camera in the 1980s. Dolman wrote seven drafts of the screenplay between the spring and fall of 1986, with Lucas actively involved in developing it.

Principal photography began in April 1987 and finished that October. Most of the filming took place in Wales, with additional work at Elstree Studios and in New Zealand. The production also became notable for its visual effects. Industrial Light & Magic created the effects and animation sequences, and the movie’s transformation scene helped lead to a breakthrough in digital morphing technology.

When *Willow* opened on May 20, 1988, reviews were mixed, but the movie performed strongly enough to matter in Howard’s directing story. It grossed $137.6 million worldwide against a $35 million budget and received two Academy Award nominations. Even when critics were divided, Howard had shown he could manage a large fantasy production with complex technical demands, an experience that would matter again when he moved into the exacting world of *Apollo 13*.

What made *Parenthood* such a key late-1980s success?

If *Willow* showed Howard handling scale, *Parenthood* showed him returning to a contemporary ensemble and making it work with warmth and commercial force. Released on August 2, 1989, the film was directed by Howard, who also assisted in developing the story with screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. Its cast included Steve Martin, Tom Hulce, Rick Moranis, Martha Plimpton, Keanu Reeves, Jason Robards, Mary Steenburgen and Dianne Wiest.

The movie received critical acclaim and connected strongly with audiences. It opened at No. 1 in its opening weekend with $10 million, then went on to gross over $100 million domestically and $126 million worldwide. It also received two Academy Award nominations: Dianne Wiest for Best Supporting Actress and Randy Newman for Best Song.

For Howard’s career, *Parenthood* was important because it confirmed that he could move comfortably between genres without losing a popular audience. After fantasy spectacle, he delivered a character-driven studio hit led by an ensemble rather than a single star vehicle. That flexibility would become one of the defining features of his 1990s work.

Where did he go next in the early 1990s?

Howard’s next two films pushed in different directions, but both were large, ambitious studio productions. First came *Backdraft* in 1991, an action thriller drama written by Gregory Widen. The film starred Kurt Russell, William Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rebecca De Mornay, Donald Sutherland, Robert De Niro, Jason Gedrick and J. T. Walsh. It was released by Universal Pictures on May 24, 1991, received generally positive reviews and grossed $152.4 million worldwide.

It also earned three Academy Award nominations, for Best Sound, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects. Critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both gave the film positive reviews. For Howard, *Backdraft* was another step in working with large practical effects, big action sequences and high-pressure professional environments.

Then came *Far and Away* in 1992, an epic Western romantic adventure drama directed by Howard from a screenplay by Bob Dolman and a story by Howard and Dolman. The film starred Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, with a score by John Williams, and it was screened out of competition at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Released on May 22, 1992, it received mixed reviews but grossed $137.8 million against a $60 million budget.

The production scale was considerable. Principal photography began in Montana on May 28, 1991, and after work there, the production moved to Dublin. The land run sequence alone used 800 riders and extras, 900 horses, mule, oxen and 200 wagons on a quarter-mile-wide set, filmed with nine cameras. The movie was also the first film shot in Panavision Super 70 and the first to be shot in 70 mm in a decade since *Tron* in 1982.

Taken together, *Backdraft* and *Far and Away* showed Howard stretching toward spectacle in two very different registers: one modern and combustible, the other historical and panoramic.

Why is *The Paper* an important bridge to *Apollo 13*?

Howard followed *Far and Away* with something faster, denser and more urban. *The Paper*, released on March 18, 1994, starred Michael Keaton, Glenn Close, Marisa Tomei, Randy Quaid and Robert Duvall. It depicts 24 hours in a newspaper editor’s hectic professional and personal life, and Howard came to it with a clear interest in the subject.

After *Far and Away* he wanted to do something on the newspaper industry. Steven Spielberg recommended that he get in touch with David Koepp. Howard later said he liked “the behind-the-scenes of headlines.” To prepare, he made several visits to the *New York Post* and *Daily News*, two real tabloids that helped inspire the film’s fictional paper.

Filming began on July 19, 1993, and wrapped on September 30, 1993. Howard said one of his goals was to get as many of the small newsroom details right as possible. That attention to process is one of the clearest links between *The Paper* and *Apollo 13*. They are very different films, but both are built around fast decisions, institutional pressure and the drama of professionals trying to get the next move exactly right.

*The Paper* received positive reviews and grossed $48.4 million worldwide. It also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for Randy Newman’s *Make Up Your Mind*. It was not the box-office level of *Backdraft* or *Parenthood*, but it sharpened a procedural side of Howard’s filmmaking that would soon become central.

How did Howard build *Apollo 13* with NASA?

*Apollo 13* was adapted from the 1994 book *Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13* by astronaut Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger. The screenplay by William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert dramatized the aborted 1970 lunar mission. Howard cast Tom Hanks as Lovell, with Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton as the other members of the crew, and Gary Sinise and Ed Harris in major supporting roles.

The reunion with Hanks mattered. Howard had directed him in *Splash* in 1984, and now they were working together on a much more technical, historically rooted film. Howard decided that every shot would be original and that no mission footage would be used. That choice set the tone for the entire production.

To make the movie, Howard leaned heavily on NASA’s help. The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center’s Space Works built the spacecraft interiors and also created modified command and lunar modules for filming inside a Boeing KC-135 reduced-gravity aircraft. Hanks, Paxton and Bacon attended the U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, then traveled to Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they flew in the KC-135 to simulate weightlessness. Ed Harris and the actors playing flight controllers enrolled in a flight controller school led by Gerry Griffin and Jerry Bostick.

Howard also turned down the use of NASA’s real Mission Control room and instead had a replica built at Universal Studios. Principal photography started in August 1994. A NASA photo from December 1994 shows Howard directing Hanks and a production crew during filming at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. For the weightless scenes, Howard obtained NASA’s permission and assistance to secure three hours and 54 minutes of filming time in 612 zero-g maneuvers. The point was realism, and the production method became one of the film’s defining stories.

According to Yale Library’s Film Notes, the cast and crew filmed aboard NASA’s KC-135 for 13 days over four weeks, completing 612 parabolic arcs and recording just under four hours of weightless shots, none much longer than 20 seconds. The aircraft’s noisy engines meant the audio for those scenes had to be recorded later.

What did the movie keep from history, and what did it alter?

The reputation of *Apollo 13* rests partly on how seriously Howard treated technical accuracy. He went to great lengths to create a technically accurate movie, and that shows up in both the training and the script. Much of the dialogue between ground control and the astronauts was taken nearly verbatim from transcripts and recordings.

At the same time, the film is still a drama, and what changed is well documented. The best-known example is the line “Houston, we have a problem.” This became the film’s tagline, but the recorded words were different. Jack Swigert said, “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” Ground control responded, and Jim Lovell then repeated, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

Another famous line, “Failure is not an option,” became closely associated with Gene Kranz after the film, but it was not taken from the historical transcripts. Jerry Bostick later explained that he used similar wording when screenwriters interviewed him about the mindset inside Mission Control, and the line was then given to the Kranz character.

The film also compresses some responsibilities. One of the movie’s most significant departures from history is its depiction of Kranz and his White Team as managing all of the essential parts of the flight, while the actual roles of the other flight directors and teams, especially Glynn Lunney and his Black Team, are reduced. Even so, Howard’s version won praise for its technical detail and its ability to turn systems, checklists and problem-solving into suspense.

Why did *Apollo 13* matter so much for Howard’s career?

Released in North America on June 30, 1995, *Apollo 13* became one of Howard’s biggest and most respected films. It opened at No. 1 with $25,353,380 from 2,347 theaters and stayed in the top spot for three more weeks. During its theatrical releases, it grossed $355,237,933 worldwide, making it the third-highest-grossing film of 1995.

The critical response was strong. Roger Ebert called it “a powerful story, one of the year’s best films, told with great clarity and remarkable technical detail, and acted without pumped-up histrionics.” Janet Maslin called it an “absolutely thrilling” film and wrote that it “unfolds with perfect immediacy.” Those responses captured what had been building across Howard’s previous films: he had become a director trusted with scale, stars, technical precision and emotionally accessible storytelling.

Awards followed. *Apollo 13* received nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won for Best Film Editing and Best Sound. It also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and two British Academy Film Awards. Howard himself was widely praised for the direction, even if this was not yet the Oscar-winning phase of his career.

His next feature after *Apollo 13* was *Ransom*, released on November 8, 1996. But *Apollo 13* stands as a hinge in this part of the story: the movie where Howard’s commercial instincts, technical discipline and calm studio craftsmanship came together at full strength. In Part 4, the series moves from this success toward Howard’s Oscar night with *A Beautiful Mind* and the next phase of his 2000s career.

This article is part of NewsCubby’s five-part Ron Howard career series. For more coverage, visit TV & Streaming, Movies, Entertainment and Videos, where you can also find short videos from the series.

Timeline

• **1985:** George Lucas approached Howard to direct *Willow* during the post-production phase of *Cocoon*.
• **May 20, 1988:** *Willow* was released.
• **Aug. 2, 1989:** *Parenthood* was released by Universal Pictures.
• **May 24, 1991:** *Backdraft* opened in theaters.
• **May 22, 1992:** *Far and Away* was released by Universal Pictures.
• **March 18, 1994:** *The Paper* was released.
• **December 1994:** NASA photographed Howard directing Tom Hanks and a production crew during filming of *Apollo 13* at Kennedy Space Center.
• **June 30, 1995:** *Apollo 13* opened in North America.
• **1995:** *Apollo 13* received nine Academy Award nominations and won for Best Film Editing and Best Sound.
• **Nov. 8, 1996:** Howard’s follow-up film, *Ransom*, was released.

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*ARCHIVE PHOTOS: Tom Hanks at the Governor's Ball after the 61st Academy Awards in 1989 (left), and Ron Howard directing Tom Hanks and a production crew during filming of Apollo 13 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in December 1994 (right). Photos: Alan Light / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 (left); NASA / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain (right). Both cropped.*

*NewsCubby articles are produced with AI assistance and reviewed by humans.*

Video photo credits

Shot 1 (0.000–3.067s): Ron Howard 2011 Shankbone 3.JPG

Creator: David Shankbone Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ron_Howard_2011_Shankbone_3.JPG License/status: CC BY3.0 Unported — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Actual changes: Photographic crop/resize, restrained pan/zoom, captions/logo/credit overlays. No invented imagery or solid filler.

Shot 2 (3.067–10.700s): Boeing KC-135A 55-2134 (E-4123).jpg — Commons title; NASA identifies E-4123 KC-135 on ramp

Creator: NASA Source: https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/kc-135-stratotanker-4/ License/status: PD US: NASA federal work; factual editorial illustration only — https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/ Actual changes: Portrait detail crop favoring nose/body; resized, gentle zoom/pan, overlaid captions/credits. Not flight footage.

Shot 3 (10.700–18.967s): Astronauts in weightlessness.jpg

Creator: NASA Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Astronauts_in_weightlessness.jpg License/status: PD US: NASA federal work; editorial factual use under NASA media guidelines — https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/ Actual changes: Source-upright landscape photo; NO90degree rotation. Portrait crop centering.385,.5 preserves visible adult heads; only0.5percent motion. Shot-specific captions upperframe, headline650, credit800, away from faces. Original zeroG subjects remain inverted as photographed.

Shot 4 (18.967–24.967s): TomHanksPrincEdw031223 (11 of 41) (cropped).jpg

Creator: Raph_PH Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TomHanksPrincEdw031223_(11_of_41)_(cropped).jpg License/status: CC BY 2.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 Actual changes: Photographic crop/resize, restrained pan/zoom, captions/logo/credit overlays. No invented imagery or solid filler.

Shot 5 (24.967–29.233s): 20180502 Apollo 13 command module Cosmosphere 1.jpg

Creator: Balon Greyjoy Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20180502_Apollo_13_command_module_Cosmosphere_1.jpg License/status: CC0 — http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en Actual changes: Photographic crop/resize, restrained pan/zoom, captions/logo/credit overlays. No invented imagery or solid filler.

Shot 6 (29.233–39.067s): Solo A Star Wars Story Japan Premiere Red Carpet Ron Howard (42769865252).jpg

Creator: Dick Thomas Johnson Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solo_A_Star_Wars_Story_Japan_Premiere_Red_Carpet_Ron_Howard_(42769865252).jpg License/status: CC BY2.0 Generic — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Actual changes: Photographic crop/resize, restrained pan/zoom, captions/logo/credit overlays. No invented imagery or solid filler.