ZAMM.COM

If moviegoers thought the Oval Office scenes in CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER looked familiar, they were right. The 1994 action thriller saved money by using sets built for the 1993 comedy DAVE.

Director Phillip Noyce and his crew couldn’t film inside the White House, so they recreated it on a soundstage. Even the exterior White House scenes were studio sets. And the Oval Office portraits were studio reproductions of what was hanging on the White House walls.

Warner Bros. re-cycled its Oval Office DAVE set over 25 times for TV episodes and films like ABSOLUTE POWER (1997), HOT SHOTS! PART DEUX (1993) & THE PELICAN BRIEF (1993).

CLEAR, which was based on Tom Clancy’s 1989 novel, opened Aug. 3, 1994 via Paramount. Produced by Mace Neufeld & Robert Rehme, it was a sequel to THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER (1990) and PATRIOT GAMES (1992), which also featured Clancy’s CIA Acting Deputy Director of Intelligence character Jack Ryan, played by Harrison Ford. Although it’s the third Ryan movie, CLEAR was Clancy’s fourth book. THE CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN, his sequel to OCTOBER, wasn’t filmed.

CLEAR was Ford’s last time as Ryan and James Earl Jones’ last time as Vice Admiral James Greer. And it was the last episode in the series for Noyce, who’d also directed PATRIOT GAMES.

PATRIOT disappointed at the boxoffice, which Paramount and the producers attributed to its R rating. Produced for $45M, it did just $178.1M worldwide. OCTOBER, which somehow had gotten a PG rating, was directed by John McTiernan (DIE HARD). It cost $30M to make and did $200.5M worldwide. Paramount made it absolutely clear that CLEAR had to be PG-13.

When CLEAR was submitted to the MPAA for rating, however, it got an R. Happily, Paramount’s appeal got it re-rated PG-13. Made for $62M, it grossed $215.9M worldwide and established that all future Jack Ryan episodes would be rated PG-13.

McTiernan had wanted to make CLEAR as the episode to follow  OCTOBER. He departed, however, when the producers shelved a CLEAR screenplay draft by John Milius (APOCALYPSE NOW) and said PATRIOT would be the next episode.
CLEAR had a bumpy time in development. In March 1992, Donald E. Stewart, who’d co-written OCTOBER, was hired to rewrite the Milius draft and give Jack Ryan more screen time. After Clancy was sharply critical of Stewart’s draft, Steven Zaillian (SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER) was brought in to do a re-write. Milius was kept on board just to consult on CLEAR’s action scenes.

Clancy had been very unhappy with the filming of PATRIOT and didn’t intend to approve any more adaptations of his Ryan novels. He changed his mind, however, as many other authors have done over the years, when Paramount offered the right deal points and enough money to make filming CLEAR more attractive.