JonBon Nominated

From the Hollywood Reporter

Jon Bon Jovi on the Song That Could Break His 22-Year Oscar Dry Spell

 

The Hollywood Reporter is pleased to offer an exclusive first look at Roadside Attractions' new, roughly four-minute-long featurette highlighting Jon Bon Jovi's song "Not Running Anymore," which can be heard in the new film Stand Up Guys. The melancholy tune was recently nominated for the best original song Golden Globe and included on the short-list from which the Academy's music branch will select five best original score Oscar nominees, the names of which will be revealed Jan. 10.

Jon Bon Jovi is, of course, lead singer in the immensely popular rock band Bon Jovi. Twenty-two years ago, he wrote the song "Blaze of Glory" specifically for Young Guns II. The song was part of his first solo album and it became a phenomenal success, placing No. 1 on the Billboard charts, winning the Globe for best original song and earning an Oscar nomination. (It lost at the 1991 Academy Awards to Stephen Sondheim's "Sooner or Later" from the film Dick Tracy.)
  
In the time since, Bon Jovi has done only one other solo project, largely because he has been so busy with his band. But as he explained in an interview with THR earlier this year, he has been on a "streak of writing" over the past year or so since the band wrapped its last tour -- and it occurred to him that he might attempt another if the right project came along. He was sent the script for Stand Up Guys, a dramedy about three longtime partners-in-crime who reunite for one last night together, and agreed to write a song for it even before any actors had signed on to the effort. Shortly thereafter, Oscar winners Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin jumped aboard.

In the featurette -- which cuts between an interview with Bon Jovi, scenes from the film and scenes from the song's music video -- the singer says the track's placement in the film "immediately sets the tone for who these guys are" -- particularly the character played by Pacino, who knows that his best friend, the character played by Walken, has been ordered to kill him in just hours.

Bon Jovi says that he deeply connected with the on-screen trio: "I think it’s telling that I’ve had those same relationships with my band, for example ... I’ve been with the same band for 30 years. I’ve been with the same wife for 30-plus years. I’ve been with the same record company for 30 years. Loyalty, friendship, trust, honor — that’s the foundation on which everything I’ve ever done has been built.”