The Founder
The Founder is a 2016 American biographical drama film directed by John Lee Hancock and written by Robert Siegel. Starring Michael Keaton as businessman Ray Kroc, the film portrays the story of his creation of the McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain. Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch co-star as McDonald's founders Richard and Maurice McDonald.
The film premiered at Arclight Hollywood on December 7, 2016 and was released theatrically in the United States on January 20, 2017 by The Weinstein Company. It grossed $24 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Keaton's performance.
Plot
In 1954, Ray Kroc is a traveling milkshake machine salesman. While he has a supportive wife named Ethel and has saved enough to live a comfortable life in Arlington Heights, Illinois, he craves more. Ray also observes that many of the drive-in restaurants that he tries to sell to are inefficiently run. After learning that a drive-in in San Bernardino is ordering an unusually large number of milkshake mixers, Ray drives to California to see it. What he finds is McDonald's—a highly popular walk-up restaurant with fast service, high-quality food, disposable packaging and a family-friendly atmosphere.Ray meets with the two McDonald brothers, Maurice "Mac" and Richard "Dick" McDonald. They give Ray a tour of the kitchen and he notes the employees' strong work ethic. Ray is astounded with the restaurant, and takes the brothers to dinner. They tell him the origin story of McDonald's and how they came to design their "fast food" system. The next day, Ray suggests that the brothers franchise the restaurant, but they hesitate, pointing out that they already tried, only to have encountered absentee franchisees who were lackadaisical in upholding their system. Ray persists and eventually convinces the brothers to allow him to lead their franchising efforts on the condition that he agrees to a strict contract, which requires all changes be subject to the McDonald brothers' approval.
Initially, Ray begins building a McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois while attempting to entice wealthy investors to open franchises, but encounters the same poor management ethic which doomed the original franchise efforts. Eventually Ray hits on the idea of franchising to middle-class investors, who have more incentive to be hands-on and are willing to follow the McDonald's formula. This proves successful, and new franchises begin opening across the Midwest, with Ray representing himself as the creator of McDonald's. During this time, Ray meets Rollie Smith, an upscale restaurant owner in Minnesota who wishes to invest, and his wife Joan, to whom Ray is immediately attracted.
Despite his success, Ray begins to encounter financial difficulties as his share of franchise profits are limited due to his contract, which the McDonald brothers decline to renegotiate. Meanwhile, the owners are encountering higher than expected costs, particularly for refrigeration of large quantities of ice cream for milkshakes. Joan suggests a powdered milkshake as a way to avoid these costs, but the brothers consider it degrading to their food quality. Ray is called to the bank as his mortgage is past due, but this is overheard by Harry Sonneborn, a financial consultant, who requests to review Ray's books. Sonneborn realizes that the real profit opportunity is in providing real estate to the franchisees, which will not only provide a revenue stream, but give Ray leverage over his franchisees and the brothers. Ray incorporates a new company, Franchise Realty Corporation, and attracts new investors. This allows him to open new restaurants without the brothers approval. This upsets the brothers and emboldens Ray: he increasingly defies them by circumventing their authority and providing powdered milkshakes to all franchisees. Ray also divorces Ethel, who gets all his assets except any shares in his business.
Ray renames his company the McDonald's Corporation and demands to be released from his contract and buy the McDonald brothers out, the news of which sends Mac into diabetic shock. Ray visits him in the hospital and offers a blank check to settle their business. The brothers agree to a $2.7 million lump sum payment , ownership of their original restaurant in San Bernardino, and a 1% annual royalty, but when the time comes to finalize the agreement, Ray refuses to include the royalty in the settlement and instead offers it as a handshake deal. Afterwards, Dick asks Ray why he had to take over their business, when he could have easily stolen their idea and recreated it. Ray argues that the true value of McDonald's is the name itself, which expresses all the attributes of Americana.
The McDonald brothers are forced to take their own name off the original restaurant and Ray opens a new McDonald's franchise directly across the street, finally putting the brothers out of business. Later in 1970, Ray is preparing a speech where he praises himself for his success and that he was able to achieve his success through persistence, and not through talent or a strong work ethic, in his elaborate mansion with his new wife, Joan.
An epilogue reveals that the McDonald brothers were never paid their royalties, which would have been in the area of $100 million a year, and that everyday McDonald's feeds approximately 1% of the Earth's population.
Cast
- Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc
- Nick Offerman as Richard McDonald
- John Carroll Lynch as Maurice McDonald
- Linda Cardellini as Joan Smith
- B. J. Novak as Harry J. Sonneborn
- Laura Dern as Ethel Kroc
- Justin Randell Brooke as Fred Turner
- Kate Kneeland as June Martino
- Patrick Wilson as Rollie Smith
- Wilbur Fitzgerald as Jerry Cullen
Production
Casting
In February 2015, Michael Keaton was signed to the role of Ray Kroc. Laura Dern joined the film on May 11, 2015, to play Kroc's wife, Ethel Fleming, whom Kroc divorced in 1961. The next day, it was announced that Nick Offerman joined the film, set to play Richard "Dick" McDonald. On May 28, 2015, it was announced that B. J. Novak joined the film as Kroc's financial consultant, Harry J. Sonneborn. On June 9, 2015, it was reported that Linda Cardellini had joined the film, and on June 26, 2015, it was announced that John Carroll Lynch and Patrick Wilson had also been cast.Filming
on the film began in Newnan, Georgia, on June 1, 2015. Production designer Michael Corenblith had previously worked on films such as Apollo 13, Saving Mr. Banks and The Blind Side, where attention to historic detail was important. Corenblith worked from archival photos, training films, materials provided by the McDonald family, blueprints obtained from eBay, and research at the oldest McDonald's restaurant in Downey, California. The McDonald brothers original octagonal San Bernardino restaurant was built in Newnan in the parking lot of the Coweta County Administration building.After a month of searching for suitable location, an old-style McDonald's building set with the "golden arches" was constructed in a church parking lot in seven working days in Douglasville, Georgia. The set included a working kitchen with period-accurate kitchen equipment that was brought up to current code. Rearrangement of exterior features such as parking lot striping allowed that set to serve as each franchise location portrayed in the film. Both interior and exterior portions of the restaurant were modular, allowing countertops or entire wall sized glass panes to be removed to make room for cameras and other equipment.
- Douglasville, Georgia site of McDonald's building set:
Release
On March 2, 2015, The Weinstein Company paid $7 million for the film's distribution rights. On March 26, 2015, the studio set the film for a November 25, 2016 release date. In March 2016, the film was moved up to August 5, 2016. On July 13, 2016, the film's release date was delayed until a limited December 16, 2016 date, followed by a wide release on January 20, 2017. The film ultimately opened in the United States at Arclight Hollywood on December 7, 2016, in order to qualify for the 2017 Oscars, before expanding wide on January 20.In February 2017, FilmNation Entertainment, one of the film's production companies, sued The Weinstein Company for $15 million. The Weinstein Company released Gold on January 27, 2017, a week after The Founder, which FilmNation claimed was a breach of contract, saying the two companies had an agreement that no Weinstein Company film would be released within a week before or after The Founder.
Reception
Box office
The Founder grossed $12.8 million in the United States and Canada and $11.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $24.1 million.In North America, the film was expected to gross $3 million from 1,115 theaters in its opening weekend. It ended up earning $3.8 million, finishing 9th at the box office. In its second week, the film made $2.6 million, a drop of 23.4%.
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 81% based on 238 reviews, with a weighted average of 6.95/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Founder puts Michael Keaton's magnetic performance at the center of a smart, satisfying biopic that traces the rise of one of America's most influential businessmen – and the birth of one of its most far-reaching industries." On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score 66 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.Rolling Stone magazine's Peter Travers gave the film three out of four stars, stating that director Hancock and screenwriter Siegel "strive hard – and mostly succeed – at keeping Hollywood sentiment out of the storytelling.... Set more than a half century ago, The Founder proves to be a movie for a divisive here and now. Step right up. You might just learn something." RogerEbert.com's Matt Zoller Seitz gave the film three out of four stars, stating that despite the film over-relying on exposition and failing to skillfully incorporate Ray Kroc's personal life into the narrative, "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about The Founder constantly since seeing it... It's an ad that becomes a warning before circling around and becoming another, darker kind of advertisement, and one of the most intriguing and surprising things about The Founder is that, in the end, it seems vaguely ashamed of itself for letting this happen".