Lee's big comeback

AFTER RECEIVING Academy Award acclaim for "Monster's Ball" (2001) and all sorts of film festival acclaim for "The Woodsman," (2004) producer Lee Daniels was flying high.

Too high.

He decided to make his directorial debut with "Shadowboxer" (2005), a thriller about interracial, incestuous assassins.

"My ego was out of check," Daniels said last month at the Palomar Hotel. " 'Shadowboxer' was a party. It was Dame Vivienne Westwood flying in to Philadelphia to do costumes."

The thud was resounding. The box office less than $400,000. The critics? They too were assassins.

"I lay in bed catatonic," Daniels said, "but that's what real filmmakers have to go through. . . . God put 'Shadowboxer' in my life for a reason. It humbled me. Everybody's on their own f----- personal journey."

Now Daniels is back as director and producer of "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire," a film festival favorite that won support from TV talk host Oprah Winfrey and actor-director Tyler Perry and is likely to win Oscar support in 2010. It's a comeback film filled with great performances (Mo'Nique and newcomer Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe shine) but with a subject matter so dark and non-commercial it's a testament to the film and its big-name boosters that "Precious" took in an astounding $1.9 million its opening weekend - in only 18 theaters. (For comparison, No. 1 film "A Christmas Carol" grossed more than $8,000 per theater. "Precious" grossed more than $100,000 per theater.)

Daniels, however, is nervous. Having seen the movie mountain from top and bottom, he doesn't want to think too far ahead, to let expectations get too high.

"I feel love from the audience members who see the film," the Philadelphia native said, "but I'm very, very cautious. I'm not really sure yet how to embrace the success, so I'm trying to put myself in a bubble."

All the hype scares Daniels, he said, because he doesn't want expectations to be impossible to reach. "It's just a little movie," he said.

"Precious" has been a long-term odyssey for Daniels, who read Sapphire's book years ago and then "stalked" her for the rights.

"She did not want this book turned into a movie," he said. "It took me eight years to convince her. I did 'Monster's Ball' because I couldn't do this.

"But it's so timely right now . . . "

Even after getting the rights to the book "Push," it would seem as if finding funding for a drama about an overweight, illiterate Harlem teen mother terribly abused by both parents would be a tough sell, but Daniels said no.

"This one was easy," he said. "People from Denver said, 'Lee, what would you like to do?' It was as easy as that.

"I've been around the block now and there were angels around me on this film."

Those angels must have stepped in to help Daniels find Sidibe.

"We interviewed over 400 girls for the part," Daniels said, but he was wary of casting someone whose life resembled Precious'. "I would have been exploiting that girl . . . Gabby [a 26-year-old from Brooklyn, N.Y., whose divorced parents are a singer and a cabdriver] talked like this white girl from the Valley."

That makes Sidibe's performance even more impressive - and Paula Patton and Mariah Carey, along with Mo'Nique as an angry, chain-smoking welfare queen, also stand out.

Daniels said his rehearsal process for this film was unusual.

"It was like therapy," he said. "I don't have a regular rehearsal process. I open myself up. I talk to the actors about my fears, hopes, literature, politics, sex.

"We never talk about the script. I know they can deliver the words."

Daniels hopes that after seeing "Precious," viewers will understand the importance of education (Patton's regal teacher, Miss Rain, "captures the beauty in education," he said) and begin to acknowledge the Preciouses of the world and not just pass them by on the street.

"I know I will never ignore her again," he acknowledged.

"I had it hard growing up. But not as hard as Precious."