Steven Spielberg‘s company, DreamWorks, has passed on the foreign rights to Mr. Spielberg’s next directing project, Memoirs of a Geisha. The question is why? DreamWorks execs told Variety the decision was because the film was too small to need a co-production deal with their partner on this picture, Columbia Pictures. But as excuses go, that doesn’t really make sense. If the studio really believed in the low-budget, no-star project, they could finance the film themselves. After trying to distribute in-house, then trying co-productions with the majors, splitting domestic and foreign distribution, this is yet another way of doing business. I don’t expect to see this one again real soon.
EATERS OF THE SEQUELS: John McTiernan, busy trying to get The 13th Warrior aka The Vikings aka Eaters of the Dead ready for release, is ready to sign up with United Artists for a long-in-development remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. The classic dramatic thriller cast Steve McQueen opposite Faye Dunaway in her second star-making performance after her film debut in Bonnie and Clyde. In, as the tycoon who engineers a daring bank robbery is Brosnan, Pierce Brosnan. No word on who will take on the female lead as the brainy, sexy insurance investigator, but think A-list. UA is planning on squeezing this project in before Brosnan has to start work on the next Bond movie, so that means once again, McTiernan’s version of Airframe, which has long been stewing in the juices of development hell at Disney, will continue to cook for a while.
ACTION & EFFECTS: A federal judge broke up the class action against Hollywood studios over their accounting procedures. Studios will hail this as a major victory, and it may be one in practice, just not legally. The reason for breaking up the suit was that each case is too individual for a class action suit to hold up. Every party to the suit negotiated their upfront money differently and with different results. The suit was only about the net points (or backend or “monkey points” as Eddie Murphy once called them.) Of course, all that aside, I love the case because it was filed as Jim Garrison vs. Warner Bros. Garrison was immortalized by Kevin Costner in Oliver Stone‘s JFK, and here he is fighting the Hollywood conspiracy. Much like with the JFK assassination, there will never be another breakthrough (the first one was Art Buchwald’s case) until a major player with deep, deep, deep pockets sues a studio for the backend he or she feels he or she deserves. But that will never happen, since being the person behind that suit would mean virtual expulsion from the business we call show. Not that anyone would ever admit it out loud.
JUST WONDERING: Did any of you pay for and hate Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, because up until now, every letter I’ve gotten on the subject came from someone who paid their $8 and had a good, if indescribable, time.
A VARIETY OF EXCUSES: A remarkably stupid article in Wednesday’s Variety tries to lay the “Godzilla problem” at the foot of older people, particularly women, who didn’t show up for the movie that was expected to be the event film of the summer. Bull. Hate to be working over yesterday’s territory, but bad word-of-mouth on Wednesday and Thursday is what hurt Godzilla. It’s just that simple. The buzz couldn’t have been worse than last year’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park debacle, but Lost World was a Friday release. There was no schoolroom and water cooler bad buzz to send audiences elsewhere.
The article then proceeds to look at the rest of the summer. The Truman Show, they worry, suffers from “The Front Syndrome,” referring to the serious Woody Allen starrer that stiffed in 1976. One problem. The Truman Show is about a modern issue. The Front was a period piece about the blacklist, a subject that is pretty much a NYC/L.A. issue in any period. (I’m not saying that it should be. It just is.) I think The Truman Show will resonate with young people more than Paramount imagines it will. If people are disappointed, it will because Paramount is misleading potential audience members by focusing on the few silly shots of Jim Carrey in the film (playing in the mirror and with his butt in the air in the garden).
Variety sweats Dr. Dolittle because “truly successful live-action family films are extremely rare these days” and uses Men in Black and The Nutty Professor as examples of “harder fare.” Uh, The Nutty Professor was family fare. Just because there were some curse words doesn’t make it anti-family. (Men in Black didn’t even have that.) My mother, her children and her grandchildren all enjoyed the movie for one reason. It was good. If Dr. Dolittle is good, there will be no excuses. Again, Small Soldiers is some sort of age issue. Hey, gang! Heard of Gremlins? If it’s good, everyone will go.
Finally, they rack up Lethal Weapon 4 because Mel Gibson is now in his 40s. Do they really think Conspiracy Theory only did $76 million domestic due to Mel’s age? It’s the movie, stupid. People want to go to the movies, and they want to be happy with what they see. Why does this smell so of the studios using Variety to make their excuses now, just in case?
READER OF THE DAY: Krillian’s List continues to pile up responses, almost all very complimentary. And I’m getting a lot of pro-Godzilla mail that isn’t getting as much play as the negative stuff. I guess it’s not just as funny. Which brings me to this letter, most of which was about how Sir Isaac hates Godzilla. Been there. Printed that. But he did bring up one offensive thing that we haven’t touched on yet: “Come on, Dave. You tell me. You’re the only one that doesn’t seem to know [how evil Godzilla Inc. is], which is strange since you’re usually one of the first to point out the follies of Hollywood greed. I’m not saying you’re in EmmeRICH and DEVILin’s pocket, I’m just assuming you’re not getting as worked up about this as the rest of us. Which is fine. I, however, am mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more! I grew up watching Godzilla movies as a kid with my Dad, and I think I deserved more than a two-hour ad for disposable cameras. F–k Kodak! And f–k this movie! P.S. I’ll get you, my pretties, and you’re little Taco Bell dog, too!”

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