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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Tuesday, June 9th, 1998 - Comments Off on Tony, Tone, Toni
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Tony, Tone, Toni

Sunday Night’s Tony Awards had Hollywood to spare. The big winner was Disney’s The Lion King, which took home six Tonys (for Best Original Musical and bests in direction, choreography, lighting, scenic design and costumes). As a matter of fact, when the show won the top honor, the producer was listed as, “Disney.” Just “Disney.” No names. No Disney Theater blah-blah-blah. Talk about branding. Besides appearances by movie stars like Nathan Lane, Helen Hunt and Alec Baldwin, there was the co-winner of the Tony for Best Original Play, Art, none other than Sean Connery. But after a speech by one of his female co-producers, Connery moved to the mike as the TV director pulled away and went to commercial. He won’t be dissed like that again until The Avengers opens.
SAILING ON A SEA OF VIDEO: Can’t get enough Titanic? Well, you can own it for yourself on September 1. Yesterday’s Hot Button (THB 6/08) figured out that the film had a shot at hitting $600 million domestic by Labor Day. This may change that. In fact, Paramount moved the release from September 9 to the 1st in order to take advantage of your Labor Day Weekend video rental plans. Sales are expected to easily pass the record of 20 million units sold for a live-action movie. It’s not enough to beat out the best of the Disney collection, but it is good for another $500 million or so in profits.
BACK TO THE NC-17 RATED FUTURE: Did you love The Brady Bunch movies and Austin Powers? Hopeful that the “Charlie’s Angels” remake will actually come to pass? Do you love go-go boots? Then, the Betty Thomas version of Jacqueline Susann‘s Valley of the Dolls should be right up your alley. Fox is close to signing on the-line-that-is-dotted for the ’90s version of the saga, with the trio of hot-patted, hot-loving chicks in New York, trying to make it in today’s business. There’s Anne, the uptight New Englander. There’s Neely, the hot-blooded horn dog of Hollywood who did everything to rise up the ladder to stardom. And there’s Jennifer, the big-busted beauty. Together they find the view from above isn’t as pretty as they thought. Susann is back in full force, with Universal making a biopic starring Bette Midler and Nathan Lane which was written by the bitch-genius Paul Rudnick and directed by Honeymoon in Vegas director Andrew Bergman. Plus, USA Network is doing their own biopic, and Rhino films is trying to get a remake of the Roger Ebert-written, Russ Meyer-directed Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
JUST WONDERING: Besides Armageddon, is anyone excited about anything coming out this summer after The X-Files?
THE CREDITS ARE HERE! THE CREDITS ARE HERE!: Wondering who to thank for Armageddon? (Assuming you like the movie when it arrives in July.) Well, if you want to thank the writers, you’ll have to find the credits, which will read: Screenplay by Jonathan Hensleigh and J.J. Abrams, Adaptation by Tony Gilroy and Shane Salerno and Story by Robert Roy Pool and Hensleigh. You think that’s a lot of people? That still leaves out four little-known writers who worked on the film: Paul Attanasio (Donnie Brasco), Ann Biderman (Primal Fear), Scott Rosenberg (Con Air) and Robert Towne (Chinatown). That’s at least $7.5 million in writing expenses for the film. Probably more. The Writer’s Guild gave the film the “Adapted By” credit in a rarely used exception to their normal “four writers max” rule. And this is bad news. The last film to get that exception was Sphere.
COPPOLA TRIAL UPDATE: In a moment that would make Harry Knowles have an orgasm, Francis Ford Coppola showed his jury pre-production footage of his version of Pinnochio (wonder if Harry has any spies on the jury). He used the footage to try and explain how he would cut the $70 million projected budget to $60 million. He also testified that Warner Bros. ended up paying him only $3,100 and $700 in expenses. $700 in expenses? A guy like Coppola spends that at lunch! Geez! Warner Bros. spent almost that much promoting Almost Heroes.
X ALERT: I’m going to be at the premiere on Thursday night, trusting no one. Will you trust me with some questions?
READER OF THE DAY: Peter R. wrote: “I think knowing things about a movie enhances the experience. I can’t think what wouldn’t, except maybe a surprise ending. Even then, I still fall for it every time. (My personal example is Jumanji, which I think has such a wonderful Capra storyline under the special effects. I do get all weepy at the end when the father/son conflict resolves. Every time.) But with regards to info I learned from this site that the Godzilla monster ‘looked better in the rain,’ which I found interesting to watch during the movie. Not an easy effect to produce, and sometimes, it wasn’t produced very well. Things like rewrites and insider stuff only makes it better. For me. Now my parents just want to see the darn movie. They don’t want to know about Anne Heche’s orientation and how will that create/diffuse tension between her and Mr. Ford. But I do. In fact, I can’t wait.”

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon