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
To be as aloof as possible. The studios are simply following an established strategy by another part of this society. Much in the same way with that part of the society, at some point, the press begin to get frayed, and eventually incredibly angry. Hopefully the studios will realize this strategy to be as ridiculous as it reads. The closer we get to the SUMMER. If not, then, how exactly does Hollywood benefit from aggrevating junketeers and other parts of the press?
Not much about Mission Impossible 3 online? Three cheers for whoever came up with that decision!!!
Not to sound too apologetic for the studio PR people, but lets be realistic. The number of internet entertainment sites and TV entertainment shows, as well as celebrity news writers.. has skyrocketed in the past few years. It’s got to be really hard to accomodate everyone in the time normally allotted for promotion. Junketing is usually compressed into a pre-set time frame for varied reasons and yet last time I looked, there were still only 24 hours in a day.
How can a star or director be expected to provide the in depth, one on one opportunities that everyone is seeking? It can’t, obviously.
Triage is required. If this results in cattle call press conferences, in abbreviated 5 minute interviews, in marginal reporters being excluded… it’s not necessarily a nefarious plot when it happens.
Then too, there is the current propensity for personal scandal mongering. I have watched interview press conferences where most of the questions were about the personal lives of the stars, not the film. That’s gossip, not film promotion. Dealing with those kinds of questions takes time away from what might be called hard film news. Who’s to blame for that?