A Brief Look At The Problem With The Dependents
This really is a full column, but for the moment, I want to offer some reason for my derision of Anne Thompson
April 29, 2024
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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
So how is Fox Searchlight anything close to
indie (yes, I know the word is ‘dependent’) when their highest-grossing movie is a horror remake? They’re basically just the low-budget arm of big Fox, nothing ‘indie’ about it.
Yeesh, the sad state of affairs of this realm of film production.
This is actually a comment referring to the Hot Button column.
Simply, thank you.
I often bitch about some of your ideas/opinions, Mr. Poland, but today’s column is just perfect. It says so much about why the moviegoing experience shouldn’t be dismissed, and also about the value of the old-fashioned in general.
Some folks assume that because there are new technologies, it’s inevitable that they will take over. Bullshit, I say.
I don’t have a cellphone or an Ipod, I don’t even have a car. Ok, I have a computer and the internet (obviously), but other than that I still enjoy the same things I did ten years ago: riding my bicycle, seeing live bands and talking to people in person. I may not be in the majority, but I dare hope there will always be a place for such simpler things.
Fox Searchlight’s biggest hit was Sideways.
I think Ms. Thompson’s article should have been more about how the indie units are really much more efficient versions of the big studio parents. In other words, by sticking to smaller bureaucraccy, tighter monetary controls, and edgier fare, they are seen as the guinea pigs for emerging profitable trends. And when those trends hit it big, they will have the machinery to expand. Of course executives at the specialties will be better trained…they will be more directly involved in marketing movies from scratch, not the one size fits all campaign.
Yes, the words “this year” should have been inserted in my above comments re: Fox Searchlight and The Hills Have Eyes.
A lot of the movies that Fox Searchlight, Warner Independent and Focus Features distribute have been independently financed and produced before they’re picked up for distribution, so in that sense, I would still consider those films “indie.”
By that definition “The Sixth Sense” was an indie pic. So are Episodes 1, 2 and 3 of “Star Wars”.
In addition to “Capote” UA gave Sony Classics “Art School Confidential”. That pic went national this week thanks to the AMC chain’s new arthouse-friendly policy.
Miramax is actually getting restarted — its slate was wiped clean when Disney purged the Weinstein brothers. Also, Dimension went to the Weinstein Co. in the purge, thus “Scary Movie 4” was handled by Weinstein for US/Canada.
Scary Movie 4 was handled by Disney (BVI) internationally.
Sixth Sense may have been an independent production (I don’t know myself) but the fact that it was released through a major distributor pretty much negates the indie label.
Those Friday Poseidon numbers are UGLY. And if the audience I saw it with last night is any indication, word of mouth is going to be horrid. Just My Luck doesn’t look to be any happier (6-7M open–ouch!). And M:I:3 is holding adequately for a big open movie (looking like a 55% drop).
“but the fact that it was released through a major distributor pretty much negates the indie label.”
By that standard, El Mariachi wasn’t an indie film.
WB really fumbled Poseidon. I got a good laugh out of an EW article where Dreyfus was quoted saying why he wanted to do Poseidon, “They offered me a lot of money and I needed it.”
Classy Dreyfuss, classy.
Movies such as The Sixth Sense and the Star Wars movies may indeed be indi because they were self-financed, but the people financing them aren’t exactly strapped for cash, are they?
Everything you guys say is just reaffirming my notion that “indie” is a largely meaningless label these days, and the only true indie films are ones that nobody has heard of.
Well, that’s completely true. But people like to create labels.
That’s why the Independent Spirit Awards are a crock. How Sideways was called an indie was beyond me. a $20mil budget for an adult comedy does not scream INDIE to me.
How low does it have to be before it’s indie? I was under the impression that indie meant produced independently of the major studios. Who the distributor is doesn’t change indie status.
I know that no one’s reading this anymore, but to respond to the above, El Mariachi was made completely outside the Hollywood system, unlike Star Wars or Sixth Sense. Sixth Sense might have been financed independently (if true, I don’t know this for sure), but was produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. You don’t get more Hollywood than that.
You can be ‘independently produced’ and still be an utterly conventional, bland, mass-produced piece of trash. Hell, most student films fit that category.