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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Box Office Insider Roger Friedman Has Well-Placed Doubts About 'Superman' Take


I am surprised to find I do not have that much to say about Superman Returns, the most anticlimactically (and antiseptically) boring summer blockbuster I’ve seen in some time. The $200-million-plus budget buys 157 minutes of inorganic momentum–all the staggering visuals you could ever want, but almost no human moment so indelible as to anchor the spectacle in memory. Which would be fine if escapism was all director Bryan Singer cared about. Alas, a back catalog of accomplished indies giving way to spiritualized superhero tentpoles indicates otherwise; as Manohla Dargis said in her typically peerless review, “It’s hard not to think that Superman isn’t the only one here with a savior complex.”
Really, though, I find myself less interested in critical approximations of Superman Returns than I am in box-office forecasts–specifically that of noted industry sage Roger Friedman, whose Magic 8-Ball responds “Chances not so good” to his breathless inquiries about the film’s expected weekend windfall:

(W)hile the juries are still technically out, here are some things to chew on: As of last night, Moviefone, which measures interest in all current releases, listed Superman Returns second to Adam Sandler’s Click. The Sandler film grossed a huge amount over the weekend, $40 million, so its listing could be a carryover from that enthusiasm. Still, one would have hoped for SR to be listed at No. 1 by Moviefone fans.

Also, according to Moviefone.com, none of the “early” shows tonight have sold out. And none of the regular shows scheduled for Wednesday, the real opening day, have sold out either. By now, a real phenomenon of a film would likely have at least one or two shows crossed off on Moviefone, indicating an impending monsoon of fans. Of course, that’s New York. In Hollywood, two shows are sold out for tonight — one at Mann’s Chinese Theater and the other at The Grove.

Leave it to Friedman to get under the skin of this story: Not only is there no “impending monsoon of fans” against which area multiplexes must batten down the hatches, but Moviefone is officially established as the oracle of “interest in all current releases.” Indeed, the higher-ups at Warner Bros. are likely cracking the gin early this morning, wondering what miserable twist of fate would relegate them to second place on Moviefone (in New York, natch) after such a torturous 20-year revival of the Superman franchise. Suicide notes are trickling out of the marketing department’s shared printers as I write this, and like Goethe following The Sorrows of Young Werther, Friedman sits in shadowy repose somewhere in the Fox building wondering who will ever invite him to another premiere. It is the tragedy of the prophet.
But enough of that. Lest walk-up moviegoers, in fits of existential crises, suddenly question their own interest in Superman Returns, they are still entitled to show up tonight and all week, for that matter. I am sure they will have plenty of company, and whatever Warners execs survive the Friedman Crash will be able to stash the razor blades, at least until 2009.

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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