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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 - 1 Comment »
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'Crash' Feud: Everyone Still Racist, Unpaid

Sharon Waxman, the New York Times’ ace film business reporter, writes about the ongoing feud among the makers of CRASH, the winner of the 2005 Academy Award for Best Picture.
When the movie’s name was announced, it seemed as though half the audience rushed the stage to celebrate the independently produced movie’s upset win over BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. Not just the mob of producers, but a slew of actors, too — Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle (among others) who’d deferred their paychecks. The movie was made for $7.5 million and has grossed $180 million worldwide — not bad for a grim, talky, repetitive message movie. You’d think everybody would be pleased to get the message out — and be paid fair and square for contributing, right?
crash.jpg

Wrong. As the New York Times piece reveals, the producers are still fighting over credit, and those who deferred salary haven’t been paid at all.
Here’s a choice quote from an unnamed agent or manager for one of those concerned. (Remember, if the actors don’t get paid, their reps don’t get paid for they work they did.)
“You’d think that for a movie that won best picture, what you would do is write the actors a check against their profits, or you give them a car, or something,” said a representative for one of the leading actors, who spoke on condition of anonymity because his client had barred him from speaking on the record. “That would be the classy thing to do.” He added: “The money is dribbling in. It’s almost offensive how little money it is.”
Not as offensive as racism, Mister.

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1 Comment »

One Response to “'Crash' Feud: Everyone Still Racist, Unpaid”

  1. Jerri says:
    July 26, 2006 at 10:20 am

    Oh pul-leeze. People have lots of choices for movies if they want to stay in air-conditioned theaters. Pirates is just one of the better choices!

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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