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 Pan’s Labyrinth is doing almost as well as Dreamgirls on 1/3 the screens, and is beating the Queen at the expansion game with only 2/5 their screens. Does anyone doubt that PL could have earned that Crouching Tiger type of nomination if it weren’t for a shortened season? The film looks like it could be an unexpected commercial success (for a Spanish language R rated ‘dark’ movie)
Pursuit of Happyness continues to do phenomenally well. Perhaps it’ll surprise us on monday with unexpected nominations.
Locke the Pan number is good but it certainly doesn’t suggest lots of $$ down the road. Crouching Tiger comparison is crazy, PL will be happy to finish up with 20 mill domestic and a nice DVD run.
Plus CROUCHING was a total box-office fluke that won’t be repeated any time soon. Even Barker and Bernard, hardly the most modest of men, admitted they never expected it to do anywhere near those kind of numbers.
You just answered your own question locke. Pan’s is a “Spanish language R rated ‘dark’ movie”. Best Director, quite possibly (it’s still possible now), but Picture? No way.
Why do people keep going on about longer Oscar season when so many people seem to hate discussing the Oscars so much. Is another month what we want? And, if you do think something like Pan’s could get a Best Picture nomination, then why didn’t they bother releasing it in October or sometime like that? It screened at CANNES! It’s not like it wasn’t ready.
Yeah, “Pan: is certainly nothing like Crouching Tiger. But to be fair, it doesn’t have near the marketing campaign and this really is a much tougher film to market than Crouching Tiger. The marketers can’t figure out what demographic to go after specifically.
Either way, strong word of mouth has propelled the film over $10 million over the weekend and it should pass “The Protector” in 5 days. Might crack the top 10 foreign language films of all time (non-US) in a week. The film’s early box office legs are much stronger than Capote’s were last year so a sneak-in still might have a 1 in 50 possibility.