Okay… so if, as a blog commenter wrote, Bridge to Samantha Stevens’ Daughter (aka Bridge To Terebithia) actually cost $30 million… or even $40 million or $50 million, a $28 million 4-day weekend – for a kids movie, likely to signal a film that cracks $100 million – will make the movie a major profit center. (Far more so than An Inconvenient Truth, which Peter Bart oddly claimed a few weeks ago is Paramount’s “Paramount’s single most profitable release.”)
Meanwhile, February has become
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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
… And yet there were no shortage of reviews on rottentomatoes.com for Ghost Rider on Friday.
For “event” films like GR, just having more print space is a plus, bad review or not. Skipping critics screenings just seems archaic now, even if it is becoming more popular.
I see a trend w/ the studio skipping critics screening. This is very threatening, if studios feel they do better w/o online & news critics…so maybe they’re relying on ‘user reviews’ / consumer critics for the word-of-mouth business? But that’s dangerous because anybody including Studio employees can go to AOL or Yahoo and write a great review.
Whoa! sorry, but typepad was faulty.
There has to be some kind of a breaking point/shift regarding critics and reviews and audience reaction. It really seems to be poisonous to the movie industry that bad movies can recoup their investment thanks to a single huge weekend, the culmination of a long and ominous trend. Isn’t it supposed to happen that people text-message their friends immediately to tell them that something isn’t worth seeing? Is there any way around the opening-weekend hype machine or is this just another step on the road to the decline of the theatrical experience?
Pulled the TypePad created multiples, Chi48
David, Tyler Perry’s first movie Diary of a Mad Black Woman did screen for critics, at least here in New York City… I think it was the reaction of critics to that first movie which made them decide to not bother with others.
“There has to be some kind of a breaking point/shift regarding critics and reviews and audience reaction. It really seems to be poisonous to the movie industry that bad movies can recoup their investment thanks to a single huge weekend, the culmination of a long and ominous trend. Isn’t it supposed to happen that people text-message”….and cell phones. I was in the theatre when a woman came out and immed. went to her cell phone, called a friend, and raved about Freedom Writers. Everything is so instant nowadays.
That’s why studios are sweating – information travels faster.
“There has to be some kind of a breaking point/shift regarding critics and reviews and audience reaction. It really seems to be poisonous to the movie industry that bad movies can recoup their investment thanks to a single huge weekend, the culmination of a long and ominous trend. Isn’t it supposed to happen that people text-message”….and cell phones. I was in the theatre when a woman came out and immed. went to her cell phone, called a friend, and raved about Freedom Writers. Everything is so instant nowadays.
That’s why studios are sweating – information travels faster.
Jeff and Chicago: Of course information is traveling faster. The catch is, it may not be the information you think (or wish) it to be. The word that may have gotten spread very quickly this weekend is: Hey, Ghost Rider is awesome, man. Friends may be telling friends they actually like this movie.
Indeed. I imagine 13-year-old boys all across the country were wetting their pants during the picture.
Well that’s okay – if 13 year olds like Ghost Rider, I have to imagine that’s progress from Daredevil, which I can’t imagine anyone really liking.
I dunno, as someone who actually paid money to see Ghost Rider hoping for a dumb fun time, I’m not so sure 13-year-old boys will respond to it all that much. It’s not even really one of those movies where you’re like, “well, it was stupid and made no sense, but the special effects were pretty awesome and those two action set pieces were killer”… it’s more like ELEKTRA in that it’s not even a particularly exciting movie; it sets up some potentially dopey-cool fights and then sorta punks out on them. It’s more fun than ELEKTRA (and less disappointing than DAREDEVIL) only because Nicolas Cage acts like a total goofball in it. I doubt the target audience will respond to that aspect of it as well as I did. I’d be surprised if it dropped less than 55% next weekend.
To my knowledge GHOST RIDER had a fair number of Thursday night promo screenings, too late for Friday’s papers obviously but in time for online writers to have opening day reviews. It’s the way that several “unscreened” films are still having those Friday reviews. Apparently there must be some value for the studios to do this. Are they just trying to dodge print reviews?
I see the movie/film industry being segregated – sorry to use that word. There are three types of movies being made:
1) the serious – “it ought to win an Oscar” movie
2) the comic book/cartoonish movie (Superman, Ghost Rider)
3) and the family movie
Studios are jockeying for ‘seasonal’ releases. You know that January-February is the dump-the-movie season. The summer is crammed with the big blockbusters and come September there are the serious/big-star calvacade type movies.
In between there will be the indy releases. I can see why this industry is causing ‘good’ actors to run to television jobs.
Actually, newspapers on the East Coast — and wire services with East Coast critics/correspondents — will have a decided advantage if this “no preview” policy continies, even if Thursday night screenings are curtailed. If you’re in, say, NYC — or Florida — you simply have your critic attend the first showing at a local theater, then rush back to the office (or home office) and write a review. It can be posted on-line by late afternoon — and will appear earlier in the afternoon in other time zones. Think about it: If the review appears at 4 pm EST, it can be read at 1 pm West Coast time.
Which, of course, will mean that NYC critics will gain even more power and influence than they already have.