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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

It's Not Just The Weinstein's Problem

Would it be a failure of the Weinsteins became another Imagine or, for arguments sake, year 2003 Miramax? I don’t think so. Building a distribution machine is very expensive and very difficult. It has become an institutional business. Anyone with the money and access to talented people can make a movie. But wide release distribution is not something you just walk into … even if you can luck into a success or two.
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One Response to “It's Not Just The Weinstein's Problem”

  1. Martin S says:

    Since this column ties into the Roth/Rifkin pieces, I’d like to point out how two of the films listed, both by Roth surprisingly, seem only halfway interesting.
    That being said, how the hell Roth still gets a line of credit from anyone is beyond my understanding. Revolution was a disaster, and his current slate looks to be churning out the same gunk. And the Rifkin slate…ugh.
    What I’m finding most interesting is that all the Dependents/Big Indies reminds me of the network biz back in the 80’s, early 90’s. All these satillite companies bumping out pilots that really had no purpose in being except as chunks between commercial blocks. It wasn’t until the mid-90’s when ABC and FOX decided to keep it all in the family that the pilot glut streamlined.
    I think this is what you might be indirectly referencing, Dave, when you talk about how sweet the studio gig is going to look in a year.
    Oh – you talk about NBCUni and Sony being sold, my question is how much longer do you think Lionsgate is going to hold out? And who the hell is going to buy NBCUni, or do you think it’s going to be split and sold? I could see NBC at WB.
    Now you got me thinking…wouldn’t the feds get involved if Uni and Sony ended with FOX, Viacom or Disney? In ten years, we’ll have gone from ten studios to three. I think the Ma Bell precedent would have to come into effect, especially when you take your distribution model into consideration.

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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