April 20, 2024
Box Office
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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
Wow…what a bomb for the Apatow factory, and a slap in the face for John C. Reilly as a leading man. Seems to be general indifference so most of the week’s releases, but it is good news that Sweeney Todd will be around a $10,000 per theatre average…all those worries that it couldn’t be marketed properly should have been redirected toward Tom and Julia.
Who would think Sweeney Todd would be so popular around the holidays? Makes me wonder if AVP2 will crush the competition on Christmas.
Yeah, that’s a pretty dire opening for “Walk Hard” allright.
Not sure what went wrong there: the marketing, the lack of marquee players, the (relatively) esoteric subject matter?
Everything else went pretty much as expected.
“AVP2” will be an eight-day wonder.
Is anyone REALLY chomping at the bits to see this thing? The first one blew chunks, and this looks like the direct-to-video sequel.
“Sweeney” should have no trouble sticking around through Oscar season.
WALK SOFT – Ouch – Apatow just found a giant turd in his xmas stocking.
A kick in the nuts is the best thing that could have happened to the Apatow factory. They do their best work as underdogs – when lightweight fluff like SUPERBAD gets likened to seminal coming-of-age films, you know they needed a good kneecapping to bring them down a peg or two. Maybe some vulnerability and humility will force them to produce genuine greatness in the future.
i liked Walk Hard. Not the funniest film ever made but good for a few laughs. I agree it was probably a hard film to market, but it’s still a lot of fun.
Hey, Walk Hard has made about one third of the total gross for Bob Roberts.
Maybe audiences don’t have quite that taste for Cox?
I saw “Walk Hard” yesterday in the early evening. My heart sank when my girlfriend and I walked into the auditorium, ten minutes before it was to start, and found we were the first ones in. Luckily we didn’t end up alone–a good dozen or so strolled in, and all seemed to really, really enjoy it. Nobody left until the ending credits were done (I guess they all wanted to listen to Dewey).
I really, really liked it. I thought it was very funny. My only negative was that I would have loved to have seen all the bits in the trailer incorporated into the film, seeing them played out in the context of story. I’m sure like all Apatow-produced films it’ll have a fantastic DVD with all those goodies.
But like it has been stated time and time again the sad, scary thing about the film business is is that nobody is bulletproof. As David wrote this film was a tough sell (which has been also stated elsewhere in the press time and time again). While I found the trailer of the film to be funny, maybe because I read into the film far in advance and therefor I was reacting to it in anticipation rather than trying to be sold on it, all the times I saw the trailer in the theater (starting with “Superbad”) it barely got a chuckle out of those in the audience. “Give him a minute, son. Dewey Cox has to think about his entire life before he play.” Does anybody other than a few remember that that was the hook of “Walk the Line”? Heck, it took me several viewings of the trailer before I got the joke “Have you met my wife, Cheryl Cox-Tiegs?”
Because this is a spoof that doesn’t depend up on sight gag after sight gag (and those scenes that have them aren’t appropriate for a green-band trailer) it’s just too hard a sell. Plus the genius of the film is that as irreverent as it is it’s really sincere, which can only confuse people if expressed in the marketing.
(Why wasn’t a red-band trailer made of this film? Or was there one and I just didn’t know about it?)
I’ve honestly been a fan of Apatow since “The Ben Stiller Show” (which I watched when it first aired) and have been thankful that the man has finally been able the achieve the financial and popular success that he deserves. He’s had to fight for much of his work to be made. “Superbad” was something that took years to get produced, and thanks to “Talladega Nights” Sony gave him a shot. It’s not as if Apatow has produced safe-bet films and that’s why he’s such a success. He produces what he finds funny, and he wins some opening weekend and he wins some on video. Sure, “Walk Hard” has a long, hard walk ahead but it will…walk hard.
Jeffrey Boan: By any chance, are you one of the apparently many folks here who’s either in the industry, or wants to be?
Everytime I think of Walk Hard I think of that episode of Just Shoot Me was like an documentary of Nina Van Horn. Not sure why. But then I remember that episode of Just Shoot Me is one of the funniest episodes of any tv show ever. Stranger, considering the show normally wasn’t that good.
Wow. That was off topic.
Universal should have changed the title of CWW back in August to just Charlie Wilson. At the very least that should have been obvious after Michael Clayton’s performance. I think they could have doubled their opening if they’d just done that.
Here’s your average movie goer. “what should we see, that movie Charlie Wilson has Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, probably worth a shot.”
versus what’s actually happening.
“what should we see, not Charlie Wilson’s War, that’s about Iraq (and choose one of the following options), damn liberal-hollywood and their ignorant agenda pushing/God, I hate BushRoveCheney.”
Apatow has corned the market on sincerity. Cameron Crowe does not come across as sincere as Apatow lately. Nevertheless; Walk Hard should have been released a couple of months ago. This release date simply did not work for this film.
Of course it’s the 21st century, the DVD will be huge, and people will see it that way. Sure the first weekend sucked. Yet I could have sworn that some guy once said that; “The first weekend does not represent the quality of thge film.” This seems apt in the case of DEWEY COX!
Wasn’t it Stanley Kubrick that told Neil Jordon that movies with allusions to war and soldiers in the title inevitibly fail.
We need someone to compile Kubrick’s advice to his fellow filmmakers. Seriously. I reread Frederic Raphael’s book on Eyes Wide Shut last week and as much as Raphael tries to one-up him Kubrick’s words just seem like plain unvarnished truth.
The marketing for Walk Hard was one of the worst I have ever seen. Horrible poster. Horrible. I had a pass to see a screening of this a few weeks ago and even though I love Apatow, love Jack White and like Reilly, the huge pass with that poster turned me off.
Everywhere; on bus shelters and sides of buildings all I have seen for a month was that God awful image of Reilly with his shirt off and a space cadet look on his face as his fleshy, pasty white body took up a third of the frame. Not funny at all. Actually, once you see it enough times it is borderline gross and grating.
And also: the film is a parody of Walk the Line; why in hell are the selling it as a spoof of The Doors? The image of Reilly is inspired by a classic Jim Morrison image that the majority of teens will have no idea about. Because of Walk the Line, they may know Johnny Cash. Bad decisions all around.
As for CWW war…before Sweeney Todd there was a preview for some new Ryan Phillipe film called Redacted from the Rendition of Charlie Elah. You could feel the audience’s non-interest in another liberal preach-a-thon. It will bomb and I suspect there are more on the way. Sad to see one of my favourite audience pleasing childhood actors, Tom Hanks going down this sad, facile politics before craft and audience, road.
This might fall under the heading of urban legend, but… I vaguely remember reading somewhere that George Lucas was told Star Wars would be a really, really bad title for a movie.
Joe – yes.
Nicol, how is Charlie Wilson ‘poorly crafted’? Or is that just something you’re assuming without having seen it, and without defining your terms?
Jeffrey Boan: Figures. Sorry, but when I read something like “you know they needed a good kneecapping to bring them down a peg or two,” it confirms my worst suspicions that the level of unbridled professional jealousy on this blog (and HE) is reaching toxic levels. You are by no means the worst offender in that regard. Indeed, compared to many, you are restrained in your schadenfreude. But I wonder if some of you insiders (or wanna-be insiders) ever wonder how you come across to some of us outsiders.
Joe, you write for Variety. You’re not an outsider.
The best part of the [i]Stop Loss[/i] trailer was when Joseph Gordon-Levitt puts the bottle of beer through the window.
Other than that…
…meh.
“You could feel the audience’s non-interest in another liberal preach-a-thon.”
Is this some kind of sixth sense that people are supposed to have, or is Nicol just blowing smoke up his own ass again?