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
Good stuff, Dave. Way to work in the Disney stuff on such short notice. I’ve seen some reports analyzing ten years of studio entertainment segments among the majors that are public (TWX, NWS, VIA, and DIS). Granted that the studio segments aren’t necessarily directly comparable due to TV, home video genre, and other stuff. However, on thing is clear from those reports, Disney and News Corp consistently produces much higher maligns than Time Warner and Viacom. Even adjusting for the fact that Disney and News have been on content rolls that can always falter, the bottom line is that those two studios operate leaner and meaner and better.
I don’t follow television numbers much but has Disney Channel completly killed Viacom’s Nikelodien? You would always hear about how kids went insane over Rugrats or Spongebob, and now it appears that Disney has taken over that crowd with Miley and the Jonas Bros.
Perhaps, hcat. I think they are somewhat complimentary and run age-variable programming. But the cable divisions are accounted for separately.
My notation is about TV production, not cable nets or abc.
Pretty sure Case 39 has been delayed for over a year. I think it is left over from the Berman era.
Great breakdown, Dave. Is the 8% distrib standard for all DW projects?
Disney Channel is an F’ing monster right now. Iger’s helped turn that into the perfect form of synergy and the output could be monstrous for the next three years. They need to capitilize on dragging one of the Playhouse Disney shows into a theatrical run to really get rolling.
FOX produces a lot of meh, but the model is hard to argue with. MGM tried it in the 90’s but never had the right talent to produce the in-house properties, Rollerball being the poster child.
hcat, DP has it right.
It is true that the Disney Channel has cut into Nickelodeon’s growth rate although Nick is still growing nicely compared to most media assets and a lot of other cable nets (in a financial sense).
However, when comparing the Studio segments of the major conglomerates, the cable nets are separate. In all cases there is separate cable network segment. Even here is it difficult to compare. For example, Disney Channel carries no advertising and lives on promotional dollars and affiliate fees. And ESPN, which dominates Disney’s cable net segment operates on a different financial model than pretty much every other cable net due to the huge sports rights contracts and the way they are passed thoruhg to distributors (cable and satellite) and ultimatley viewers via affiliate fees.