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
Dave, how are you not brutalizing that idiot Finke for claiming that Warner’s won with The Women and somehow it was her idea and they listened to her…..IDIOT! They were going to dump that movie at some point, and just because it came with a couple of TV spots…a dump is still a dump. Finke’s an idiot!
I commented at the bottom of the Friday est entry.
I consider the choice a draw at this point. The movie will come close to covering the added expense of this release and it will have increased post-theatrical value as a result of the release.
On the other hand, it will still lose millions of dollars. But I don’t think that the Picturehouse dump with a $3 million ad spend would have done this much money. It may well have been a $7 million grossing yawn.
So… a push. A waste of WB/Picturehouse’s efforts when they have other challenging pictures coming, including another “women’s movie” next weekend. But it didn’t turn out to be a major mistake… and it certainly is not a success by any standard.
Nikki patting herself on the back is not unexpected. And because she understands nothing about box office or business in any real way, I imagine she actualy believes that when a publicist or exec tells her how right she was, she believes it.
Nikki’s value remains as a barometer of who has weak game. And any wag who has to tell you endlessly how powerful they think they are, how ahead of the game they think they are, and how others follow then, is showing their weakness as well.
Are we really down to thinking that “reporting” on who had dinner last week is reporting? Are we really counting press releases as “breaking news?”
It really is like Deliverance out there… trying to paddle upstream when the banjo pickers are talking about all movies being in 3D (when hell freezes over) and which washed up self-promoter they are having lunch with today or sucking up to whatever studio gives them the most information 3 hours before the tell the lie to others or just jerking off in public and hoping it will draw a crowd… zzzzz… a bad dream.
In the Friday estimates blog Joe Leydon made an interesting point when he wondered aloud whether Warners should have bit the bullet and opened “Appaloosa” wide this weekend.
(I remember thinking the same thing last year around this time when WB platformed “Jesse James” into oblivion; and “Appaloosa” is a lot more commercial than “JJ,” even if it lacks a “star who opens movies” name like Brad Pitt.)
…particularly when you consider the cluster fuck of product opening Oct. 3rd, the same day the Ed Harris flick is skedded to, uh, go wide:
“Blindness” (also wide), that cretinous-looking right wing David Zucker comedy, “Nick and Norah,” “BH Chihuahua,” “How to Lose Friends…,” “Religulous” (semi-wide) and either “Flash of Genius” or “The Express” (I think) from Universal. Box Office Mojo hasn’t exactly been clear on the latter.
Anybody want to make a bet that Disney’s talking doggy movie
is #1 at the box-office the weekend of October 3rd?
If Screen Gems didn’t believe in “Lakeview Terrace” they wouldn’t have put together a 60-second TV spot for it. You rarely see 60-second adverts on American TV these days.
To movieman: “Flash of Genius” opens on 10/3 and “The Express” on 10/10.
Thanks dave, i must have missed that. Appreciate it. Everyone together one last time…Kinke is an idiot!
Finke not Kinke…oops.
LAKEVIEW TERRANCE FUCKING OWNS YOUR ASS.
NEIL LABUTE IS THE MASTER.
Watching that limp-dick Zack Morris-lookalike douche played by Patrick Wilson get his clove-smoking environmentalist ass get owned up and down THE TERRACE by Jackson in his most vibrant performance in 14 years is the very definition of TOTAL OWNAGE.
On a scale of zero to four stars I give it 5 million.
Also Kerry Washington?
I’d like to lakeview on her terrace, if you know what I mean.
TOTAL RAGER.
What the hell is up with slapping African American females in movies the last two weeks? Weird and unnecessary.
That scene was the definition of TOTAL OWNAGE.
Weird, out of place and needless.
I too was wondering why Appaloosa didn’t go wide. Surely it could have easily garnered the sort of opening weekend gross that titles like A History of Violence, The Constant Gardener, Eastern Promises and other similar adult-oriented projects get (around $10mil opening w/e). Violence even had the same two leads.
$15 million for Lakeview Terrace seems like a good opening to me. With Jackson as the only above-title star, nothing he’s been in has opened better than that since Coach Carter in January ’05. The only titles with better openings for Screen Gems are flicks like Stomp the Yard and horror offerings. Plus, the budget was apparently only $20 million.