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
I actually think Disney is being really shrewd with its Nature marketing. They already have the trailer for Oceans up, slated for next Earth Day. Kids documentaries about animals as a yearly plant on the same date…
Obsessed doing this well shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. With all the advertising and the likely trailer before Fast & Furious, I would have thought the number Fighting would be similar to Obsessed. I wonder why that did only 4.4 mil.
The “shocking” opening day figure for “Earth” really isn’t all that surprising.
Disney shrewdly marketed the film to schools (both elementary and junior high).
Even with special group rates in effect, that meant one helluva lot of tickets sold. (And plenty of school buses clogging multiplex parking lots.)
It’ll be interesting to see how it performs on non-school days, though.
My guess? Not-so-great.
“March of Penguins” this ain’t.
Again, I wonder: Do folks who play the b.o. guessing game chronically underestimate African-Americans (and, for that matter, kids) while making predictions?
Yes, Joe it would seem they do.
Not that Obsessed looks particularly original, but Fighting looks so damn generic and hokey. I don’t think the opening number is surprising. Obsessed had great TV spots and a great trailer. I would much rather see it than Fighting just because of Idris Elba. I’d watch Stringer Bell in just about anything. And yes, definitely Joe. It seemed to happen every time a Tyler Perry movie was released.
Tracking historically undercounts the very young and the very ethnic.
yeah, everytime a piece of crap like Alvin and the Chipmunks or Garfield or on the African American side with Medea… the Monday morning talk is how surprised everyone is.
Let’s face it, all things considered, Beverly Hills Cop IV starring Tyler Perry would be a safer bet than Beverly Hills Cop IV starring Eddie Murphy.
“Earth” and “The Soloist” both went out upmarket/arthouse where available. There are quite a few arthouses that opened both pics.
Scott — insert joke about tranvestites and Eddie Murphy here….
I think it was Lex or IO that said in the other entry that Obsessed is “meat and potatoes” cinema. So true. And that’s clearly something people are looking for this year. Plus the marketing was everywhere and I was only over there for two weeks!
Piling on Ray Pride with my take that The Soloist is about the photography and music. I want to be incentified to own it on DVD: include the book, the columns re-printed and commentaries with groups of two or three — director, 2nd unit dir, VFX dir, consultants (Lopez, Ayers and biopict’d familia), stars — chirping away while I switch back and forth between commentaries. Mayhap, was it funny here in the book? And since it had musical numbers, how that happenstance informed the process.