April 26, 2024
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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
Is there anybody out there just dying to see Angels & Demons? I know the first one made bank, but did anybody actually like it?
Angels and Demons will most likely perform like Prince Caspian did last summer. Fairly large opening followed by a significant drop off as the competition around it (T4, Up) swells. By no means will it bomb, but I also do not think they will catch the same flame.
The posters for it however are everywhere where I live and I must say it is a much better ad campaign. At least it suggests action as opposed to inertia, which the first campaign did.
I’m planning on seeing Angels & Demons, and I hated The DaVinci Code. But I’m hopeful this one will work where the other did not, and I did enjoy the book as a fun thriller (as long as they change the ending). I think it’ll do $150M. People did enoy the book, most people still like Hanks.
I’m really clueless about the Memorial Day weekend…Will T4 win out? will Night of the Museum 2 get close? Will Up suprise all and make a killing? will Drag Me To Hell just completely die? I think Star Trek will be the biggest release of the month. Then T4, then Up, then Wolverine.
I would think that Angels and Demons might have better legs than that simply because it is shooting for an older audience. The quality of the first movie will have muted demand for this one and I don’t think the opening will be that far over forty but it should still make about 150 since most of the competition is from kiddie films.
And there is the question of what happens if it is actually a decent movie. No one seems to think this will be an improvement over Code but isn’t there a chance that it could be a decent thriller?
Museum should outgross Wolverine which is feeling like the lowgrosser among the big releases. It will look a lot like Van Helsing when all is finished. And despite all rational thought (PG-13, McG) T4 is looking like a contender and will possibly be the highest grosser (minus inflation of course) of the series.
“Wolverine” has not yet been released and already it’s being touted as a contender for the Razzies.
@Nicol: That “much better ad campaign” is name-checking “Da Vinci Code” + trailer with Legion of Doom soundtrack. LOSER!
@Hopscotch: “Drag Me to Hell” and “Up” both open on 5/29. Memorial Day is 5/25.
This is almost certainly pointless of me to say, but:
The idea that it’s somehow going to be a bad idea for Angels & Demons to not reference the fact that it’s a sequel to a movie that grossed $750 million, 3 years ago, is I N S A N E.
I mean, yeah, I expect it to be as bad of a movie as DVC was – but that’s not the point.
@Chucky: Just curious as to who the loser in that equation is. Nicol for liking the ad campaign? The ad campaign itself? Or the movie? Or the final box office of the movie.
Actually, I think I’m just asking you to explain the whole “name checking/oscar whoring” thing (which are marketing concepts) to a film’s quality.
The same goes for the whole “remake/sequel/adaptation/tv show movie” rant you like. If that type of programming is so awful, does that mean movies like The Godfather II, The Fly, The Thing, The Maltese Falcon, Adaptation, Naked Gun and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre are for losers who don’t know the joys of pure cinema? Seriously just curious. Want to humor me?
Those “marketing concepts” = Movie Promotion for Dummies. You didn’t see that on a regular basis when Slick Willie was in the White House.
Huh? Non sequitor. Please elaborate.
I think May will look like yam. But, you know, spelled backwards.
Chucky in Jersey,
You idgit. I was referring to the quality of the photography and the overall mood of the campaign in general which suggests a much more summer friendly “ride” type film than the first one which was quite static.
That you could not see that and only thought I was referring to the words on the campaign suggest you do not know half as much as you think.
The first movie was very slow and talky, the new campaign, with blurred motion effects to the photography tries to correct that. I was complementing them.
You fool.
Movie Promotion for Dummies is Hollywood’s way of putting lipstick on a swine.
How about a response that isn’t a slogan, platitude, or cliche?
Does he have that ability to respond that way Jeff?
I think Chuck is saying that promoting the Oscar-associations of a movie’s players is often a way to compensate for a film’s lack of marketable qualities and/or actual quality.
Mystery, when you say it that way, it almost sounds rational. So, that can’t be it.
What Mystery is suggesting is the germ of truth at the heart of Chucky’s anti-name-checking campaign, which he has subsequently overapplied and mis-extrapolated into irrationality.
The idea ‘name-checking may be a sign of lack of marketable qualities/ weak product’, is certainly reasonable, but Chucky has, for reasons unknown, distorted this into ‘name-checking is always a sign of poor quality’ which flies in the face of experience, reason, and basic awareness of reality.
Watching movie campaigns evolve is always interesting.
Every marketer wants to have 30 seconds that make everyone want to see that movie and see it now. But very few movies actually deliver that.
The less you have to work with, the more that value-adders like name-checking turn up. Can’t tell the story in 30 seconds or less… tell them it’s Oscar caliber drama by Oscar-checking. Associate the last big movie. Use lame quotes. Etc, etc, etc.
The problem I have with Chucky’s single-mindedness is that is suggests he has a better alternative at his beck and call.
YOU sell Duplicity or State of Play, m-fer!
I mean, I thought it was a shame that Duplicity’s industrial espionage core wasn’t sold… but would it have added a dime to the box office? Probably not. My personal taste and sense of fairness and Selling Shit do not always match up.
It’s hard out there for a pimp… and marketing movies is pimpin’… and the ho is often pretty ugly… but it hurts even more when “she” is the sweetest lay in the world, but no one can get past the wart on her nose or her peg leg.
This is the closest Chucky has ever come to really explaining himself. And yeah, it does sound almost rational– there are plenty of examples that would corroborate it.
But he’s confusing correlation and causation. He would have to refute 555’s excellent list, and he can’t– every one of those movies is awesome.
Also, he often seems to assert that there’s no difference between a movie and its marketing. But of course they’re not always directly correlated, they’re often made by entirely different personnel.
“This is the closest Chucky has ever come to really explaining himself. And yeah, it does sound almost rational”
That’s because it’s not Chucky explaining himself, it was Mystery doing the heavy lifting of trying to interpret his non sequiturs.
“. . . but it hurts even more when ‘she’ is the sweetest lay in the world, but no one can get past the wart on her nose or her peg leg.”
A wart on her nose and a peg leg? Sorry, that’s a dealbreaker.
> “Those ‘marketing concepts’ = Movie Promotion for Dummies. You didn’t see that on a regular basis when Slick Willie was in the White House.”
I agree. I personally think Bill Clinton was the best President of the last 40 years, as evidenced by the movie marketing campaigns of the period. Things fell apart under George W. Bush, and for all the hype about Obama, he has yet to effect any real change.
Say what you will about John McCain, but movie ads would have been a lot better with him in the oval office.
Nice one, Sam.