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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Friday, November 20th, 2009 - Comments Off on Who Says Gossip Doesn't Pay?
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Who Says Gossip Doesn't Pay?

epixads2.jpg
When writers, particularly on the web, are accused of quid pro quo on ad sales, I don’t like it… unless there seems to be a clear correlation. After all, having an ad sales division is quite unusual for websites that aren’t under major corporate ownership and everyone needs to eat.
(CORRECTION, November 25 – The inaccuracy of the following paragraph Has been brought to my attention by Ms. Finke and a correction/retraction has been, to quote Ms Finke, “demanded”…
But when the first and only mention of Epix on your blog is unsubstantiated gossip claiming to know of fear in the heart of the direct competition of one of the sources that both constantly feeds you scoop and is one of the corporations partnered in Epix… and then the ads show up shortly thereafter… especially when most studios won’t buy ads on your site with a 10 foot pole… hmmm…
Unfortunately, when I did a search of Deadline Hollywood using its search engine, no Epix headlines came up. But there were, in fact, two. Therefore, I am happy to oblige Ms Finke’s demand. So the paragraph should read…)
But when the only mentions of Epix on your blog are in support of the company, things are suspect. First we got press release boiler plate in “Joint Cable Channel Epix Debuts October.” No big deal. Then there is the EXCLUSIVE press release preview, “Epix Inviting “More Than 1 Million People” To Experience Free Preview Weekends Starting Today Through Thanksgiving.”
And most recently… and suspiciously still hanging out in the “breaking news” links on top of the page even though the “news” is over a week old… is a bit of unsubstantiated gossip claiming to know of fear in the heart of the direct Viacom A/CBS competition of the Viacom B/Paramount leadership that feeds Nikki scoop. For instance, scoop credited to Nikki as important news broken, like John Lesher’s exit from Paramount. Of course, this access is used her to position the “news.” In that case, it was a vicious personal attack on Lesher while he was already humiliatingly being kicked out of the job after a very brief reign. And Nikki’s source/keeper blaming Lesher for being who he is even though Nikki’s source/keeper knew exactly what Lesher’s behavior was like when Lesher lost $150 million in under 2 years at Par Vantage before Nikki’s source promoted him to the job running the studio.
And when this source is a top exec in one of the corporations partnered in Epix… and then the Epix ads show up shortly after Nikki’s attack on CBS’s Showtime… especially when most studios won’t buy ads on your site with a 10 foot pole… hmmm…
(My apologies for my failure to find the two earlier stories on Epix through means other than the Deadline Hollywood search engine. End of Correction.)
Of course, we have ads on MCN for The Hurt Locker and we are promoting a Hurt Locker screening coming up Monday… but the ads have been up a lot longer than its been since we booked the film. Is that the same thing?
Truth is, we sell all of our awards ads in advance of content rolling out. And I don’t think we have ever had ads sold or withdrawn over editorial content over these last seven years. I don’t think anyone has even mentioned it as a threat or a joke.
But y’all can judge for yourselves.

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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