May 3, 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
Great column, David. Angry but completely fair and is type of thing that desperately needs to be read. Hope this sucker goes viral.
I only really had a few comments to make and they are minor ones.
I really don’t know if anyone is really holding their breath for ‘Roger Rabbit 2’, especially if ‘Yellow Submarine’ is on the table. Could be way wrong here but I think a groovy 3D Beatles flick would beat out a 3D Mocap sequel that probably should have been traditionally animated instead anyway (liked the idea of a sequel but never really got sold on the people turning into CGI people in Toontown idea).
Again, I’m sure Zemeckis knows what he’s doing and I love “WFRR” but his movies are becoming increasingly expensive and in light of the caution surrounding even Tintin part of me sort of wonders if Disney or whoever would ask Zemeckis do to a cheaper live action project at some point(or maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part?)
Also, since I was reminded of ‘GI Joe’ I couldn’t help but notice the I guess irony in Rob Cohen’s ‘Mummy 3’ making a whole hundred million dollars more worldwide, all depite being called a box office dissapoitment.
I guess, at the end it all comes back to perseptions as evidence by the whole ‘Golden Compass’ vs ‘Star Trek’ discrepancy. But hey, I guess they must liked what Chriz Weitz had to offer so I guess some people were watching…
And it was interesting to find out that Watchmen will actually make someone money. Snyder is safe though, I’m sure the “right” people were watching here too (though I’m sure he won’t be getting any Twilight sequels… not until the obligatory reboot anyway 😉 ).
(Oh and by the way, it would be interesting to hear your take on DW’s current deal and near future plans.)
A couple of concluding thoughts:
Ice Age is now virtually guaranteed to have more sequels then Shrek.
Robin Hood will make twice as much money as Kingdom of Heaven (or State of Play) and will probably be half as good… (or Body of Lies…)
“Bride Wars played overseas to become a money maker.” Could reverse that to domestic and would be even more true.
I wonder who ‘Princess and the Frog’ damaged more: the traditional animation or the idea of havingAfrican American heroines be leads in animated movies?? I think I know the answer to that question but I cannot help but think of scapegoating.
DP, can you explain the DVD situation further? Or provide a link to sometime when you did? I feel like it’s a business angle that has perpetually been explained somewhere in the past.
Good piece, Dave, but can you lay off of Star Trek, already??? Honestly, can you see any other studio getting more money from that property, in any other year?
Are they really going to lose money, after you account for DVD sales and other ancillaries? Wasn’t the property and its revenue-potential (not just potential, give me a comparison of DVD sales of Trek movies and TV shows vs. previous years) seriously bolstered with the success of that movie? Seriously, show numbers otherwise if I’m wrong.
If you look at 3D as a logical extension of technical innovation in movies, then it’s just inflation. Full length features=> talkies=> color=> widescreen=> large format film=> stereo=> surround=> discrete surround=> digital projection=> Polarized 3D.
“Flat” pictures should be taken at a discount 🙂
David, don’t forget Barnes’ stunningly ignorant assessment of Avatar’s performance this weekend:
“The movie will need to demonstrate supernatural hold on audiences in the coming weeks to avoid becoming a financial calamity for Fox and its financing partners, Dune Entertainment and Ingenious Film Partners.”
Uh, buddy – the “coming weeks” are Xmas and New Year’s. EVERY movie demonstrates a supernatural hold on audiences.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/movies/21box.html?th&emc=th
It’s interesting, Rob. Yes, that is a stupid piece on analysis. But I start to wonder whether there is not a senior editor who has this tendency to grab onto some idea and to keep trying to sell it, no matter how wrong it has been proven to be.
This was true of Waxman & Holson, neither of whom knew dick about the movie business. But Cieply is very experienced and seems to exhibit this problem at times. And Barnes, who may be a good reporter in some other context, is a out and out disaster area… and that comment on Avatar is not only ignorant, but also suggests he is still trying to sell his $500 million story, even though it was embarrassingly incompetent in its math offerings.
Geoff – Paramount is likely to hit black because of the distribution fees. Their financial partners are likely to lose some money. And no, there is no indication of any great benefit to previous incarnations as a result of this film. They did re-release the old movies in Blu… but they seem to have sold about as well as you would expect without a new movie. I don’t have hard sales figures, as none have been released. But looking at whatever charting there is, that seems to be the case.
Of course they did a great job creating revenue. They also spent waaaaaay to much money on the film. Sorry that it’s this year’s best example of that, as it is both very successful and not profitable. In the past, that movie would be Superman Returns or Men In Black II or minor profitable X3.
J-Mc… what part of the DVD thing would you like me to dig into?
Allow me to jump on the DVD wagon and ask why is it DVD sales figures are hard to come by (while data concerning Blu-Rays is virtually non-existent)?
The-numbers.com is the only site I know of that does it consistently and their data only goes back a few years and hardly ever goes beyond just the top 50.
Seems like a fairly easy thing to track. So why is it so neglected? With all the hype surrounding DVD sales just a few years back one would assume this type of info would be more in demand (you would hear about the top sellers and record breakers but that would be it).
So is it intentionally downplayed or is there just a lot less interest than I assumed there would be?
Or do
I’d be interesting in knowing the following about DVD:
1. Has overall revenue declined or is it the rate of growth in revenue that’s declined or stagnated?
2. How do overall sales figures break down among feature films / television / other?
3. How does revenue or units sold compare with other delivery streams– digital sales, physical rental, and digital / on-demand rental?
4. And how much do you know about the digital sales and rental revenue streams? I’d be curious to know how the accounting works for something that has a near-zero marginal production cost.
I know that Jeff has expressed interest in one or two of the above in the past, especially the first.
Gonzo…
I’ll tell you why I think they don’t release DVD sales figures. I’m a profit participant in both seasons of “Masters Of Horror,” and not just in the net-points bullshit way. All the writers receive a significant of the sales figures. Or we’re supposed to, anyway.
But since there are no sales figures available to us, we have no way of knowing what we do or don’t get paid or what we are owed. Since Carpenter and the other directors are also profit participants, what we get should be the same as what they get, or at least should be a smaller percentage, paid out on the same schedule.
Not even close. The directors have been paid major bank. The writers are lucky if they get a check a year. Why?
Because there’s no accountability short of a lawsuit. And that’s just the way the partners on MOH like it.
Industry-wide, there is an intense desire to keep DVD sales and rental figures quiet expressly because it makes it easier to not pay residuals that are owed.
That’s my sense of it, anyway.
Drew. I’m guessing thats the feeling amongst all the writers who worked on both seasons and have failed to pay out. I’ve seen DVDs of that series in many many countries so it sold well outside of the US too. Is there a reluctance to hit em with an a combined audit request from a writers collective? I mean will it jeopardise future work with those who produced the show for the writers? If not, then why not become more aggressive, either spend the $20k+ amongst yourselves or find a specialist who’ll do this on commish if the potential payout warrants it.
Eric pretty much summed up all the questions I’ve had, especially the first, but also the big question mark I have is how all of that is perceived. I keep writing about people in town freaking out because of ‘the DVD slowdown’ but if that’s a slowdown in growth rates then freaking out is stupid because it just means the market is saturated; if sales rates are actually in decline then why is that happening?
Thanks for your take, Drew. I suspect that sadly you may be very correct even though there are probably other although closely related reasons such PR and damage control why such data would be supressed.
And yet, I cannot help but think that even with these presumbed studio efforts this data should still be available out there if some just cared to set up an appropriate framework (by the way, video game sales tracking is notoriously bad too with vgcharts.com being very unreliable). Part of it comes from my belief that at least on the high level (I’m not talking about highly specific data for that could be basis for revenue sharing for non top 50 or whatever) cannot be completely surpressed. Please feel free to correct me. This is sort what the-numbers had done but it’s been a relatively slow process for everyone else.
Sorry, David. But how do you know that Box Office Mojo ‘make them up’? It is a very serious accusation, and you couldn’t make this accusation without giving some serious proofs.
As I know, Box Office Mojo sources the numbers from multiple industry sources (at least, it is according to what my friend tell me)
marychan… there are no such sources. And if there were, the numbers would be charted. Same is true for Paul D. The tickets sold number is nothing but an estimate. Gross divided by MPAA price per ticket = the estimate.
And where do they get their production budget figures? Not from anyone who knows anything real. At least 50% of them are wrong. Almost all seem to be what someone in the media prints.
I have no problem with Mojo making a living. They came up with a solid, helpful service. But they are not a tracking company. Like ERC in the past, they print what they are told by the studios. Having it organized as they do is a terrific tool. But they aren’t doing what Rentrack does. They aren’t in that business.
The only thing special about what Mojo does is that they did it. It is more usable than any other site. Win. But there isn’t a single proprietary thing on that site, aside from two writers’ writing… including foreign box office, which they get from the trades.
The Barnes story is one of the most absurd I had read in some time.
David, the sources of Box Office Mojo including both multiple studios and theatre operators (at least, it is based on what I was told by some friend).
yes, Box Office Mojo’s numbers is the estimate, but so as many other industry-wide aggregation of sales datas. And I think Box Office Mojo’s numbers wouldn’t be too far from the truth. Anyway, it it not very suitable to says that Box Office Mojo ‘make them up’; they didn’t just says somethings without any base.
And Box Office Mojo didn’t gets all foreign box office infos from the trades.
(ie. For the Hong Kong box office numbers, Box Office Mojo gets the numbers directly from official Hong Kong sources)
I don’t know too much about Rentrak’s research method, but I guess their numbers are also estimates (arguably the very reliable estimates). Anyway, the ususally-reliable Rentrak has their mistakes, too. (For select films’ DVD sales numbers, Rentrak’s numbers are even lower than Videoscan’s numbers…. What the….?)
KILL BILL made 40 million on its first DVD release day alone. Somebody out there is making money.
What else is new? Any story that originates with the New York Times is automatically suspect.