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
No wonder Lionsgate hid “Killers:” the movie positively reeks.
Even without the noxious presence of Gerard Butler, this may be an even worse Robert Luketic film than last summer’s repellent “Ugly Truth.” And Heigl, who I’ve always liked (even in “Ugly”), is genuinely unappealing for the first time on screen.
Except for Catherine O’Hara and Tom Selleck who (occasionally) made me smile as Heigl’s parents, this is ten-worst-list-worthy, bottom of the barrel dreck.
Another stinker like this (and “Ugly”) and my warm and fuzzy memories of Luketic’s “Legally Blonde” and (grossly underrated) “Tad Hamilton” will have vanished into the ether.
“Greek,” “Splice” and even the “surprisingly-not-terrible” “Marmaduke” all deserved a better opening, though.
Still wanna see “Slice” though, numbers or not. Anyone wanna share their opinions on it?
I liked “Splice” well enough, even if it’s a tad too derivative of early-to-mid Cronenberg (“The Brood,” “Scanners,” “The Fly,” etc.) for comfort. Nice seeing real actors like Brody and Polley in a genre film, though, and it has more than enough “ewwwww!” moments to keep you goosed. The French actress (name?) who plays Dren reminded me of Patty Duke in “The Miracle Worker:” if Duke’s Keller hadn’t been blind, sprouted reversible wings and killed small animals with her bare hands (then ate them raw). Overall it’s a nice mix of (pace Cronenberg) the cerebral and the visceral.
Universal is now guaranteed to go at least 9 months without a number 1 movie at the box office…
At least, “Get Him To The Greek” will make profit.
I am surprised by the US box office result of “Splice” as well.
Maybe “Splice” would do better if Dark Castle/Warner Bros just open this film in about 700-800 theaters and then bulid the film from there. The matter proves that specialty divisions need to exist; some films would do better if they get more careful nurturing from specialty divisions. (I believe the films like “The Hurt Locker”, “Moon”, “An Education” and even “Slumdog Millionaire” would also die quickly if they just received 2000+ theaters opening from major studios.)
Anyway, I guess the financers and makers of “Splice” would still be happy; a 2000+ theaters release in the US would considerably increase this small Canadian indie film’s ancillary revenue in worldwide. Wanrer Bros also won’t lose any money for this film (since Wanrer Bros only releases this film in US for getting distribution fee.) The only loser would be Dark Castle (which spend $35 million P&A to release this film in US theatrically.)
PS: It was sad that Bill Pohlad disavowed “Splice” and killed Apparition
I really enjoyed “Splice.” The Cronenberg comparison is dead-on. Great body horror and actually rather scary. Easily the best theatrical horror film in some time, though I don’t want to sound like I’m damning it with faint praise.
Even if people miss “Splice” in the theaters, it’s the kind of thing that’s going to be around forever.
Splice was never gonna break out with that awful marketing. I’m not saying I know how to market a film like that, but it looked way worse than it actually was in the ads.
I’m also genuinely surprised (and not unhappy) that Russell Brand and Jonah Hill were more appealing to audiences than Heigl and Kutcher
I don’t see how a small distributor would have sold something like Splice more effectively than a major. How much could it possibly have grossed if Apparition released it? Probably not as much as it will make this weekend. Also, did Killers really cost $70 to produce, making it Lionsgate’s most expensive movie ever? Not sure if that was money well spent.
My main reaction to “Killers” was that I felt sorry for poor (brilliant) O’Hara. She’s the best thing in the movie, but all they give her is one joke after another about how hilarious it is to be a lush.
Why is anyone shocked that Splice opened small? The Big Perm has been calling that for months. Some movies, even if they’re great, just don’t ever seem to open.
Shrek still has to be seen as somewhat of a a disappointment. It’s like if the new Harry Potter comes out and makes 150 million domestic total you can say hey, it made way more than Percy Jackson & the Olympians, but so what…obviously WB isn’t gunning for Percy Jackson & the Olympians money.
I don’t think anyone is shocked by Splice’s opening, except maybe DP.
At least, “Splice” could hold in theaters for much longer time. Also, Apparition wouldn’t waste $35 million P&A just to help this film to gross around $20 million in US theatrically. (For a distributor, spending $3 million P&A to make $5 million box office gross is better than spending $35 million P&A to make $20 million box office gross)
I think Dark Castle is also shocked by Splice’s opening; otherwise, Dark Castle would not spend $35 million to market and release “Splice” in US theatrically.
If that number for Dark Castle’s spending on Splice is real (and I don’t doubt that it is), some jobs should be on the line. I’m just stunned that anyone thought this movie was commercial–or, at least, that it could be sold as such.
Stella, I’ve read a number of predictions around ye olde internet that Splice would be making 20 mil to 30 mil this weekend. Some around here. Kind of like how Kickass was going to be a huge blockbuster but in the end made just about the amount of money you’d expect a movie like that to make.
Outside of DP I never saw any predictions like that. I want to see it but it never looked like a breakout hit to me. Always seemed like a tough sell to mainstream audiences.
I saw Splice and loved Splice, but the movie was never going to open because the trailer just wasn’t that interesting (it was sold as a garden-variety creature feature, which it absolutely is not). The only reason I ran out and saw it was because of the early reviews. Minus positive word of mouth from fellow film nerds and a few critics, I would have had no interest in seeing it. And if I wasn’t initially interested, and my horror-junkie wife wasn’t interested, then the movie never had a chance with general moviegoers.
Also, “small Canadian indie” isn’t really apt, I’m pretty sure the budget was in the $25-30 million zone, whereas only one “true” Canadian movie (no foreign money) has cost over $10 million.
It just so happened that the Canadian government (Telefilm) put $2.5 million into it, which is akin to the financial aid it’s given some of Cronenberg’s more expensive movies.
SPLICE SEMI-SPOILER…
NOT GONNA GIVE IT AWAY but vaguely SPOILERISH…
Kinda wish everyone (meaning almost every single Hot Blog regular– and I’m look at you, Geoff, in particular!) HADN’T pumped up Splice so much, particularly by hinting at the presence of something surprising to mass audiences. Thanks to every web critic and message board guy teasing that, it’s too easy to figure out just what to expect.
Still: DREN POWER (except for the creepy feet, they should’ve changed that to human feet.) And the finale was too dark and woodsy. Can they ban WOODS from all movies again, ever? It always seems murky and chintzy.
If you guessed what that twist was, Lex….get you to the Vegas and bet on thw world series outcome. I’m calling BS.
I went and found out what that twist actually is and I laughed my ass off. Seriously, it would have been a lot more fun of a movie if it featured Steve.
I called it here like four days ago, based on everyone saying YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHERE IT GOES IN THE LAST THIRD, the audiences are gonna FREAK OUT!
How could you not guess it from that big of a tipoff?
There’s not really a “twist,” anyway.
Fine. It’s just weird. Does that make you feel better?
I am mildly surprised by the numbers for Marmaduke. Setting aside the quality of the film for a moment — I wonder if (a) parents who had to buy 3D-price-bumped tickets for Shrek 4 decided it was too early for another visit to the megaplex,and/or (b) the title character meant nothing to many small fry because they have never seen the newspaper comic strip (because, maybe, their parents don’t subscribe to newspapers)?
gradystiles, the source of Dark Castle’s P&A spending on “Splice” is Mike Fleming. (Based on his article, it also looks like what a_loco writes should be real.) You can see Mike Fleming’s article in here.
http://www.deadline.com/2010/06/the-life-of-splice-the-unlikeliest-major-studio-summer-release
Lex: I’ll concede that you could see the first instance of “that” coming. The second? Probably not so much, and its thoroughness was truly a holy-fucking-shit moment that silenced the snickering crowd at the screening I attended.
Also was Brody wearing a wig, or is his hair that weird when it’s long? If that was a wig, I want to get one just like it.
Come now, LexG – when you’re discussing a movie like this, you can either give away the spoilers or not, there’s really no way to win.
That said, I think in this post Sixth Sense-era, a lot of us getting a little too “clever” for own good trying to predict every twist, as if all really matters. I was hearing for months and months on end about how “easily” every one could predict the twists of Shutter Island from the trailers playing endlessly and sorry, I don’t see how ANY ONE could have predicted how that ending played out the way it did. And even if you could, it’s all about the ride – that movie took me for a ride.
And same with Splice, SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
Sure, you could have kind of seen it coming that Brody’s character could have sex with Dren but man, could you really be sure the movie would go that far? Most movies wouldn’t.
And sorry, LexG – you were able to predict the following sequence of events in the last ten minutes of the movie:
– Dren raping Sarah Polley’s character
– Polley’s character hesitating on taking Dren out long enough for Dren to kill Brody’s character
– Polley being pregnant with Dren’s baby
That’s a fucked up Shakespearian (in the director’s words at the Q&A) sequence of events that I sure did not see coming, NO ONE in the audience I saw it with saw it coming – Lex if you could see all that coming, then you should play the lottery or maybe really get cracking on that screenwriting career.
Yes, a lot of the chatter hinted at something “sexual,” even the ads did; however, there’s a big difference between hinting at something and how you truly execute it, how far you go and how you play it out.
I mean, when I saw District 9, it sure made logical sense that Sharlto Copley’s was becoming a prawn, but wow…..that last shot of him making that garbage flower still knocked me out.
i feel a bit sorry for geoff here, i’ve read what he’s written about splice and didnt find it particularly spoilery. he said the third act was twisted, a bit ‘overstuffed’ (i think that was the word) and basically too out there for mainstream commercial success rather than genre success, i don’t see how any of this is indicative of the thing of it.
(and nobody should have to curb their enthusiasm for a movie they really liked on a film blog for fear of over-inflating someone else’s expectations; reader beware. spoilers are one thing, but being all stoked for something is quite another, that’s what it’s all about. if you don’t feel that same more’s the pity but that’s on you)
well, obviously geoff’s post wasn’t visible in the thread yet when i posted mine, only after posting (facepalm)
No need for sympathy, Leahnz, it’s all good – the expectations game is a tricky one to avoid, online.
I just don’t buy it when some one says they predicted everything that would happen in a movie.
If a movie is done well enough, it just doesn’t matter – hell, I just recently saw that full Avatar trailer again. Wow, it gives away just about every money shot in the movie, didn’t even realize it. Didn’t hurt my continuous enjoyment of that movie, one bit.
marychan, I’m well aware of where the Dark Castle P&A numbers came from. I read the same Fleming article you did. All I’m saying is that that’s a ridiculous amount for them to spend.
The twist is totally figure-outable, not just based on plot logic (although that, too), but also this:
(Spoiler, I guess). “Splice” is a “Frankenstein” movie. Polley’s character is named Elsa. There was once an actress named Elsa and her big, signature role was the title role in…?
I only meant the overall “bent,” not the specifics.
Still a good movie, of course.
chris: yes, obviously a nod to one of my all-time favourite movies. love ‘the bride’ more than the original
Meanwhile, SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, which was infinitely more marketable and in all likelihood a much better picture, gets a one-week-and-out art-house release. Sigh.
Survival of the Dead is awful. Like Uwe Boll level, and not even the “amusing” Uwe Boll of “House of the Dead” or “Postal,” but more like the DTV/SyFy-level of Boll’s “BloodRayne 2.”
Plus, it’s on its second week in L.A.
If SPLICE had commanded the same percentage of box office as it’s getting here in the comments then we might have seen a major hit.
DP was deluded if he thinks this film had a chance at anywhere near $20-30 million. Did he really predict this? Maybe he was going for one of those long-shot “I was right and everyone else was wrong” moments but it fizzled on him.
I still can’t figure out how $35 million was spent on the P&A of this thing. I would consider myself firmly in the prime demographic for SPLICE and I maybe saw 3 or 4 ads for it. Looked like a pretty low-key release to me. Hell, I spent more time online reading about the stupid creature-designer controversy then I did about the film proper.
Cadavra, from the wording of your post it’s not clear if you’ve actually seen SURVIVAL yet?
Lex calling it “awful” is an understatement. It’s awful in the legacy-ruining way. Like Argento’s recent pictures, it’s so bad that it got me starting to question if Romero has always been a big hack who just got lucky on a couple of early pictures and has been coasting on that reputation for the past few decades. Both of those guys should just retire before they do any more damage.
I did see SURVIVAL and thought it was remarkable, easily among the best movies I’ve seen this year. But then, I’m an old dude, so what do I know?
Lex: The Sunset 5 held it for weekend midnight shows, but it’s now well and truly gone from SoCal.
Lex G for 100 Alex.
How anyone could not predict the sexual “twist” of Splice is beyond me.
Especially if you have an inkling of the talent involved, Canadian cinema and the types of films we finance.
Not saying it is a bad film. It is a good film. But when the warning says “strong sexual content” and you know it is Canadian, what do you think?
The running joke in Canada is we only finance films with kinky fucked up S & M style sex and incest. As soon as I saw the sexual nature of the Dren I knew what was coming.
Anyone who was shocked by Splice has seen too few films.
Again, it is a good piece and I am stunned it tanked so hard. I thought, like Dark Castle, that it had Species potential…oh well.
“But then, I’m an old dude, so what do I know?”
Well, you did tell the anecdote about how you screened The Ten Commandments for Paramount execs.
…or was it The Crying Game? I always get those two confused.
I guess I’ll agree to disagree with Cadavra; Indeed, SURVIVAL is as legacy-questioningly bad in Romero’s canon as Redacted, Black Dahlia, or Mission to Mars are in DePalma’s, or Ghosts of Mars in Carpenter’s.
But, hey, guess it’s a testament to Romero’s aw-shucks, down-home scrappiness that I actually wouldn’t mind seeing it again, and will probably buy the DVD when it’s 10 bucks just out of completism. And the final shot, odd as that sounds, almost makes up for the previous ninety minutes.
Is SARAH POLLEY always a total pill in movies?
I’ll take a cue from Nicol and ADMIT the fact that she professes to be a “Socialist” makes me aggressively angry, but she’s a pretty good actress. She’s technically fine in SPLICE, but her character is SO FUCKING ANNOYING it actually prohibits much investment in the plot. She’s so stubbornly wrong and annoying in her HEAVENLY CREATURES-level obsession with Dren, you just want Brody to say fuck it and drive off to L.A. in his AMC Gremlin and bang models or something.
I realize there are plot-explained reasons for it, like her relationship with her mom and her obsession with control, but she’s basically the female-lead equivalent of DEPUTY CHIEF DWAYNE ROBINSON FROM DIE HARD for the bulk of the runtime– ie, wrong about every single thing, and so stubbornly so you begin to DESPISE her.
Those darn pervy Canadian liberals and their smut peddling. Must be hard to live there.
“Must be hard to live there.”
Ah… smutty puns…
Nicol D, get over it – it’s not as if Atom Egoyan was directing Splice or something.
And LexG, Polley was super-cool in Go – hell, if Kristen Stewart had done that movie ten years later, she probably would have played the Rona character the same exact way.
One of the highlights of GHTTG is the supporting players, the personalities that allow leads Hill and Brand to go from H to B. Rose Byre is so awesome in this film that there needs to be a spin-off sequel for her character of Jackie Q, or at least plenty of extras on the eventual DVD release. And Elizabeth Moss as Hill
Get Him To The Greek was kind of awful from an objective standpoint: third act that drags, sentimental moments that never work, and it’s 20 minutes too long.
But it’s also the funniest movie I’ve seen all year.
“This is what old vaginas felt like in the 70’s.”
On another note, I know Jose Garcia survived six seasons of Lost (thank God), but does anyone else think Jonah Hill is in immediate danger of having a heart attack?
Hill does look awfully large. He should give Rogen a call and find out how he lost so much weight.
Just to clarify: I wasn’t shocked by the turn SPLICE takes, I was just shocked it had the conviction (or, weirdness) to go all the way with it. Then I was shocked that they were going to try and sell it “as-is” to the mouth-breathing masses. Most big budget films puss out on what they set up and SPLICE doesn’t.
Stella’s Boy: They must have discussed that on the Funny People shoot, they were making plenty o’ jokes about it.
Foamy: It was CRYING GAME. But I didn’t set up the screening; the film’s producers did. I merely attended.
Aw… I set that up so you could do the whole “Why you young whippersnapper” schtick.
Think of the Hilarious Antics ™ that could have ensued…
Sorry, thought it was a serious question. I’m getting too old for this shit.
There, that wasn’t so hard now was it?
I thought using “Ten Commandments” would have been a giveaway… maybe I shoulda picked something from Chaplin instead.
Speaking of HBO documentaries, my wife and I watched I Knew It Was You the other night. Totally fascinating. It was about 40 minutes (imagine that) and I wish it was twice as long. Hackman, Pacino, De Niro, Streep, Lumet, Coppola, Buscemi, Sam Rockwell, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Savage. Good stuff.
Put this in the wrong place. Apologies. Coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.