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
You really can write a fucked up bit of prose when you want David. I did dig that the film didn’t have a nasty energy to it, because no one is truly heinous in it. Fucked up, sure. Heinous? Not so much. The one person who is fucked up gets fucked up, so there goes the nasty energy.
I doubt this film even comes in fourth this weekend but I had a really good time with it, and it let Danny McBride play a lot more vulnerable character than usual. He’s so much more dynamic then the roles he gets to play.
I just finished watching the flashback episode to a day in the life of Siskel & Ebert on “Ebert Presents at the Movies” and that just about made my week. Seeing Gene Siskel again, so smug and ARROGANT as all hell but still charming and likeable in a dorky kind of way, was a massive pleasure. He’s so delightfully smarmy when he’s just talking about his skills at taking notes in a darkened movie theater (“Well it’s no big deal, but I am able to take notes in the dark…”) that I can’t help but smile right now at the memory of it, since the vanity of his whole riff on the lighted pens he gets as gifts is undercut by the appearance that he’s going to crack up laughing at his own bravado at any given second before he can finish the take.
For all of the voices talking about movies on the internet now, it would have been nice to have those two still fighting it out and every now and again banding together to champion a small film on talk show after talk show that probably would’ve been lost in the crowd. I don’t see that happening anymore the way they used to be able to do it.
So they cancelled the Lone Ranger and in the same story they make a comment that John Carter is rumored to be close to 300 million dollars.
First off, my first thought is THREE HUNDRED MILLION ON JOHN CARTER? That just sounds like a bad idea.
When you start cancelling Bruckheimer/Johnny Depp projects have to wonder if we’re starting to see the end of ridiculous spending on these films. I mean shit, if the lone ranger can’t be done for 200 million, fuck it.
Should we assume that Disney’s decision to pull the plug on The Lone Ranger had (a)a lot, (b)a little or (c)nothing to do with the under-performance of Cowboys & Aliens?
i’m goin’ with (a)…..
“Should we assume that Disney’s decision to pull the plug on The Lone Ranger had (a)a lot, (b)a little or (c)nothing to do with the under-performance of Cowboys & Aliens?”
The first thing that occurred to me when I read about None Ranger(eh) was that the economic situation in the world might have made Disney a little gun shy to lay out so much cash, but the C&A thing makes sense too.
If I were Kevin Feige I’d be working around the clock this weekend putting together a Dr Strange package to pitch to Depp and Verbinski on Monday.
Uh, wasn’t one of the “women” in Zombieland like, 12?
Lone Ranger was going to be shooting for what seemed like a ridiculously long time here in New Mexico. A lot of people around here are likely depressed right now. It was the local industry for the next year.
Wow that’s horrible, SM. Really freaking horrible. What I don’t get about this cancellation, is Disney ignoring what just happened 3 months ago. Seriously. Depp and Bruckheimer turned a turkey into a billion dollar FILM! A BILLION DOLLAR FILM and 200m makes them sheepish? Especially given the very real possibility they are blowing wads of cash on John Carter and that film has very little chance of recouping any of it given it’s release date.
Seriously, Cowboys and Alien may have been DOA but TRUE GRIT JUST HAPPENED! Sure, The Lone Ranger would have cost more but if you make a half-way decent western and put it out at the right time, the old folks will come out. Disney is leaving money on the table. Fucking weird decision all together.
Anghus: Three hundred million on ANYTHING is a bad idea.
Oh for the days when people were crapping their pants over the $50 mil spent on “Santa Claus: The Movie”. But hey, it was a guaranteed hit–who doesn’t love Christmas!!!
David, are we going to get an article on AMC/The Walking Dead and The Lone Ranger? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
Just saw Submarine, and the thought of Eisenberg and Ayoade teaming up is an exciting prospect. You never really know with these things but I think it has cult movie written all over it (in the UK at least)
For some reason, I never expected to see Russell Brand write anything halfway intelligent. While admitting that he could have been one of the rioters if this had broken out ten years ago, he said “…there was a void in me. A lack of direction, a sense that I was not invested in the dominant culture, that government existed not to look after the interests of the people it was elected to represent but the big businesses that they were in bed with.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/london-riots-davidcameron
Wasn’t “stakeholder” one of the magic words the Republicans kept tossing about the last time around? “America’s stakeholders want the country to do yadda, yadda whatever…”? It became abundantly clear that anyone who had to wear a nametag to work–if they were lucky enough to find a job in the first place–was obviously not a stakeholder and therefore beneath their notice.
Maybe we need to find a way to turn all Americans into stakeholders.
I’m sure if the budget for LONE RANGER were closer to that of TRUE GRIT than C&A, it would still be a go project.
It’s possible that the ghosts of John Ford, Howard Hawks, Anthony Mann, Budd Boetticher, Delmer Daves and Andre De Toth appeared to Disney execs in their beds and said, “If you a-holes can’t make one lousy western for more money than we spent in our entire careers combined, let it go. Now excuse us — we have to get back to rolling in our graves.”
The real question on Lone Ranger is how much will they pay Depp if it stays dead? Hard to imagine he’s been attached to the thing for 3 years without a pay or play for some significant amount.
For Lone Ranger to be over $200 million, it pretty much needs to be Wild Wild West… which is to say, a western ridden with CG effects.
Depp is the special effect. And they pay a lot to have him. Why isn’t that enough? Or at least, why can’t Verbinski get $100 million in toys and keep the movie at $150m, which is still insane, but manageable, give Depp’s upside at the box office.
None of it makes any sense.
I remember when Depp came out on the stage at the Kodak with a feather… seemed like they were going to do a fun, retro film with a wild Tonto. Alas…
The irony is that in the old days (movies and TV), westerns were ubiquitous because they were the cheapest and easiest things to make.
Depp, Verbinski and especially Bruckheimer already have more money than God. If they dropped their upfront fees and just worked for points, that’s probably $50 million right there. Let’s see how much they really want to make this picture.
A related question is, why the hell doesn’t anybody want to see Westerns anymore? Such a quintessential American idiom, they can be used to champion bedrock American values, or in a more mature form, to ironically call them into question. At a time like this, why wouldn’t more Americans want to experience the reason we fucking colonized the West in the first place? The epic vistas, the epic struggles with the land and the people, the allure of new opportunities, the crystallization of the rugged individualist, the grit and the danger and the pragmatism and the violence…
Why don’t people want to see why the fuck they’re Americans in the first place… like RIGHT NOW in this PARTICULAR MOMENT?
Seriously, what the fuck…? You gotta turn a Western into a CGI wank-fest to get audiences to want to see it?
Weak, dude.
NBD: Actually, it looks like the only place you’ll likely see new Westerns on a semi-regular basis these days is… the Hallmark Movie Channel.Seriously: Did you happen to catch Goodnight for Justice last January on HMC? No? Well, lots of other people did. In fact, the made-for-cable Western — starring Luke Perry as a firm but fair circuit court judge — was the network’s highest-rated film of all time. Which explains why Perry is getting ready to film not just one but two sequels.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/luke-perry-star-two-more-215754
After the epic failure of the CGI heavy (or were they just “special effects?”) WILD, WILD WEST and most recently COWBOYS AND ALIENS, I don’t know why even thinking westerns with CGI will do well is on the table.
And although I totally agree with what Not David Bordwell said– the company line has just need that people don’t want to see westerns. I think they do. It’s just been so long since a straight forward type one, they’ve forgotten. I mean, I looooove THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD but that’s an art-film western. As soon as someone makes a classically styled western (ala SILVERADO and OPEN RANGE) we’ll get more. I hope.
As far as I’m concerned, Lawrence Kasdan had made exactly two great films: BODY HEAT and SILVERADO. I can’t even watch the rest of his Boomer shite.
SILVERADO is a great Western. The Scott Glenn opening set-piece is one of the best things on film, and the performances are outstanding, one of Kevin Costner’s best perfs and one of Brian Dennehy’s most devastating as the evil fucker.
And, thanks for the responses, guys.
Everything is great about Silverado. John Cleese as the lawman who is appalled by the racism of some thug in a bar. Linda Hunt as the bar owner who’s obviously sweet on Kevin Kline. Everything. But you know what? I caught grief from the “traditionalists” for raving about this film.
And speaking of Kevin Costner: He’s been trying to get another Western off the ground for years. But even with Open Range to his credit…
After a recent screening of SILVERADO at the Aero, I asked co-writer Mark Kasdan, “I’ve always thought of this as MY DARLING CLEMENTINE if it’d been directed by Hawks instead of Ford. Would you consider that a fair assessment?” He smiled and replied, “I’d consider that a great compliment!” He added that he and his brother had screened all the classic westerns before starting the script, and CLEMENTINE and RIO BRAVO were among the first.
And Silverado had that wonderfully swelling score. Might have to watch it tonight.
But I am with Disney on this. How do you spend 250 on a Western? Its guys on frickin’ horses!!! It reminds me of hearing that The Postman cost 100 million. Where did the money actually go?
As for dropping their quotes in exchange for points, I am sure they already have plenty of backend points in their original deal and this could be a case of Disney wanting to avoid an Mission Impossible 3 scenerio where the film will have to make $600 million back worldwide before they see a dime of profit (though on MI3 Paramounts break even was about 400 million and even then they only got a quarter of every dollar past that).
Not to mention this might be a strategy to steer Depp back into another Pirates sequel? You know now that he has the free time and a sizeable check waiting for him?
Maybe they should film this comic book series instead:
http://www.majorspoilers.com/review-the-lone-ranger-the-death-of-zorro-1
Howard Hawks would have laughed at Silverado.
It’s a movie made by film brats who had to “screen” a bunch of classic westerns to find out what they wanted to appropriate for themselves. Its an homage to westerns and Ford, Hawks, Boetticher, Mann, etc never did a homage in their lives.
If you want to see a real western that came out in 1985 watch “Pale Rider.”
Pale Rider wasn’t a homage?
Er, even Clint Eastwood admitted Pale Rider was influenced by Sergio Leone.
I’m with hcat, who is with Disney. It’s retarded to spend that much on a WESTERN. Buuuut….the person not mentioned in all of this is the guy who, I hope, will win an Oscar for best animated film this year: Gore Verbinski for RANGO. Did the lack of Disney involvement on that hurt him politically? What does this guy have to DO to get shit greenlit without a second guessing spectacle??
Granted, part 4 of Pirates did fine without him (MONEY wise) but look at what he (and Depp) did for a franchise people wanted less than they apparently want another western.
Also, I f-ing love THE WEATHER MAN.
Let me get this straight: so you’re saying doing a $225M Johnny Depp film (whose last 3 films for Disney have made over $1B each) makes less sense than doing a $250M film starring James Franco and a $400M film starring Taylor Kitsch? (And yes, you heard me right — $400M, not $300M — that’s the real budget on JOHN CARTER).
They can’t shut down Carter now, that money is spent. Is Franco that Oz fiasco? If so that has a lot better name recognition than the Lone Ranger. And Franco will not get that precious first dollar gross percentage that Bruck and Depp get. They can actually make money down the line on Oz.
And I know I ask this each time some proposed Disney movie is discussed but is anyone ever really that impressed by their live action work? Other than the Pirates movies I have to go back to the Rocketeer or maybe the nineties Musketeers to recall one I thought was exciting. Sure they often have a rollicking good natured quality, but compared to what other studios put out nearly all their live action films seem somewhat neutered and slight.
I also agree with film fanatic….the Depp card has paid out soooo well and this LONE RANGER thing is small potatoes selling point wise. I really don’t get what the hell happened.
Disney distributed OPEN RANGE, frankly one of the best westerns of the last generation, and what did that cost? 24-30$-million?
What happened is C&A tanked one week, then Apes did strong business the next. So next weekend we will be talking about Disney’s announcement of the Verbinski/Depp adaptation of TARZAN.
Look at the current Disney investment load. Avengers has the best upside due to budget and sequelness. Carter has to sell mo-cap and lord only knows about OZ.
The problem with Lone Ranger? Depp is not the title character. It’s a 250 Armi Hammer vehicle riding Depp’s coattails. 250 for a western says the studio wants to P&A Tonto and The Lone Ranger, which becomes a huge sprawling film. Also, hasn’t this project always felt like Depp doing Gore a favor? That his commitment was never supposed to be a Pirate’s level of involvement.
Pastepot – interesting idea of Depp as Strange. It would work easily, but Marvel won’t cough that money. It’s too bad Del Toro is no longer involved with Strange. He was perfect…but it never would have happened. I’m still shocked Pac Rim hasn’t met a snag yet.