May 6, 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
What is there to say? “Savages” a bit better than expected, “Katy Perry” a bit worse….
“Brave” is building up the grosses before its likely smackdown next weekend.
Gotta be a bit fearful about the Spidey grosses with TDKR out there. Reboots are usually word of mouth affairs. 13 days left…
I agree with Scott. Savages would have done even better if it had moved to July 13 after Ted moved up to June 29.
I saw Ted today. It was okay, but I was underwhelmed. Most of it was like an episode of Family Guy, with too much pot humor. Maybe we’ve had too many Rogen/Apatow entries on this little genre. “Look, they’re getting high again!” I chortle.
But like Family Guy, some of the asides are funnier than anything in the thru plot. Loved the cameos. (What, no Seth Green?)
Some things I wished it would have explained. Since he has no penis, how does Ted have sex? Why does he eat and drink? Does this mean he poops? Why do his punches hurt? He’s filled with fluff.
He did mention fucking a girl with a parsnip
Did you hear (in possibly the most disturbing movie news of the year) that apparently Ted is the new porn-star for “plushophiles,” or “plushies,” aka people who have sexual fetishes for stuffed animals? Apparently they have contacted MacFarlane and offered substantial amounts for his use….so maybe Ted researches on weirdo websites before he approaches them? I have no idea and no desire to know how these people get off in real life…
Also you are lucky enough to have missed Asia Argento’s “Scarlet Diva,” which was enough for me to swear off seeing another of her films ever…”Dear father I have sinned, last night I fucked a giant teddy bear.” AHHH!
My goodness. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter didn’t spend much time in the Top 10, did it?
kReally poor for Spider-Man. It’ll be lucy to to do Iron Man 1 numbers but I see it ending in the mid 200s.
let’s stop pretending the U.S. number is going to be more than 300. I don’t think anyone has a higher expectation than that. worldwide, where does it land?
250 – 300 domestic
400 million worldwide? Less/more?
If it does 600 million worldwide, is that a massive dissapointment?
I think the real question to be asked has to be presented once the final tally is in. Because the real question is:
Would a fourth Raimi/Maguire Spiderman have been a better financial decision for Sony?
Anghus: Well, you have to admit: That choice would have been a Spider-MAN movie. The question, would it have performed better than a Spider-TEEN movie?
ASM will do well enough to warrant a sequel, a sequel which I bet will do over $300m domestically once more people see this one like they did with Batman Begins. It also doesn’t help that Spider-Man 3 wasn’t generally liked (I still enjoyed), similar to how Batman and Robin left a sour taste like no other superhero movie has before or after. And let’s not forget it’s been only 5 years since the last version of Spider-Man, so there’s got to be some general fatigue for this character.
anghus – SM3 was the biggest of them all worldwide. We will never know what kind of film Raimi would have made. I’m willing to bet he would have taken some of the backlash of the last film into consideration and tried to do something different, but as far as an opening weekend, you’re right, it might have done about the same. If a 4th Raimi movie was promoted right and offered something new and delivered like SM2, I’m sure it would have been big.
Presuming that ASM does pull in $140m over its first six days, that’s quite a bit less that SPIDER-MAN 2 or SPIDER-MAN 3. Moreover, considering it had a $35m opening day, it’s on the lower end of six-day multipliers in terms of modern (post-2001) July 4th blockbusters (most did between 4x and 4.6x their first days; $35m x 4 = $140m). In terms of final figures, again *most* July 4th blockbusters ended up with between 1.9x and 2.1x their six-day totals. So Amazing Spider-Man will plausibly end up with between $266m and $294m (arguably on the lower end due to the whole Dark Knight Rises issue). If it does another $500m overseas and ends up like Pirates 4 (under-performing stateside, making up for it everywhere else), then whatever, no biggie, it’s still a $700-800m worldwide hit. But presuming it *only* does another $300-$350m overseas, we’re looking at an Amazing Spider-Man that ends up with around what Men In Black 3 did. It’s no flop, but the film cost $220m, or about what Spider-Man 2 cost in 2004. This wasn’t the cheap $80m-$120m back-to-basics reboot that Sony thought they were ditching Raimi for. It’s a smaller-scale movie, but it cost just as much as a traditional Raimi Spider-Man sequel.
So instead of a Raimi-helmed Spider-Man 4 which arguably was a surefire $700-$900m grosser (remember, SM4 would have had the same 3D/IMAX advantage) that maybe cost $250m, Sony spent $220m for a reboot that ended up grossing far less than the prior three films stateside. Say what you will about Batman Begins, but that film A) opened to approximately what the prior films debuted with, not adjusted to inflation and B) that film delivered a whole new Batman universe that got fans excited about what came next. Other than fans who desperately want to see (SPOILER…) Emma Stone fall off a bridge and get her neck snapped, are there any Spidey fans who are gung-ho about seeing this universe’s version of The Green Goblin or Dr. Octopus or even Venom? And the other untapped villains aren’t exactly the stuff of general audience fandom (Rhino! Electro! Mysterio!) I’d argue that Sony may have won the battle with Amazing Spider-Man (it’s not a flop by any means), but they may have lost the war the inevitable sequel won’t explode out of the gate ala Bourne Supremacy or The Dark Knight (unless they cast Johnny Depp as Dr. Octopus).
Scott, good stuff… the only x factor in that is that the gross profit participations in a Raimi 4 vs. Webb 1 might significantly change the profit margins.
Abraham L: VH is a solid horror flick for all time …. when I told a friend it was the same director as Day Watch and Night Watch they were all wow … AL:VH stands next to the Christopher Lee Hammer films as an excursion into horror … I don’t even want to get into all the supporting actors that make this film come alive: Dominic Cooper, Rufus Sewell,M E Winstead, M Csokas, Jimmy Simson …. Cooper owns this film by the way
ftr: it’s jimmi simpson…. a really good actor and person…. jus’ sayin’….
McPOYLE.
Does anyone know the story behind Fox Searchlight’s involvement in “The Do-Deca-Pentathlon”?
The (very positive) NY Times review listed it as being released by “Red Flag Releasing and FS” which seems very odd for a no-budget, no-star Mumblecore movie that sat on the shelf for four years.
Could it have anything to do with “Cyrus,” the film the Duplass’ made immediately after “Do-Deca”?
Movieman, or honestly anyone else, aren’t you sick of the Duplass brothers, or especially Mark, for the rest of all eternity?
Could you honestly have any POSSIBLE interest in anything starring, directed by, or featuring either of these rich-kid assholes? Mark is a GROUND ZERO DEAD ZONE OF TALENT OR CHARISMA.
Enough’s enough.
Scott, yes, some of us would prefer to see those characters done right. It would be more interesting though to do the Sinister Six. Everything is about TEAMING UP now, so why not have Spidey versus SIX VILLAINS? You might not find them to be house hold names, but people know Spidey’s rogue gallery. Who are pretty exceptional, when they are given a solid story.
What you and others continue to ignore, is that some of us really did not like Raimi’s films. Spidey 2 is still the high water mark of a bad trilogy, and some folks out there are holding onto them with a death grip. Which is fine, but Amazing Spidey is a tremendous film that much like Batman Begins before it, will be watched by people on cable over the next two years. People who ignored it in theatres, will give it a chance at home, and that will hopefully influence the box office of the sequel more than anything else.
You also are stretching credulity with how much a 4th Raimi Spidey film would make. 3 got what it got because of 2. 3, being a film that is not exactly universally loved, could have led to 4th that makes as much as Amazing Spidey. Raimi and Co. ran their course with that trilogy, and now Sony gets to spend the next four years creating another one with a better cast.
Also, at this point, I would not bet on Gwen dying. Unless they are going to spend the next ten years with Garfield as Spider-man. Why not make this a Gwen trilogy? She’s still kicking it in the Ultimate Universe in the comics, so why kill her off? There are sometimes, when “Pulling a Shane” works.
Sorry, Lex, but I’m not remotely tired of the Duplass Bros. yet.
I do wish, however, that Mark would cast his adorable Katherine McPhee lookalike wife in another one of his movies (remember her from “Puffy Chair”?).
Speaking of Mumblecore dudes, when is Andrew Bujalski going to direct another feature?
Bujalski’s “Mutual Appreciation” remains the M/core standard bearer: it’s the 21st century/American “Masculine Feminine.”
It is ASTONISHING to me that ANYONE would want more MARK DUPLASS ON CAMERA.
Guy makes Ron Livingston look like Nicolas Cage and Dennis Hopper combined. Like putting aside the fact that he’s a rich kid cocksucker who got bankrolled from on high (and let his apparently LESS cinematic brother out in the lurch while he’s taxing AUBREY, EMILY and BANKS on screen)…. He’s just fucking BORING, no charisma, no excitment, nothing about him that begs to be in front of a camera. Why hasn’t the OTHER Duplass gone OFF on this asshole yet?
Can you imagine being a BROTHER FILMMAKING DUO, then mystifyingly your ZERO charisma BRO is an ACTOR and you’re the MICHAEL ANTHONY that nobody cares about?
Jay Duplass and Nash Edgerton, not a JURY IN THE WORLD would convict them.
C’mon, Lex.
Give credit where credit is due.
Mark Duplass gave a terrific performance in “Safety Not Guaranteed” (easily the best perf in that film).
And “Puffy Chair,” “Cyrus” and “Jeff Who Lives at Home” are all very good movies.
On a completely unrelated note, I watched “Badlands” for the first time in (gulp) 36 years last night, and was thrilled to see that Malick’s cherished tropes were all present and accounted for in his writing-directing debut.
It was also kind of breathtaking to be reminded how beautiful the young Spacek and Sheen were.
Scott M – So instead of a Raimi-helmed Spider-Man 4 which arguably was a surefire $700-$900m grosser (remember, SM4 would have had the same 3D/IMAX advantage) that maybe cost $250m, Sony spent $220m for a reboot that ended up grossing far less than the prior three films stateside.
JS – You also are stretching credulity with how much a 4th Raimi Spidey film would make. 3 got what it got because of 2. 3, being a film that is not exactly universally loved, could have led to 4th that makes as much as Amazing Spidey.
I agree with Scott’s cost breakdown, but I’m with JS. I’ll take it a step farther and say Raimi’s idea for a fourth one – Malkovich and Hathaway as The Vulture and Lady Vulture(?) was either purposeful sabotage to get out of Spidey 4 or delusional to think it was a corrective step from SM3.
Raimi’s SM4 would not have beaten this, because ASM’s opening is due as much to the residual of SM3 as it is to being an origin film. Simply put, no one was clamoring for either choice. All of the “OMG, they rebooted already” griping would have been replaced with “OMG, Spider-Man 4? How many are they going to make”, bitching.
So, to treat Spidey like Bond forgets the periodic uncertainty Cubby faced is akin to what Spidey just went through, and the difference in today’s market, compared to even the 90’s.
Even open-ended franchises like Star Trek aren’t developing enclosed sequels. They may not be planned trilogies, but the days of zero character change are long gone.
So Sony/Marvel saw their choices as either turn Spidey into Bond where he doesn’t change, or extrapolate what change the character does posses over a longer time frame.
The problem, as pointed out, is we already know where it leads because Raimi provided a Cliff’s Notes for it in his first one, and that was the problem I’ve always had since its earliest development; Pascal and Sony were incredibly short-sighted and never cared when anyone tried to warn them. At the time, they weren’t thinking long-term, so now they are, but with diminishing returns.
So you bite the bullet, reboot, and hope the sequel to the reboot explodes.
I hadn’t thought about the Sinister Six. If Sony can keep the series alive long enough to develop the B-level rogues for their eventual team-up (something Warner should have started with The Flash ten years ago!), with notable actors or big stars as the various interchangeable villains, then yeah, I can see such a film being bonkers at the box office. I stand slightly corrected…
Reboot … Sequel … all marketing-speak for Money Grab! and Rip-Off! Fanboys speak that way because they don’t know how to write in plain English and keep it clean. There is such a thing as Internet filters.
Back in the real world “To Rome with Love” went nationwide with little notice and is stiffing. You can thank Sony Pictures Classics for using a Peter Travers pullquote in the print ads.
Chuck, how is the sky still pink in your world?
Scott, if they have to take Gwen out, then they should make it big huge deal. You have Osborn, leading Rhino, Lizard, Elektro, Scorpion, and Shocker trying to take over the city, Spidey defeats most of them, but Osborn gets away with Gwen. The rest is all sadness and melodrama, but that movie could make stupid money.
Raimi/Maguire may have had one last film in them, and it probably would have ended up at 750+ million worldwide.
To me, if they can get ASM to around that point, it’s a win. Because either way the series will require rebooting even if it was after #4.
Whoever made the profit participation point hit the nail on the head. I’m betting there were a lot of back end deals that would have made a 250 million dollar produced Raimi Spiderman having less profit potential than a reboot with unknown quanitites.
Berg: If rep houses still offedred thematically linked double bills, I bet we’d see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter eventually paired with Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter. Of course, the latter didn’t perform up to box-office expectations either, did it?
For the 2nd ASM movie — Mark Duplass IS Electro!!!
Joe- And yet the funny–or at least ironic–thing is that “Abe Lincoln” will probably wind up outgrossing sure-thing “That’s My Boy” and sorta sure-thing “Rock of Ages.”
Not sure what the cost differential is on those three films (shockingly, the Sandler movie was probably the most expensive) and they’ll all go down as money-bleeders
But still.
A Raimi Spidey 4 could have theoretically followed the trajectory of Pirates 4, coming off of an unliked threequel and being a domestic underperformer compared to it’s predecessors, and still clean up internationally, helped to a great extent by 3D.
Gotta say though that the formally b list marvel heroes like Thor, Hulk, Iron Man and Captain America, are still more well known outside of the comic book circles than anybody from the Sinister Six. And they are heroes, not villians. While a great villian makes a great comic book movie, it still the hero that draws you in.
BD, not exactly. Spidey’s rogues are all over video games that sell millions of copies, widely popular cartoons, and of course the comics. These villains are known. They are a commodity. Sure, some regular folks might not know them, but this is Spider-man. Spider-man has had an animated series over the last five decades. Generations of people can know the Rhino, Scorpion, Elektro, and Mysterio. No one really knows the Shocker, or that he’s named Herman, so you get that one XD!
Spidey’s b list rogues gallery being relatively unknown doesn’t matter. Most of the movie going public has no idea who the “purple alien” at the end of Avengers is. The problem I see for a Sinister Six plot is there is no way they can build momentum over 5 sequels. If the plan is to introduce them in batches, I guess it could work but it just sounds like a tiring movie experience. Watching shitty CGI battles between Spider-Man and the Shocker would drive most people to try and impale themselves on their 3D glasses.
And I wish people would stop comparing this to Batman Begins. BB is light years a better film with a much more interesting take on that hero’s universe. As someone else pointed out, you couldn’t wait to see Nolan’s Joker. Webb’s Goblin will undoubtedly be as dull and simple as his Lizard.
Joe–Great double bill; KRONOS is one of the very finest Hammer films. LINCOLN was darn good, but suffered from Cowboys And Aliens Syndrome: a totally serious movie that sounded like a Mel Brooks picture. Apparently nobody wants vampires unless they’re sparkly gay teens.
Memo to Spielberg: Perhaps you should retitle your forthcoming biopic “Abraham Lincoln: NOT A Vampire Hunter.”
Man, that’s your opinion, and Amazing Spider-man is a better movie than Begins. You stating otherwise changes nothing for me or anyone else who agrees with me and sure this works both ways, but this is about those who like the film.
You bringing up shitty CGI battles, makes me wonder if you even saw Amazing Spidey. Unlike the Raimi trilogy, Amazing Spidey has a lot better fight scenes, that featured a practical Spidey in most of them.
I do love, that the moviegoing public’s knowledge about these characters is always questioned, as if they do not have smartphones, or Google confuses them. Every comic book character of any stature has a wikipedia page. It’s not that hard to figure out who these characters are, if you really want to know.
I think Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter will wind up being one of those movies that pleasantly surprise people when they catch up with it on DVD or cable. And I still can’t say why without revealing a spoiler, but the more I think about it, the more I love that final scene.
BTW: Wasn’t Kronos originally intended as the kick off for a franchise? Or did people actually conisder things like back in the 1970s? I can’t remember.
“Kronos” a franchise?
Not sure about that, Joe.
If I remember correctly, it was a (late-period) Hammer movie released thru Paramount.
I saw it on a drive-in double-bill with “Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell” in the summer of ’74 (the summer I got my driver’s license; hooray!)
And, at least in these parts (I’m including Cleveland and Pittsburgh in the mix), “Kronos” and “Frankenstein/Hell” were always a first-run, two-for-the-price-of-one package deal in both theaters and drive-ins.
Neither ever played as a solo attraction to the best of my knowledge.
That sounds about how I remember them playing in New Orleans.
KRONOS was intended to be a series. Probably Hammers most high concept film. Good stuff.
“either turn Spidey into Bond where he doesn’t change…”
Oh Bond changed plenty, with a new personality brought by each agent who took on the title. (Lazenby-Bond even quipped “This never happened to the other fellow.”)
And as to why Moore-Bond put flowers on the grave of Lazenby-Bond’s wife, you could argue that perhaps it was professional courtesy (this is what happens when an agent tries to settle down), or maybe Moore IS Lazenby. After going through a nervous breakdown following the very public murder of his wife, he decides there’s nothing left for him but to get back on that horse with a new face (a la “Seconds”) and a new personality, which twists his grief and anger into inappropriate humor and casual sex.
KRONOS was indeed intended to be a series, but the (admittedly bizarre) idea was that he was a sort of time-traveler, and each new entry would take place in a different era. (“Kronos” of course being Greek for “time.”) Not sure that would’ve worked, but keeping him in the same era would’ve surely become repetitive darn quickly. The idea might still be worth reviving if there were any actors today capable of pulling off that swashbuckling attitude.