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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

This Year’s Bullshit Myth: Originals Can’t Launch

Every summer, some stupid Chicken Little meme takes hold of the Hollywood press (which tends to be 100x less original than “Hollywood”). This year’s BS is “it’s impossible to launch an original idea in the current atmosphere.”

I know that it is too much to ask of, ahem, journalists, to do a lick of research. It’s much easier to get studio execs scrambling for excuses after a failure to tell us all the honest truth of the situation… it’s the marketplace! It’s never the marketing, the film, or the simple arrogance of making too many movies that are required to hit the bulls eye in order not to fail.

DID YOU KNOW that 10 of last summer’s Top 20 domestic grossers were, for all intents and purposes, original:
Brave
Ted
Snow White and the Huntsman
Prometheus
Magic Mike
The Campaign
Dark Shadows
Battleship
Hope Springs
The Dictator

You want to take Prometheus out? Okay. Snow White? Did 2.5x what Mirror Mirror did domestically and was a dramatically different take on Snow White. But okay. Dark Shadows is pretty iffy as a “remake.” But if you need to make that non-original, okay. So, 7 of 20.

What about the now infamous international market? The list is different. And I am working with the numbers for the whole year here, not just summer, as the dating issue makes a direct comparison almost impossible. That said, there isn’t an original in the Top 8, but even in international, it’s 9 originals out of 20 or 7 if you eliminate the titles we eliminated in domestic.

The Hunger Games
Life of Pi
Ted
Brave
Wreck-It Ralph
The Intouchables
Django Unchained
Prometheus
Snow White and the Huntsman

Funny… it seems to me that the international tastes for originals is more interesting than the domestic.

Using the entirety of 2012 for the domestic market, it’s still 7 or 8 of the Top 20 that are originals:
Brave
Ted
Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax
Wreck-It Ralph
Lincoln
Django Unchained
Snow White and the Huntsman
Hotel Transylvania

NOW… I do not dispute at all that there is a lack of originality in Hollywood’s thinking. The reasons are 85% financial and 15% it’s hard to come up with new ideas that have the potential to be special.

And it is more than fair to notice the number of animated films that are on these lists.

However, it is unfair to discount original animated films just because they are animated.

And for those who obsess on this stuff (desperate for a fresh angle, even if inaccurate), 2011 was much worse than 2013 in terns of originals. None on the Top 9 domestically. The first, at #10, was Thor. The entire list of 7 that are in the Top 20 is:

Thor
Captain America
The Help
Bridesmaids
Puss In Boot
Rio
The Smurfs

Of course, it would be unfair to claim that a new film from a different market (comic books, nursery rhymes) was not an original, but if you did, you’re down to 2 films.

BUT WAIT! I haven’t gotten to the reason why this meme is even more stupid this summer. Here is the list of originals from this summer’s Top 20 grossers:
World War Z
The Great Gatsby
The Heat
Now You See Me
Epic
This is the End
The Conjuring
Pacific Rim
The Lone Ranger
White House Down
The Purge

That’s ELEVEN of the Top 20 this summer so far. More originals than any year in recent memory.

Oh wait! You’ll give up the originals argument and this is just about launching new franchises? Okay. Well played.

And if The Lone Ranger had been made by people who didn’t act like there were no limitations – oh, the irony – it probably would have been a lot more fun (lots of serious talent involved) and made a lot more money. But I can’t claim to know that… any more than anyone can claim its failure was because it wasn’t a sequel.

But really, the whole obsessiveness of this nouveau meme is that 4 very expensive movies bombed. And even that is relative, as Pacific Rim and After Earth are both over $200m ww, and The Lone Ranger will get there.

Here is the simple money math. Since 2007, which is the first time there were more than six $500m ww movies in a year, the number’s been at 8 or better. In 2011, just two years ago, the number of $500m ww movies went to double digits for the first time, with 12. Last year, it was 13. This year, 6 so far, with 3 coming within $50 million (Oz, WWZ, Trek). If those three films performed just a little better, we’d be on track with last year. They didn’t and we will probably fall back to 11 or 12 $500m ww grossers this year.

In other words, the “failures” are not so shocking when you realize that the “successes” are not too far off “best ever” status. The market is flexible and does accommodate growth. But if you are choosing to be in the $200m+ movie business and the market is as crowded as it was this summer, someone’s gonna bleed. And in terms of the media analysis, the serious blood all started flowing this year after 6 weeks of more successful films bored everyone out of their skulls, so that’s all anyone seems to want to write about.

This is a terrible business in which to generalize, as each movie is its own unique business. $212m makes a cash cow of Now You See Me and a carwreck of Pacific Rim. And if you talk to anyone about those two movies, they get it. Not saying people are dumb. But when they seek a theme for the summer, suddenly the specifics of each movie get blurry.

Seven or eight years ago, I would write that if certain movies needed to make $400 million worldwide to make money, a studio should only be taking one, maybe two shots a year at that. Since then, the worldwide market has expanded… and the DVD market has contracted wildly. Marketing costs have not contracted significantly (but they have a little and not expanded, except for expanding international markets), but the $190m-210m behemoths that were getting made recklessly are now $250m+ behemoths. The math on the theatrical alone has actually improved a little for those films, but the DVD drop outweighs the marginal growth in big box office… generally.

Many people are looking – always – for a reason to say, “Hollywood sucks” aka “Hollywood hates originality” aka “Hollywood is stupid” aka “Make more movies that I like.” And there is some truth to all of these memes… and a lot of untruth. What is the #1 driver of media’s anger at Hollywood these days, in my opinion? The age of the authors. Even going back to the “golden age” of the late 60s and early 70s, were those “movies for adults” or just smarter movies that were fine for adults but were really for the hipsters of the era. Easy Rider was rebellion, not “adult.” Movies were (generally) about sex and violence and anger and politics all the things the 1950s squeezed out of the movie universe. But then, as now, these films were for young people. And we were young and so as we aged, they were still for us. But none of the critics today who love the 70s movies were in their 50s in 1974. The films that override this are the great films and will last forever, for all ages over 15.

The Top Grossers – by year – of the 1970s (via Wikipedia):

1970: Love Story (1970)
1971: Billy Jack (1971), or Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
1972: The Godfather (1972)
1973: The Exorcist (1973), or The Sting (1973)
1974: Blazing Saddles (1974), or The Towering Inferno (1974)
1975: Jaws (1975), or The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
1976: Rocky (1976)
1977: Star Wars (1977), or Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977/80), or Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
1978: Grease (1978), or National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), or Superman (1978)
1979: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), or Rocky II (1979), or Moonraker (1979)

These are the movies I grew up on. Love almost all of them. But the exception of The Godfather (one of the all-timers) and Kramer vs Kramer, do you see a lot of “adult” movies? I would certainly agree that there were more dramas being made by the studios. But that’s a whole other conversation. (Notice also… only 2 or 3 movies with female leads or co-leads.)

There is no question. CG has changed the movie world and driven a lot of action movies that were less viable – because of disbelief issues – in the past. (We still have to suspend disbelief in a big way, but… another conversation.) But every studio is still chasing the same thing. And audiences are still going to the movies. Studios just have lost track of how to balance a slate.

Next summer will look completely different than last summer. But as we get a new Godzilla and a Spider-Man reboot sequel and a re-reboot of X-Men leading the way in May, let’s look back to the summer of the last new Godzilla in 1998.

There was a Doctor Dolittle reboot, a Zorro reboot, a remake of The Parent Trap, a film of the TV show The X-Files, a film of the TV show The Avengers, a reboot of Cinderella, a reboot of Halloween, the last Lethal sequel, a film of the comic book Blade, and even a version of Les Mis.

There was also Saving Private Ryan, leading the box office. And that is different. That would probably be a fall movie these days. The #2 movie, Armageddon? Pretty much could be released in 2013 with some added CG. There was also There’s Something About Mary… and next May, an R-rated Seth MacFarlane western comedy.

The sky isn’t falling. We just remember it looking prettier.

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38 Responses to “This Year’s Bullshit Myth: Originals Can’t Launch”

  1. Dr Wally Rises says:

    Interesting piece, but I think your argument that Summer 1998 proves that thing haven’t changed much in 15 years is off base. Saving Private Ryan, The Truman Show, Bulworth, Out of Sight, The Horse Whisperer were all major studio drama releases in Summer as recently as 15 years ago. I don’t think that could happen now. Or let’s go even more recently, to 2000. A movie like Gladiator could conceivably be released in Summer, but it would never be positioned as the early May event movie. And movies like The Patriot or The Perfect Storm could never get the solid gold real estate that is the July 4th weekend. The big franchises have all the power now, and the landscape is definitely different.

  2. Logan says:

    Writers went to TV. That is all.

  3. cadavra says:

    GREAT GATSBY and LONE RANGER are definitely not originals; they’re both remakes, or if you will, a reboot in the case of the latter. Similarly, PUSS ‘N’ BOOTS and CAPTAIN AMERICA had prior theatrical incarnations, and even THOR was a familiar presence on TV, especially animated. But even the bona fide “originals” are distressingly familiar: WHITE HOUSE DOWN was just a bigger-budget OLYMPUS, BRIDESMAIDS was simply HANGOVER with dames, THE HEAT ditto from LETHAL WEAPON, EPIC trod ARRIETTY/THE BORROWERS’ turf, and so on and so on.

    Moreover, back in the 70s the studios were still making a wide variety of films: westerns, musicals, war films, etc. Today those genres are few and far between, supplanted by simply more superhero tentpoles, horror films and fart comedies. The desire to cater to children, dumb teens and our Chinese overlords has ruined an industry that once entertained everyone.

  4. Joe Leydon says:

    I am a bit confused. Are you saying that a film based on other material — a book, a TV show, a board game, whatever — can still be considered an original, as long as it isn’t a direct sequel to something, or a remake?

  5. palmtree says:

    I was confused too, but then again the argument could be made both ways. Tons of movies that have source material are still considered “originals” in that it was the first time it was adapted for the screen successfully. Vertigo was based on a novel, but we see it today as pure Hitchcock. And from the executive’s perspective, “Yes, it’s a successful book/TV show, but will people show up to the movie?” So the only quantifiable way you know it’ll work is if the characters were in a previous movie that was a hit.

  6. Foamy Squirrel says:

    Yeah, adaptations aren’t “originals” as they’re working with the same pre-existing base that sequels are. Ditto for remakes/reimaginings (although I disagree with Cad that “inspired by” is the same thing i.e. Epic, Bridesmaids etc.)

    Plus some of the movies on that Top20 aren’t exactly earthshattering. Lone Ranger is a massive bomb, White House Down lost money, and Epic and Snow White were barely in the black (and Pac Rim is currently still on the brink). This is not the high water mark studios want to shoot for.

    So 2011 you’d be looking at:
    Bridesmaids
    Rio

    2012:
    Ted
    Brave
    Wreck-It Ralph
    Intouchables
    Django Unchained
    (Lincoln and Hotel Transylvania if you want to spread the net wider, and Lincoln’s arguable for “original”)

    2013:
    The Heat
    Now You See Me
    This is The End
    The Conjuring
    The Purge

    That’s still fairly respectable – but competing at the same level as “The Franchises”? You either have to be animated, made by Tarantino/Spielberg, or Ted.

  7. anghus says:

    I think this needed to be half as long. And I agree you’re a little liberal with the word original.

    in a column I just wrote, I opted for the definition of original as being an unknown quantity in terms of story/character.

    That takes lone ranger, Gatsby, and World War Z out.

    TV show, very famous book, very well known modern book.

    This is the End was a movie with famous people playing themselves. I suppose its original in the way Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is original. Once they do the Pineapple Express 2 bit I stopped thinking of it as an original. This is the End was the Avengers of Apatow stoner comedies.

  8. palmtree says:

    Maybe the word we’re look for is “pre-sold,” as in Hunger Games, which was adapted into a huge hit, but in essence was a guaranteed hit in that it had a huge audience in the right demographic chomping at the bit. Whereas Lincoln, based on the Doris Kearns Goodwin book, not so much?

  9. pat says:

    So if it’s based on a popular book like Hunger Games, Lincoln, The Godfather, or Shakespeare; it’s NOT an original?

  10. anghus says:

    o·rig·i·nal ( -r j -n l). adj. 1. Preceding all others in time; first. 2. a. Not derived from something else; f

    an original would imply a work that has not existed in any other medium.

    you might not like the definition, but the word means what it means. And if people start calling The Lone Ranger or Hunger Games ‘original’, then really were doing nothing but making up our own definitions.

    For a film to be ‘original’, it cannot have existed as a previous brand or known quantity.

    Battleship – Board Game

    That seems pretty obvious. They made a movie based on a board game, so the property is not original.

    Dark Shadows/Lone Ranger – Old TV Show

    Yes, perception about these shows is negligible. Still, they are based on previous pieces of media. Not original.

    Hunger Games – Popular book series

    The story exists in another medium. Not original.

    And original film, in order to maintain true to the definition of the word, would be a movie whose specific story did not exist prior to the films conception and production.

    I would use Looper as an example. There are similar themes and tropes. But the story itself was conceived by the Writer/Director and brought to the screen without previous incarnation.

    That is what original means. It’s a hard line, but i think you have to draw them that way. Reworking the definition of a word is a very American concept. It reminds me of this ad campaign from the 90’s NBC used to use with their low performing comedies and they threw out the tagline

    “If you haven’t seen it, IT’S NEW TO YOU!”

    That’s how i feel when people call World War Z ‘original’. Or going back to the earlier point of the person who didn’t know about earlier incarnations in print or film for ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’. Just because you never knew it existed doesn’t mean it’s original. It may be original to you, but originality is not subjective. It’s a clearly defined concept.

    There are those who will argue semantics. You could call ‘an original film’ because then youre saying the movie is original to the cinematic medium. Then you start having to define originality by content. World War Z is a zombie movie. Have their never been zombie movies before? Lone Ranger had a crappy movie in the 1980’s. Not an ‘original film’ either.

    That’s why hard definitions are the best. If it was a board game, tv show, movie, video game, stage play, internet webseries, then it’s not original. Simple as that.

  11. Joe Leydon says:

    Anghus: OK, not to be argumentative, just curious: How would classify something like Robert Altman’s MASH — based on a book, but a relatively obscure one? Or, flashing forward a few decades, 2 Guns — based on a graphic series, but how many potential ticketbuyers have ever heard of it?

  12. Bulldog68 says:

    But a movie like Battleship, I think I would consider an original because there is nothing in the board game, save the strategy challenge that had an impact on the movie. There were no Battleship board game characters, like Transformers, that they could build on. It was really just the premise.

    Other movies, like say What to Expect when you’re Expecting, (yes I know I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here) is also just loosely based on the title of a famous book. But the book itself has no characters to build on. So I would classify something like that as an original too.

    For the most part I agree with you Anghus, but there is still some wiggle room. Just because your movie is based on a premise, that doesn’t make it unoriginal.

    What happens if your premise is a true story, and no book was written yet? Does that make it unoriginal?

  13. The Big Perm says:

    This argument is getting nuts…if you’re going to discount movies based on books, then Hollywood has ALWAYS only launched franchises. The Godfather, Jaws, The Exorcist.

    Or hey, let’s go to Hollywood’s Golden age and look at the Best Picture noms of 1939. Based on books…Goodbye Mr. Chips, Wizard of Oz, Of Mice and Men, Wuthering Heights.

    Dark Victory…based on a play.

    PURELY original…Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Stagecoach (if we want to call a shoot em up Western original).

    And like, sure a movie like Blade or Iron Man is technically based on something, like Guardians of the Galaxy is…but have most people actually heard of them? No, Guardians may as well be an original for all the pop culture space it inhabits.

  14. berg says:

    Stagecoach is based on the short story Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant first published in 1880

  15. anghus says:

    Hard lines, gentleman.

    just because the public may be unaware doesn’t change the definition of the word.

    Battleship, maybe. It lacks a narrative. Its a game. But “not derived from” makes it tough to apply. And people are right; Hollywood has been putting out movies that you could describe as not being original forever. The word means what the word means.

    just because its new to you doesn’t make it new.

  16. palmtree says:

    The word “original” is problematic, because I think DP’s referring NOT to the first incarnation of the story, but to the first time it is made into a movie.

    And then in case of Gatsby, Lone Ranger, and others that have previous movie versions, the new ones are like “near originals,” having little to do with the originals and also gaining no benefit from the original in terms of public awareness.

    But since it’s so damned confusing, isn’t it just better to call them something else…like “part ones” or “non-sequels” or “standalones”. Right?

  17. anghus says:

    Adaptations would cover just about everything. Book, video game, play, board game, tv show….

    So you’d have originals, adaptations, franchises, sequels/prequels

  18. David Poland says:

    Uh… even originals are not original.

    Gatsby is a book. But the 2013 film is not a remake. It’s not trading on the 70s movie or its success. It is another adaptation of a book.

    There was a hot spec market for a few years. Much less now.

    Is 2 Guns, as a movie, not an original because 100,000 peopel – if that – read the graphic novel?

    Sequels are not originals. Remakes that are trading on being remakes are not originals. Everything else, to a movie ticket buyer, is original. Even Broadway shows.

    And yes, whoever made the point that Hollywood has always sought source material – that Barton Fink feeling – that could be commercial is correct.

    Is Citizen Kane an original, even if it’s based on a real story that was completely identifiable? Primary Colors?

  19. movieman says:

    “2 Guns” was based on a comic??
    I thought it was based on the combined late ’60s/early ’70s ouevres of Peckinpah and Siegel, hence the new and improved monicker I dubbed it with, “Bring Me the Head of Charley Varrick.”
    (And it’s for those very reasons that I loved “Guns.” Easily one of the more pleasant surprises of the season, if not the entire year.)

  20. Steven Kaye says:

    Meanwhile, Blue Jasmine made $986,419 in its first week or release, with a PTA of $164,403. Pretty cool, considering the next highest PTA was Wolverine’s $18,683.

  21. movieman says:

    ..and when “Blue Jasmine” hits 800 screens later this month, that per-screen average will probably drop to $2,000.
    I wouldn’t read too much into those preliminary figures, Mr. Kaye.
    “Midnight in Paris” notwithstanding, Woody remains an acquired taste.
    And precious few of today’s “frequent moviegoers” even know his name, let alone his remarkable, four decades-plus body of work.
    Sad and inordinately depressing, but true.

  22. Ray Pride says:

    False comparison.

  23. anghus says:

    there really is no point in responding to stephen kayes posts. hes a spam bot or may as well be dropping into random conversations to post about Woody Allen PTA and then vanish. Usually he reserves this boring shit for the box office posts. Now he’s interrupting interesting valid conversations to advertise Woody Allen box office stats.

    Im convinced he somehow is associated with either Woody’s production company or Sony Picture Classics. He has a twitter account with six friends which he uses to SURPRISE, occassionally post positive things about Woody Allen. It has that thinly veiled attempt at reality that you see Politicians use to beef up their social network profile.

    Dave, Primary Colors is a bad example since it’s based on very recent events and a book of the same name. So, not original. The fictionalized events of real life become more interesting because technically i dont think you can apply the word ‘adaptation’ to reality. A fictionalized account of a character based on a real person would still fall under original, at least to me.

    If it has source material, it’s not original.

    Whether or not people realize 2 Guns is based on a comic, it is still based on a comic. And 100,000 people knowing about the 2 Guns comic would be generous. The most popular indie comics right now (outside of walking dead) movie 30-40,000 copies. And thats often after going back for a second print run.

  24. brack says:

    No movie is original except for the first one ever made. The rest are just imitating that one movie, whatever it was.

  25. The Big Perm says:

    Brack is correct. Star Wars isn’t original, it’s just ripping off other movies. Indiana Jones isn’t original. 2 Guns isn’t original not just because of the comic it’s based on (which I didn’t know) but because it’s ripping off every action movie made in the 80s to early 90s. You want to do hard lines, there it is. I don’t see why people get so antsy over it.

  26. cadavra says:

    Imitation has been going on as long as there has been entertainment. But that’s still not the same as a remake, sequel or adaptation of a hugely popular TV show/video game/toy/whatever, where the prime motivation is a recognizable and thus pre-sold title.

  27. leahnz says:

    clearly DP meant original and not original in the context cadavra just defined above, as in ‘a remake, sequel or adaptation of a hugely popular TV show/video game/toy/whatever, where the prime motivation is a recognizable and thus pre-sold title” being not original, and not the literal dictionary definition – tho how DP categorises some of the exmples he uses as ‘original’ is baffling.

  28. Hallick says:

    Can’t we just define “original” and “unoriginal” as whatever would wind up in the Original Screenplay or Adapted Screenplay categories in the Oscars, weird exceptions and baffling anomalies notwithstanding?

    (at this point I’ll bet Dave was wishing he’d gone with an entry about The Sapphires called “Aboriginals Can’t Launch”)

  29. The Big Perm says:

    But Cadavra, that’s where we’re getting into ridiculous semantics. Like, we can argue that the original Piranha is an “original” movie, but the reality is they just wanted to make a Jaws rip-off and used the exact same template as the movie, and just switched the monster.

    I think people tend to assume because they have heard of something, that thing is recognizable. Let me say…something like Guardians of the Galaxy is not recognizable except to a very select audience. I think to a large degree, it’s an original, because there’s not really a pre-sold market for it. Jurassic Park 4 isn’t a true original even though the story would be. No one knows that 2 Guns was based on a comic, so it’s sort of an original movie using stars as the pre-sold elements, not the material.

  30. The Big Perm says:

    Hallick, your idea is a good one but it wouldn’t solve an argument about if Guardians of the Galaxy is original or not cause…you know!

  31. YancySkancy says:

    I thought Dave meant original in the sense of “original for all practical purposes” to the current audience.

  32. anghus says:

    “I thought Dave meant original in the sense of “original for all practical purposes” to the current audience”

    That’s still the ‘it’s new to you’ argument and not original. What he meant vs. what is are two different things.

    For the record, i got what he meant. Hell, i get everybody’s take on what they think original is. However, may i once again counter with:

    o·rig·i·nal (-rj-nl)
    adj.
    1. Preceding all others in time; first.
    2.
    a. Not derived from something else; fresh and unusual: an original play, not an adaptation.
    b. Showing a marked departure from previous practice; new: a truly original approach. See Synonyms at new.
    3. Productive of new things or new ideas; inventive: an original mind.
    4. Being the source from which a copy, reproduction, or translation is made.

  33. leahnz says:

    we may not be rocket scientists around here but i think most people over the age of 12 know the definition of original

  34. Joe Leydon says:

    Anghus, you’re beginning to sound a bit like all those tedious folks who went around in 2000 saying, “Hey, people: The 21st century doesn’t REALLY begin until 2001!” Or an editor of my acquaintance who, every December, felt compelled to remind everybody: “The name of the poem is A Visit from St. Nick, NOT The Night Before Christmas.”

    Of course, I shouldn’t talk: I’ve often tried to tell people that the cultists at Jonestown drank Flavor Aid, not Kool-Aid, so the term “Drinking the Kool-Aid” is incorrect, but…

  35. The Big Perm says:

    Oh, NOW I understand what original means! I didn’t get it until I got to read the dictionary definition.

  36. anghus says:

    leah, based on everything i read in here, apparently not.

    And Joe, i try to fight the urge to be obtuse on stuff like this. But i think journalists and reporters have a certain obligation to the form.

    I know Dave’s not Woodward or Bernstein, but to call Lone Ranger or Battleship ‘original’, even in his warped context is patently wrong. To accept that people can just change words to fit their own meaning is, and should be, depressing to anyone with any degree of standards.

    If it wasnt so blatant or so wrong, i’d have said nothing.

  37. cadavra says:

    Okay, maybe I’m not making myself clear. An “original” in my mind means not a remake, sequel, reboot or any other euphemism of a property that has been filmed before, whether theatrically or on television. An adaptation of a novel or play or whatever would be considered “original” if it has not been filmed before. Thus, the 1938 LONE RANGER serial would be an original, while the current version is not.

  38. Triple Option says:

    cadavra, ftw

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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