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
If you’d have told me Marvel would open DR STRANGE at a level 25-50% above the origin of THOR, CAPTAIN AMERICA, HULK, or ANT-MAN a few years ago, in November no less, rather than May or July, I’d have laughed a lot. But we’re now in an era where $85 million is only good for the #5 superhero opening of the year, and thus seems ho-hum.
On the other hand…time to move the goalposts once again on the first MCU flop! Since SPIDERMAN: HOMECOMING could be blamed on Sony, and THOR 3 seems like more of a sure thing lately, I’m going to go with BLACK PANTHER now! 🙂
“On the other hand…time to move the goalposts once again on the first MCU flop! Since SPIDERMAN: HOMECOMING could be blamed on Sony, and THOR 3 seems like more of a sure thing lately, I’m going to go with BLACK PANTHER now! :)”
I cannot think of ONE prognosticator, one reporter from the industry who predicted this film to flop – opening close to $100 million domestic was ALWAYS the expectation, why else would they have been promoting it with non-stop prime time ads for the past two months??
There will not be a Marvel Studios flop, I have said this before…..just a slow gradual decrease of the overall audience where overseas will make up for domestic like the ‘Pirates or Transformers franchises.
And Spider-Man Resurgence will have the insurance of Iron Man/Tony Stark being featured heavily in the marketing so I would expect that to make solid Sony-man money. And Thor 3 will have the insurance of being a Thor-Hulk team-up movie – the whole concept of “stand-alones” is pretty much falling by the wayside in this genre now.
I adore Moonlight. (Mild spoilers follow.) Every bit as good as I’d heard. It’s so intimate and affecting. So many powerful moments of silence or stillness. So many moments that are almost unbearably raw and moving. When he asks Juan about his sexuality. When he tells Kevin no other man has touched him in a decade. It isn’t perfect. A couple of moments are too on-the-nose, like Paula lecturing the drug dealer and Paula insisting she loves him regardless of Chiron’s feelings for her. Those stick out because they are out of lesser movies. But this is one special movie. Each actor is spectacular, as is the supporting cast. I didn’t want it to end. Chiron and Kevin could have kept on talking in the restaurant or the latter’s kitchen. When it ended I felt downright euphoric.
“I cannot think of ONE prognosticator, one reporter from the industry who predicted this film to flop –”
I can’t think of a single long-term prognosticator who didn’t warn of DR. STRANGE or ANT-MAN being the MCU’s first inevitable flop years out.
In terms of gradual decline, this will likely be the biggest fall /winter superhero movie of all-time, and will likely finish way ahead of any other MCU single-hero origin, while THOR 3 will almost certainly see growth over THOR 2 next year…so I’d nix that for now. STRANGE only needs to hit $240 million in order to break the MCU’s single-year domestic record in back-to-back years.
Anecdotally, but WOM appears to be much, much stronger here for non-Marvel fans than any film in the canon outside of IRON MAN, AVENGERS 1 and GOTG. That’s the play here…ULTRON and CIVIL WAR were massive fan-based events. This thing has broader ambitions, even if cume BO doesn’t match (home market will help).