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
One million dollars?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l91ISfcuzDw
DP, how would you have handled The Interview release?
Great number for “Unbroken.” When’s the last time we had a studio release actually top expectations? I think you have to go all the way back to the weekend “Gone Girl” and “Annabelle” opened.
Mr. Jolie-Pitt is now 2nd fiddle when it comes to WWII movies at the box office.
And…to all of the people here that suggested that Into The Woods was going to be a tough sale with no audience…
Sold out shows all of yesterday at my multiplex. Applause after three numbers. Big applause at the end of the film.
Now we know Glamourboy lives in New York.
i get so behind, did i miss an in-depth discussion of ‘under the skin’?
The idea posited on Deadline that “Unbroken” is getting a boost from “Faith” auds (the same group who apparently rejected “Exodus”) is kind of fascinating.
Isn’t Mr. Jolie-Pitt (thanks Et) tantamount to an anti-christ in these circles?
Or could Angie be getting a pass because her dad is a rabid dog Republican reactionary?
Perhaps they just like watching extended torture scenes.
After all, “Unbroken” has more of them than any wide release–excepting “Saw” or “Hostel” movies–since “The Passion of the Christ.” And we know how popular Mel Gibson’s passion project was with that group.
Glamourboy, it’s tough to make a call based on one day, but if WOODS makes it to $100 million, no one will be happier than me to be proven wrong.
I don’t live in NY. And I saw it during a holiday in the mid-west.
Musicals at this time of year are typically VERY front-loaded……Les Miserables had a ton of awards buzz going and ended up making well more than 1/10 of its total domestic gross on its opening day. Still gotta give Disney credit for really pulling out all of the stops the past month to raise awareness for thing.
As for Unbroken, Universal has been selling the shit out of this movie since the Winter Olympics….they had prime time spots going in February! Fantastic marketing job though….with a no-name cast and really NOT an established director, they were very canny about marketing this as an Angelina Jolie-star vehicle. And let’s face it – true-life war stories are their wheelhouse now, they did a bang-up job last year selling Lone Survivor as well.
“After all, “Unbroken” has more of them than any wide release–excepting “Saw” or “Hostel” movies–since “The Passion of the Christ.”
Hahaha. Someone really doesn’t like Angelina 😉 I mean, I’m assuming you saw “Twelve Years a Slave,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” and “Inglourious Basterds.” Actually, “Unbroken” may have more than the latter but the ones in “Basterds” last so long and are so damn unremittingly brutal.
I’m probably reacting more to the obnoxious awards marketing than from any animus towards Angie, Et. (For the record, I thought she gave the performance of her career in “Maleficent” earlier this year.)
And the film itself–“Unbroken,” that is–just isn’t very good.
The aerial combat stuff is as CGI-synthetic as anything this side of “Red Tails,” the lifeboat scenes paled (badly) in comparison w/ “Life of Pi” and the prison camp sojourn only served to remind me how much I loved “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.”
But I think the absolute nadir was the ethnicity-with-a-trowel boyhood scenes. I thought I was watching a really bad 1940’s John Garfield movie.
RIP Luise Rainer, the OG (original gangsta) when it came to bucking the studio system, hobnobbing with literary intelligentsia, and out-diva-ing Fellini.
She was 104, the oldest living Oscar winner, a title that I assume would now go to Olivia de Havilland.