MCN Columnists
Leonard Klady

Klady By Leonard KladyKlady@moviecitynews.com

Great … Scott!

What seems rather commonplace, even organic today – a screenwriter taking the reins of his script – was once a rather radical proposition. We’ve all been privy to yarns about brilliant scripts transformed into pedestrian vehicles by filmmakers with indifferent credentials that simply didn’t “get it.” The godfather of all writer-directors was Preston Sturges who…

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Target: Cowabunga …

March 25, 2007 Weekend Finals Domestic Market Share TNMT – aka Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – led weekend movie going with an estimated $25.6 million. In a session dominated by openings of six national releases box office grew but there was no getting around the fact that the preems weren’t quite at peak box office potential….

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Knee Jerk Reaction …

March 18, 2007 Weekend Finals Domestic Market Share The Spartans of 300 were still commanding the field even as their energies diminished by 56% to an estimated $31.3 million. Meanwhile the incoming forces had mixed effect with the chiller Premonition scarring up an impressive $17.7 million to rank third; followed by OK returns of $7.7 million for…

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What’s A Billion Among Friends …

Last year the Motion Picture Association of America decided days before the start of the ShoWest convention to unveil its annual box office statistics in advance of the event. The rationale was that everyone knew that both box office and admissions had declined and getting that dirty detail out of the way would allow the…

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Sparkin’ Spartans …

March 11, 2007 Weekend Estimates Domestic Market Share The eye-popping graphics of 300 corralled close to half of weekend business with a staggering estimate of $69.5 million. The historic drama was virtually the only new national release though the inspirational The Ultimate Gift did unspool in 800 locations for a $1.2 million tally. Additionally there…

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Hog Wild …

March 4, 2007 Weekend Estimates Domestic Market Share It was the snort of approval for Wild Hogs and – in the words of Borat – not so much for Zodiac. The two freshmen entries debuted in the top two slots for weekend moviegoers with respective estimated grosses of $38.1 million and $12.9 million. Overall business saw a…

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Klady

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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