The Hollywood Reporter: Risky Business

Gym Class, On The Other Hand...

By Steven Zeitchik

While we wait for the WGA to meet - literally, we're camped out at the Crowne Plaza, where the WGA East is meeting here in New York - we need something to read. And what do we turn to? Why, issues of movie magazine Fade In, of course ("The #1 movie magazine in America," according to the cover tag-line). We're sure you've got a subscription, but in case you don't, the mag recently released its semi-regular studio report card.

Fade In polled producers and writers (hey, maybe they can settle their differences) on their experiences working with studios and minimajors. It's an amazingly honest or amazingly biased account (depending, I guess, on whether you're being praised or insulted) and, by any standard, undeniably anecdotal. Not exactly a full canvas; more like a small swatch. Still, there's funny and provocative stuff that makes for good reading, truckloads of salt and all.

That's the good news. The bad news: it's not online.

So we'll excerpt the most colorful lines, trying to balance positive and a negative quotes on each studio (since there are ample amounts of both). Fade In offers the disclaimer that "The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to those
that were interviewed and quoted for this story, and are not the opinion of Fade In." So we'll just add a layer and say the excerpts here are from Fade In and don't reflect the views and opinions of this blog.

Lionsgate
"I don't think they take big chances on films. Once every indicator is positive they'll support it." (Producer)

"The production was probably the best experience I had on a movie. The reason is because they're set up completely different (from other studios.) There're two executives... and that's it. And they're doing the same job that a studio with fifteen executives is doing." (Producer)

New Line
"Every movie is going to get made if the green-light committee says it's gonna to get made. So all these people have to weigh in on it....And if one person doesn't like the project, or it doesn't work with all his numbers, then the whole movie could get derailed." (Producer)

"In the hierarchy of it all, i found the lieutenants at New Line to be pretty good; they worked very hard and did a great job for us. But I found the top brass to be pretty checked out." (Producer)

Pixar's Lasseter Tackles Disney Animation

Pixar chief John Lasseter started out his career at Disney, but saw a digital future that the studio did not share. Now he's trying to fix the studio's out-of-date animation division—without throwing out 2-D drawing with the bathwater.

[Photo by Monica Almedia, NYT]

Cruise and Wagner and the New UA

The NYT's Richard Siklos fills in a few details in the already reported deal that MGM chief Harry Sloan has struck with Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner to run the MGM label United Artists, complete with ownership stake. But the real shape of this deal is still sketchy.

Here's Claudia Eller's LAT profile of MGM's Sloan.

Warners Secures Wilson/Plame Life Rights

Warner Bros. has acquired life rights to Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson's CIA leak story. Now that's a movie I'd like to see Michael Mann tackle. Akiva Goldsman and Jerry Zucker are producing, so that's an unlikely scenario.

Studios Vs. Screenwriters

Billy Mernit reports from inside the studio development beast on how the process really works. Sometimes good writers meet bad studio execs, but sometimes it goes the other way too. It's true. There are countless examples of top-flight writers who get paid millions to whiff on rewrites that wind up in the studio dead zone. I have long maintained, and in fact counseled one Oscar-nominated screenwriter this past weekend, that writing original screenplays is the way to go. Don't take the money if it prevents you from doing your own best work. Because what you want to write is often going to be better than what they want to pay you to write. On the other hand, many writers and directors should listen to the good notes when they come. That's what they're being paid for. And many folks at the studios do know what they're doing—fashioning commercial projects. Etc.

On the Zodiac front, I've been reading all these stories about David Fincher (and there are also many stories about Michael Mann, James Cameron, Alfonso Cuaron, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Redford, Terrence Malick, Warren Beatty, Todd Field, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, etc, excellent fussbudget directors all). Now I'm the first one to hold up someone like Clint Eastwood as the role model for good responsible behavior on a movie set. Move fast, get what you need, no fuss and bother. But everybody doesn't work that way, and the studios are breeding grounds for egos run amuck. Producers and studio suits are not always wrong. A smart director should be open to good ideas, wherever they come from, and resist the bad ones. And there is no excuse for bad behavior, no matter who you are. It's possible to get good work from people without abusing them. I don't know where the line is with any of the filmmakers listed above. Crews are notorious for complaining about demanding directors.

In the case of Zodiac, though, while I grant that the film does get mired in the details, that's what the book was about, and that's what the movie's about, and the movie gets so much so right that I have to defend it. I admire Mark Ruffalo's professional attitude, which is, I get paid so much, I'll do whatever you say. And I recognize that Jake Gyllenhaal's role in Zodiac was damned difficult to play, in any case--it's the passive, reactive part, much harder than what Ruffalo and Robert Downey, Jr. were doing. On the other hand, is there ever any justification for 70 takes? I don't think so. It's a waste of time and money.

Warners Buys Another Hong Kong Flick

In the wake of its success with The Departed, Warner Bros. is jumping back on the Hong Kong remake bandwagon. The Departed's William Monahan is busy writing his latest Hong Kong adaptation, Confessions of Pain.

Abrams May Direct King's Dark Tower

The whole J.J. Abrams saga at Paramount is fascinating. Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner first brought the Lost creator in to direct Mission: Impossible 3. Thrilled with the results (which were decidely lackluster at the domestic boxoffice), recently departed studio president Gail Berman assigned Abrams to rejuvenate the dormant Star Trek franchise, which he is still doing as producer—but studio sources say that he is not interested in directing. So now the word on the street—denied as premature by Paramount flacks—is that he will direct the Stephen King series The Dark Tower.

Here's Stax's IGN report:

IGN has exclusively learned that J.J. Abrams is poised to direct The Dark Tower, based on the Stephen King literary series. Sources advised us that an official announcement is forthcoming. We have been unable to determine whether Dark Tower will be a film project or a TV miniseries, although the latter is a more likely prospect given the complex nature of King's seven-book series. Given Abrams' success on the small screen -- and King's well known love for the Abrams-produced TV series Lost -- the tube seems a better fit for The Dark Tower.

Sources also added that Abrams is indeed only producing Star Trek XI. It was recently reported that Abrams would not direct Trek XI, as many had assumed, but would instead turn his attention to a secret Paramount project titled Cloverfield. Might Cloverfield be a codename for The Dark Tower? Or a completely separate project? (Interestingly enough, Entertainment Weekly did an interview last year with King, Abrams and his Lost producing partner Damon Lindelof, who reportedly
brought a rare first edition of The Gunslinger to the meeting.)

[Photo by Neil Motteram]

Studios Botch Romantic Comedies

I like my romantic comedies Working Title-style. Witty. Well-written and structured. When a good romantic comedy works, it's magic. Four Weddings and a Funeral. Notting Hill. Love Actually. Pride and Prejudice. And even on the Hollywood side of the pond, there's While You Were Sleeping. Sleepless in Seattle. You've Got Mail. Broadcast News. Not to mention the old greats like It Happened One Night, which Nora and I watched last weekend at a packed house at the New Beverly—it's as fresh as if it were made yesterday.

My problem is, I see a movie like Music and Lyrics, which opens Valentine's Day, and I want another version of it—the non-mainstream, less expensive and not-washed-out version, the non-studio, indie, smart-house version. Obviously, I am not the target audience for mainstream studio movies. But do they have to be so bland and whitebread, so void of personality? I look at Music and Lyrics and see a great concept for a romantic comedy--a washed up has-been 80s pop star (Grant) needs a damaged but gifted young writer (Drew Barrymore) to help him concoct a comeback song. I see two charming and sexy movie stars. And a script that probably once had great nutrients in it. Bit by bit, by dint of bad casting and formula moments, the movie wore down all my good will, as it went into the Studio Romantic Comedy hopper.

Give me a French comedy like Avenue Montaigne, a delightful, light-as-air confection. Give me anything by Nancy Meyers, because at least it's her voice, loud and clear. And James Brooks--I'm there whenever he's ready. Music and Lyrics was written and directed by Marc Lawrence, who also brought us Two Weeks Notice. No thanks.

The LAT's Rachel Abramowitz writes a well-reported piece about the difficulty of making these comedies today:

BUSINESS considerations also play a huge factor in what is seen on the big screen. Simply put, studios nowadays love big male movie stars — no one will ever get fired for casting Ben Stiller. Corporations such as Sony and Universal still happily make romantic comedies, but more and more from the male point of view: films such as "Hitch," or "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," or even "Wedding Crashers," which blends the old-fashioned buddy movie with the romantic comedy. Even though the romances with Rachel McAdams and Isla Fisher are charming, the real relationship is between the swingers, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.

Coming up this year is an updated version of Neil Simon's classic "The Heartbreak Kid," starring Ben Stiller as a guy who falls for another woman on his honeymoon. There's also Chris Rock's remake of Eric Rohmer's "Chloe in the Afternoon," "I Think I Love My Wife," about a happily married man inexorably attracted to a free-spirited young woman, and "Dan in Real Life," in which Steve Carell plays a widower who falls in love with his brother's girlfriend.

None of these movies feature a major female star as a love object, because why not save money by using a beautiful young ingénue?

Studios are leery about plunking down a huge amount of money on a female movie star to top-line this genre, unless she's named Roberts. In the last two years, many female stars — including Nicole Kidman, Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and even Reese Witherspoon — failed in putatively commercial ventures such as "Fever Pitch" ($42 million gross) and "Bewitched" ($63 million at the box office). After buoying the 2003 hit romance "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days " to more than $100 million domestically, the ebullient Kate Hudson fizzled in such clunkers as "Alex & Emma" and "Raising Helen" and was subsequently sent to movie jail, where she played the barely written wife role in "You, Me and Dupree," about yet another guy (Owen Wilson) struggling with the dilemmas of adulthood.

Indeed, a theme that runs through many of the recent male romantic comedies is male ambivalence about maturity. Here's a news flash: Men are scared of growing up.

Paramount May Scrap Kavalier & Clay

Word is, one of my favorite books, Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which Stephen Daldry was supposed to direct for Scott Rudin and Gail Berman, when she was still at Paramount, may be put into turnaround. Jeez. What are they thinking? Berman did make some foolish moves: like letting go of such franchise titles as Tom Clancy's Without Remorse, which had John Singleton on board to direct, and Rainbow Six. (The studio still plans to restart Clancy's Jack Ryan franchise with a younger, new star.) And Berman hated Edgar Rice Burroughs' Princess of Mars, even with Jon Favreau attached! (He's going to direct Iron Man now.) Disney/Pixar made a bid for the rights. If Paramount does let it go, producer Scott Rudin will have absolutely no trouble setting up Kavalier & Clay somewhere else.

DreamWorks vs. Paramount

The NYT's Laura Holson asked to do a DreamWorks a year after the sale to Paramount story. Apparently the folks at DreamWorks are happy about having stated their case. I don't know. In the end, the company founded by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg was not able to stand on its own and had to sell. Dreamworks is doing well in its new incarnation, by any measure. The company's pictures saved Paramount chairman Brad Grey's bacon, and DreamWorks has a ton of strong projects in the pipeline. But should they reveal their cares and concerns about their status so nakedly? So Grey is a credit grabber? So what's new? Everyone in Hollywood plays that game.

UPDATE: Here's Kim Masters' astute analysis and speculation about DreamWorks, Paramount and Viacom in Slate.

Zemeckis Goes to Disney

Director Bob Zemeckis and his producing partners Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey are pacting with Walt Disney Studios to produce performance capture movies for the studio. This is a big loss for Sony and there's no mention of Sony Imageworks, which developed the technology for Polar Express and Monster House (will Pixar be involved now?) and Warner Bros. (Polar Express) and Paramount, which partnered on Beowulf. Finally, as these things tend to go, the place that needed Zemeckis the most, Disney, paid the premium to get him. Zemeckis falls inside Disney's current family film mandate and former marketing head turned production chief Oren Aviv hasn’t been greenlighting much product. Zemeckis remains free to ply his live-action directing trade elsewhere.

Here's THR's story:

Director Robert Zemeckis and his producing partners Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey are joining forces with the Walt Disney Studios to set up a new performance-capture film company devoted to CG-created, 3-D movies.

Zemeckis and Disney chairman Dick Cook announced the new venture Monday.

The company will create films using the performance capture technology that digitally records actors' movements and feeds them into a computer that Zemeckis has been perfecting with such films as "Polar Express," which he directed, "Monster House," which he exec produced, and the upcoming "Beowulf," which he also is directing.

Zemeckis, Rapke and Starkey will produce all of the films with Zemeckis expected to direct a number of the projects. Disney will distribute and market the motion pictures worldwide.

Cook said, "The creation of this new company is yet another step in our leadership role in cutting edge technology as it relates to the movie industry. Bob is an amazing director who continues to push the envelope in creating the best in cinematic experiences."

Zemeckis added, "Jack, Steve and I are looking forward with great excitement to be working with Dick Cook and his team. In addition to being an enthusiastic champion of 3D movies, the Walt Disney Studios is committed to the advancement of digital cinema in all areas including performance capture."

Universal Wins Robin Hood Project to Star Crowe

Universal Pictures has won yet another heated bidding war, this time for a revisionist take on the Robin Hood legend starring Russell Crowe as the "good" sheriff tracking down the Sherwood Forest bandit, THR's Borys Kit reports. Universal has been on a buying spree of late—partly because they need product for their new international pipeline. But are they overspending for these properties?

The full story is pasted on the jump:

Berman Leaves Paramount Behind, Where Resentments Simmer

As she was leaving Paramount, Gail Berman said she was working on something that would combine all her entertainment experience and knowhow and sure enough, she's hooking up with former TV and internet honcho Lloyd Braun to form a new production venture, reports the NYT and THR:

Former Paramount Pictures president Gail Berman and former Yahoo! Media Group chief Lloyd Braun are teaming to form a production venture tentatively dubbed BermanBraun, sources said Monday.

The company aims to focus primarily on TV and film production at the outset but will delve into original content for Internet and emerging media platforms. Sources cautioned that plans for the venture are still in the formative stage. Berman and Braun have long known each other through industry circles and have kicked around the idea of working together in a more formal arrangement for some time.

Reps for Berman and Braun declined comment. It's understood that the two had intended to announce the venture in a few weeks, but word of their plan began to spread late last week.

Berman exited her post at Paramount this month after a rocky 18-month tenure that coincided with broader upheaval on the Melrose Avenue lot (HR 1/11). Braun left Yahoo! last month, a little more than two years after launching the Santa Monica-based media arm of the Internet giant (HR 12/06).

Sources said the executives were motivated to join forces after years of working at large media companies. It's understood that the two have quietly been having conversations to explore nontraditional sources of funding for the venture, given all the private-equity money that has flowed into Hollywood during the past two years. Berman and Braun are said to be aiming to build a boutique indie outfit along the lines of Carsey-Werner Co. that would have the option of working with multiple network and studio partners rather than aligning with a single entity.

Meanwhile, the scene back at the Paramount studio hasn't gotten any tidier, suggested Claudia Eller in Monday's LAT. She reports that DreamWorks mogul David Geffen tried to persuade Viacom chief Sumner Redstone to replace departing Viacom lieutenant Tom Freston with Jeffrey Katzenberg, which would have made the DreamWorks animation czar Paramount studio chief Brad Grey's boss, but Redstone wasn't having any of it. Eller also writes that DreamWorks' Stacey Snider is chafing under Grey's leadership: