Eduardo Porter and Geraldine Fabrikant have written a N.Y. Times piece titled called “A Big Star May Not a Profitable Movie Make.” And we all know that to be true, but what is the ultimate bottom-line rule of thumb that any producer needs to accept when he/she pays big bucks for a star to play the lead role in a film?
Here’s what you get, and I swear to Krishna this is as much of a basic and fundamental rule as William Goldman‘s “nobody knows anything.” Pay for a big star or two and you’ll get people to pay attention to your movie when they first hear about it for ten seconds or less. During which time they will perk up and say to themselves, “Oh…what’s this one about?” And that’s all you’ll get. Six, seven or eight seconds worth of attention.
Without a big star’s name, chances are the average would-be moviegoer won’t pay attention at all. It would be nice if detections of stellar quality in a film (as initially confirmed by general advance buzz or film-festival consensus) mattered to people but it doesn’t seem to, for the most part. But a star’s name will get you those ten seconds or less with Joe Schmoe. I think that’s a completely reliable assessment.
And then the movie will pretty much sink or swim on its own. If people want to see it based on their own criteria (and not Kenneth Turan‘s or Hollywood Elsewhere’s or Scott Rudin‘s or anyone else’s…the ticket buyer decides solely according to his or her wits and gut instincts), and if they like the teasers or trailers and if there’s any kind of buzz in the air about it, they might give it a shot. Maybe.
So to underline this one more time, I think it’s fair to say that spending $10 or $12 or $15 million for a name-level star or two will persuade many millions of people to consider the idea of seeing your film for seven or eight or nine seconds.
But don’t kid yourself into thinking it means that they’ll show up. Because people really don’t give that much of a damn about you or your movie or what you spent to put it together and have it sold. A certain portion of the online generation will absorb the buzz about a film (and then pass the word along to their friends via text messaging). A microscopic portion of the public will re-consider seeing your film when the opening-day reviews are published.
But most people out there, I believe, are indifferent and/or don’t give a shit. This isn’t 1939 and they’re not movie loyalists, and they’re not your family or your childhood friends, and they don’t really care if you live or die or suffer a heart attack on the street. What they care about is doing the thing that they want to do on the spur of the moment when Friday night rolls around, and that’s all.

“The mudslinging between Sumner Redstone and CAA [over last week’s Tom Cruise dismissal from the Paramount lot] may be largely a show for each side’s power base. Their interdependence is underscored by the dozen movie projects involving CAA clients pending at Paramount. The studio can ill afford to be feuding with CAA when it is only now getting back on track after a year of management turmoil and box-office disappointments. And it would be next to impossible today for any agency — even one as powerful as CAA — to boycott Paramount, which accounts for as much as 20% of the movie business.” — from Claire Hoffman‘s 8.28 L.A. Times piece titled “Cruise Flap a Set Piece?”

Now that the great Helen Mirren has won a Best Actress (in a Miniseries or Movie) Emmy for her performance as the Queen Elizabeth of yore in HBO’s Elizabeth I, does this affect in any way her chances of being considered as a Best Actress contender for her performance as the current Queen Elizabeth in Stephen Frears’ The Queen (Miramax, 10.6)? Or does it matter not at all?
There’s no denying that Mirren delivering two award-calibre perfs as a pair of English queens named Elizabeth in films presented the same year is a fairly striking coincidence. And I’m just sorta wondering if people are going to say (a) “Well, sure…she’s a great actress all around so the Elizabeth coincidence aside it’s right and fair that it’s double-derby time“, (b) “I don’t know…she was excellent in the HBO film and exquisite in the Frears film, but wasn’t her Best Actress Emmy sufficient? Worthy as it is, do we need to toast her other Elizabeth now that she’s already been covered?” or (c) “This is silly…if she’s excellent in the Frears film she deserves an Oscar nom and that’s that…the Emmy doesn’t mean diddly.”

The MPAA’s rating system “is a racket, a way of saving face and assuaging public morality while making as much money as possible by showing sex and violence to cinema audiences,” writes David Thomson in the 8.27 Independent. It’s a piece worth reading because Thomson sums it all up very neatly.
“In practice, the MPPA has viewing panels that see a film, make their suggestion and then ‘negotiate’ with the filmmakers over what can and cannot be included. To this extent, the system is rigged. An NC-17 rating is still a killer because in the sedated and religious parts of America, an NC-17 film will not be shown, or even advertised. In other words, the provision for adult entertainment — and I don’t mean pornography, I mean material and ideas only for adults — is denied by the censoriousness of certain communities.
“In short, an NC-17 cannot make money, and so most production contracts require the director to deliver an R-rated picture. [And] independent films — in their nature,more dangerous, more subversive and less viable — do not get the same kind of treatment” — i.e., liberal and/or extended negotiations. “So the racket is that the ratings have ended up re-enforcing the commercial mainstream.”