March 13, 2018 – Hollywood Elsewhere

How Would Female-Driven Classics Fare Today?

March 13, 2018 by Jeffrey Wells

It’s understood that middle-class, middle-budget reality dramas have been consigned to cable and the indie realm. (Speaking of which you can’t do much better on that score than Collateral, the recently popped Netflix series with Carey Mulligan as a police inspector). This means, I presume, that sturdy, well-written dramas about women, even in this revolutionary era, are still having a tough time being funded above the Spirit Award level (i.e., $20 million tops).

I’m not saying it’s impossible to score backing for a mildly expensive, character-driven drama about a woman character played by a mid-range star, but the usual resistance doesn’t seem to have changed, at least in the realm of theatrical make-or-break.

Erin Brockovich, which was made 19 years ago for $52 million (or roughly $75 million in 2018 dollars), probably wouldn’t be made today as a theatrical film — it would be produced by Netflix or Amazon. The Steven Soderbergh-directed film, which opened in March 2000, earned $125.5M domestic and $256.2M worldwide.

And Alan Parker‘s well-respected Shoot The Moon, which cost $12 million to make in ’81 or nearly $31 million by the 2018 economy, would probably have to go Netflix or Amazon also, and even then who knows? Theatrically the Diane Keaton-Albert Finney marital drama was a bust — it only made $9.2 million domestic.

On the other hand a version of Paul Mazursky‘s An Unmarried Woman, which cost $2,515,000 (roughly $10 million in 2018 dollars) to shoot in 1977 and went on to earn $24 million in ’78 or just under $100 million by the ’18 economy, would probably be funded today.

Ditto a version of Alan Pakula‘s Klute, which was made in 1970 for $2.5 million or $16 million by the measure of 2018, would probably be funded today. Maybe. The urban thriller wound up earning $12,512,637, which translates into $80 million today. (The 1970 to 2018 multiple is 6.42.)

Action Flicks Have Gone To CG Hell

March 13, 2018 by Jeffrey Wells

I feel obliged to attend a 6 pm screening this evening of Roar Uthaug‘s Lara Croft (Warner Bros., 3.16) at the Arclight. God help me. Imagine the feeling of going to see a movie directed by a guy named “Roar.” I’m not going to joke about a sister named “Meow” or a brother named “Rowlf”, but what kind of sadistic couple, really, would name their kid “Roar”? That’s like naming him “Sue” or “Cyclops.”

I would love to enjoy a gripping, well-made actioner in the vein of Steven Spielberg‘s Raiders of the Lost Ark (which didn’t defy physics as much as the next three films in the series), but of course the big-budget, whoo-hoo action film aesthetic went over the CG cliff years ago. Nobody except for a relative handful of directors (Kathryn Bigelow, George Miller, Steven Soderbergh, Michael Mann, J.C, Chandor, Doug Liman and a few others) care about real thrills. The fantasy-superhero-bullshit aesthetic has murdered the concept of great reality-based physical action. Killed it dead.

Posted two months ago: Nobody leaps off a sinking ship in the middle of a raging typhoon and lives. Nobody grabs hold of an overhanging tree limb at the last second and thereby escapes going over a super-tall jungle waterfall. What kind of fingernail-chewing moron would pay money to watch this shite? CG stunts of this sort aren’t worth spit in the realm of real-deal physics. Yes, I realize that’s a dirty concept these days.

A little more than six years ago I posted a piece called “To Hell With Physics“:

In 1987 Lethal Weapon used a funny jumping-off-a-building gag. Ragged-edge cop Mel Gibson is sent to the top of a four-story building to talk an unstable guy out of making a suicide leap. Gibson winds up cuffing himself to the guy and jumping off the building, and they’re both falling to their deaths…not. They land on one of those huge inflated tent-sized bags…whomp!…that cops and firemen use to save people. All is well.

Flash forward to another jumping-off-a-building scene in Brad Bird and Tom Cruise‘s Mission: impossible 4 — Ghost Protocol. An American operative is being chased over a rooftop by baddies in Budapest. He fires some rounds, kills a couple of guys, and then escapes by leaping off the building, continuing to shoot as he falls four or five stories to the pavement below. He’s saved, however, when he lands on a modest air mattress that’s about one-tenth the size of Lethal Weapon‘s tent-sized bag.

Understandable Political Gesture

March 13, 2018March 13, 2018 by Jeffrey Wells

Yesterday came an announcement that Pearl Street Films, the production company headed by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, will be totally supporting “inclusion riders” (i.e., a diversity-hiring provision) on their forthcoming projects.

A friend writes: “I have friends who work with Ben and Matt, and I know Matt is trying to get a new movie off the ground as we speak, going around this week pitching it. (He’s over at Fox today.) So on the eve of trying to get this movie set up, they announce this inclusion-rider thing. The strategy seems kinda transparent.”

Translation: We get what’s happening — include us in — fund us — onward!

A producer pal: “Two guys who have skirted by on the #metoo block” — i.e., have narrowly dodged the Robespierre guillotine — “are now going to embrace the #metoo theology a la Frances McDormand‘s suggestion? No surprise.” He added, however, a fun fact: “No idea how such a rider would be enforceable!”

Red Irishman Ink?

March 13, 2018March 13, 2018 by Jeffrey Wells

Yesterday “Page Six”‘s Richard Johnson reported in the N.Y. Post that a “source” is claiming that Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, the likely swan song of Scorsese’s career as far as mafia wise guys are concerned, may cost $175 million, and that’s without marketing.

On 2.9.18 Deadline‘s Anita Busch reported that “we are now hearing from multiple sources that the film’s budget is well over $125M and more in the $140M range (and climbing).” In late February Forbes‘ Scott Mendelson echoed Busch’s report that the Irishman is costing $140 million or thereabouts.

Al Pacino, Robert De Niro during filming.

Add the standard marketing costs (usually $85 to $100 million for a major feature) to Johnson’s $175 million figure and the total Irishman tab is in the vicinity of $250M. Add the same to Busch/Mendelson’s $140M and you’ve got $225M or thereabouts.

Being a Netflix release that almost certainly won’t have an extensive theatrical run, The Irishman isn’t subject to the usual financial arithmetic of a typical feature from a mainstream distributor, but $175M or $225M or $250M tabs are certainly stand-outs in the realm of a non-fantasy, straight-goombah period drama.

Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Bobby Cannavale, Harvey Keitel and Ray Romano are the Irishman costars. Anna Paquin is apparently the only actress of any note in the film.

Netflix is flush enough to handle the Irishman tab without breaking too much of a sweat. It’s interesting nonetheless to consider that Cleopatra‘s $31 million budget, which broke 20th Century Fox in ’63, inflates into roughly $248M in 2018 dollars. ($100 in 1963 = $800 in 2018.)

Sack The Whole Lot of ‘Em

March 13, 2018March 13, 2018 by Jeffrey Wells

Last July former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson allegedly called President Trump “a moron” in private, and when the remark was reported over four months later Tillerson didn’t directly address or deny it, saying only, “I’m not going to deal with petty stuff like that.”

I concluded then and there that Tillerson was toast — it would just be a matter of how much distance Trump wanted to put between the “moron” quote and Tillerson’s dismissal. If I’d been in Trump’s shoes I would probably have said to myself, “Gee, maybe Rex is right…hell, he probably is right…I am kind of a moron asshole narcissist sociopath. Maybe for the good of the country I should resign?” But that’s me. Okay, that’s not me but whatever.

Nonetheless the white-haired Tillerson, whose deep, Texas-accented voice and Raymond Burr-like girth always suggested a lifelong Big & Tall patronage despite the fact that he’s only 5’10”, lasted until today.

I’m glad he’s gone — now what about the rest of the cabinet? And Trump’s long-overdue resignation for that matter? Throw Mike Pence into a pit filled with starving wolves, but let him die with a sword in his hand like Ernest Borgnine in The Vikings.