wired

If it takes a producer longer than five years to develop a script to everyone’s satisfaction, forget it. The Gods are against the idea of it being made. And so, at this late stage in the game, is the audience when it comes to Indy 4, which has been in development since before the Gulf War. That’s because if and when it finally gets made, everyone’s guessing it’ll be about a leathery, stoop-shoulderd old coot (Harrison Ford) who doesn’t get polished apples from the cute girls in his archeology class any more. And people damn sure don’t care if Natalie Portman has been cast or not as Indy’s spirited granddaughter. I remember asking Ford about the progress of the next Indiana Jones film when I interviewed him in a San Francisco hotel room in ’94, when he was pushing Clear and Present Danger. Anyone who’s seen Firewall and watched Ford slug it out with Paul Bettany knows he’s over as an action star…the whole thing is over. Indiana Fogie!

David Mamet‘s Edmond is a harsh but fascinating film…fine… and William H. Macy is great in the title role. First Independent Pictures is opening it in New York City on 7.14. The only problem from this end is that I haven’t heard squat about any L.A. screenings or even screeners being sent out by a local publicist, whoever that might be.

Lord knows, David Poland usually writes from the head, but yesterday (and pretty much “out of the fuckin’ blue,” to paraphrase Chris Penn‘s Nice Guy Eddie) he wrote this really nice heart piece about Field of Dreams. I love James Earl Jones‘ “baseball has marked the time” speech; ditto the final shot of that mile-long line of cars in the distance.

And New York Post writer Sara Stewart offers a cursory meandering examination of the life and career of Andrew Wilson, the amiable, sharp-minded and extremely focused 41 year-old older brother of Owen and Luke Wilson.
Andrew’s been acting since the Bottle Rocket days, but Stewart barely says a word about Andrew’s co-direction (with Luke) of The Wendell Baker Story, an unusual, agreeably quirky dramedy about mood and attitude and Texas weirdness. Andrew let me see Baker a little more than a year ago (I wanted to screen it at that UCLA “Sneak Previews” thing I was moderating), and while it has some issues they’re far from fatal afflictions, and it sure as shit doesn’t deserve to be wallowing in near-total obscurity without any kind of distribution deal.
I guess Stewart’s article (which features insights from David Poland) is mainly about the burdens of being the “other” brother.
The piece has a couple of speed-bumps: (a) it gives Owen’s age as 38, and yet the IMDB says he’ll be 37 until 11.18.06, and (b) Stewart quotes Kurt Hale, director of a barely-seen movie called Church Ball that Andrew costarred in, as saying that “if you close your eyes and listen to [Andrew], he sounds exactly like Owen,” which is misleading and poorly put. Andrew tends to express thoughts with the same kind of imaginative attitude and gut-level insight that Owen is known for, but his voice is deeper and not even vaguely similar to his younger brother’s.

Pirates 2 did just shy of $44 million on Saturday. Add that to Friday’s increased estimate of $55 million (that $52.8 million estimate I ran yesterday has since been adjusted) and you’re looking at just under $100 million after two full days. What will happen today (Sunday, 7.9)? The ballpark figure will almost certainly be somewhere between $35 and $40 million (Sundays are always a bit weaker than Saturdays) so the three-day total…well, do the math. (The other guys are predicting $32 million and change.) Superman Returns took in a piddly $8.4 million yesterday, and is expected to wind up with about $22,800,000 by late tonight. Next week it’ll wind up with $13 or $14 million and that’ll be that. (But watch the IMAX screenings hang in there.) The Devil Wears Prada is expected to end up with about $15,069,000 by late tonight. And you don’t care that much about the rest.

Saturday U-Tube Funnies: Kevin Spacey-as-Chris Walken auditioning to play Han Solo (and it’s a little stilted…Spacey is good but not great). Video also has Richard Dreyfuss auditioning to play 3CPO, and Walter Matthau reading…blah, blah.

A 7.9 N.Y. Times piece by Steve Chagollan eyeballs a fresh crop of U.S.-produced foodie and wine-sipping movies — Ridley Scott‘s A Good Year (with Russell Crowe) and Scott Hicks‘ Mostly Martha remake (with Catherine Zeta-Jones), plus a forthcoming adaptation of Anthony Capella‘s The Food of Love by director Peter Chelsom (Shall We Dance?) and an adaptation-in-the-works of Julia Child‘s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” from director-writer Nora Ephron. And…wait, there’s more.

Chagollan’s conclusion is that these films may be happening because of (a) greater longings for comfort and (b) changing notions of male virility and sexuality. “Food is that thing that people retreat to for comfort and safety,” CAA agent Lisa Shotland tells Chagollan, “and in these uncertain times that just becomes more and more the norm.” And producer Denise Di Novi observes that the chef has become “the new rock star…the qualities that make a man sexy have expanded beyond traditional male roles, [and] great chefs embody the things that make all great artists appealing, in that they’re creative, committed and passionate.”

On her Risky Biz blog, Anne Thompson is reporting how director M. Night Shyamalan “mauls a nasty film critic named Harry Farber (played by Bob Balaban) in Lady in the Water. Is it veteran critic Manny Farber? Or the still-reviewing Stephen Farber? ‘It’s one person’s concept of what a film critic is like,” said one critic who saw an early Lady in the Water screening. ‘It’s a funny character, and it dovetails with the popular conception of effete snide film critics.’ According to Farber, who hasn’t seen the film, ‘I don’t think I ever wrote much about his movies, except to say that Unbreakable was actually more interesting than The Sixth Sense up until the absurd ending. I was comparing the endings of the two movies. I never wrote about Signs and never even saw The Village. So if I am the target of his ire, I’d hate to think where that would put critics who actually slammed those two movies!'” Does anyone remember the “General Kael” character in George Lucas‘s Willow?

Just wondering how many HE readers check movie stories on Digg.com. Dan Mitchell has a N.Y. Times piece up today about how Digg is driving readers to stories. Anyone can submit a story, after which readers “vote” on its popularity orintrigue-levels by clicking on it.

Did anyone see Chris Mourkarbel‘s 12-minute ripoff video of Oliver Stone‘s World Trade Center, which was based on an early draft of the script and which led to a Paramount lawsuit? It was called World Trade Center 2006, and was shown online before it was removed for legal reasons. I’m looking for short reviews about the quality of it because Felicia Lee showed no interest in this aspect in her N.Y. Times piece about Mourkabel and his film…only the legal and political ramifications.

The L.A. Times Calendar section continues to astonish everyone by running pieces like this one by Mary McNamara about the 1989-styled revolution-of-the-suits against super-expensive big star projects…a story that Slate‘s Kim Masters covered pretty well on 6.12…ditto Anne Thompson in her Hollywood Reporter column on 6.16.

Running these bringing-up-the-rear articles about about industry trends, ripples and currents that are weeks past the point where they would be truly topical and in synch with the latest turn is exactly why newsprint dailies are losing against new-media outlets. MacNamara delivers some perspective and fresh quotes, but this story’s still more than three weeks old. (Apologies for the latest wrongo, writing Maggie instead of the correct Mary McNamara earlier today.)

“With $6 million already sunk into sets, 20th Century Fox execs asked Used Guys director Jay Roach to commit to a budget of $112 million. For a variety of reasons, he was not prepared to do so, nor was he willing to ask either Ben Stiller or Jim Carrey to further cut their deals. In May, figuring that the only way the studio would make any money on the film was if Used Guys became one of the top-grossing comedies in history, Fox decided to pass. Others in the industry were surprised at how [Roach] handled the negotiations. ‘Any other director would have said ‘$112 million? Absolutely…you bet,’ said one Hollywood insider, ‘and then gone over budget if he had to. That’s just the way it works.'” — from Mary McNamara‘s late-to-the-table L.A. Times piece about big-star turnaround projects.