“They didn’t know what they had,” a guy said last night at the Zodiac premiere. “Big studios almost never get it [i.e., the value of any film they’re about to release]. Until it makes money. Then they’re delighted.”

A significant portion of the Zodiac team — (l. to r.) producer Brad Fischer, costar Robert Downey, Jr., producer Mike Medavoy, costar Mark Ruffalo (r.) — at last night’s modestly-proportioned premiere on the Paramount lot.

He was speaking of the Paramount execs who decided not to release Zodiac in late December of last year, a move that eliminated any chance of the film appearing on just about every ten-best list from the big-gun critics (which would have happened, no question) not to mention the potential winning of some Best Picture honors from critics groups as well as acting nominations for at least two of the three Zodiac leads — Robert Downey, Jr. and Mark Ruffalo.

(This is not to disrespect the work of costar Jake Gyllenhaal, who’s less overtly actorish in Zodiac and much more burrowed into the soil and milieu than he’s ever been — I think it’s his career best. The fact that he’s outmaneuvered by Ruffalo and Downey in terms of style, swagger and authority is nothing to feel badly about.)

Downey, Ruffalo, producers Mike Medavoy and Brad Fischer, costars Donal Logue (extremely slimmed down) and Philip Baker Hall, various other cast members and Paramount marketing chief Gerry Rich attended the premiere. It was a no-frills event — no food or booze afterwards. A large mob of paparazzi did their usual hoot-and-holler outside the big Paramount theatre (i.e., on the eastern side of the lot). The screening started almost a half-hour late.

The state-of-the-art digital projection and sound were awesome. Zodiac looked perfectly fine when I saw it projected on film at the smaller Sherry Lansing theatre on the Paramount lot two or three weeks ago, but I was stunned and mesmer- ized by how exquisite it looked last night. (I kept saying to myself, “This is per- fect…perfect.”) I don’t even know if Zodiac is being digitally projected in commer- cial theatres, but if it is, make a point of seeing it this way if at all possible.

“Zodiac” book author Robert Graysmith

I spoke briefly to Robert Graysmith, the author of the two Zodiac books as well as the real-life guy Gyllenhaal plays in the film. He told me about the day he went to meet — stare at, confront — suspected Zodiac killer Arthur Leigh Allen, and how Allen later pulled alongside his parked car when he was in the driver’s seat — so close Graysmith couldn’t have opened his door if he tried — and just idled and eyeballed him, oozing malevolence.

I also spoke to Bryan Hartnell, a successful attorney who was stabbed several times in the back by the Zodiac killer at Lake Berryessa on 9.27.69. Unlike his then-girlfriend Cecelia Sheppard, who was also stabbed numerous times (not just in the back but in the chest and abdomen) and died the next day, Hartnell obviously recovered and is doing just fine. He said he wasn’t particularly trauma- tized or even upset by revisiting his horrific near-death — not last night anyway. Very cool, composed and matter-of-fact…”glad to be here!”

“David Fincher‘s magnificently obsessive new film, Zodiac, tracks the story of the serial killer who left dead bodies up and down California in the 1960s and possibly the ’70s, and that of the men who tried to stop him,” says N.Y. Times critic Manohla Dargis in today’s edition. “Set when the Age of Aquarius disappeared into the black hole of the Manson family murders, the film is at once sprawling and tightly constructed, opaque and meticulously detailed. It’s part police procedural, part monster movie — a funereal entertainment that is an unexpected repudiation of Fincher’s most famous movie, the serial-killer fiction Seven, as well as a testament to this cinematic savant’s gifts.”

I had a Collateral moment about ten days ago that I forgot to mention. It’s significant because (a) it’s straight out of a key scene in Michael Mann‘s film and (b) it’s never once happened in the 24 years I’ve lived in this town. I’m talking about a face-to-face with an unperturbed, zen-like coyote. Every animal I’ve ever been close to outside of a zoo has exuded some degree of caution or fear, but not this guy. He was in some kind of zone and couldn’t have cared less.

It was around 10 pm. I’d just turned right onto a dark side street off La Brea south, somewhere between 3rd and Sixth Street, and there he was in the middle of the street. He seemed utterly indifferent to my slowing down and lowering the window and snapping a photo. He stood there for 10 or 12 seconds, and then sauntered over to La Brea. For a second I worried about him getting hit by a car.” Then I thought, not this guy…coyotes know how to survive this town better than me. He crossed La Brea like a champ and disappeared into an alley.

Slate‘s Kim Masters is commenting that the Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu–Guillermo Arriaga feud is still happening because of a statement by joint statement by Babel collaborators (Inarritu among them) in Mexico’s Chilanga magazine that attacks Arriaga, to wit: “It’s a shame that in your unjustified obsession to claim sole responsibility for the film, you seem not to recognize that movies are an art of deep collaboration.” But magazines sometimes take a while to come to press, and for all we know this letter may be several weeks old.

I’m saying this because roughly 30 days ago in Santa Barbara I observed what looked like “a reapprochement between formerly feuding collaborators Inarritu and Arriaga. Inarritu went up to the sitting Arriaga and gave him a hug; Arriaga reciprocated with a couple of comradely slaps on the back. Then they left the room together and stood alone out on the brick patio, shooting the shit for nearly ten minutes, no evident tensions whatsover. I thought to myself, ‘This would make a historic photo…the duelling amigos back together again’…but a voice told me to stay away.”

Premiere‘s Stephen Saito on the the 20 Worst Post-Oscar Career Choices of all time. Cuba Gooding is absolutely “da man” in this regard, but Saito reminded me about Richard Attenborough, Roberto Benigni, Halle Berry, Adrien Brody, Michael Cimino, Faye Dunaway, Sally Field, Louise Fletcher, Brenda Fricker, Cuba Gooding Jr., Louis Gossett Jr., Helen Hunt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sydney Pollack, Susan Sarandon, Mira Sorvino, Kevin Spacey, Hilary Swank, Marisa Tomei and Robin Williams.

Jeff Leeds‘ N.Y. Times piece is about James Cameron and Jimmy Iovine having “formed a venture that will produce concerts and films in 3-D,” fine.

But the headline — “A Comeback in 3-D, but Without Those Flimsy Glasses” — is bit confusing since there’s no mention of the 3-D process that Cameron and Iovine are working with being viewable without 3-D glasses. There’s a sentence in the piece that says that the Cameron-Iovine glasses “now resemble standard sunglasses, and musicians may be able to make their own designs.”

Oh, I get it — the new glasses are no longer “flimsy”. What, like they were in the early to mid ’50s? The glasses I wore to watch the IMAX 3-D portions of Superman Returns weren’t in the least bit flimsy; they were made of rugged, fairly thick plastic and felt almost like ski goggles. How old is the Times editor who thought up that headline?

I recognize the venality, but I couldn’t help chuckling at a certain reader response to Gawker’s report that Tom Cruise is “in contract for an apartment at the Dakota” for something close to 20 million bucks. Allusions/ parallels between Katie Homes and Mia Farrow‘s manipulated/imprisoned character in Rosemary’s Baby aside, a guy wrote, “I’m going to start passing out copies of The Catcher in the Rye to all the local crazies.”

Nine or ten years ago I raved about Marlon Brando‘s inspired air-bubble death scene in Edward Dmytryk‘s The Young Lions, which I happened to watch again last night on DVD. The scene is the second to last one, as I recall (I can’t locate the original Mr. Showbiz posting), and I don’t think anyone has died since with such remarkable delicacy and finesse.

Brando’s Christian Diestl is in a German forest not far from an abandoned concentration camp, sick of war and soldiering and bashing his rifle against a tree in a mad rage. He then runs down a hillside and right into the rifle sights of Army G.I. Dean Martin, who immediately opens up. The fatally wounded Brando tumbles down the hill and lands head-first in a shallow stream.

The camera goes in tight; his mouth and nose are submerged. A series of rapidly- popping air bubbles begin hitting the surface — pup-pup-pup-pup-pup-pup-pup — and then slower, slower and slower still. And then — this is the mad genius of Brando — four or five seconds after they’ve stopped altogether, a final tiny bubble pops through. There somethiing about that last little pup that devastates all to hell.

I’ve sure I’m prejudiced toward Brando. (He also died brilliantly in Viva Zapata, tucking himself into a kneeling fetal ball with his arms outstretched and his palms facing up as he’s riddled with bullets fired by an ambush posse of several Mexican soldiers.) I’m sure many others have died just as vividly. If anyone can describe an exceptionally fine death scene — one so good you can only go “wow” — please share.

One of the absolute worst death scenes of all time is when Burt Reynolds is shot at the end of Robert Aldrich‘s Hustle. The way he falls and breathes his last is atrocious.

In response to Bruce Willis being named as a former client of Hollywood madam Jody Gibson in a tell-all book hitting the stores today, Willis’ pit-bull attorney Marty Singer has told Page Six that “it’s a total fabrication…[Willis] doesn’t know the woman, he’s never met the woman. My client doesn’t need to pay for sex, he doesn’t pay for sex.” Whoa there, sunshine…every man on the face of the planet pays for sex. Dinners, movies, pledges of support, career investments, gifts, lifestyle subsidies, spontaneous endearments, etc. As Otis Young‘s “Mule” says in The Last Detail, “Any pussy you get in this life you’re gonna have to pay for, one way or the other.” (I just checked with the great Robert Towne to make sure the line is correctly quoted, and he said, “Yep, that’s it.”)

The hope/talk/rumble is that Susanne Bier‘s next film, the English-language Things We Lost in the Fire, will play at the Cannes Film Festival two and half months from now. The Dreamamount release is just about done, I’ve been told, and Pete Hammond, who interviewed Bier last Monday night at a film class, has written that Benicio del Toro‘s performance in the upcoming film is allegedly “dynamite award-calibre.” Pic also stars Halle Berry, David Duchovny and Alison Lohman.

The official Dreamamount press website synopsis reads as follows: “When Audrey Burke (Berry) loses her husband in an act of random violence, she forges an unlikely relationship with Jerry Sunborne (Del Toro), a heroin user who was her husband’s best friend from childhood.”

Sounds a little 21 Grams-y…no?

“DreamWorks Pictures Presents a Scamp Films Production of a Susanne Bier film, Things We Lost in the Fire . Directed by Susanne Bier, from a screenplay written by Allan Loeb. The film’s producers are Sam Mendes and Sam Mercer, and Executive producers are Pippa Harris and Allan Loeb. This film is not yet rated.”

If anyone’s interested in a nice quick vomit (as, you know, an aesthetic exercise), all they have to do is click on this. Michelle Monaghan asking lifelong platonic pal Patrick Dempsey to be her “maid of honor”, which he agrees to do only so he can attempt to stop the wedding and woo her before it’s too late…..blecch! And to put a red bow on it, Paul Weiland, the guy who gave us City Slickers II, is going to direct. Amy Pascal strikes again! That’s it for Monaghan also — she was cool in ’04 and ’05 (Bourne Supremacy, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, North Country) but the honeymoon’s over.