The Hot Button by David Poland

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

10. LATE APES: I'm wondering why The Hollywood Reporter and other outlets decided that Jim Cameron leaving Fox's Planet of the Apes remake was news this week. Bill Mechanic pretty much told a room of 5,000 at ShoWest that the project had moved along and that Bill Broyles was already working on a draft. That was more than two weeks ago. Yes, the rumor has had Michael Bay interested for months. And sources in Bay's camp have spent the last few months frustrated that they can't find a script that "Boom Boom" Bay wants to make. As I recall, Mechanic projected the Apes remake as Fox's big film for Summer 2001.

9. A THEATER BY ANY OTHER NAME: Remember my concern that Mann's Chinese, formerly Grauman's Chinese, would become Pacific's Chinese? It looks like you don't have to worry about that anymore. It seems that Edwards' Chinese, which sounds more like a description of a new boyfriend than a name of a theater, is the more likely event to come. Edwards Theaters' $100 million-plus bid apparently outdoes Pacific's offer by quite a bit. Meanwhile, down the street, the Egyptian is operated by the American Cinemateque. It's a small world after all.

8. GONE IN A MILLION DOLLARS: How do you make a piece of junk into a major Hollywood film? Well, the pieces of Gone in 60 Seconds continue to raise expectations. First Nicolas "I'm getting $20 million and it's pissing Sean Penn off" Cage signed on. Then, high heat actress Angelina Jolie. And now, Giovanni Ribisi, who is the charmer of The Mod Squad and the medic in Saving Private Ryan (No nomination? No problem!), has signed on. Scott Rosenberg will deliver the dialogue that will be so slick that you'll be able to ski on it. The only question mark is Dominic Sena, who hasn't made a movie since Kalifornia immortalized the Brad Pitt/Juliette Lewis love affair. He's really good at dust and sex, so maybe he'll make it magic. He better. Or producer Jerry Bruckheimer will have Michael Bay looking over his shoulder before he can say, "Cut."

7. SHOO MOCKER!: Variety held a party and a lot of people came. It was called the Variety/Schroders Big Picture Conference. My favorite highlight was Joel Shumacher bitching about $20 million stars and how overly coddled they are. First, allow me to dry my tears. Next, let me point out that no one forced you, Mr. S., to direct the Batman flops or to work with a $20 million actor on 8MM. And finally, what about you, Mr. Director? How many sycophants do you have kissing your powdered and feathered ass on the set each day? I defended your right to make whatever kind of film you wanted to make when Holly Millea used her Premiere hatchet on you. (THB 2/25, Fear of Premiere, Pt 2) And I'm willing to support your choice to come to blows, so to speak, with Val Kilmer on the Batman Forever set. But whining about overpaid talent that has it too easy? Get thee to a reflective surface.

6. LET'S GO TO THE VIDEOTAPE! THE AMERICANS ARE COMING!: Even though it didn't sweep the Academy Awards, I know you've been waiting patiently for it and Saving Private Ryan will arrive in your video store the week after The Phantom Menace. But you're going to have to pay a premium to buy it. DreamWorks has decided that this is a bigger rental title than a sell-through, so it will price the film at more than $75 when it hits the rental outlets. Of course, I would expect that a sell-through price will turn up before the 4th of July weekend. But you can soon freeze frame the flying body parts of the 20-minute ballet of death for yourself.

5. ROGER AND HARRY SITTING IN A TREE, R-E-V-I-E-W-I-N-G: If you haven't been sleeping on your cyber-surfboard, you know that Harry Knowles will be a guest thumb on Siskel and Ebert in the next couple months. Lots of you have expressed your opinions on the decision by e-mail and have asked me to offer up my thoughts. I will pass on that until after Harry's appearance. (That includes not printing jokes that are offensive to both Mr. Ebert and Mr. Knowles.) Like so many things, people are reacting with haste to this decision by Ebert and his producers at Disney. Let's decide what it means after it has happened. And for those of you who have suggested that I be given a turn in the seat, thanks for the compliment. My lack of response to your notes is not for lack of appreciation.

4. THE BART GOES ON: I haven't had a chance to beat on Peter Bart lately. Thank God he keeps writing columns. This time, he's worrying aloud about the state of character actors in the business. But he fails to simply point out the obvious: if a person doesn't open a movie, no one is ever or should ever pay him/her more than a couple million, no matter how good they are. That is no the fault of the studios or the $20-million club or the rising costs of effects. It's the fault of the actors. I don't think there's ever been a better time for top notch character actors. But they and their agents have to understand that they are character actors and $3-million paydays aren't chump change. All this bitching about "the middle" is just a bunch of whining from people who want what they haven't earned. If The Negotiator opened to $25 million, Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey would both be more-than-$10-million players today. Even with 187 and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil on their resumes. The big boys, financially, are not necessarily the best actors, but they open their films and that's all they are getting paid for. How many actors could have opened 8MM for more that $14 million? Not many. Nic Cage was worth the money. Probably not all the money, but he did his job. You are not so much an actor at that price. You are a walking billboard.

3. DEFINING THE UNDEFINABLE: New rules hit the books at the Producers Guild of America this week. While the Writers Guild members fight to increase the number of writers credited on feature films, the PGA has cut the number of producers on a film down to five. FIVE! That's a reduction! And it's only in the front credits. You can add another three producers to the end credits. And this group doesn't include line producers. Oy! The Guild is also setting itself up for the absolutely impossible job of arbitrating disputes over producing credits. With the Writers Guild's extremely controversial and convoluted system, at least there are screenplays with names attached to judge. What does a producer do? The PGA seems to have chosen definitions that allow for tons of arbitrariness. The "producer is the person 'who bears primary 'producing responsibility,' including the 'creative producing component' and/or the 'managerial producing component.'" (Thanks to Daily Variety for this wording.) A "co-producer" is a person who "performed substantial producing functions (but was not the primarily responsible individual) with respect to a creative producing function, or who was primarily responsible for one or more managerial producing functions." And "associate producer" is a person who "independently performed a limited number of producing functions, under the direct supervision and control of the producer." Such credits "will not be granted to anyone performing duties that are typically undertaken by assistants to producers, nor will an associate producer credit be given to persons performing producer-type services for people other than the producer." So, do you know what a producer does now? Me neither.

2. REEM-O DI JANERO: There was lots of mail bitching about Oscar® wins and losses. But the best complaints came from Fernanda Montenegro, whose comments I found on IMDb thanks to a reader who wrote in about them. Apparently the angry old lady routine isn't really acting at all. She praised Oscar-winner Little Gwynnie Paltrow for her "thin, pure, virginal" appearance. (Tell that to Brad Pitt.) Montenegro charmingly added, "They don't have much of this type of actress like Paltrow in American cinema. The Oscar for Paltrow is an investment." And don't worry, Bobby Benigni also got snaked: "(Life is Beautiful) didn't deserve to win," she cackled, "I thought it was just him that won, not the film itself." Ms. Montenegro's book, "How to Lose Friends You Never Had and Never Get an Oscar Nomination Again" goes on sale soon.

1. STARS AND GARTERS: It was a busy Star Wars week. First, official word that Star Wars: Episode One -- The Phantom Menace would premiere at 12 charitable events this May and not in a big Hollywood show. Next, Entertainment Weekly got their exclusive on the movie. Now, on Sunday, "60 Minutes" brings more footage and an interview with Yoda Lucas to the air. There's even been some bitching and moaning between Time and Newsweek about whether either could get a release-week exclusive. (Right now, it looks like they will both have Episode One covers that week.) But perhaps the most important and long-lasting story was George Lucas' commitment of $1.5 million for a digital studio at USC, his alma mater. The studio facility will be named after Bob Zemeckis, who started the ball rolling with a $5 million donation of his own which is a third of the total $15 million cost of the project. Lucas announced at ShoWest that every frame of Episode One had gone through digital processing and that Episode Two will actually be shot, 100 percent, with digital cameras. All the intensity around the release of Episode One will explode on Memorial Day weekend and will be done by the time the video gets released, probably about a year later. But this will live on for a long while. Well, at least five years until the technology moves on to a new generation yet again.

READER OF THE DAY: The long lost Erin P: "I saw the only screening of The Matrix last night that the local PR firm is doing in Detroit. It was just the excuse I needed to go home and do some laundry, since I was sinking into dirty clothes crisis mode here at school. But it was way, way more than an excuse when I walked out of that theater. I didn't really read much of your orgasmic shouts regarding the film since I wanted to avoid spoilers (thankfully, wisely, the trailer and commercials that focus on the effects and the whole 'no one can be told what the matrix is' angle keep things relatively oblique, and here, finally, is a film whose incredible effects aren't all given away in the ads). But darn if you weren't 100 percent right -- this is an amazing film, a film that deserves to make a lot of money and that, I think, will get a good response from critics. We all know how much Ebert loved Dark City last year, and my feeling on The Matrix is that it picks up where Dark City left off (and faltered) and goes it one further, both in concept, look and feel. And the look and feel are absolutely incredible. It's a shame that the special effects Oscar is pretty much a lock for Star Wars, because there's a lot of stuff in The Matrix that has never been done, and to do it in the service and not in lieu of an excellent story, well...

"The Keanu factor was negligible as he kept himself relatively subdued throughout, something that he needs to do to be watchable -- the overacting thing just doesn't work for him. I had a terrible fear that they were going to make the romantic story line larger than it was, which would have been a huge mistake. Like Blade Runner, keeping the love story to a minimum is a necessity in order to make it more desirable, tragic and attractive. [Spoiler edited out.] I can't wait until March 31 so I can see it again. It blew my mind. The Wachowski Brothers have a limitless career ahead of them. My God."

E ME: Can you feel the fever? I can't tell you what The Matrix is. You have to find out for yourself.