18 July 2000

ADD HARRISON FORD: Dr. Jones was quite open about why his involvement with Steven Soderbergh's latest film didn't happen. Ford told the assembled journalists, "The character in Traffic is a complicated person, but the part I was to have played was the President's nominee for drug czar. That didn't work out simply because the character's situation was so grim. His daughter was a drug addict. And I didn't want to spend another two hours on screen being grim about something. After Random Hearts, in which I had similar dramatic obligations, I thought I didn't want to bring that kind of character to the audience again without doing something else in between."

And what of the announcement that Ford was looking for an action movie to make next? Ford said, "I don't make these announcements. I don't know where this stuff comes from."

As for Indiana Jones 4, Ford said that he, Spielberg and Lucas all wanted to make the film, but that there was no acceptable script yet and that schedule setting hadn't commenced either.

Finally, when pressed by E! Online's Andy Jones about whether he'd be doing The Sum of All Fears, Ford kind of rolled his eyes and said, "I don't think so." I added that we were all kind of queasy about the idea of Ben Affleck replacing him in the role and Ford just said, "People have to do what they have to do."

ADD ROD LURIE: When Zemeckis' ImageMovers partners Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke listed some of their company's upcoming projects, they mentioned the current ones with Zemeckis (he also in the midst of Castaway), one with Wes Craven, one with Neil Jordan and one with Rod Lurie. Yes, you read about Lurie's deal to do Klink, Inc. here before. But in a list of directors of this stature, it was a little shocking. Nonetheless, Rapke & Starkey made it clear how much they respect Lurie and that he will get the same kind of breathing room that Zemeckis, Craven and Jordan get from the filmmaker-driven ImageMovers. And anyone wondering about whether Lurie's The Contender was too small a movie to carry a big studio hard sell had to be amazed by the trailer for the film, shown at the Academy before the What Lies Beneath screening and receiving a healthy round of applause. (I don't think it was just Rod and the DreamWorks staff applauding.) The trailer looked as slick and tight as any major motion picture, despite the fact that The Contender s a $12 million movie. This is no little movie for DreamWorks. They are going to do everything they can to make it happen, from October to the Oscars.

YOU'RE A MEAN ONE: Some people are making fun of Universal's deal with the U.S. Post Office to use a Grinch postmark through the holiday season. My first thought was how bizarre it was that the U.S. Post Office was willing to play. Less surprising was Universal's idea. The studio has been doing custom postmarks besides their normal postal meter marks for years. Grinch has been on the Universal mail for months already. I'm looking forward to the O Brother Where Art Thou prisoner-made license plates and the Charlie's Angels promo image on the side of all of America's nuclear bombs.

READER OF THE DAY: The Buffalo Strangler writes: "I see a lot of directors going the indie route and how praised they are by critics and that arthouse actor crowd. I love how two great indie talents like Singer and Singleton have bolted to the big, commercial movies. I hope they never go back to the arthouse community. I love how Singleton has said he would have killed to do X-Men and now wants to do Daredevil. They should let Scorsese do Captain America or something. How about Terrance Malick doing The Incredible Hulk. John Frankenheimer doing The Fantastic Four. The guy-who-did-Caligula do Wonder Woman. Also, why aren't people talking about Colossus being in the next X-Men movie? You know the money will be available to achieve his powers. To hell with the Beast and Nightcrawler."

And this from Big Len: "Two things: 1) I've read the Hot Button for just over a year and I've learned that the movies you really rave about rarely dazzle me. I've gone into Fight Club, Eyes Wide Shut, Romance, Erin Brokovich, and a few others with heightened expectation, but have rarely come out feeling the experience matched the expectation. In all honesty, though, Romance was the only one that I hated. But as much as I enjoy your column, I take your great movie suggestion with a grain of salt and an eye toward the bargain matinee listings. I hope What Lies Beneath changes that trend.

2) I was struck by the Polanski quote because it seems as if the writer wanted to give the information without being too judgmental about it. My quibble is with the use of the word 'seduce.' To my mind, seduction presupposes that the person being seduced has a choice in the matter. Introduce narcotics and alcohol into the mix and the seducer has stepped off the seduction platform into something completely different. Then, of course, legally speaking children can't consent to sex with an adult, so the term 'seduce' wouldn't fit there either. Shame about Artisan's million, huh?"

E ME: Is Bob Zemeckis right about what NRG claims is right? Do you want more Mickey D's at the movies?