June 4, 2003

We are the world…

Word that Bill Mechanic has finally gotten some real money for his post-Fox production company, Pandemonium, got me thinking about the structural integrity of the entire industry. 

First, let me say that I am a Mechanic fan.  That would put me in one camp.  The other camp is Mechanic haters.  And there are definitely both.  My personal admiration for the man goes back to Fox, where I interviewed him a few times.  He was the only studio chief who was really interested in expressing the big picture issues.  He was the first to publicly say that “middle movies” were no longer a viable studio business.  He was clear, despite Titanic’s success, about how much money a studio could spend on a movie before getting into a diminishing returns situation.  And he knew the real value of a movie star and wasn’t shy about saying it.

Now, I am not saying that there are not other execs as smart or insightful as Mechanic.  But he fearlessly articulated his positions on the future of Fox and the industry on the record.  Ballsy.  And as you know, he was hoisted on his own pitard, taking the fall for Fight Club (one of my favorite movies of the 90s, coming hot on the heels of The Matrix and American Beauty with a very similar theme, but a “middle” price tag and two great actors who were no “opening” movie stars) and Titan A.E., which failed to widen the animation biz in a new way and lost a ton, but did open the door to Ice Age, which suddenly put Fox right back into the animation business.

Anyway…

The thing that interested me about Mechanic is that he has a distribution deal with Disney, with the intent of joining the ranks of Jerry Bruckheimer, Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment, Joe Roth’s Revolution Studios and Elie Samaha’s Franchise Pictures and the built-in producers like Joel Silver, Scott Rudin, Betty Thomas/Jenno Topping, Montecito and others that I am sure just aren’t coming to mind this second.

The thing is, even though foreign money is, as reported by Len Klady in this week’s Movie City News column, settling into being a smaller percentage of the pre-sell financing of the average film, risk is still being spread thinner and thinner.  And creativity with it.

I am forever reading about the “good old days” and how different the pirates of film’s high seas were in the day of swashbuckling Robert Evans.  And Evans is a sleek figure indeed.  But memory tends to bend history into things that it is not.  Were Bob Evans to be starting out today, he would not be discovered poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel.  But he’d probably be at Le Doux or The Little Door or whatever hip spot there is this week where he could run into both hot girls and young execs into whose collective ears he could whisper.  And no doubt, he’d be a producer.  And no doubt, he’d be a lot more Andrew Vanja than Christine Vachon. 

But my point is, it isn’t a sudden rush of stupid executives into the studio ranks that governs the industry right now.  It is these relationships that define the majority of product coming out of each studio.  Very quietly, Disney has become the leader in using “outside vendors” to fill their schedule.  Jerry Bruckheimer is, mostly, financed by the studio.  But Miramax is looking for outside money so they can become financially independent again after Eisner tightened their belt after Cold Mountain became an in-house production.  Pixar is about to go independent, self-financing for the most part and paying Disney for distribution.  And now, Mechanic, with his outside money.  To some degree, Mechanic will be trying to fill the Spyglass slot, as Spyglass heads off to a primary relationship with DreamWorks, but Mechanic will draw less cash from Disney in the process.

The irony was that Mechanic was also outspoken, back in the Fox days, about studios thinning their profit potential with these deals.

As this style of filling release schedules grows, another phenomenon also continues, as studios do their own pre-sales quietly, at a much wider set of times in the history of projects.  And this isn’t just for crap projects either.  One major, major, major summer release had its studio trying to pre-sell Canada earlier this year… and they couldn’t get the deal done because the mere fact that they were trying to sell dried up the Canadian well. 

But the chances of hearing, “Here’s X millions of dollars… go make a movie” are getting thinner and thinner. And if anything defines the swinging 70s of Bob Evans, that is it.  He had to fight to get Filmmaker X or Actor X, but those were production considerations, not financial ones.  Now, every film comes with a list of conditions as long and rambling as an extemporaneous Warren Beatty speech. 

Want to discuss the Columbia line-up?  Well, some movies are really Columbia’s and some are Revolution’s and depending on what mood execs are in, the Berlin wall goes up or down between the entities.  Issues with The Matrix Reloaded?  WB is working on it, but Joel Silver is running the show.  Whose The Hours was it anyway?   

Blaming studio execs for being dumb is easy.  But even well meaning, small, gifted chefs can ruin the broth if there are too many of them in the kitchen. 

READER OF THE DAY:  TEAM STEVIE writes:  “You're missing the obvious choices.  The perfect Max and Leo?   Ruben and Clay!

Okay, more seriously - the casting for Leo aside, there is really one PERFECT choice for Max - and I say this as someone who flew cross-country to see Nathan Lane on Broadway [and loved him] - but who is the only person who could not only PLAY Max, but inhabit his skin?  None other the man himself.  MEL BROOKS!  Worried he wouldn't be big enough box office compared to some of the others you named?   Come on, is there anyone who wants to see a new movie of THE PRODUCERS who wouldn't salivate at seeing Mel as Max???  

Face it, no one can replace both the humor and pathos of Zero in the character, but like Zero, but Mel comes closest.  Like Zero, Mel is a force of life - like Max Bialystock should be.  [PS - Mel aside, I'd go with Nathan.]”

I’M LISTENING writes:  “Your reader’s comments about his successful efforts to complain about the screening conditions of his local theater struck a nerve with me. One of the local theaters that I tend to visit quite often here in the Seattle area is “The Grand Cinemas Alderwood” (don’t let the hi-falutin’ name fool you). Last Friday my buddy and I saw Finding Nemo there, and for the 13^th time out of my last 13 visits to the theater, the projection was screwed up. THIS time, the image was moved about two feet to the right, with a black bar on the left and with image spilling onto the curtain at the right. Oh, and the middle part of the image was out of focus. I dutifully complained, and just like at Bend it Like Beckham, Gangs of New York, and almost a dozen other films, the projectionist either did nothing, or made it worse.

So why do I keep going? Mostly because every other theater in the area has the same issues, and though it’s a big enough deal to complain about at that moment in the theater, but I tend to get over it. Seattle DOES have one theater that is always absolutely perfect: the Cinerama, which billionaire Paul Allen refurbished. If only Allen would buy out Regal Cinemas.

I for one would GLADLY and REGULARLY pay 12 to 15 bucks to go to a theater that had: A) no ads, B) stadium seating, and C) quality projection.”

E ME:  Do I have to ask?