July 2 , 2004

Ever feel like you are writing a column for nobody?

Not that you are nobody if you are reading the column today. But the town pretty much cleared out this week for the holiday, which makes the sudden surge on industry news late in the week kind of surprising and remarkably irrelevant.

Jack Valenti is gone, but Jack's been leaving for a while. He served this industry remarkably well for a remarkably long time and those who would choose to be bitter about his tenure are missing the point of his existence. He was, as the new MPAA chief must be, the conduit to Hollywood's business community having the freedom to make the most of their businesses without interference from Washington.

I have long said that the ratings system is terrible for filmmaker's who wish to make films meant for adults. But Jack's job wasn't to raise the flag for art, anymore than it was to act, as he always claimed, to give aid and support to parents. CARA (the ratings board) has always been about keeping the ratings system national and out of the hands of government.

Of course, the entire ratings debate is a bit of a smoke screen. Jack Valenti was never in charge. He works for the studios, not the other way around. If the studios wanted to make the NC-17, they could. The NC-17 is a miserable failure for every one of Jack's now-former bosses. I wish it weren't true, but there is no upside for the studios in the NC-17 business, even without the censorship that comes with it from some exhibitors and some media. If the NC-17 was ever legitimized, filmmakers would - egad! - use it.

For any arthouse distributor, NC-17 is fine. The costs of production and distribution are so small that niche films can be profitable enough for an indie or a dependent to be happy. But if mainstream studio movies, costing tens of millions of dollars, ever had the leverage to insist on the studio releasing their film as an NC-17, the odds of success for a film in that half-excluded ticket buying universe, would be cut by more than half. Just one real NC-17 hit would open the floodgates. And then studios would have to fight off filmmakers who would refuse to make contractual commitments to R ratings. Worse, CARA would start handing out more NC-17s, realizing that the rating was no longer a death sentence. Perhaps you might be happy with an even more conservative R-rating, but I would see it as a disaster.

The truth is, with any major shift in the industry, the industry must decide where it wants to go. Collusion, the threatening word that reared its head during the screener debate and lawsuit last year, is the nature of this business. Pretending otherwise, especially in this era of media conglomeration, is foolish… if you are in the business. If you are Dan Glickman then maintaining that illusion is now your job. But it's classic macro/micro.

Very, very smart men and women act out based on micro-vision, fighting against the oppressive system against which they want to be seen rebelling. But at the same time, these same people eat at the very trough they spend so much energy denigrating.

In the micro view of the movie world, every movie has a life of its own. In the macro view, a distribution company has a lot of films to sell and what happens on one or two, for better or for worse, does not usually define the success or failure of a fiscal year.

Why is Pixar so successful? It has more than a little to do with their making so few movies. This does not diminish the power of their talent base. But as you spread that talent thinner, more failure is inevitable.

Miramax blasted onto the scene as a micro-vision company. There were thin, but lithe, and their power was their strength of focus. They were also in financial crisis when Disney came along and bought the company. Under Disney, they have become increasingly macro, addicted to the benefits of the big show like a pretty young thing getting her first taste of cocaine at a hip Hollywood party. She keeps telling people that she's having sex with that ugly, unpleasant wealthy man because she loves him, but her friends all know that she's there to feed the habit.

Not only isn't Miramax an independent anymore… the time when they could go back to being an independent has probably passed forever. Pushed, The Weinsteins probably could make/pick-up and release ten or less movies a year and essentially become their own unique version of Imagine or Revolution or Bruckheimer Films. They'd probably be great at it. But if they want to have the range they've had and the freedom to embrace or turn their backs on films they own, a system that has worked well for them, they need to kind of infrastructure that requires full major studio support.

People have enjoyed speculating about someone coming along and funding the Weinsteins to buy back the Miramax name and library and to re-launch the company as a true independent again. But even if Disney was willing to sell the company back to the Weinsteins for $2 billion, those backers would also need to throw in another billion dollars into the pot, at least in supporting a line of credit, to make the company operational. And, unlike a corporation the size of Disney, one terrible year would leave the operation desperately leveraging the library that they just bought at full retail price from Disney.

But in the end, macro thinking isn't exciting. The big picture just isn't sexy. It certainly isn't rebellious. But if micro isn't enough for you, you're going to rely on that macro world to finance your sexy, rebellious dreams. And MacroWorld will… so long as it works for MacroWorld.

Know yourself. Know your enemy. The secret of youthful rebellion is that you can achieve the same goal with half the expenditure of energy. On this Fourth of July weekend, everyone is free to spend their energy any way they want to. But the charm of tilting at windmills is not nearly as charming as knocking out the giants you thought they were.

Have a good weekend. Try not to lose a finger.

READER OF THE DAY: BUFFALO BRI offers: "A thousand dollars says Dan Glickman doesnt even know what Linux is. Another old jackass non-technie in charge of the MPAA. Ugh. The head of the MPAA better know what open-source means.

Just wait until competition really lowers the price of broadband and see the file trading explode more than ever. Does Mr. Glickman realize there are DVD burners for $80 now and one that can be firmware upgraded to a dual layer burner (store bought DVDs are DL)? Burn in 6 minutes? Wait until the one demonstrated in Japan last week allows burning in three minutes (a 16x burner)."

E ME: I'm going to hold the Spider-Man 2 comments until Tuesday. But here is another hint… and sorry, not answering your e-mail guesses. All will be revealed eventually.

Hint 2: One of the stars gives up his normal, strong acting skills and channels the mumbliest Marlon Brando ever… where, oh where, is James Caan.

Tell about your movies, I'll tell you about mine.