August 22, 2005

Happy birthday to me… happy birthday to me… happy birthday dear Hot Button… happy birthday to me…

Eight years.

No wonder I'm tired.

Looking back at the first Hot Button column on roughcut.com, it's kind of funny that it was about a theatrical experience that had been reduced to a television experience. How many words have I spent on that issue eight years later… long after Sundance Cinemas and even GCC are history?

The column started shortly after my father passed away, the representation of the question, "If I'm going to be a journalist, what do I really want to be doing… what is missing from the scene?" I actually pitched the column, as a weekly, to the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Tribune about five years before I ended up on the web… to no avail.

As always, I thank Andy Jones, who talked me into coming to roughcut and who seems to have regretted it ever since and Turner's Scot Safon, who does not. Laura Rooney, my partner in Movie City News, has now posted The Hot Button every day for about half the life of the column. She also is the one who chooses the quotations on the home page each day, a remarkable show of taste and range for which she never takes credit.

I have made many mistakes and had few original insights, made great friends and committed enemies, and learned more than I even know how to express in these eight years.

Few things change on the larger scale. Before The Hot Button, I wrote the weekly The Whole Picture for roughcut. Week Two dealt with how and why male stars remain in the closet… Simpson & Bruckheimer had just gone to Disney, John Calley had just taken over at Sony… this joke - "Paramount's slate is being dumped like a 30-year-old in Charlie Sheen's bedroom" - is still usable… and Warner Bros "stability should continue for the next decade on the shoulders of two very special men: Bat and Super. There two look to be central players in Warner Bros. summers for years to come." It took eight years for the studio to deliver on that expectation. And as for the future? The past is still the future: "Look for Warner Bros. to push for a Batman and a Superman film once every three years, with a third franchise to be named later."

MGM, United Artists, Artisan, Cowboy Booking and others have closed shop in these eight years. Universal was sold three times during the life of this column. Hot Button launched a month before DreamWorks released its first movie and expects to see its last standalone release during this year. Revolution Studios was born and also seems close to its end. Don Simpson died and Jerry Bruckheimer only got stronger. Sony's John Calley came in and headed out. Imagine went public and then private. The Tri-Star label was disappeared around the time the column started and was revived last year. The Weinsteins had an annual budget if about $200 million when this column started, about $700 million last year, and about $0 next year.

Batman & Robin became the first film to cost $200 million, followed far more successfully months later by Titanic, which really cost less than that if you included the cost of the Rosarito Beach water studio. And Spider-Man invented the $100 million weekend.

DVD didn't exist when this column started. There were 1 million websites on earth when it launched. There are over 50 million now. Back then, there was no DSL, Wi-Fi or Blackberry and if you wanted to take your cell phone out of America, you had to rent another phone in the country you visited.

The column has, I think, become a little gentler over time. Weekly box office comings and goings are no longer as prominent. The Quote Whore Scoreboard is long gone. I have learned more about how many things work and why many things are broken. And my understanding of how power circulates around this town has evolved.

When I started this column, I was an outsider with a few friends inside the game. I knew what I knew by acting as a historian, studying what occurred. Eight years later, I am still an outsider… but I am also privy to the daily insanity by way of the official and the unofficial chatterboxes of the world. And I am still often taken by surprise. But I have learned that the silence often says more than the words. And the anger says so much… but most often subsides. I have also learned that journalists hold grudges far longer and over a lot less than studio executives.

I'm really not sure when I created this list, but it seems to be standing the test of time with a few minor edits…

TOP TEN HOT BUTTON RULES OF THUMB

1. Great Media Outlets' Standards Are Less Stringent When The Subject Is Entertainment And That Sucks.

2. $100 Million Is No Longer A Blockbuster In Theatrical… But Right Now Represents The Start Of A Road To More Than $250 Million In Returns to The Studio In Most Cases Thanks To The New DVD Market And Expanded International Theatrical Market.

3. Successful Movie Advertising Sells One Idea At A Time… And There Actually Has To Be An Idea Worth Selling

4. The Story Of The Moment Is Almost Never The Real Story

5. There Are Very Few Journalists In Entertainment Journalism

6. Talent Is Your Friend Until It's Time For Talent Not To Be Your Friend

7. Reviewing Scripts Or Test Screenings Is Selfish And Immoral… You Do Not Know What Effect Sticking Your Nose Into Process Will Have And More Often Than Not It Is Negative

8. Opening Weekend Is Never About The Quality Of The Movie

9. There Are Things I Know And Things I Don't Know And Sometimes They Change

10.Love What You Do And Do What You Love Or Get The Fuck Out.

Thank you all for putting up with me for all of these years. Welcome to those of you who are just finding the column. Unlike working for a major outlet, there would be no point to my work if someone wasn't showing enough interest every day to come find it and to take their time to participate. Participation has evolved also, as The Hot Blog offers some very interesting conversation when people are not busy measuring body parts against everyone else. I am fortunate, eight years in, to have as many ways to express my ideas, report what I know, and engage you in conversation. So thanks again. And bring on year nine!

E-ME.