Here’s why I miss working in the movie industry…and here’s why I don’t.
By Burbanked on Jan 6, 2009 in Development Heck, Movies, Screenwriting | 1,270 views |
I can never get enough of behind-the-scenes film blogs. There’s certainly a delight to be found in reading movie reviews, fanboy rants and all of the latest Hollywood news, but when it comes to the nuts-and-bolts of filmmaking, from the people who are down in the thick of it, I eat it up like a big old bowl of hot, fake-buttery popcorn.
It’s probably because there’s a part of me that still misses working in Hollywood and being in the middle of it. Driving past two blocks of production vehicles teeming with activity; bumping into well-known actors and actresses around the studio lot; chatting up writers and directors while they’re waiting for meetings with importanter people. As a young man struggling to make it in showbiz, I had more than a few of those The Player moments where my friends and I would all question whether or not we had other things to talk about outside of the movie industry – and not a single one of us could come up with anything.
So when I see an excellent article such as this one by John August about the sudden death of his Shazam superhero screenplay, I get all giddy and giggly in a way that I’m slightly ashamed to admit to you.
I’ve noted it in the past, but it’s worth repeating that August is always very open and generous with information and insight from deep behind the curtain of movie industry screenwriting. His site is a must-read for screenplay junkies and students everywhere, and his account of writing Shazam only to see it devolve, deteriorate and die through the studio development system is a wonderfully instructional tale about how Hollywood movies get made – or don’t.
In about mid-story, August relates how the enthusiasm for his latest draft changed once Warner Bros. took over the project from New Line:
When we turned the new draft in to the studio, we got a reaction that made me wonder if anyone at Warners had actually read previous drafts or the associated notes. The studio felt the movie played too young. They wanted edgier. They wanted Billy to be older. They wanted Black Adam to appear much earlier….I expressed my frustration that I’d wasted months of my time and a considerable amount of the studio’s money on things that should have been discussed at the outset. I asked for a meeting with the executive in charge. He and I had one phone call, then I got a new set of notes that didn’t gibe with what we had discussed.
August admits that he got paid pretty well for his work, and that the project’s death allows him to move on to other assignments. His vast experience with the development process allows him a high degree of acceptance of the myriad possible outcomes.
Way, way down at the other end of the acceptance scale, we find our favorite Hollywood Juicer Michael Taylor in an impassioned yet well-reasoned rant against Screen Actors Guild president Alan Rosenberg (among others). Taylor’s concerns – to put it inappropriately mildly – are that Rosenberg appears bound and determined to drive Hollywood into another strike season in 2009, at a time when the town’s sizable below-the-line working class faces catastrophic financial consequences if movie production shuts down again:
The writers and directors already fought this battle. Whether they won or not is for history to decide, but we who work on the crews took a bath on the deal. Three months of lost work might not mean much to Martin Sheen out there on the beach, but it made the difference between a decent year and just barely breaking even. Thanks to the WGA strike, none of us who work below-the-line has much of a financial reserve heading into the new television season, which means we’re all counting on 2009 being a good year. That won’t happen if the SAG membership follows Alan Rosenberg off the cliff and into the abyss of professional suicide.
Is Los Angeles filled with vapid starlets, psychotic leading men, megalomaniacal producers and clubloads of narcotic-sniffing oddballs? Well sure it is, but it’s also home to many very creative, very heartfelt people who go about their showbiz jobs each day, lifting heavy loads in the service of our entertainment. Our cube prisons here in Corporate America may feel drab and mundane as compared to the bright wattage of movie stars and make-believe. But truly anyone who works for a check at the whimsical mercy of circumstance, society, and our power-gifted fellow humans can recognize the common fears and insecurities of an uncertain future.
© Copyright
Scott | Jan 6, 2009 | Reply
I admit as well, I love the insider stories of Hollywood. Not just the ‘C-List star once snorted coke in front of me wearing an open kimono’ kind but what it is like actually making and producing movies. I would much rather read your story about passing on Six Days, Seven Nights than shock stories about celebrities.
Burbanked | Jan 6, 2009 | Reply
@Scott: Oh. Well, I guess you won’t be interested in my story about a lost weekend in the Nevada desert spent with Nicholson, Beatty, Barbra Streisand and a 10-gallon drum of peyote.
Scott | Jan 6, 2009 | Reply
Couldn’t have been much fun if you remember it.
Burbanked | Jan 6, 2009 | Reply
I don’t, but Beatty brought an assistant – who may or may not have been a unicorn – who wrote everything down.
Too too Badeenie | Jan 7, 2009 | Reply
i think you should go back to it. Get me in on transformers.
Ray | Jan 7, 2009 | Reply
I am constantly amazed at the ineptitude of the executive branches of the major studios in Hollywood. How did these people manage to obtain these positions? Luck? Blow jobs? Some unholy combination of these things?
While I think that a movie based around SHAZAM should never have even been CONTEMPLATED, it sounds like August understands the material much better than the boot-licking eel cunts at Warners. So many films have been destroyed by endless and incompetent tampering by studio execs … just look at the story behind the making of ALIEN 3, for example.
Hmmm … how many movies did YOU destroy with your decisions, Alan?????
Burbanked | Jan 7, 2009 | Reply
@Ray: Not enough, pal. Not nearly enough.
@Too too: Here’s a link to Michael Bay’s forums. See if you can reach him that way and apply for a job. I think you’d be terrific! (and make sure you visit his “Women and cars” thread)
Piper | Jan 7, 2009 | Reply
Alan,
Fantastic post. Just fantastic.
I’ve probably written about this here, but I’ll recount it again. Goldman in his wonderful book Which Lie Did I Tell writes about The Princess Bride and how it had been greenlit and then killed and how it was going to flounder in a studio until Goldman used his own money to buy it back and take it to another studio. So much money is spent and wasted over incompetence and most of it seems to be focused on anything but putting a good product out there.
All of this makes me come to the conclusion that I have come to many a time. It is simply a miracle that great films come out of Hollywood. And because of this, great movies should be celebrated. Should be paraded around on the shoulders of all of us.
Burbanked | Jan 7, 2009 | Reply
@Piper: you’re right that this kind of thing points up how damn hard it is to actually get a quality movie made. And in (slight) defense of the wacky studio system, I can tell you that development people (at least the naive ones) actually DO want to create a quality movie – they’re just going at it from a different perspective.
Screenwriters are just as capable of being way, way off the mark and misguided. I worked on a few projects in which my company had purchased or optioned a script mainly on the strength of the premise, the promise of the writing, perhaps because of a favor or two – but we’d purchased it with the idea up-front that it needed work. And I’ll tell you, some first-time screenwriters had NO interest in developing their so-so scripts into something more commercial, more filmable, more meaningful, etc. They could be argumentative, obstinate, and outright rude in protection of their holy-crazy creativity, and were unwilling to admit that maybe a producer with a solid filmography, backed by a major studio, could possibly know better than they would.
But that description doesn’t fit John August or Goldman, obviously, both of whom are not only masters of their craft but also know better than most how to tolerate the development system. And whereas Goldman had good reason to protect Princess Bride as his OWN sacred property, I’m thinking that Shazam doesn’t fit that description for August.
Piper | Jan 7, 2009 | Reply
Wait a minute.
Creative people being argumentative, obstinate and outright rude?
I’ve never heard of such things.
Too too Badeenie | Jan 7, 2009 | Reply
Piper,
do you like me?
Piper | Jan 12, 2009 | Reply
Too too,
Where you been?
I’ve got a nice cup of hot chocolate and a warm blanket for you.
Too too Badeenie | Jan 12, 2009 | Reply
See..you are a funny litle twitter. That’s why i do like you NOW, anyway. Piper.