Hollywood Babble On & On #782: Penny Witless Pound Foolish

Today two stories about how Hollywood is penny witless and pound stupid. That clever turn of stomach phrase is my way of saying that no one in Hollywood knows squat about handling money. They pinch pennies in all the wrong ways, while also creating an atmosphere of indulgence that costs them even more dearly.

MEDIA COMPANIES CAN BE PENNY WITLESS!

By now you've all heard about how AMC tried to make up for overspending on Mad Men, including Executive Producer Matt Weiner's $10 million payday, by shit-canning Frank Darabont and trying to skin money out of their biggest hit The Walking Dead.

First they clawed back the tax break the show got for filming in Georgia and put in the network's coffers instead of plowing it back into the show like they did in the first season. Then they slashed a further $650,000 per episode from the budget. But they said that no one should worry because the brainiacs at AMC pitched some truly brilliant batshit cost-cutting ideas like:

1. Making the zombies "heard" and not "seen." You see visible zombies cost money because you need make-up. Zombies that are simply moans heard coming from the other room are, at least in the minds of AMC executives, a wonderful money saving device.

2. Dividing the shooting week half indoors and half outdoors. Now this is just fine if you're doing a domestic drama about a bunch of people who live in the same house. However, if you're doing a show about people forced into being refugees in their own country because civilization collapsed, you have a completely different kettle of fish. The characters have to be constantly on the move in order to survive. That's the whole basis of the show.

It's obvious that whoever made these sorts of decisions didn't base them on any rational or logical basis. Then they wouldn't have been so cavalier to jerk around two of their biggest shows Walking Dead and Breaking Bad, to pay for keeping Mad Men, which fights with Breaking Bad for second place at the network. Ego, and a place in Hollywood's "Cool Kids Club" probably played a bigger role in this territorial pissing match which could have been avoided if it was really all about the money.

STUDIOS, PRODUCERS, & FILMMAKERS CAN BE POUND FOOLISH!

A while ago Disney announced that they were going to revive The Lone Ranger franchise with their biggest star Johnny Depp playing Tonto, and Arm & Hammer Baking Soda playing the titular vigilante who is neither Lone, nor a Ranger.

Well you can forget about it. Disney has pulled the plug after Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Director Gore Verbinski pitched a production budget that was almost $250 million.

That's right, Bruckheimer and Verbinski wanted a quarter of a billion dollars to make a Western.

If you know your movie history you will recall that in the Golden Age of Hollywood Westerns were considered reliable because the were CHEAP TO MAKE. You just had to go out in the hills with a few horses and some props, and away you go.

The fact that Bruckheimer and Verbinski wanted to make it for almost $250 million strikes me as some form of madness that needs immediate psychiatric treatment.

But I'm not letting Disney completely off the hook. You see Disney was perfectly will to make the film, if Bruckheimer-Verbinski & Co. could do it for $200 million or less.

Think about that for a second: The cheapskate Disney budget offer was $200 million for a Western.

Give me that money, I'll make at least them four westerns. None will star Johnny Depp unless he's willing to take a huge pay cut, and they'll be as violent as hell, but that's how you make a fun Western. At least in my book.

Basically, everyone's bedbug batshit in this story.

So how do you avoid both penny pinching, and indulgent extravagance?

Well, it's easy....

1. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT MONEY. When it comes to both penny pinching and over-spending it usually has little to do with money, and everything to do with ego and territorial pissing. Studio and network bosses want to show that they're in control, especially when they are feeling really insecure about their abilities and position, and start picking nits whether they need to or not. On the producer/filmmaker side, they're out to prove their importance, and nothing proves that better than spending oodles and oodles of other people's money on your baby.

Now both sides would get along much better if they just put aside such inanity, and realize that they have to make these things so that they can make a profit. That's how you get to make more movies and TV shows.

2. THINK ABOUT WHAT IT DOES TO YOUR CAREER. No one should want to be known as stupidly miserly when they're an executive, or as a profligate self-indulgent twat when they're a producer/filmmaker. When your the sort of penny pincher who fires a producer right after using him to promote the show at Comic-Con over the money grubbing you think you need to do after shilling out too much for too little, the creatives are going to think twice before getting into business with you.

If you're a creative with a reputation for tossing money by the handful whether you need to or not, you're putting your own career in danger. Sure, it's great when you have a string of hits under your belt, but lucky streaks end, franchises run out of steam, and then what? Sure, you might be able to get away with being careless with money while you're hot, but when the day happens when you're not hot, no one is going to want to take a risk on you.

3. LEARN WHAT THINGS REALLY COST. Both media executives and creatives really need to learn what things really cost when it comes to making movies. I'm talking about casting, renting equipment, travel, feeding and sheltering the cast & crew, locations... I'm talking everything. They need to know what things cost, down to the penny, look for competitive bids when they can, then they will know how to do things at the best price available.

Then, maybe then, you might be able to avoid the troubles caused by being penny witless and pound foolish.