Hollywood Babble On & On #340: The Stars Come Down...

... IN SALARY THAT IS

Patrick Goldstein at the Big Picture blog reports that the mega-bux star salaries are coming down to something more in line with their box office performance.

Now I'm not against people making good money, hell I wish everyone made a good living. However, this is the real world, there's no such thing as a unicorn ranch, and salaries have to bear some sort of relationship to what the market will bear. One of the key problems is that a lot of today's so-called "stars" rake in multi-million dollar paydays, despite dropping more bombs than Curtis LeMay.*

This is not the way to run a railroad, and is a key reason why Hollywood production costs have an inflation rate akin to Zimbabwe.

Now how did star salaries get so divorced from reality for so long?

Well, I think it's time again for me to explain my little thing I call the "self fulfilling idiocy."

A self-fulfilling idiocy is someone's idea of a solution that only serves to create more and more problems, and anyone with half a brain cell can see those problems coming, but go through with it anyway.

Hollywood's history of the self-fulfilling idiocy goes back to the 1950s. Before then actors, even major stars, were contract players. They were well paid, but were strictly on a weekly salary and didn't get a share of the profits, outside of a raise if they're consistently successful.

The 1950s marked the beginning of the end of this system. Stars who survived WW2 weren't going to sit back and be content with just a salary when the studios were raking in millions. They started to buck the contract system, and become their own producers, and negotiating a cut from the profits.

The studios then had two options.

1. They could follow the fundamental precept of capitalism, and run their business in a way that makes all sides of a business deal happy.

or...

2. They could do something really stupid to try to pinch pennies, no matter that it will make a lot of enemies and cost them exponentially more in the long run.

The studios went for Option #2.

They immediately started making their accounting practices so damn complicated that you need 50 accountants, a smell-hound named Hooch, and your cousin from Newfoundland to figure out who paid for lunch.

Now this screwing policy crashed into two things...

1. The rise of the super-agent and the mega-agency. These people fought like bastards for as much money for their clients as they could get. Why? Because they get 10% you dummy. These folks accrued massive amounts of clout and they weren't afraid to use it.

2. The fact that studios still treated actors like they were on salary. No matter how their films performed, their base pay, (also called The Quote) never went down, only up with every hit. So actors were still being paid big money even though it had been years since they had a profitable feature.

This is a perfect storm for a financial crash and burn. Now this movement to curb star salaries is a nice beginning, but it is just a beginning.

The Studio CEOs should be next.

*Obscure historical reference alert, Dennis Miller Level 7!

Hollywood Babble On & On #339: Who Needs Writers?

The Writer's Guild of America is filled with righteous anger because the Emmy Awards decided to drop the scribe related categories from the telecast. Apparently they're just not worthy of ever appearing on the same stage as Kathy Griffin who will be accepting her award for My Life On The D-List.

The Emmy's argument is that the writers aren't telegenic. A lot of them are balding, hairy, overweight, underweight, too short, too tall, or just plain fugly.

Okay, that might be true, not all writers can be as devilishly handsome as yours truly, but the Emmys are not supposed to be about how pretty people are, it's supposed to be about giving ultimately worthless trophies for what a narrow group of Emmy voters consider paragons of excellence at the moment they fill out the ballot.

But try telling that to Emmy organizers and they'd call you crazy.

Why?

Because they think like Hollywood, and Hollywood thinks that all you need are the celebrities. The people who make their careers possible are just ballast on good ship Celebrity.

That's why actors who couldn't sell lead lined underpants in Chernobyl, let alone a film, get paid in the multiple millions, while a writer who scribed multiple blockbuster smash hits is considered lucky if they get 1/5 of that actor gets.

It's also why the networks love reality TV, it's everything they ever wanted. It turns people into celebrities without a whiff of creativity or talent, which costs money, and those reality stars rarely have any success outside their original show, and promptly disappear, to be replaced instantaneously by a new crop, so hardly anyone gets a chance to become expensive.

It's the diet version of fame, and if they had their way, all TV would be like that.

Cinemaniacal: The Big Heat & Bloody Vengeance

I signed up for a satellite TV service a little over a month ago, it was something I had been putting off for a long time on the assumption that I could not afford it, then after some changes with my pre-existing cable service, I discovered that I was paying the same for the world's crappiest cable service, and not getting any specialty channels.

When I signed up, I noticed a package that contained a channel called Silver Screen Classics, and it specialized in commercial free broadcasts of old movies, and I spent an extra five bucks to get that package.

I've come to realize that it's probably in the Top 5 of channels I watch fairly regularly, having reignited the love of old black and white movies that I had when I was a kid.

Anyway... All this preamble brings me to my topic, bloody, brutal revenge, and how it plays in the film The Big Heat, and later more "modern" cop-revenge movies. And be warned, if you haven't seen The Big Heat, this post contains SPOILERS GALORE.

The Big Heat was directed by Fritz Lang, adapted from the William McGivern novel by Syndey Boehm and starred Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Lee Marvin, and Alexander Scourby. It's the story of an honest homicide detective in a corrupt town named Sgt. Bannion (Ford) who's investigation of a policeman's suicide puts him in the way of mob boss Lagano (Scourby), and his top minion Vince Stone (Marvin), who put a hit on the cop that instead kills the cop's wife.

Sgt. Bannion quits the police, because they're no help, and starts picking apart Lagano's organization with the help of an angry disfigured mob moll named Debby (Grahame). Key is getting their hands on the suicide note written by the corrupt cop at the start of the film, it's a complete confession, telling where all the bodies are buried, and who did it. However the note's being hidden by his widow (Jeanette Nolan) and will only be released on the event of her death, because it's making her a load of extra cash from blackmailing the mob.

Now this is where the differences between the Film Noir revenge story of The Big Heat and the more modern, more action oriented revenge story of the past 30+ years.

The modern action revenge story would have the hero holding the battered and bloody corpse of his wife and swearing brutal vengeance on those who killed her. He would then amass enough firepower to flatten a mid-sized city, and proceed on racking up a body count that would make Charles Manson flinch.

The Big Heat handled things differently. Sgt. Bannion goes through the whole movie carrying the same .38 snubnose revolver, only picking up a second from a beaten hit-man, and giving it to Debby. Instead, Bannion is all about getting evidence that could bring on what he called "The Big Heat," the sort of heat that a few bribed officials couldn't cool. The moment he realizes that he could bring on that heat by killing the treacherous widow, there's a moment when he really wants to strangle her with his bare hands, and gets into position to do it, but he doesn't. Partially because he's interrupted, but mostly because that's not the sort of cop he is.

And when he's got two of the men responsible for the death of his wife, he doesn't kill them. The first one, a low-level thug, he simply pumps him for info, and then tells his boss that he talked, letting the mob do the killing for him. The second, Vince Stone, a brutal thug who regularly abuses women, including scalding his moll Debby with a pot of hot coffee, is also kept alive, and turned over to law and order, even though he's begging the cop to kill him. Of course a certain level of sadism may be involved considering that Vince has already fallen victim to Debby's own form of vengeance, and is looking at a long stint in jail, ending with the electric chair as his future.

It's ironically up to Debby, the scalded moll, to do the vigilantism. She kills the sinister widow, and she gives Vince Stone a revenge scalding, but in punishment for her "crimes" she's shot by Vince and dies, just after confessing to the murder of the widow.

The film then ends with Stone, Lagano, and all their cronies facing federal indictments, Bannion getting his job back, and all being put right with the world.

Now folks are probably reading this and saying that they had to keep Bannion's hands clean, because he's a symbol of honest law and order, and henceforth can't be a cold blooded murder under the dictates of the production code.

And to a certain extent, I think that's true, the rules were pretty detailed back then, however, I think it takes more than just the end of the production code to explain such a fundamental shift in societal attitude.

In the late 1960s the Baby Boom generation rebelled from the society of their parents, viewing it as inherently unfair, corrupt, and incompetent. The Baby Boomers then got into positions of authority, and quickly proved themselves right.

During the late 1960s and 1970s, faith in law enforcement as a force for actual justice plummetted. Gone was Elliot Ness the Gangbuster, and in his place was Bull Connor the raging redneck putting firehoses and angry dogs on peaceful civil rights demonstrators. Those on the political right also saw law enforcement as being neutered by touchy-feely politics, and unable to do the job of being the thin blue line between order and chaos. Vigilantes became the standard, especially with movies like Death Wish, or cops that acted like vigilantes in Dirty Harry.

This attitude continued through the 1980s, the age of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Seagal, and to a lesser extent, Van Damme, and was taken to new extremes of violence and action in order to top the last one. This eventually wounded, if not neccessarily killed, the sub-genre, because the Average American moviegoer mostly regained their faith in law enforcement, especially after the turnaround of several cities following the "broken windows" policies of law and order flagship New York City.

Now normally, Hollywood would follow this shift, and to an extent they have on television, thanks to the popularity of police procedural dramas, but movies seem to still have the same 70s attitude.

Or maybe that's just me. What do you think?

Hollywood Babble On & On #338: Some Updates

UPDATE #1: A QUESTION

Anonymous Reader asks this question about my recent post about the risks inherent in the GI Joe movie:

Like that stopped the Bay Transformers movies from making big wads of cash.

True, but Bay still maintained the fundamental idea of the Transformers. Robots turn into cars, then back into robots and beat the living crankcase oil out of each other. Paramount and Hasbro are doing a fundamental retooling of the fundamental ideas behind GI Joe, that have the potential for turning off a lot of the toy's original fans.

One thing that sort of annoys me was that each GI Joe character had a particular identity, a skill-set, and a look. The folks in the movie all seem to be the same interchangeable types, all wearing the same sci-fi robo-cop battle suits, no doubt to give the film that Transformers vibe. So far the only stand out seems to be Snake-Eyes, but you really can't screw up a "bad-ass ninja."

UPDATE #2: FUNNY FLOP OR LOW FLYER?

Some folks are branding Funny People a failure due to an $8 million opening night, and projected $22 million weekend, putting it on the low end of the forecasts. The may still have legs, and run at a slow burn for a while, due to its appeal to an older demographic that don't feel they have to be there on the opening weekend, so I will reserve judgment on the issue, especially since its reported $70 million budget, is pretty low by Hollywood standards, and may still make a profit in the long run without being a blockbuster.

UPDATE #3: MAGNIFICENT BASTARDS OF THE WEEK

The headline says it all, in a way only a true magnificent bastard can do it.

I salute you.

Saturday Silliness Cinema: Fire Marshal Bill

Here's a quick clip from the 90s show In Living Color, featuring a young, pre-Ace Venture Jim Carrey as one of his most famous characters Fire Marshal Bill.



I'll be back to ranting and raving about business very soon.

Hollywood Babble On & On #337: Levels of Risk

1. 3 PICS & LEVELS OF RISK

Comedian turned director turned one man movie empire Judd Apatow has signed a 3 picture directing deal with Universal Pictures on the eve of the release of his third movie, Funny People.

Now Apatow isn't perfect, films like Walk Hard, and Year One, have tanked, but on the whole he is as close to a safe bet that Universal can make. His films tend to be relatively inexpensive, so even if they don't break records, they can break even, or even profit a lot easier than most movies. This bucks the trend of most big studio movies that need to have box office takes in the hundreds of millions just to cover the production costs.

As Warner Bros. recently proved, smaller films can reap big rewards when they catch on with the public, like their recent film The Hangover, and hopefully Universal has learned something from that considering the stinky summer they've had so far.

It's also good for Apatow, because his films are pretty low budget, the stay pretty much under the meddle detectors of most studio executives who are too busy micro-managing the big $150 million + productions.

Which brings us to Apatow's Funny People, which is the closest the modest aiming filmmaker has come to a major epic. Reports say that it's his most expensive picture, with a big expensive cast, and at 2.5 hours in length, pretty damn long for an R-Rated comedy. So a lot of people, especially those who despise his loosy goosy improvisation heavy style, and strange mix of lowbrow sexual humour, and family values, are heaping on the negatives, and hoping the film will fail. The major critical aggregators and audience tracking though, are fairly positive, and the experts are guessing forecasting anything between $20-$40 million+ for the film.

Personally, I hope the film turns out to be well done, and does well. Because I'm tired of all the cranking, because Apatow seems to work hard, almost obsessively so, and avoids the excessive trappings of fame and power, preferring his work to speak for him instead of the tabloids.

2. BUZZ FOR BASTERDS & JOE, AND HOW IT COULD ALL GO WRONG

Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds is tracking well, being beat only by GI Joe among males in the excitement category. However, reports say that the film is now one minute longer than the extra long version shown to much controversy and consternation at Cannes.

Now I think the buzz around GI Joe is based mostly around 30 something males who were kids in the 1980s and fondly remember the toys, cartoon, and comic books shaping their childhood, and aren't paying attention to all the negative buzz emerging from the production by fan-boys disappointed at reports of the changes being made to their childhood memories.

Now both films can have brilliant opening weekends, however, that could easily blow up in their face.

Audiences could walk out of Basterds, thinking that Tarantino promised them an old fashioned "men on a mission" action adventure, but instead pissed on their veteran grandpa's grave, with self indulgent cinematic nihilism. This could cause bad word of mouth, and those who were planning on going on the second night, pick to go somewhere else. GI Joe, could also end up having a big opening night, but those who leave the theatres, could feel that Hasbro and director Stephen Sommers raped their childhoods, and these disappointed filmgoers will let their feelings be known.

So things can go either way, and badly hurt the companies that made these films. The Weinstein Co. is hanging by a thread already, and Basterds could cut that thread if the audiences don't like it. Paramount's had a pretty good summer so far, but could lose a lot if GI Joe hits the dirt instead of the ground running.

So unlike Funny People, the risk levels of these films are much, much higher.

The Case of the Suspicious Sapphic Storyline

The past day had been hot, hard, and long, and I was just realizing how many strange Google hits this opening sentence was going to bring to this blog. I had spent the day trying to solve the Case of the Angry Assistants. The solution turned out to be easy: Their bosses were assholes.

That's what I do, I find answers, I'm a dick.

Damn, now I'm going to get a lot more weird Google visits than the story with the giant rooster.

Anyway, I had staggered into my office, beat tired and slumped in my chair like a sack full of jello.

Correction.

I slumped in my chair on a sack full of jello.

"Who put a bag full of jello on my chair?" I asked.

"Hey," said voice from the corner, "that was my desert."

I spun around, my piece in my hand.

"Why are you pointing a piece of cake at me?" asked the voice from the corner.

"It's my desert," I said, "and my desert is free of butt prints. Now who are you and why are you here?"

"Don't you know me?"

The figure stepped out of the shadows. He was short, pimply, had an awful haircut, an even weaker attempt at a beard, and a Masters of the Universe T-shirt that didn't quite master the universe of his stomach.

"Sam Deehaygo," I said recognizing that face anywhere. He was the ultimate fanboy, there wasn't a single thing in the geek world that didn't have his sticky fingerprints on it. "What brings you here."

"I need a dick," said Sam.

"Well," I said, "I'm sort of flattered, but I don't swing that way, and just because a woman won't touch you doesn't make you gay. It might mean that you make them gay, but that's a totally different thing--"

"I mean a private detective," snapped Sam.

"I know," I answered, "I was just milking an old hackneyed joke. Much the same way I'm milking an often incorrect stereotype with your character."

"Admitting that is very meta-fiction of you."

"It's that kind of story," I said scraping the jello off my chair. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"There's a question I need answering," said Sam. "Do you watch Heroes?"

"Sweet mother of monkeys," I growled, "not another goddamn NBC story."

"Do you watch it?"

"I never got into it."

"Well there are stories going around that the Cheerleader character will have some sort of lesbian relationship on the show."

"Like Willow and Tara on Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"

"Yeah."

"Just a minute," I said as I went into the next room.

"Furious?" asked Sam. "What are you doing in there? Furious?"

"Okay," said sitting back at my desk.

"What were you doing in there?"

"Let's get on with the case," I said.

"I want you to find out why the show it doing this," he asked, "I'm not complaining, I just want to know why."

"All right," I said, "I'll take the case."

#

I figured that I'd go right to the source to find my answers, mostly because I wasted a lot of time with the introduction scene. So I leaped into my a chocolate colored 1971 Lamborghini Miura everyone called The Brown Hornet, and realized that it was not a convertible, but thanks to my girth, it now had a new sunroof.

Anyway, after the fire department got me out, I put the pedal to the metal and tore down to Universal City. If there were answers to be found, it would be there.

The backlot was a ghost town. In the distance I could hear the footsteps of runaway productions, and the weeping of some executive wondering why reshoots were needed for The Wolf-Man after $85 million had already been spent on the picture. I went into that big black slab that served as the executive office building and met the receptionist.

"What a pleasure meeting you here Sugartits," I said to the receptionist.

"Aren't you getting tired of using the gag where receptionists are always being named after sexist terms?" asked Sugartits McGee. "I mean it's a cheap gag, I'm talking Family Guy cheap."

"You know," I said, "this reminds me of the time I was Johnny Depp's--"

"Don't start doing cut-aways!" screeched Sugartits. "Just tell me who you want to see."

"I need to see the person in charge of Heroes," I said.

"Do you know who it is?" she asked.

"Don't you?"

"This is NBC," she said, "no one's sure of anything. Just pick a random office, I'm sure you'll write it so that it'll turn out to be the right guy."

I followed her advice, went into the elevator, picked a floor at random, and then picked a random office.

She was right.

"So you're the show-runner for Heroes?" I asked.

"Yeah," said the guy as he nervously sipped a cappucino. "For now, who's asking."

"I am Furious D," I said, "I'm a private dick, and I'm looking for some answers."

"About what?" asked the show-runner. "And make it fast, I'm getting fired in an hour."

"A lot of folks are wondering about the rumours about that cheerleader character having a lesbian relationship in Season 3."

"Oh," said the show-runner, "that."

"Well," I said.

"The ratings for the past two seasons stink," said the show-runner. "And I mean dead squid on a beach stink. We need something to attract attention, and I was watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, saw that whole Willow/Tara thing... Hey, where did you go?"

"Go on," I said as I returned to my seat.

"What were you doing in my closet?"

"Just finish your story," I said.

"We figured getting two girls making out on television would boost the ratings."

"Doesn't that seem like a cheap play for attention."

"Oh it is cheap, really, really cheap," said the show-runner, "it's like every time Megan Fox opens her mouth."

"Why go that route?" I asked. "People are already getting sick of her."

"Because this is NBC," said the show-runner, "we've got nothing else."

I nodded and was glad to have an excuse to get away from that network, the whole building had that whole Dawn of the Dead feeling to it, and I skedaddled. I had my answer, so it was time to declare---

CASE CLOSED

Hollywood Babble On & On #336: Quo Vadis NBC?

Josef Adalian at The Wrap has a piece that raises some questions about what going to happen next at NBC in the aftermath of Ben Silverman's exit, replacement by Jeff Gaspin and Jeff Zucker's career clock reaching 5 minutes to midnight.

Well here are my answers to some of the questions that Adalian's asking:

Will Jeff Gaspin be able to end the culture of backstabbing and political positioning that's preoccupied NBC for nearly a decade?

That sort of behaviour is a sure sign of two things.

1. Those who are supposed to do the daily running of NBC are denied the power to do what's necessary (mainly hiring & firing) by the head office.

2. The people who are doing the backstabbing and positioning are not doing their jobs, or they wouldn't have the time to back-stab anyone.

How do you solve it?

Such conspiring and skullduggery are a symptom of a lack of authority by those who are supposed to run the company because like a fish, a company rot starts at the head. It looks like no one respects Zucker, and Zucker won't let those in charge of the day to day operations make a decision and act on it without his meddling.

If the CEO doesn't trust the Presidents, Vice Presidents, etc., to make decisions, then why the hell did he give them the jobs in the first place?

Anyway the next question:

Can NBC repair the damage done to its relationships with the creative community?

Not only do a lot of the people necessary to make television hate NBC, it's management, and all that they stand for, they also do not respect NBC, nor do they even fear NBC.

Adalian cites a quote from the creator of My Name Is Earl, who likened his show's cancellation to being tossed from the Titanic.

That says a hell of a lot, and it will take a massive shake up at the company just to start building the bridges that NBC has burned over the past few years. Plus there's also the problem of convincing people to sell their shows to a network that's considered the place where shows go to die.

Who will the media blogosphere obsess over now that Party Ben has left the dance floor?

Someone will rise, or sink to the challenge. Someone always does, Hollywood's a good provider that way.

Now here are a few of my own questions for NBC to answer.

1. What will NBC do when Jay Leno's show crashes and burns?

I know it won't happen right away, a certain novelty, coupled with Jay's personal popularity will buoy the show for a while. However, a nightly prime time variety show has a 99.8% chance of becoming a complete disaster, especially with the conditions NBC is rumored to be putting on the show. Leno accepted the gig because they played on his deep insecurities even though he could probably buy the network by now. A weekly show, perhaps on Wednesdays as a "humpday pick-me-up" could have worked if he had a crack team of writers and a killer supporting cast, but not every weeknight.

It seems though that NBC doesn't have any plans for this contingency, letting 5 hours a week lie fallow.

2. How will NBC win back the viewers?

The critics, and creative community are one thing, but how do you win back the most important part of the equation, the audience. I don't have any reason at all to watch NBC, considering they cancelled Life, the bastards, and only run reruns of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which I can catch earlier on a Canadian station. What can they do to possibly make me want to watch an NBC show?

3. When will something be done about Zucker?

I don't like to see people lose their jobs, but they have to be doing their jobs to make me want them to stay. Zucker's probably got a golden parachute that could feed Paraguay for a year, so he might want to consider retirement, and whatever poor bastard gets roped into replacing him, can be paid based on job performance, not ass-kissing.

Now, will someone outside of NBC-U do something, I'm getting to sound like a broken record around here.

One More Silverman Related Bit...

The exit of Ben Silverman from NBC-U is still causing ripples across the show-biz world. One of those ripples is the question of why a businessman with the tough reputation of Barry Diller would hire Ben Silverman for this new venture.

Well, let's take a gander at the

Top 10 Possible Reasons Barry Diller Hired Ben Silverman:

1. He lost a poker game to the CEO of GE.

2. He owns a lot of NBC-U stock and needed to something to get it moving upward.

3. He needs an excuse if IAC blows up in his face.

4. Silverman's crazy manic giggle just warms Diller's heart like a basket of puppies.

5. Diller just got the DNA tests back, he is the father!

6. Diller needs a younger body to transplant his brain into.

7. Diller wants someone to teach him how to party hard.

8. Diller got tired of not being criticized on DHD every second day.

9. Two words: Whipping boy.

10. Once hired, Diller intends to replace Silverman with his evil twin from the negative universe. Evil Twin Silverman has a goatee, and can actually run a network. With Evil Twin working out great, all the blame for NBC-U's troubles will fall on Zucker, chaos will reign, and Diller will sweep in to take over NBC-U at fire sale prices.

A Musical Moment...

I was having lunch with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, or "Andy" as we call him at the club, and I told him about Ben Silverman's exit from NBC. He was inspired and wrote the following song for a whole new show about Silverman's work and career called "Silvita."

I hope you enjoy this sneak preview of what's destined to be a Broadway classic.

Don't Cry For Me NBC (from Silvita) :

My show's were cheesy
My decisions strange
When I try to explain how I feel
That I still need your love
After all that I've done
You won't believe me
All you will see
Is the boy you once knew
Although he's dressd up to the nines
And turned NBC into poo

I had to let it happen
I couldn't change
Couldn't really take the wheel
Looking out of the window
Working instead of fun
So I chose freedom
Running around trying everything new
But none of my shows impressed you at all
I even expected them too

Don't cry for me NBC
The truth is I should have left sooner
All through my wild days
My complete indifference
I blew my promise
To go the distance

And as for fortune and as for fame
I preferred them more than work
Though it seemed to the world
That I acted a jerk
I had grand delusions
And no real solutions
To be a network killer
The answer was getting the hell out
And ruin things for Barry Diller

Don't cry for me NBC
The truth is I should've left you sooner
I'd disappear for days
Forgot your existence
I blew my promise
At every instance

I always say too much?
And all the bullshit I'd say to you
But all you have to do
Is look at Zucker to know
That NBC is still screwed.