The Case of the Starless Star

It was a hot August day in Hollywood. The wags were saying that it wasn't bad because it was a dry heat. So is your oven at 400 degrees, doesn't mean I'm going to crawl inside and enjoy it.

Anyway the heat was putting a damper on the sort of business news pieces I usually gripe about, leaving me to do one of my parody detective stories where I get all meta-fiction and acknowledge that I'm actually in a story.

There was a rap at my door.

It was something by the Fat Boys, which sparked a terrifying flashback to the 1980s. When I regained consciousness I heard a thump at the door.

"Open up Furious D," demanded the voice from outside, "and let me in, for I am a PRINT JOURNALIST!"

I got up off the floor and made my way to the door. I opened it and there was a paperboy, carrying a bag of newspapers.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I'm Patrick Goldstein," answered the paperboy as he jabbed me with a rolled up newspaper, "I'm an entertainment reporter with the Los Angeles Times."

"Who?"

"A print journalist."

"What's that?"

"Listen I got a case for you," said Goldstein, "do you want it?"

"Will I get paid?"

"Take this case and I'll bury the story about all your sleazy personal life," said Goldstein.

"How are you going to do that?" I asked.

"I'll print it, but not put it on the website."

"That would do the job," I said, "except I'm too poor and boring to have a sleazy personal life."

"Damn, you called my bluff!"

"Why not offer to pay me money?" I asked.

"I work for the LA Times," answered Goldstein, "we haven't got any money."

"Just hand over what you got," I demanded, "and I'll take your case, we've dragged out this scene way too long anyway."

Goldstein passed me a handful of seven quarters, six dimes, two nickles, eleven pennies, and a ticket stub to a screening of Eat, Pray, Love.

"Will you take my case?" asked Goldstein.

"What do you want," I said, putting the coin in my piggy bank, much to the pig's consternation.

"I want you to find out why Jennifer Aniston's a movie star," said Goldstein.

"Sounds tough," I said, "but tough is my business."

"I thought trouble was your business?" asked Goldstein.

"I do have a life outside of trouble you know."

#

I hit the streets looking for the truth, but that hurt my knuckles, so I started asking people. The first person I asked was Bill Simmons of ESPN. I found him in a sports bar that was next to the crow bar watching a football.

Not a game, but a football, just sitting on the table.

"Hey Simmons," I said loud enough to heard above the cawing from next door, "I need you to tell me your theory as to why Jennifer Aniston's a movie star."

"Sure," he said, not taking his eyes off the motionless football, "she's like an athlete who never made it to the championship game. She lost her husband to Angelina Jolie, then they started popping out kids like Mormons, while Aniston has a crappy personal life, and a mediocre professional life."

"You mean all those forgettable movies that don't make much money?"

"Yeah," said Simmons.

"So you're saying it all boils down to sympathy?" I asked.

"Yep," said Simmons, still staring at the football.

"But Hollywood has about as much sympathy as a sociopath komodo dragon," I said, "so there has to be more too this."

"Have it your way," answered Simmons, "I'd join your crazy quest, but I'm too wrapped up in the excitement happening right in front of me."

I left the sports bar and pounded the pavement again, but this left my knuckles even more sore than when I hit the streets. So I thought I'd go right to the horse's mouth...

#

The horse told me that I was looking in the wrong place, if I wanted the truth I should go to where they decide who becomes and stays movie stars.

I stepped into the checkout line of the grocery store, and asked the lady in front of me if she knew who gets picked to be movie stars in Hollywood.

"Oh," said the lady, pointing to herself and the other ladies in the line, "that's us."

"Really," I said. "I thought it had something to do with box office appeal, and charisma, two things Aniston is kind of lacking."

"How naive," said the lady. "Look around you."

I looked at the shelves and found literally dozens of Jennifer Anistons staring back at me with their blank expressionless eyes.

"Great Caesar's Ghost!" I exclaimed, and was immediately sued for copyright infringement by Perry White of the Daily Planet. "She's everywhere!"

"And we buy those magazines and tabloids," said the lady, "we buy them by the millions."

"We also watch her on TV where she begs for privacy from the media," said another lady, "in a series of so-called 'exclusive' interviews on every entertainment news show."

"The studio people see the magazine sales, and the ratings for her interviews," explained the first lady, "and they assume that we'll pay money to see her in a movie."

"But you don't," I said. "Her movies usually close the day after they open unless she's got at least 15 other co-stars or a dog carrying the picture for her."

"We know," said the first lady. "We don't really like her acting, we just like hearing about rich good looking people being miserable."

"We love schadenfreude," said the second lady.

"But studios are losing millions casting her in these forgettable romantic comedies," I said, "do you realize the waste you're causing?"

"Of course," said the first lady, "but they'd just waste the money on some other crap."

"And if they didn't," said the second lady, "we wouldn't be able to derive joy from her misery in constant media coverage."

"It's a carefully balanced self perpetuating cycle," said the first lady, "one you nominally touched upon in an earlier blog."

"Are you saying that this story is just rehashing some points I made before?"

"It's August," said the first lady, "there are bound to be some reruns."

I nodded in agreement and declared...

CASE CLOSED

Hollywood Babble On & On #579: When Good Ideas Die Horrible Deaths

Welcome to the show folks...

I was visiting the i09 website when I read that Harlan Ellison's Phoenix Without Ashes was going to be adapted into a comic book by IDW press. And it got me thinking about how sometimes good ideas die terrible deaths, and if it's possible or right to help them live again.

The story of Phoenix Without Ashes is one of the saddest stories in the history of television that doesn't involve the untimely deaths of child actors. That's because the comic book in question was adapted from the script for the pilot of the disastrous television series Starlost.

This tale of woe began in the early 1970s. A TV producer from 20th Century Fox approached SF legend Harlan Ellison to come up with a new sci-fi TV show. The original concept the producer wanted was something along the lines of The Fugitive in Space. As usual Ellison had his own idea, and it was a pretty good one.

The premise was that Earth was destroyed, but before it's destruction the entire human race built a massive spaceship to escape the coming cataclysm. This ship's size was measured in the thousands of miles, and comprised dozens of self-sustaining environments enclosed in huge domes and spheres. It's mission: to take humanity to a new home, a voyage that will take centuries.

After a few centuries the spheres develop their own cultures, isolated from each other, and over time they even forget they're on a spaceship. One of these cultures is in a dome called Cypress Corners, which has an Amish-lite lifestyle. A young man named Devon is an outcast from this community for asking pesky questions, and for getting pissy about his beloved Rachel being forced to marry his frenemy Garth. Devon and Rachel run away from Cypress Corners, pursued by Garth, and make a shocking discovery. Not only do they discover that they're on a spaceship, they learn that the ship's bridge was destroyed, and if someone doesn't get to the back-up bridge and correct the course, the ship and its billions of inhabitants will fly right into a sun.

Sounds like a good premise, doesn't it.

It has a dramatic countdown to save the ship from disaster, it has dozens of isolated biospheres loaded with strange new cultures, or revived old ones, and it's even got the potential for aliens.

It sounds even better when you hear that SF legends A.E. Van Vogt, Frank Herbert, Joanna Russ, Thomas M. Disch, Alexei Panshin, Phillip K. Dick, and Ursula K. Le Guin were all hired by Ellison to write scripts or develop stories for the show, and Ben Bova was hired by the producers to be the science and technology consultant. FX legend Douglas Trumbull was an executive producer, and was going to use a new process called the MagiCam to produce radical new special effects.

But it starts to go downhill fast.

First, network support from the BBC or an American channel failed to materialize. A new deal was made to syndicate the show and produce it in Canada in partnership with the CTV Network. The problem is that CTV has no money for such an ambitious production. The budget gets slashed down to whatever change the network boss can find under his couch cushions. Without the money to do it right the MagiCam doesn't work, and is scrapped, replaced with a cheap newsroom chroma-key system.

The scripts and stories from all those legendary writers are dumped, new Canadian writers with no experience, expertise, or involvement in science fiction are brought in as replacements. Everything about the show is dumbed down, even the title of the pilot episode (From: Phoenix Without Ashes to Voyage of Discovery).

Trumbull leaves the show. Ellison leaves the show, and gets his name taken off the production, replacing it with his pen-name Cordwainer Bird. Bova gave advice, but was ignored, and was unable to leave or take his name off the show for contractual reasons. Sixteen episodes were made, Fox saw what a stinking pile the show became in both quality and ratings, and pulled the plug.

Now I can say that I actually remember watching the show when I was about 10 years old. The show had been about 7 or 8 years dead, but it's CTV policy to rerun anything and everything they have until the tape wears out. Even as a kid I accepted it as camp, riddled with bad directing of terrible dialogue, leading to overacting and production values that could have been topped by a high school production of Camelot.

But something compelled me to watch it beyond the simple enjoyment of mocking the cheap little Canadian show. It was Harlan Ellison's original concept that intrigued me. They could have done a season where they navigate the various cultures on their way to the bridge. Then they could have reached the bridge, corrected the course in the second season, and then deal with outside threats appearing as they search for a new home. Then comes the dealing with the different biosphere cultures, and the question of will they get along at their new home, or just bring back old hatreds or grow new ones.

With the right writers and producers, having a passion for the project, and a decent budget, it could have worked.

Which brings me to my point.

Sometimes an idea should be remade. Declare a mulligan, and try again using the material that made the concept so attractive in the first place. Not only dig up the original scripts written by the original 'dream team' of writers, see what can work, what doesn't, and recruit other great writers with a passion for the genre and fresh ideas to join in as well.

Of course, studios don't want to redo failures in the hope of making them successes, they just want to repeat successes, because they think it's some sort of guarantee. It isn't a guarantee, because the fans of the original material can often develop resentment when you don't meet or exceed their expectations. The real key to success is to find a case like Starlost where there was a good concept but poor execution. People are intrigued by the idea, but have low expectations from the original, so they'll be pleasantly surprised, if not blown away, by the quality of the new version.

In a way it's not remaking a show, it's more like resurrecting a show.

I'm available to be the executive producer, I'll do it for whatever Jerry Bruckheimer gets for his shows. ;)

That's my thoughts, what are yours.

Hollywood Babble On & On #578: Memorandum Mania

Welcome to the show folks...

The Wrap recently got their hands on a memo, purportedly about Paramount Pictures upcoming movie slate. Well, since it's seems to be a slow news day for me, I thought I'd indulge my inner internet wanker, and pass harsh and unfair judgments on films that haven't even been made yet.

TRIPLE FRONTIER- Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, (wins awards, doesn't sell well), starring Will Smith (sells tickets) Javier Bardem (unknown quantity) Christian Bale (sales can be iffy), and Sean Penn (powerful enough box office poison to drop a T-Rex.)

YOUNG ADULT- Diablo Cody figured out that she needs Jason Reitman, or she's going to have another Jennifer's Body on her hands.

DUNDERHEADS- A heist movie starring kids. Nuff said.

HANSEL & GRETEL- If this film was with Warner Bros. it would have been made by Tim Burton, star Johnny Depp as Hansel, Helena Bonham Carter as Gretel, Helen Mirren as the Witch, and make a billion dollars. At Paramount, who knows?

WILL- Won't.

MY MOTHER'S CURSE- Why do I fear that the curse will be felt by the crew during the making of the film.

WORLD WAR Z- Brains.... need brains.... need brains....

GI JOE 2- GI No.

THE ASSOCIATE- Shia LaBouef as a lawyer. Is he defending the little heisters from Dunderheads.

THE DICTATOR- Sascha Baron-Cohen being obnoxious? It worked so well with Bruno.

TWILIGHT ZONES- David Chase of The Sopranos is making this one. The twist at the end of each story is that everyone has onion rings, then everything stops dead.

MI3- Is this supposed to be the next Mission Impossible, which is the 4th, or is it something else entirely?

STAR TREK 2- Probably make a shit-load of money.

JACK RYAN- A killer concept, if this was still the 1980s.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES- Ditto.

HASBRO FACTORY- It's a 90 minute long commercial, and like with regular commercials, folks are going to see what else is on.

ZOOLANDER 2- Finally something to play after each of Zoolander's six weekly airings on TBS.

7 MINUTES IN HEAVEN- 90+ minutes in hell.

LUNA- Already dead in the water.

WHAT MEN WANT- I can answer that question: NOT THIS MOVIE.

AU REVOIR CRAZY EUROPEAN CHICK- I can imagine the pitch session for this movie: "It's like Killers meets Knight & Day, but different, this time the chick's the assassin, like Salt." What could go wrong?

BAYWATCH- Run into the ocean in slow motion, and keep running until the water comes up over your head. Then keep running.

I WANT TO _____ YOU SISTER- Nothing like a title that can get someone beaten up at the box office.

HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?- What's plaintively wailed by the movie goer who got smacked down by the ticket taker after telling him that he wanted to ______ his sister.

NEVADA SMITH- Mandatory remake time.

DADDY'S HOME- And the audience is going to stay home with him.

MAX STEEL- Minimum box office.

UNTITLED AFRICAN SAFARI- I'm wrong, we're not back in the 1980s, we've gone back to the 1930s.

LICENSE TO STEAL- What wasting $125 million on this flick really is.

EXISTENCE 2.0- The title's going to have audiences renting David Cronenberg's Existenz thinking this is the sequel. Good for Cronenberg, bad for Paramount.

WHEN CORRUPTION WAS KING- And it isn't now?

KID TABLE- The concept sounds just as rickety as my family's old 'kid table' and no doubt it will be folded up and forgotten even sooner.

Hollywood Babble On & On #577: Distribution Blues

Welcome to the show folks...

I'd like to open with a simple statement of fact.

Any idiot can make a movie if they have the money and the time.

It's no guarantee that the movie will be any good, but it can be done.

However, not everyone can distribute a film.

That's the point of this little screed.

An illustration of this point can be seen in sitcom star Josh Radnor's feature directing debut, the pretentiously lower-cased happythankyoumoreplease. The film had a great opening at Sundance, got all sorts of good buzz going for it, they signed a deal with the relatively new indie distributor Hannover House, and everything was supposed to be all sunshine and unicorns.

But it didn't work out that way, and the filmmakers have now severed all ties with Hannover House and moved it over to indie home-video/theatrical distributor Anchor Bay.

What went wrong?

Well, I could go the sarcastic route and say that Hannover got a hangover, but I won't, because I'm not into making bad jokes. Instead I'll just slip the bad joke into a statement about how I'm not going to make a bad joke, and go all meta on you.

But seriously....

The filmmakers pulled their film because they didn't think Hannover House could release their film in any proper way. Possibly fearing that the company will lack the resources to do it, especially after Hannover House got on the possible litigation shit-list of the owners of The Terminator franchise.

This isn't the first time this has happened recently, it's getting to be a trend. The producers of I Love You Phillip Morris starring Jim Carrey & Ewan McGregor have pulled their film from it's original distributor Consolidated Pictures Group, and Metropolitan Pictures lost the Kevin Spacey film Casino Jack. Both were because the start-up upstarts were believed lacking the money for the required prints and advertising (P&A) needed for those films.

Which brings me to the point of my... um.... point...

If you don't have the money, know-how, and clout to get a movie into theaters and store shelves, then you are not really a distributor. You're just some guy with the rights to a movie that know one is going to see.

Here's why:

1. MONEY: Most people think that making the film is the most expensive part of the movie business. Close, but no cigar that is just a cigar, my muchachos. In fact, the costs of P&A can often match, or even exceed the cost of making a movie. Prints for theaters are very expensive to make, and if you're planning any sort of release beyond a few festivals, you are going to need hundreds, if not thousands of prints made, at $1,000-$2,000 a pop. Advertising is also key, because what's the point of releasing a movie if your target audience doesn't know that it's playing. That means buying space in print publications, internet ads, TV commercials, Radio spots, and bribing critics for good blurbs with free food & booze at press junkets (which also cost money).

2. KNOW-HOW: Let's say you have the money to release the film. Then the question is do you have the knowledge to deliver it to your target audience? It's not as easy as you may think. You can't just dump a movie into as many theaters as you can and hope for the best. You have to know the film's target audience, what kind of theaters would attract that audience, the locations of those theaters. Then you have to create and structure your advertising and marketing plan. That takes a lot of brain power, experience, and sheer gut instinct. Not everyone has that combination, and you really need it when you can't afford to do the sort of carpet bombing releases of the major studios.

3. CLOUT: Theater chains don't want your indie film. What they want is the latest Hollywood blockbuster with the cast on the cover of every magazine. An indie distributor needs to have a certain amount of clout to bully convince theater chains into showing your movie.

It's not easy to be a distributor, and being an indie distributor is even harder. Which is one of the reasons why the indie film business is in such a mess these days.

Hollywood Babble On & On #576: ACTION!

Welcome to the show folks...

Oh my, it looks like old Sly Stallone still has it. His action ensemble The Expendables opened at #1 at the box office. Not everyone sees this as good news, some see it as the forerunner of more 80s style good vs evil testosterone dripping action flicks, and that would wrong in our complex and nuanced world.

I say: So what?

Sure the world is complex, loaded with gray areas, but people get that everyday from the news. They go to the movies to see evildoers get royally smacked down by good guys that remind the audience of themselves, not be told that it's all their own fault because of their country's foreign policy. And let's not forget Hollywood's recent attempts to make action movies that reflect this 'moral complexity,' they all had the same plot. If you're too lazy to click the link, it goes something like this hero gets screwed by CIA, hero fights CIA, hero wins against CIA and the sinister man-in-a-suit who is behind everything. (I get into more detail in that post)

If people imitate this film and open up the range of villains, and schemes the villains are up to, I'm fine with that.

However, there's a catch.

Hollywood is a little thin when it comes to action heroes, especially ones under 50 years of age. A lot of people blame this on Hollywood's 'feminizing' of increasingly 'metro-sexual' male stars, but I beg to differ.

It has nothing to do with gender preferences and sexuality or any of that stuff. It all boils down to what I call Hollywood's severe case of "Juvenile Dementia."

Hollywood is obsessed with youth, in all its forms. Anyone who dares to look like their own age gets banished from big budget movies, to doing yogurt commercials.

This has led to an entire generation of actors who still pass as teenagers and twenty-somethings well into their thirties, and keep trying to do that into their forties. This is a problem, because an action tough guy has to have some signs of hard experience etched on their face, not look like someone out of Lisa Simpson's favorite magazine Non-Threatening Boys.

But enough about Hollywood's problem with baby-face machismo, what makes a good testosterone heavy action movie:

1. Tough Guy Heroes. Hollywood thinks it's all about muscles, 6 pack abs, bulging arms, and beefy pecs. It's not. What makes a good tough guy is the sense that if you're ever caught in an old west style saloon brawl, this guy will watch your back. Most Hollywood stars look like they'll scream "Not the face!" and run away to hit on your girlfriend while you're getting your ass kicked. Not good.

2. Threatening Villains. As I said about creating superhero stories, your heroes are judged by the quality of your villains. They have to be a tangible and credible threat to your heroes. They can be scheming, craven, and manipulative, but most of all, they have to be dangerous.

3. Don't Go Overboard. CGI is wonderful at creating richly detailed fantasy worlds. The problem is that action movies need at least one foot, or tiptoe, in reality. Which means that you forgo the CGI fantasy, in favor of physical special effects, and keeping the stunt work within the realm of human possibility. That's not to say you can't stretch it. I say a good rule of thumb is that it would take an episode of Mythbusters to prove or disprove whether your stunt was possible.

4. Drop The Shaky Cam. That's a personal beef with me. I find it a cheat by filmmakers too lazy to do some actual film-making. Don't leave James Cameron the only one left who can do coherent action scenes.

What do you think about the future of action movies?

Saturday Silliness Cinema: Look Around You 4

Welcome to the show folks...

It's Saturday, time for my usual break from ranting about business stupidity, in order to bring you some video stupidity. Today, I have some more educational material for you, this time it's all you will ever need to know about sulfur.

Hollywood Babble On & On #575: Dumb Dee Dumb Dumb

Welcome to the show folks...

Just when you thought you hit the bottom of Hollywood's Marianas Trench of stupid, someone starts digging.

The latest nostril nugget to grace the Kleenex of ideas is yet another Terminator movie.

Now I've repeatedly stated that the whole franchise is hexed because of the three production companies that made Terminator movies, NONE of them are around today. One is defunct (Hemdale) and two went bankrupt (Carolco, Halcyon).

But don't worry true believers, the folks setting themselves up for future penury say that this time will be different. This time the film will be PG-13, and.... drumroll.... ANIMATED!

These are the times I stop and wonder if I'm looking into some strange Bizarro world where reality is just something that happens to 'other people.'

The thing that sold the first Terminator film was that it was dark, violent, science fiction. It was definitely NOT a kid's movie, and that's why 12 year old me wanted to see so damn bad. Attempting to reboot it as some sort of semi-Disney franchise is beyond ludicrous, it's idiotic. The hard core geeks will avoid it, and badmouth it on the internet regularly. Then there are the parents who remember the nightclub massacres, the hearts being ripped out, the douchebags tossed through walls, and the skin getting blasted of Ah-Nuld's face, and they'll take their kids to see the latest Disney pop-tart instead.

And to top it all off, the people making the film will probably end up spending too much on it, and go belly up like all the others.

So please, let the glowing red eye fade to black as it should have years ago. If you don't want to do for the sake of good taste, then do it for your own solvency.

UPDATE: Pacificor, who got the leftovers from Halcyon's bankruptcy, sent a cease and desist letter to Hannover House Productions the people behind the proposed animated movie, claiming they can't do it, because they don't own it.

Eric Parkinson of Hannover House, claims that he was given the animation rights when his former employer Hemdale Pictures took a dirt nap. Pacificor says nay nay, and are threatening to unleash the Kraken of litigation.

You see, the franchise really is cursed.

Hollywood Babble On & On #574: Spooks Going American?

Welcome to the show folks...

It's a slow day for news that blows up my kilt with excitement, so I have to take what I can get. I just saw on Deadline that ABC-TV is interested in adapting Spooks with Kudos (a part of Elizabeth Murdoch's Shine Group). If that name doesn't ring any bells you may have seen it when it aired on A&E under the name MI-5.

The premise of the show is fairly simple. It follows the work of an elite unit of counter-terrorism / counter-espionage agent for Britain's domestic security service, otherwise known as MI-5.

Now Americanising the show will take the burning of a few creative calories. The USA doesn't really have the equivalent of MI-5*, leaving those duties to specialist sections of the FBI who treat such operations with a more law enforcement as opposed to counter-intelligence style.

It's not that big a deal though, 24 had their fictional CTU, so it's not hard to toss a few more letters into Washington's alphabet soup.

So let's take a gander at what can help it and what can hurt it--

WHAT HELPS:

1. The original, at least the seasons I watched on A&E had a very high quality in the story and character department. You got to know the people involved and care about them.

2. The premise has great potential for suspense and adventure dealing with terrorists, both foreign and domestic, as well as spies and betrayal, both foreign and domestic.

3. The unpredictability. The original is notoriously ruthless with its characters, regularly offing regulars on a regular basis.... wha? Often doing it as a complete surprise out of the blue for maximum dramatic impact.

WHAT HURTS:

1. The high quality may not survive an American network. There is a very good chance that the producers of Spooks USA may end up hiring writers who don't really feel the passion about the material as the original's writers.

2. Comparisons to 24. These will be inevitable, and folks may enter expecting action, action, action, instead of the slow burn of building dread the original specialized in.

3. Political correctness. There's a very good possibility that a new Spooks USA show will completely ignore the radical Islamic terrorism we see in the news, in favor of plot-lines where every story ends with some middle aged American guy in a suit being behind everything.

4. The ruthlessness of the original may not be copied in the American version. The idea of casually knocking off the show's star is terrifying to an American TV executive. Though I must say that it's a great tool to have when it's contract renegotiation time.

5. I'm not sure any spy series could really match the gritty and grim realism of The Sandbaggers from the late 1970s.

The show, created by naval officer turned writer Ian Mackintosh captured the paranoia, fear, and almost overwhelming stress faced by intelligence officers during the dark days of the Cold War. While I liked the first 2 seasons of Spooks/MI-5, it just didn't stick with me the way The Sandbaggers still does, and I haven't seen that show in 25 years.

I wish the people behind the new show luck. I'm just not sure that a mainstream broadcast network is the right home for this kind of show.


*That we know of.... and by that I mean that they haven't had their existence leaked yet.

Hollywood Babble On & On #574: Some Mini Musings About Movies, Media, & Money

Welcome to the show folks...

WHAT A NOVEL IDEA, I THINK I'LL WRITE A BOOK

Mr. Moneybags James Cameron is writing a novel. A sequel or prequel or something like that to his mega-hit movie Avatar. Of course, he wouldn't be James Cameron if he didn't somehow insult someone when he opened his mouth and he didn't disappoint:

"Really, what I'm working on right now primarily is the novel. Because I never had a chance to get the novel done while we were making the movie, and I always intended to. I didn't want to do a cheesy novelization, where some hack comes in and kind of makes s--t up. I wanted to do something that was a legitimate novel that was inside the characters' heads and didn't have the wrong cultural stuff, the wrong language stuff, all that."

Oh Jimmy, you so crazy. Anyone else would have couched that in more diplomatic terms, saying things like: "I want to do the novel myself, because I feel so passionate about the project." etc... etc...

You don't go out and insult a bunch of writers who don't have the luxury of well, luxury, and actually have to do novelization and tie-in jobs to pay the bills. Just accept that you've been extremely lucky, and avoid insulting the people who haven't been as fortunate.

That's called being a class act.

Now there are some things Cameron has to do in order to get this novel finished.

1. Spend $275 million developing technology to make the Kindle 3D.

2. Comb through every episode of the old Outer Limits TV series for a story.

WTF?

The Wrap has revealed the troubled indie film mogul wannabe David Bergstein's legal troubles go far deeper than him being sued by almost everyone on the planet. This troubles include an arrest in Florida last November for stiffing Las Vegas casinos for over $3 million.

Two questions:

1. How was this kept out of the press until now? I mean we heard about the bench warrants, the comparisons to Enron, but not about the arrest, what's up with that?

2. How was he able to get that far, and can I have the phone numbers of his investors I have a business proposition for them?

3. Why do people still seem willing to do business with him, and can I have their numbers too?

They can't do any worse, and I just might do a little better with me. I don't like to gamble.

SPYGLASS SPIES MGM A LITTLE BIT CLOSER

Production company Spyglass Entertainment is inching closer to taking over management of the flat-lined MGM Pictures.

All I hope is that they give up their bugshit plan to strip it down to just another production company. Because without a distribution capability, it's in even deeper dung than it is today, which is really deep to begin with.

Don't make me come down there to give you a talking to. My language can be quite salty when I'm all worked up.

Hollywood Babble On & On #573: Stubborness Can Be Expensive Too

Welcome to the show folks....

Yesterday I wrote about how perception can cost you money in Hollywood. Today, I'm going to talk a bit about how being stubborn can also cost you money.

A classic case of the bull headed thinking costing money is what's going over at mini-major Lionsgate Entertainment. They reported a nasty loss in the last quarter, caused mostly by the failure of the Ashton Kutcher / Katherine Heigl Killers, and the $30.6 million they spent fighting with take-over maven Carl Icahn.

Think about that.

$30.6 million spent fighting Carl Icahn.

It doesn't matter what you think of Icahn, his business, or his methods, $30.6 million should not be spent in a spat that could have possibly been avoided. Lionsgate doesn't have a parent company with deep pockets like the uber-majors. They can't afford to get into a fight with anyone, especially one that distracts them from what is their prime mission, which is making, marketing, and distributing movies.

When you can't afford a fight, you must do what you can to avoid a fight.

Icahn can't just swan in and start a fight, he needs reasons to woo shareholders to his side. Those reasons are his ammunition.

He claims that current management aren't doing enough for shareholder value.

That means you have to buckle down, control budgets, and above all do not, I repeat DO NOT, green-light a big budget movie casting Ashton Kutcher as a globetrotting secret agent.

Icahn demands a seat on the board, and since he is a major shareholder, he probably deserves one. So give it to him. If you can't handle a board member that disagrees with you from time to time, then you seriously need to rethink your career in high management.

Word is that Icahn wants the company for his son. Bring in the kid. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but hear me out.

I don't know anything about the junior Icahn. He's not in any tabloids, or on TMZ, etc... as one of the many celebutard heirs and heiresses dripping all over the internet. That at least earns him the benefit of the doubt.

So here's the plan.

Bring the kid into the company.

Work his ass off.

Give him the hardest, nastiest, least glamorous jobs you can find. Send him to talk the neurotic actress off the roof of her trailer, have him sort out the Teamsters, and all those other pain in the ass duties that need to get done, and do not get taught in any business school.

If he has any talent for the work, exploit it, and groom him as a possible heir apparent when the time comes to retire to one of those producer deals, but use him to get one where you actually get to produce stuff. If he doesn't work out, show Daddy Icahn that he doesn't cut the mustard, or he'll run screaming from it all by himself.

If it doesn't work. Then it all look like Icahn's fault, and not yours, and you avoid pissing away $30.6 million just to maintain a stalemate, where you're bleeding faster than your opponent.

Don't be stubborn, be strategic.