Biz gets dizzy as picmakers crank up money machine
Item: It's become almost routine for major stars to abruptly withdraw from movies just as principal photography is about to start. Didn't anyone get around to reading the script?
Item: Studios are greenlighting high-profile projects, then announcing that they won't proceed without outside financing. Didn't anyone get around to counting the money?
Item: More and more directors are suddenly deciding to become entrepreneurs as well as auteurs, and in the process are mucking up their movies before they even hit the launching pad. Can't anyone stick to their career goals?
I was reflecting on these questions the other day as I strolled around Skywalker Ranch near San Rafael. Skywalker, of course, is the breathtakingly elaborate, high-tech cocoon created by George Lucas that stands as a monument to one filmmaker's desire to escape the Hollywood craziness. The lavishness of the venture, and the sophistication of its technology, conversely dramatize the vast economic rewards that Hollywood can deliver.
And it's this reality -- the numbers, stupid -- that's stoking the fires as well as the neuroses in Hollywood these days. In the gray economic landscape of the '90s, Hollywood increasingly stands out not only as the dream machine, but also as the money machine. When Steven Spielberg can pull down $ 250 million from "Jurassic Park"-- some crunchers figure he could conceivably emerge as the richest man in America by the end of the century -- the industry that created him starts taking on mythic proportions.
ALL OF WHICH HELPS EXPLAIN why filmmakers like James Cameron, Ridley and Tony Scott, Francis Coppola and Oliver Stone are fiercely intent on setting themselves up, not just as directors, but also as proprietors. They want a bigger piece of the pie, if not the pie itself, along with the autonomy that goes with it.
Thus far the results of their quest have proven decidedly mixed.
Coppola started dreaming of building a ministudio while still in his 20s. He ended up filing more bankruptcies than Alan Dershowitz files appeals.
More recently, Cameron, who sees himself as a sort of latter-day Cecil B. DeMille, demanded liberation from the constraints of the studios in order to realize his expansive vision. He thus established Lightstorm, a complex scheme that essentially boiled down to a jazzed-up output deal in which foreign partners would put up a hefty portion of the budget in exchange for foreign rights. The deal ultimately became a high-wire act as Cameron's budget soared and partners kept dropping in and out of the action.
Cameron's dalliance with the money men was child's play compared with the traumas that the Scott brothers would experience. "Crisis in the Hot Zone" was billed as a milestone in entrepreneurial craft but ended as a $ 7 million millstone that still hangs around their necks.
ONE BASIC PROBLEM, some argue, was that "Hot Zone" had begun its life as a conventional studio picture and thus was difficult to restructure as a Scott-owned vehicle. At onepoint, dealmakers say, Fox was going to put up only 35% of the budget, then ended up committing 70%, with both Fox and the Scotts kicking and screaming over every deal point. None of it mattered, because the project imploded in pre-production, with Jodie Foster and then Robert Redford taking a hike.
One reason, it's been suggested, is that no one was ultimately in control. Ridley Scott was at once the "owner," eager to protect his first-dollar gross participation, as well as the director, trying to cobble together the best cast.
And that brings us back to the water supply. Considering the vast sums that directors earn in salaries and gross participation, is it rational for them to demand still more? Is that any crazier than studios deciding at the 11th hour that they want to make movies with other people's money? Or stars panicking when they see an unwieldy $ 80 million edifice resting on their shoulders and flee to a safer vehicle?
Big bucks stir big appetites -- and big fears. It's not the water, stupid.
