Films/DVD Asylum

Movies from comedy to drama to your favorite Hollyweird Star.

Use this form to submit comments directly to the Asylum moderators for this forum. We're particularly interested in truly outstanding posts that might be added to our FAQs.
You may also use this form to provide feedback or to call attention to messages that may be in violation of our content rules.

You must login to use this feature.

Inmate Login

By default, logging in will set a session cookie that disappears when you close your browser. Clicking on the 'Remember my Moniker & Password' below will cause a permanent 'Login Cookie' to be set.

Moniker/Username: The Name that you picked or by default, your email. Forgot Moniker?	Examples "Rapper", "Bob W", "joe@aol.com".
Password:	Forgot Password?
	Remember my Moniker & Password ( What's this?)

If you don't have an Asylum Account, you can create one by clicking Here.

Our privacy policy can be reviewed by clicking Here.

Inmate Comments

From:
Your Email:
Subject:

Message Comments

Original Message

RE: Not a likely possibility.

Posted by jamesgarvin on November 26, 2007 at 13:23:39:
"While some authors would like more input into the process, authors just don't have that kind of leverage."

I think you would agree that it depends on the author. No doubt there are authors who would sell their sole for a new computer. On the other hand, there are authors who take their art seriously enough not to compromise it strictly for commerce. Does the author have the leverage? Well, if film makers as astute as the Coens believe that the novel would make a great film, and since the Coens are not making Hollywood blockbusters, but rather films generally outside the system that do not generate the profits that make authors insanely rich, they may not have had a lot of a money to pay the author, and been forced to give him some concessions to get the rights to the story. Or the author, being financially comfortable, might have said, hey, since you don't have a lot of money for me, I'll wait unti a bigger fish comes a' callin'.

But it is certainly worth the investigation before lobbing grenades at the Coens, doncha think?

"trust me, creative control is a LOW priority in the negotiating process."

For who? No exceptions?

I have no issues with criticising the Coens for the work on their film. On the other hand, it is not fair to criticize them for an ending which they may have had no choice in making, though you may criticize them for the way they executed the ending. But the critism I have read here does not take them to task for how they handled the ending, but rather the ending itself.

If the ending itself was part of the story, and if the author mandated that his story be filmed with that ending, I am not sure what choice the Coens had in terms of including the ending in the film, which is the critism here. That most authors are willing to sell their stories without retaining creative control does not mean this author was willing to do so. I think the question still stands: If the author told the Coens that if they wanted the rights to his story, they needed to end the film with the same ending as in the book, what would you do?

We are both making assumptions. But I'm not the one using my assumptions to disparage somebody else's work. I'll be more specific with my office analogy. From time to time I see these so called legal experts who judge an attorney's work based upon the little they see in the Courtroom. They have not seen all the evidence. They have not talked to any of the witnesses. They have not been a party to any pre-trial discussions with the Court. Yet they make numerous assumptions, and then comment upon what an attorney, who has all that information, should have done. Looks to me like that is what is happening here.