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RE: Perhaps it doesn't occur to you and the other guy that

Posted by Peter H-son (A) on November 24, 2007 at 13:56:13

In Reply to: RE: Perhaps it doesn't occur to you and the other guy that posted by jamesgarvin on November 24, 2007 at 09:10:46:

George Lucas owns the Star Wars franchise so he can do pretty much what he wants. But this "final cut" thing is a lot more complicated. I guess most directors will not take fights that will get them branded as troublemakers and might hinder their careers. Worst case scenario: what do you do with a final cut if the studio refuses to back and market the movie? How do you expect to make money without Hollywood's sophisticated distribution network and lucrative McDonald's tie-ins? Hollywood's success is largely based on keeping the local distributors happy. Hollywood guarantees a steady stream of movies, most being "fillers" (or break-even movies, if not down right write-offs) and serving them complete packages, including advertising (like TV spots), media kits and so on. In the end, they all want to make money.

"Director’s cut" has lost all meaning today. Mega budget productions like The Lord of the Rings are made with the DVD market in mind. I don't remember the exact figure, but in 1997 (the year I referred to in my previous post), the theatrical run constituted about 1/3 of the revenue. 1/3 was from home video and 1/3 from TV runs. Merchandizing was not factored in.

Not to mention that the whole way of making movies has changed. The first new Star Wars movie took 365 days to finish. 65 days of that was traditional filmmaking, albeit against blue screens. The other 300 days were what in the old days was known as postproduction.

The biggest problem, as I see it, is the sycophant film critics and writers. Raul Walsh laughed at the idea that he was an auteur de cinéma. Steven Spielberg was on the plane home while the second unit was filming the final scene of Jaws. He was exhausted and simply couldn't take it any more. It was the studio, not Francis Ford Coppola, that wanted a 3hr Godfather. The studio was not satisfied with his original circa 2hr version and sent him out to shoot more.

The sycophant critics usually paint out the director as saint and the studios as cold-hearted monsters. The latter is probably true. But just maybe the studio execs look like idiots because they are in tune with the audience. If the audience wants simpleton movies, they are going supply them. No matter what you think of McDonald's, they know how to sell burgers.

A director in Hollywood has to be able to play the system. American directors do that a lot better than the imports. And it helps if you make quick, cheap productions, like Clint Eastwood does, and never go over budget, like Clint Eastwood never does. I doubt any of his productions has cost more than $30m.

There are roughly 400 movies made in Hollywood each year. The ten top grossing movies make up 50% of Hollywood's earnings. Hollywood could not care any less for the 300 lesser movies.

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