SURVIVING THE GAME
You read that right… my headline is a reference to a bad ICE-T movie. The one where he’s got crazy dreads and rich white guys hunt him in the forest.
But the movie business IS a game — one where the rules constantly change. And the players change too. Oh yeah, and the points system, and the objective, and the way to win. That’s why I go from feeling like a “player on a roll” to very exhausted and bewildered… like when someone pulls out “Monopoly” at 9 pm. Sorry, even the sight of that BOX makes me sleepy, guys. But the game here in Movie Town is to make something that already has brand awareness. That’s code for “No New Ideas Allowed.” Unless you are James Cameron or Chris Nolan, you do not get an open door to pitch your super-cool original idea that is not based on any comic or plush toy. You must chase down something with “pre-existing awareness.”
Unless it’s a REALLY VALUABLE property with a TON of pre-existing awareness… then everyone around the project gets too nervous to do anything with it and then it just languishes in development for years (cough-cough–“Fraggle Rock!” But more on that project later).
The rules keep changing. The economy keeps sucking. And studios keep wimping out and looking for “safe bets.” But even JAMES BOND and the HOBBIT got taken down by this recession. From the conversations I’ve had with even the most established producers, this has been a time to keep your head down and just make it through the hailstorm with as few dents as possible. On the upside, if you can find work and keep working, you console yourself with the fact that you are still making a living by “professionally pretending.”
I’ve enjoyed some recent rewrite work, which makes me feel like I’m at least helping improve any material already out there. I think I’ll start calling rewrite assignments “Upgrading.” “Yeah, I gotta go ‘Upgrade’ a script for Warner Brothers.”
Cameron Crowe was right, Hollywood IS like a big high school. But it’s also a high school on a giant game board with three kinds of dice and the instruction card missing. And that’s why it makes perfect sense that the only things left to turn into movies are games.
Let’s go. I can sell out as much as the next guy.
“CANDYLAND: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK TOOTH.”
“HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS: A QUANTUM OF MARBLES.”
“BOGGLE BEGINS.”
“CONNECT FOUR: DIAGONALLY, IN 3D.”
Pretty sneaky, sis. It’s like ‘T’ says, y’all, “It’s all about gettin’ yours. It’s all about survival.”
December 6th, 2010 at 3:48 am
I… really want to see those films. Or maybe “Catan: Wrath of the Bandit Who Sits on Your 8-Brick Hex Just Before Someone Rolls it Three Times In Succession”. (All Settlers of Catan players know this to be R-Rated horror.)
However, according to all the trailers I’ve seen lately, that CONNECT FOUR film can only be IN DISNEY DIGITAL 3D.
December 6th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Nice new blog, man!
December 6th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
Sigh. Movie studios don’t seem to understand that the biggest hits are the original films. If executives never took risks we wouldn’t have films like Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, Snow White, Toy Story, Shrek, Inception, etc. Everything they deem “safe” was once a huge risk. No one ever would have known that these kinds of films could be as succesful as they were if they didn’t take the risk of making them in the first place.
December 7th, 2010 at 6:16 am
@Jeremiah,
While executive meddling has destroyed a lot of movies, I’m not sure about two of your examples.
Early Star Wars drafts had a convoluted backstory to match The Phantom Menace; executives forced it into the archetypical story of A New Hope. Pirates of the Caribbean was based off a theme park ride; I doubt any independent writer chose that.
In both cases, the creators got more freedom once the first installment was demonstrable hit, with mixed results.
On the other hand, your choice of Toy Story is sound, as the ‘make it edgier’ discussion on this very blog demonstrates.
I think it’s not about whether executives meddle, but when. Both Toy Story and Hoodwinked! spent a lot of time as storyboards, being run past test audiences (including Disney executives, in the case of Toy Story), and relentlessly rewritten when jokes fell flat. It’s easy tell people “Go ahead, the storyboards are fine, start filming”. Then, when it’s complete, everyone realises it stinks, and director hacks it to pieces in the editing room, and then the executives take over and shred it further… when the real problems are too deep to fix.
December 8th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Pejlet, Hoodwinked was not shown and “relentlessly rewritten” in front of test audiences, in storyboard form or otherwise. There is no way it would have existed in its current and wonderful form had it been subjected to making its way through the kind of development process found in the studio system.
December 7th, 2010 at 11:13 am
@Jeremiah: While I agree with your sentiment (the value of and need for original ideas)… in what way are The Lord of the Rings (published 1954), Pirates of the Caribbean (a Disney theme park ride that opened in 1967), or Snow White (age old tale, first published in English in 1857, introduced to film in 1902, several more versions made before Disney’s 1937 rendition)even remotely original?
While effects are becoming more and more amazing, story telling is suffering. Only “sure bets” are being given budgets, and most of those “sure bets” cater to the lowest common denominator (and thus, they tend to suck). Cinema is suffering, and it’s going to be a while before the business model for VOD and downloading is figured out so we can start watching (and making) high-dollar original ideas again.
December 7th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Nice site, Cory! Super stylish!
I’d love to agree with you guys, but seriously, I’m morbidly curious what a “Barrel of Monkeys” movie would be like. Somebody get on that.
December 7th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Okay, sorry. I’ll admit that my post wasn’t the most concise. I didn’t exactly spend a long time planning it out before posting it. I guess my main point is that studios/executives need to be willing to take more risks. Yes, many of the movies I mentioned were based on previously existing material, but they were still original in their own ways and were huge risks for their companies to make. Snow White was the first feature length animated film to be made (excluding some obscure foreign films). Disney was taking a huge risk in making it and some people even dubbed it “Disney’s folly”. Yet if he didn’t take that risk his company never would have become more than the producer of animated shorts films. The Lord of the Rings had a huge budget and spanned three films, each one three hours long. If it had failed it would have spelled disaster for everyone involved. But it wound up making close to three billion dollars and winning seventeen oscars, including Best Picture. Pirates of the Caribbean was the huge success that it was mainly due to Johnny Depp’s wildly original performance. The executives at Disney were horrified that he was taking his role in such an original direction and felt that he had ruined the film. However they decided to take a risk on him and it payed off. Johnny Depp recieved an oscar nomination for his performance, the film spawned two sequels (With another one in the works) and the trilogy has made over 2.7 billion dollars. So yeah, some of the films I mentioned weren’t actually original stories, but each one was original in its execution and brought something to the screen that filmgoers hadn’t seen before. If the executives behind these films were as scared of taking risks as the Weinsteins seem to be then we wouldn’t have any of them.
December 23rd, 2010 at 8:38 pm
We Muppet fans are STILL irritated at what has happened to Fraggle Rock. It’s like you’ve been ringing your little bell off for the Festival of the Bells, hoping to wake up the Heart of the Rock, and some idiotic company actually went in the previous day and took out the little ringing things in the bells. Now the Rock’s gonna freeze to death. I say we get the Gorgs and make them stomp the irritating ones. If some icky water can make Pa want to go to war against Silly People, surely this would get his dander up, LOL.