TUESDAY'S SCRIPT BIZ TIP:
WHY MAKE BAD MOVIES?
For film fans, a few summers back sucked. Every
Friday night a new blockbuster, and all of them were disappointing. STEALTH was complete crap, ELEKTRA was boring,
THE ISLAND was junky, BEWITCHED managed to be less believable than the TV show it was based on,
THE BROTHERS GRIMM lived up to its name, and even after summer we're stuck with junk like TWO FOR THE MONEY and LORD OF WAR and DERAILED.
Why does Hollywood make
bad movies when there are so many good scripts around? Why spend millions on junk
like THE ISLAND or BEWITCHED when they could have
made YOUR brilliant script?
First: It's almost impossible to get a film made in Hollywood. They develop a
couple of thousand scripts every year, but only make a couple of hundred movies.
Let's say a studio has a script about sky divers. It's awful, but a dozen writers have
been trying to make it good.
At Cannes a few years back, Tom Cruise (promoting THE OTHERS which he produced) bumps into
(the late) John Frankenheimer (promoting his BMW commercial AMBUSH written by Andrew
Kevin Walker). Cruise loves SECONDS and BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ and really
loves THE GYPSY MOTHS. The two hit it off. "We ought to work together someday!"
Frankenheimer tells his agent he'd love to do a sequel to THE GYPSY MOTHS... and
that Tom Cruise is interested in it. "It" isn't a script at this time, it's a conversation in a
bar at 2am between an actor and a director.
The studio realizes GYPSY MOTHS was about sky diving, and they OWN a sky
diving script! In fact, they've spent millions on a bunch of writers who still can't get it
right, and this may be a way to recoup some of that money!
Let's face it - Cruise & Frankenheimer = HIT!
So they get the script to the actor & director... and have a "go project".
The film is now put on the release schedule for July 2, 2003.
Wait! It's still a crappy script!
But at this point in time that doesn't matter. The studio has a HUGE star and a
veteran director attached to the project. That's a movie, folks! Posters are designed.
Teaser trailers are tacked onto the front of VANILLA SKY. Full page ads pop up in the
trades. More writers are thrown on the script. They get it half good (which means half
crap, by the way).
Okay, you're the head of the studio producing this mess. Start date for filming is
two weeks away. Do you pull the plug because the script sucks? If you delay the
project, you'll lose Cruise to MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3 - he has a busy schedule.
Frankenheimer has other projects in the works, too... a sequel to THE EXORCIST
believe it or not. The problem is, if you stop the train you'll never get it started again.
You HAVE to ride it to the end of the tracks... even if the tracks go off a cliff! (you
don't KNOW where the tracks lead at this time.) The project has also built up some
weird momentum - Gene Hackman who was the young romantic lead in GYPSY
MOTHS worked with Cruise on THE FIRM and signs on to reprise his role. Demi
Moore is trying to get back into the business and signs on as the female lead (she
worked with Tom in A FEW GOOD MEN). The cast just keeps attracting cast!
So you put a bad script into production and pray that Frankenheimer can keep it
moving fast enough that no one will notice how lame it is, and that Cruise will flash
that smile and make the thing a hit. If you pull the plug, you have NOTHING. Plus
you're out all of those millions of dollars you spent throwing writers on the project. If
you make the bad script, it's possible that GYPSY MOTHS 2: TOO CLOSE TO THE
FLAME will overcome the bad script to make $150 million. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
made a ton of money, and it didn't make any sense at all.
Once a project actually gets started, no one wants to stop it!
Even if it stinks.
It's a runaway train.
Then we line up to see it on some hot summer Friday night a year from now and
while the closing credits are rolling we're wondering how all of these talented people
could make a film with a script that just sucks. Didn't anyone read the script?
If a film has enough momentum, enough names signed to the project, the script
doesn't matter. It SHOULD matter, but it doesn't.
Here's our problem as screenwriters: We have to write a script that's so good that
a studio will dump the all-star cast GYPSY MOTHS 2: TOO CLOSE TO THE FLAME
and make ours instead. A script so good that WITHOUT Tom Cruise and John
Frankenheimer and Demi Moore and Gene Hackman attached they will still want to
spend the money to make our story. That means the quality of the script ALONE has
to make it worth that $50 million the cast and director cost. Is your script that
good?
If not, maybe you should get back to work!
I know my script needs a couple more rewrites!
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