Wheeeere’s Johnny?
When Sony pulled the plug on Steven Soderbergh’s Moneyball, it was seen as one more sign that the studios are getting increasingly skittish about spending too much money on overly arty projects from established directors. In The Daily Beast yesterday, Kim Masters turned an eye toward Michael Mann as the next director who might have a tough time mounting his next project, especially if the $100 million (IMDb says $80, but both numbers are probably low) Public Enemies underperforms at the box office as she expects it will.
Calling the critical response to the film mixed – an impression that seems to be calcifying into conventional wisdom despite the efforts of cherry picking early adopters to the contrary – Masters says that theater owners found the film “stylishly directed but slow, violent, and unlikely to perform in smaller markets.”
She goes on to quote an unnamed studio chairman who hadn’t even seen the film: “It’s going to take itself too seriously, it’s going to be way too long and it will not focus on entertaining the audience. Michael Mann, in the past 15 years, has not made one movie I’ve liked.”
After that she digs up old rumors about how difficult Michael Mann is to work with on the set and throws in a few new ones about an alleged spat with star Johnny Depp. They’re juicy, but not newsy and pretty much beside the point. Even if they’re true, they won’t stop Mann from finding work in the future or convincing talent to work with him.
The question for we moviegoers is: will he and other directors of a certain quality be able to continue to make movies at the budgets they’re accustomed to? $50 – 60 million was too much for Sony to take a chance on Soderbergh even though they’d already sunk $10 million into Moneyball.
With no-brainers like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen stomping on the box office, are we looking at a temporary end to the mid-priced film aimed at adult audiences? Masters sees a tectonic shift in Hollywood, but I can’t help thinking she’s exaggerating a bit. Business in Hollywood ebbs and flows. There was a similar transformation in the early ’80s when Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate helped take down United Artists and the golden era of auteur driven, mainstream American cinema of the ’70s came to an end.
And yet, here we are again. It’s never a good thing when the studios get cautious and afraid of creative risks, but the next success has a funny way of loosening up the purse strings again.
Filed under: Opinion
Tags: Johnny Depp, Kim Masters, Michael Mann, Moneyball, Public Enemies, Steven Soderbergh
Well, I see it as Hollywood is pretty much undoing itself.
It’s important to remember too that there are plenty of great films being made for less than $50 million. Soderbergh’s name is on several of them.
No question there.
Hollywood is killing itself…
On my list for my ten favorite movies of last year, 9 had been made for under $20 million (and #10 was The Dark Knight).
Yes, I don’t think A list directors having to make movies for less money is necessarily a horrible thing. In fact it could be quite good for audiences. It’s still nice to have the occasional ambitious epic, but…
Yeah, forcing some folks to work on smaller productions isn’t necessarily a bad thing (I’m talking to you, Ridley Scott) but I don’t see how the Blockbusterizing of Hollywood is really a good thing in the big picture. One look at the 80′s reminds me how painful that sort of mainstream filmgoing can be, even with all the great films made on the fringes and in the mainstream of the 80′s. All the same, the attitude that people only want to be entertained is troubling.
On the other hand, I’m not a huge fan of Kim Masters and tend to take her with a big grain of salt. Her analysis may be OK, but her delivery leaves something to be desired. Too many years working for Premiere magazine I think.
Hollywood is imploding.
The thing I don’t like about this Masters piece is her need to plunge into on-set gossip about Michael Mann…of course I couldn’t help referencing it myself because I’m weak, but it’s really not relevant to her broader point. It’s just juicy.
I’m also skeptical when columnists create sky-is-falling trends to fit a few scraps of evidence they have. You know the kind. Sharon Waxman is classic for that.