Film Review 1991-2 [antikvár]

Intioduction F MAURICE SPEED surveys the dnematk year Are we at last coming to the end of the quite ludicrous overspending and waste that has so often been the principal characteristic of the Hollywood film during the past few years? Are we finally to see the major studio bosses curbing ±e demands of the greedy, overpriced stars (and of course their greedier agents); the end of the ridiculous unrealistic amounts that have been paid to scriptwriters; and the crazy rewards that directors and producers have been demanding for their services? Are we in fact going to see some sort of financial sanity coming to Hollywood film production costs? Recent statements from some of the major companies make one hopeful, even if past history has shown that while the talk of economies and rationalisation has been coming from the front office the same old profligate spending was continuing in the studios. But this time the climate of stricter and more careful control, allied to the disastrous showing at the box office of some of the year's priciest productions (and the red figures looming large in the company ledgers) may in fact forcibly lead to belt-tightening and reorganisation in Hollywood. Certainly the talking is getting tougher. Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, recently said, at a celebration of the 25th anniversary of his taking up the post, that in view of the 'paucity of available capital', film companies will have to 'adopt a strong policy of fiscal discipline' and that 'planned budgets will be lower in the future'. After all, it isn't by any means certain that the big spenders are the big earners, so maybe things are set to change at last. Maybe . . . Some signs and portents. Disney Chairman Jeffrey Katz-enberg is on record as saying recently that, despite his own company's good financial results, for most of the major film companies 1990 was a year of steady decline. Christmas in particular brought disastrous business in the USA, at a time when the movies normally enjoy a bonanza, with several major productions released. And apparently most of Katz-enberg's fellow company leaders were in full agreement with him when he said: 'Like lemmings we are all racing faster and faster into the sea, each of us trying to outrun and outspend the others in a mad rush towards the mirage of making the next blockbuster.' But in spite of hopeful signs for the future, there is not much tangible evidence as yet of the new philosophy being adopted for films now in production or pre-production. How can anyone, for instance, justify the payment of $1.75 million that was paid for the script of The Last Boy Scout (working out at $12,500 per page!) or, even crazier, the $2 million that, according to Variety, was paid to Ronald Bass for his adaptation of T. M. Wright's book Manhattan Ghost Story? One single script can now, it seems, make a writer or adaptor a dollar millionaire. And the craziest script story of the year (again from Variety) was the $3 million paid to Joe Eszterhas, writer of Basic Instinct. Can you imagine the sheer insanity of loading a production with a $3 million outlay before the film has even got on the floor? It really is a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World out there in Hollywood. Happily there are by contrast some saner examples around; films conceived and budgeted on more reasonable terms, which have brought their makers both financial and popular success, outshining in both respects many of the year's supposed blockbusters-to-be. Films like Ghost, which brought some $94 miUion into the Paramount coffers; and Pretty Woman, which made $81 million for the Disney studios from the American release alone. (Pretty Woman since made another $15 milUon from the UK release, not to mention substantial returns from other European countries . . . and all this from a film that costs only $20 million to make.) Compare these successes with such expensive flops as Havana, Dick Tracy, Days of Thunder and Rocky V. And while mentioning modest winners and megabuck losers, it is astonishing that although Batman has so far contributed $253 million to Warners, it still showed in mid-1991 a deficit of nearly $35 million on the books. An interesting sidelight on the inflated costs of many recent movies was the list of the top-earning stars of 1989-90 which was pubhshed in Variety. At no. 1 was Sylvester Stallone (who has recently signed a new contract which will bring him between $12 and $17 million a movie!); no. 2, Arnold Schwarzenegger; no. 3, Jack Nicholson; no. 4, Eddie Murphy; no. 5, Bruce Willis (reportedly getting $10 million for The Last Boy Scout)', no. 6, Sean Coimery; no. 7, Michael J. Fox; no. 8, Tom Cruise. Any of these stars can now demand around $10 million per performance. Of course, you may think actors like these are worth the money, but it certainly means that when a film has to bear this sort of financial stone around its neck from the beginning, only a major success can hope to cover the costs of a big-budget film. One wonders what impact (if any) the increasing financial involvement of the Japanese in Hollywood wifl have? Toshiba has apparently been taking an increasing interest in the Time-Warner set-up, while Sony has already obtained the ownership of Columbia/CBS Records, and Matsushita now owns the MCA giant and is helping to finance a number of