You Did What__ Mad Plans and Great Historical Disasters - Bill Fawcett [101]
In the words of William Goldman, because in Hollywood “nobody knows nothing!” Everybody talks a good line, but when the similes and metaphors and the blandishments and balderdash are all stripped away, it all comes down to a roll of the dice.
There are no sure things, and when it comes to green-lighting a project, it would appear that some studio executives are more motivated by fear of losing a project to the competition than of actually losing money.
No one ever wants to lose the next big thing.
Thus when Michael Cimino pitched his next project after having achieved the status of sophomore wunderkind with the critical and commercial success of The Deer Hunter, no one wanted to say no.
Here was a fresh new talent (“there weren’t many of them,” “who knows when the next one will come along,” “he’ll still be cheaper and more responsive than someone with a more established reputation”). Here was a high concept — the Johnson County War, the West as it really was (“he can do for cowboys what he did for Vietnam vets,” “The Wild Bunch worked, it’ll probably be like that,” “we can’t lose!”). It had blockbuster written all over it.
So they gave the man his money and sat back and waited for the final cut…and waited…and waited.
No one questioned the fact that a leading lady had been cast that no one had ever heard of, or that certain parts required subtitles, or that other parts had their shooting locations switched from New England to England, or that the budget kept getting revised upward.
The man was obviously a genius; there was no reason to doubt him. He even let them see snippets of the work in progress, like the four hours of footage on the film’s key battle scene.
He obviously knew what he was doing.
They just kept writing the checks until the film was delivered, late, and very, very long (over three hours).
No problem, they thought, he’ll just have to cut it, and fast.
The director wasn’t happy. He wasn’t used to being told what to do.
But eventually they compromised, and the film was released. Its name was Heaven’s Gate, and it bankrupted the studio. It was yanked from release in less than a week and was at the time considered to be the costliest bomb/turkey/fiasco of all time.
No big box office.
No Academy Awards.
No nothing, just a ton of red ink and a handful of out-of-work movie executives who couldn’t say no.
Predictably a shorter, “more commercial” cut of the film was released a few months later (to try to recoup some of the losses) — it bombed.
Less predictably, a close to four - hour - long director’s cut was eventually released on videotape. It actually garnered some nice reviews (maybe because the plot was no longer seen as disjointed as it was in the shorter version).
Maybe if the director had stuck to his guns and forced them to release the longer version, or maybe if the executives had kept a tighter rein on the production and its cost.
But in Hollywood “nobody knows nothing”…and they continue to prove it again and again.
You Forgot to Ask Them What?
Some things are a matter of taste. Others can be considered classics. It takes an almost new level of corporate stupidity to find a way to screw up a product that was both. But never underestimate the power of the modern multinational corporation.
ROBERTO GOIZUETA, CHAIRMAN OF COCA-COLA
UNITED STATES, 1985
Robert Greenberger
Blame Diet Coke. After its successful launch in 1982, the slightly modified no-calorie version of the classic formula was boosting Coca-Cola’s revenues, but it was also costing the sugary staple market share. With Pepsi-Cola enjoying a fifteen-year market share increase on one side and Diet Coke (rapidly rising within a year to the number-four soft drink in America) on the other, something had to be done. After all, Coke enjoyed a 60 percent share of the soft drink market immediately after World War II, but by 1983 it was down to just 23 percent. Pepsi was winning where the consumer had a choice, such as supermarkets, while Coke’s dominance remained with