I recently posted Mad Max: Fury Road.
While it cost around $100 million to make, Warner Bros. only paid around $20 million for North American rights to distribute Cloud Atlas. The Master cost Megan Ellison’s Annapurna around $35 million and The Hobbit trilogy is said to bump up against $1 billion, though Warner Bros. disputes that claim. Different kinds of movies, different budgets all for different reasons, be it anticipated Oscar success, lunchboxes, DVD sales, etc.
All three of those movies, however, didn’t receive the green light immediately and it got me thinking a little more about the difficulty of getting a film made recently after listening to a 1975 audio interview with director John Schlesinger on HRC Visibility Award speech.
In Schlesinger’s audio interview he’s discussing getting funding for a film and making sure the picture he wants on screen ends up on screen, particularly when it comes to the idea of audience testing:
“I hate the system of everybody going out to [test screenings] with studio executives to preview a film. In fact, I have it written into my contract that I don’t have to and don’t have to abide by it. I’ve never done it. I distrust it, because I think panic very easily and quickly sets in. You finally have to be the arbiter along with people that you trust.”
Schlesinger won out, as he should in my opinion as news of audience testing and changes being made as a result without the filmmaker wanting such input makes my skin crawl. However, such demands aren’t exactly something most filmmakers can make.
In Lana’s speech, she mentioned her and her brother’s demands for no press following The Matrix if they were to make The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions. She says:
We told Warner Bros. that neither one of us wanted to do press anymore. They told us, “No. Absolutely not. This is non-negotiable. Directors are essential to selling and marketing a movie.” We said, “OK, we get it. So if it’s a choice between making movies or not doing press, we decided we’re not going to not make movies.” They said, “Hang on. Maybe there’s a little room for negotiation.”
Schlesinger’s career allowed him to make his demands and the success of The Matrix and the craving for box-office guaranteed the Wachowskis they would get their’s. But after the successful career Schlesinger had he still found it difficult to get his films made and while the Wachowskis were given $120 million to make Speed Racer after The Matrix trilogy — a gamble that didn’t pay off for Warner Bros. — when it came to Cloud Atlas, WB turned the film down when it was originally budgeted at $170 million and only came back after it was made for $100m and paid $20 million for North American distribution rights.
Cloud Atlas is a gamble from an overall budgetary level, but by putting up only so much, Warner Bros. isn’t taking too much of a risk and hoping their investment pays off, especially after getting what would appear to be a $150 million discount.
What we’re looking at here, however, is the difficulty in getting a film made no matter who you are or what you’ve done, and even if a studio does decide to back you, you still aren’t able to avoid the overlords.
Listening to Ridley Scott‘s commentary track on the Prometheus Blu-ray, a hologram of the ship the scientists are exploring spins around on a table and Scott says:
I have a view — I hate to use the word “vision” — but I do have a vision. I know exactly what I want. That’s why this — everyone is going, “What the fuck’s on the table? Fucking hologram?” And I think eventually you have to say, honestly, “Shut the fuck up.” You can bleep me if you like.
Part of the job as a director is you’ve got to just stand your ground and say: “This is what I want. Fuck off.” And that’s it. Then now they’re going, “Oh, that’s great.” But that’s part of the job.
What I noticed is it doesn’t matter how experienced you get — I’ve got more films in this goddamned building and three in, I think, the Library of Congress — people still go, “What are you doing that for?” It gets really annoying. You’d think I’d have earned the right now to do– You know, have something. But you don’t. I think that’s what’s interesting about the business. You’re in a constant state of somebody saying, “Why are you doing that?” And usually they’re really inexperienced or just fundamentally stupid. And you say, “I’m doing it because.”
While writing my review of Schlesinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday, I went looking for old interviews with the director and came across the one below from some time around 1985, before The Falcon and the Snowman was being released, and to listen to him talk about trying to get a film made almost 30 years ago shows not a whole lot has changed when it comes to adult dramas nowadays.
Some may look at the money Ellison is spending on the independent films she’s financing as too much, and they are probably right, but at least someone is forwarding the idea of getting something in theaters other than superhero movies and brainless rom-coms.
