Done Deal
02-12-2005, 12:11 AM
Here are a few key paragraphs from the article:
...Montecito Picture Co.'s Tom Pollock observes, studios aren't interested in "doing any movies that aren't presold behemoths. It's very hard to presell anything original." Given the enormous cost of making movies, the majors know what they want: event pictures aimed at the widest possible audience.
With few exceptions, they buy straight-ahead, easy-sell scripts that are routine and familiar. Studios innovate on eye-popping visuals, not mind-bending screenplays. They don't make original adult dramas such as "Chinatown" and "The Conversation" anymore. They'd rather update "established" titles such as "Alfie," "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Flight of the Phoenix."
...It's not that the other studios don't appreciate originality, it's just that they don't know how to sell it without wrapping it in some sort of brand identification. For "I, Robot," for example, 20th Century Fox developed an original script by Jeff Vintar and merged it with the Isaac Asimov title, with Akiva Goldsman (Oscar-winner for "A Beautiful Mind") working on the final screenplay.
Click here for the full article (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=598&e=6&u=/nm/20050211/film_nm/film_writers_dc).
...Montecito Picture Co.'s Tom Pollock observes, studios aren't interested in "doing any movies that aren't presold behemoths. It's very hard to presell anything original." Given the enormous cost of making movies, the majors know what they want: event pictures aimed at the widest possible audience.
With few exceptions, they buy straight-ahead, easy-sell scripts that are routine and familiar. Studios innovate on eye-popping visuals, not mind-bending screenplays. They don't make original adult dramas such as "Chinatown" and "The Conversation" anymore. They'd rather update "established" titles such as "Alfie," "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Flight of the Phoenix."
...It's not that the other studios don't appreciate originality, it's just that they don't know how to sell it without wrapping it in some sort of brand identification. For "I, Robot," for example, 20th Century Fox developed an original script by Jeff Vintar and merged it with the Isaac Asimov title, with Akiva Goldsman (Oscar-winner for "A Beautiful Mind") working on the final screenplay.
Click here for the full article (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=598&e=6&u=/nm/20050211/film_nm/film_writers_dc).