Power laws and laws of power
Last night I finished Joe Eszterhas's memoir "Hollywood Animal",
which I have been reading piecemeal. It was a very entertaining read,
especially the part about a writer whose process was to randomly choose
two movies, combine their ideas and sell the best three such
combinations for 1.7 million dollars. That's almost as good as the
Million Dollar Homepage.
Being familiar only with "Basic Instict" and "Showgirls", I didn't know that the man had written several hit movies such as "Flashdance", so I guess that it's not that strange that he could sell scripts and script outlines for millions. Worth every cent. I can only imagine the long and invisible line of bitter English majors and other similarly useless people, all trying to get their foot in the biz and sell their scripts which they endlessly doctor and edit. Don't call us, we'll call you.
I have only one question, though. In Hollywood, you are as good as your last movie, and box office is everything, with some leeway for certain ideological exceptions. Today's hot young director is forgotten tomorrow after his first flop. So could somebody please explain me David Lynch and John Waters, whose movies I bet have never made one penny of profit?
While I was reading the book, I also kind of had wonder what the divorce laws of California must be like. When Eszterhas got divorced from his first wife, she got both houses and all cars that the couple owned, plus an alimony of $32K / month. You might think that in a fair legal system, in divorce the community property would be split in half, after which both parties would support themselves with their own work. But I guess not. I wonder if we see a similar resolution in the much-publicized divorce of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey. I think that it would be only fair.
Being familiar only with "Basic Instict" and "Showgirls", I didn't know that the man had written several hit movies such as "Flashdance", so I guess that it's not that strange that he could sell scripts and script outlines for millions. Worth every cent. I can only imagine the long and invisible line of bitter English majors and other similarly useless people, all trying to get their foot in the biz and sell their scripts which they endlessly doctor and edit. Don't call us, we'll call you.
I have only one question, though. In Hollywood, you are as good as your last movie, and box office is everything, with some leeway for certain ideological exceptions. Today's hot young director is forgotten tomorrow after his first flop. So could somebody please explain me David Lynch and John Waters, whose movies I bet have never made one penny of profit?
While I was reading the book, I also kind of had wonder what the divorce laws of California must be like. When Eszterhas got divorced from his first wife, she got both houses and all cars that the couple owned, plus an alimony of $32K / month. You might think that in a fair legal system, in divorce the community property would be split in half, after which both parties would support themselves with their own work. But I guess not. I wonder if we see a similar resolution in the much-publicized divorce of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey. I think that it would be only fair.
On David Lynch: Blue Velvet's budget is estimated at 6 million USD and its box office gross income in US alone was ~8 million USD. Considering also other countries + rental and broadcasting income I guess it may well have achieved break-even point.
Mulholland Drive budget is at 15 million USD and the worldwide BO income is ~20 million USD. Keeping in mind that investors are considering risk vs return on investment I'd go as far to make a bold statement that David Lynch movies are considered as good deals.
Remember Waterworld? It was considered as failure but in the end it still made (gross) income of 255 million versus 175 million filming budget. But the risk was huge and I guess ROI isn't that good.
Here comes the rant: It seems that most of the Mulholland Drive income is generated outside US. Now, knowing where you stand it does not surprise me much that you are pretty much ignorant on what's happening outside mainstream American media. Even with tunnel vision you could still look around a little bit.
Posted by Anonymous | 11:27 AM
Much of the footage in Mullholland Drive was intended to be part of the pilot for a television series, remember that Lynch's TV show Twin Peaks was a huge hit.
Posted by Anonymous | 4:57 PM