January 22, 2003

“I think it would be fun to run a newspaper”

Sometime back in the dark ages, there were people who gravitated to the city of Los Angeles because they loved the movies. I’m not talking about people with stars in their eyes that believed the myth of being spotted at Schwab’s by a talent agent and skyrocketing to the heavens. No, just ordinary Janes and Joes that wanted to be part of the dream factory and perhaps work in the prop department or write stories. They were the essence of what gave the town its vitality.

Some of them may have even wound up writing the press releases or planting the story about the corn-fed Iowa farm girl that a Warner Bros. talent agent plucked out of a crowd scene and cast as Joan Crawford’s sister. It’s a fantasy scenario and, historically speaking, as substantive as ether.

Nonetheless, the dream endures. A Canadian woman of Greek ancestry arrives in L.A. by way of Second City and soon discovers the studios and networks aren’t beating a path to her door. She takes matters into her own hands and writes a show for herself and scrapes together enough money to rent a small theater and place a single ad in the Times. One night the wife of a big movie star goes to see it and instantly decides it would make a great movie. The hitherto unknown writer-performer is thrust into the spotlight and her self-penned My Big Fat Greek Wedding goes on to become a phenomenon.

It sounds simple and serendipitous. But this précis of success glosses over a lot of toil and turmoil as well as just plain, inexplicable good fortune.

For starters, Nia Vardalos isn’t a spry twentysomething fresh off the reserve. She’s spent two decades working comedy clubs and doing support work on stage to keep body and soul together. One can well imagine talent agents politely encouraging her as they were inventing an excuse about not taking on new clients. All the while, they were thinking to themselves that she was too old, too ethnic and not pretty enough.

Shortly before the release of Devil in a Blue Dress, I happened to be talking to an agent who was considering taking on Don Cheadle as a client. He asked me what I thought and without hesitation I told him to sign him. I felt Cheadle was a versatile performer and would be constantly employed. The agent gave it consideration but just couldn’t foresee that the actor would ever have a big “pay day” like Wesley Snipes. To his credit, the agent admitted a year later that he had made a mistake of short sightedness and the zeal to bag a high ticket performer.

Meanwhile, the still no more than pretty, near 40 Vardalos was venting her frustration on paper, employing humor to salve her wounds. Again, one can imagine the litany of excuses she encountered from playwright support groups ranging from “we don’t do comedy” to “couldn’t you make the characters Hispanic?” Nonetheless, she pressed on, deciding to rent a 99-seat theater, sending out flyers and hoping that someone who could change her life would come see it and love it.

My guess is that her dreams were not outrageous. When you’ve toiled in the trenches for years and seen talented individuals encouraged to death, you develop a healthy perspective about the business. She might have pondered landing a recurring role on a sitcom or a comic turn on a film that might lead to a steady stream of jobs if the right, altruistic agent caught her act. What she could not have imagined was what actually occurred. Rita Wilson, the actress who caught her show, was drawn to it because she, too, comes from a Greek family and, no doubt, recognized characters described in the one-woman show.

Wilson, despite her non-ethnic name, had to have experienced many of the same roadblocks Vardalos has faced in her career. Unlike her husband, Tom Hanks, she is a working actor who rarely has the luxury of declining a job offer. She’s also, by virtue of age, no longer an ingénue and by dint of marriage not obliged to ferret out work or starve. But primarily she’s very canny and the serendipity of the story is that Wilson, recognizing the fragility of her professional life, began to consider other options.

Producing movies, like so much of filmmaking, is solving problems. However, before the budgeting, casting and shooting schedule can be wrestled with, one has to have material. Now wives of famous actors wishing to segue into a behind-the-scenes role are apt to receive scripts that just happen to have parts for much in demand spouses. Offhand I cannot think of a film that Marsha Williams has a producing credit on that does not involve her husband Robin. Whether she contributed significantly to the artistry and logistic of these films, Marsha Williams’ involvement remains under a cloud as a result of her marriage bond.

Wilson, in a way, was lucky. I’ve no doubt she had a pile of scripts that could have been fashioned into a Tom Hanks vehicle. However, instead she initially put her efforts into adapting for screen a one-woman show and goading its author into fleshing out characters only referenced on stage. The situation sounds similar to the development arc of A Bronx Tale, the solo stage turn by Chazz Palminteri that Robert DeNiro acquired and wound up directing. While only a success d’estime, the film provided Palminteri (who co-starred with DeNiro) with the foundation for a film career that has seen an Oscar-nominated performance and steady work for more than a decade.

While eschewing the obvious path, Wilson had to have employed the cache of her husband’s name to some extent to get My Big Fat Greek Wedding financed and filmed. Still, once decisions were made to cast Vardalos and not Hanks, obvious concessions were in order. The budget was modest and dollars stretched by filming in Toronto. Playtone, Wilson and Hanks’ company, sold off as many rights as possible in advance including a cable pre-buy from HBO which would come back to haunt them. However, they could not entice anyone to distribute the film in advance of filming, or for that matter during and after.

Yes, the highest grossing non-studio film of all time (in real or adjusted dollars) could not get arrested in the distribution community. Despite excellent previews, acquisition executives did not believe a reasonably sized audience could be induced into theaters. They further justified that position by citing the loss of cable rights, the absence of stars and the difficulty of marketing a film on the basis of its winning personality. It wasn’t the sort of film that could or would be programmed and launched from a film festival and therefore they reckoned would require tremendous work just to break even.

However, a good producer surmounts obstacles. In this instance, fledgling distributor IFC was convinced cajoled and coerced into handling the film on a distribution-only basis with minimal investment and a small distribution fee (I’ve been told as little as 5% of rentals). The film’s theatrical career began modestly, if impressively and in its subsequent 40 weeks in theaters earned its screens based on performance and more than $230 million in revenues.

It’s fair to say that it’s the little picture that could. Tossed into the release schedule of a major, My Big Fat Greek Wedding was unlikely to receive the special attention internally or from the media that fueled its precedent setting box office. But there’s a downside, too. While all films start on an equal footing, the clout of a seasoned player has decided advantages in the marketplace. IFC no doubt negotiated typical industry guarantees with exhibitors that might have ensured a minimum of two weeks on screen with a 60%/40% split that favored the distributor. After its second weekend, the exhibitor would have the option to take the film off if it did not perform. However, on the off chance that it was still doing business, the subsequent two weeks would play off on a 50-50 basis and every subsequent two weeks would see the split decline until it reached a 70%/30% ratio. 

At the end of a film’s run an exhibition exec will (figuratively) sit down with the reps of the various theater chains and negotiate a settlement. If you happen to be Warner Bros., you can wrestle 40% or 45% for a so-so engagement of a programmer using the cudgel of the next Harry Potter as incentive. IFC - or for that matter indies such as Lions Gate or Artisan that have a steady flow of product but lack lucrative franchises - can’t negotiate on that basis. And, in this particular instanc,e doesn’t have quite the incentive to fight as it’s only receiving a distribution fee. So, if it ultimately collects 25% of revenues, that Big Fat Greek box office gets slimmed to less than $60 million of which the distributor’s share is in the neighborhood of $3 million.

Now, there’s no need to pass around the collection plate in this scenario, everybody comes out on the plus side. My Big Fat Greek Wedding goes out on video on Valentine’s Day and, even if a “bad” deal was made for those rights, will generate more than $100 million dollars just in North America. One also suspects that the HBO deal had an escalator clause tied to the film’s theatrical performance. Internationally it’s grossed more than $75 million to date with such major territories as France, Germany and Japan yet to open. However, there again, its untried sales agent Vortex will have difficulty collecting overages on minimum guarantees.

So, you think it would be fun to play in the independent film community. Well, if you have a film that grosses like a movie from the majors its heady stuff. It doesn’t happen every year and one’s hard pressed to come up with more than a handful of examples - Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles (when New Line was still an indie), Dirty Dancing, Sex, lies, and videotape and The Blair Witch Project. In contrast, the much-admired In the Bedroom grossed $35 million in North American and another $7 million internationally. Impressive returns for a film produced for less than $5 million, but not enough for filmmaker Todd Field to buy a homestead in Wyoming and live off the fat of the land with his wife and three children between projects.

For everyone involved in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, their subsequent career choices will be easier even if they are by nature difficult and demanding personalities. Vardalos, for starters, has options for the first time in her career. But the one to watch is Wilson. What’s sitting on her office desk? Who’s calling from the studios and agencies and can Tom Hanks wield his considerable clout to get her attention about something he’d like to do?

EMAIL LEONARD KLADY