..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Stardumb … and Dumber

Last week I ran into a noted film craftsman and as we gabbed over coffee the inevitable question of “what are you doing?” came up. Well, what he may or may not be doing next is a thriller financed by Intermedia titled Me Again. The yarn centering on an amnesiac who is either a hitman or a lawman is to be directed by Dean Parisot with Diane Lane and, up until two weeks ago, Bruce Willis attached to the project.

Willis, who was reportedly to be paid $30 million as an actor and a producing partner (via his Cheyenne Enterprises), apparently walked when Intermedia broached the subject of renegotiating the deal. The fate of the film will now rest on attracting someone with comparable marquee value because, despite Lane’s recent Oscar nomination, she will not carry the freight of hefty foreign pre-sales necessary to float the pricey package.

Me Again has a metaphoric gun to its head. At any given time there are about a dozen male performers that command the money and confidence to carry a picture. The current crop of acceptable alternatives include people with names like Tom, Mel, Nic and Harrison, and Intermedia will throw considerable cash and perks to entice them to come aboard within the next two months.

What the crafts man was struggling with as he talked about this project in jeopardy was whether any of these “names” were worth it. Willis’ fee alone was more than what had been budgeted for all the below-the-line production costs. And somehow the balance of one person with a recognizable name tilting the scales against the people who would be providing the look, rhythm, sound and other sensory components of the film seemed out of balance. 

The simple answer to the unstated query is that what’s currently accorded perceived stars is not generally commensurate with what they contribute to a film’s commercial success or lack of it. The more difficult issue is how such a glaring inequity came into being and whether there’s any way to reassess the situation and create a new pivot point that more accurately reflects and rewards those whose efforts have gone into the creation of a popular movie. It would unquestionably be a Herculean task.

Another production waiting on a green light has an offer out to Nicholas Cage and, should he be unwilling or unavailable, it will be sent to Ben Affleck. The film will not be made without a star performer.

Stars have been a staple of the movie industry since its earliest days. Some that are now iconographic - Pickford, Chaplin, John Wayne - commanded top dollar and could use their popularity to dictate cast, crew and scripts. While a few were truly able to control their artistic destinies, most were under contract to studios that wrestled and wrangled to keep their salaries from escalating into the cosmos. That situation began to change in the 1950s as the impact of television saw the majors cut back on contract players and that era’s stars elected to go freelance.

One oft-told saga about the transition recounts how agent Lew Wasserman convinced his client James Stewart to lower his salary and take a percentage of profits on the western Broken Arrow back in 1950. At that time, the definition of profits was simple: it was two and one half times the negative cost. So, a movie budgeted at $2 million was in the black once its box office surpassed $5 million. On a similar note, William Holden reduced his fee on The Bridge on the River Kwai for profit participation with the caveat that he would receive no more than $150,000 annually with any overages going into an interest bearing account. He received that stipend every year until his death.

The nature of all these bygone deals involved risk. In exchange for receiving less than their going rate, the performer would reap a more generous reward if the film proved to be commercially successful. But that’s all changed and the current risk adverse nature of star deals where $20 million paydays and backend profits are standard is not simply the result of a greedy talent pool.

The transition begins with a fundamental change in the relationship between the studios and the people who make movies. Beginning in the 1960s, the moguls of the halcyon years of Hollywood began to step down and were replaced by, shall we say, people who were less passionate about the product. The swan song of the decade was a series of financial fiascos of elephantine entertainments that forced most of the majors into liquidation and new ownership by the likes of Kinney Corp. and Gulf + Western. The new owners brought in bean counters with actuary tables in an attempt to quantify hits and remove any consideration of the public’s emotional connection in its movie going. Ironically, the departure of the old guard also briefly facilitated a new generation of iconoclastic filmmakers that provided the impetus for such non-traditional box office dynamos as Easy Rider, M*A*S*H and American Graffiti.

The new echelon of studio chieftan was over the moon that these pictures he didn’t understand were connecting with the public in a big way and began to ponder how the company could keep more of the money that was coming back in profits. Sometime toward the end of the 1970s, a new method of accounting was devised that’s known as the rolling break. No longer would profits accrue once a picture exceeded 2.5 times its cost. The new system was more complex, involving interest charges even when the film wasn’t generating revenue and if you didn’t generate on the plus side quickly, this accounting method guaranteed profits would never be realized … on paper. On the official ledger, such films as Rain Man, Forrest Gump and The English Patient still have a negative balance.

Faced with a change in the rule book and the frustration of not getting a fair count, those who could opted for the sure thing - lots of up front money and a percentage at the back most doubted would bear fruit. Eventually it evolved into a share of gross revenues rather than a cut after the picture broke even based upon the new studio arithmetic. From there with the rise of agency packaging, talent fees have escalated rapidly.

Still, the presence of name performers does not guarantee a level of box office will be reached to justify gargantuan fees. No one is bulletproof and every box office draw has several dark commercial skeletons in his/her resume.

Several years back I attempted to quantify what the presence of a perceived star contributed to a picture’s box office. While less than scientific, the dozen examined suggested they had a fan base that contributed possibly $25 million to a film’s gross. On average, movie stars are not the difference between success and failure but can provide the illusion that they saved a film from abject catastrophe or contributed to one of the worst fiascos in film history.

Scratching a little deeper, one dilemma confronting the industry is the impact these star salaries have in related areas. If the perceived top talent can exact $20 million or more, then the next tier will demand $10 million to $15 million and, I’ve been told, anyone with even a modicum of name recognition - with or without a clutch of credits - can expect a fee between $4 million and $7 million. In this heady environment, you cannot have top executives pulling down $1 million paychecks, so studio salaries have also been enriched.

However, good fortune has been considerably less kind to all those “little people” the likes of Julia Roberts and Willis continue to mention in passing. When it comes to cost cutting, studios and producers wield the knife most assiduously in the craft and tech departments. Rather than coddling the below-the-liners, that sector is kept in check by reminders that they are expendable and lucky to have a job when so much work is going to Canada, Australia and Eastern Europe. Their base compensation barely keeps up with inflation and were it not for overtime, many would find themselves working for less than they earned just five years ago.

Some craft unions have negotiated token bonuses for hours worked but the very prospect that this sector might modestly share in the financial rewards while their better paid and treated thespian brothers and sisters own 20 or 30 profit points is anathema to industry leaders. So, an environment of “us” and “them” has intensified in this collaborative art form. The joy of contributing has systematically been eroded and replaced with simply getting a job and a salary. Some might argue that the situation has taken the heart out of the industry and it’s difficult to disagree when you look at the marquee and are confronted by The Core, Basic, Malibu’s Most Wanted, The Real Cancun …

- by Leonard Klady