Adventures in the Screen Trade

by William Goldman

  Bridges is now writing a third version. Finally he turns it in; he's been on the picture nine months by now. Like the main character of The Verdict, Bridges is turning into a burnt-out case.

  Strike three.

  Redford is still interested in doing a movie about medical malpractice--but the main role, that of the lawyer, Galvin, that's the problem. He's a boozer and a womanizer and Zanuck and Brown hear that Redford thinks the character could be bad for his image.

  Bridges, whipped, withdraws from the picture. Zanuck and Brown still sort of have a star. But they don't have a script the star will accept. And now their director is gone.

  Then they hear that Redford is having meetings, without telling them, with his friend Sydney Pollack, about directing The Verdict.

  And Zanuck snaps. He does two genuinely remarkable things. First he fires Redford. (Not strictly true, since the contract was unsigned. What he does is he calls Redford's agent and tells him they are no longer interested in having the agent's client in their picture.)

  He also goes public with his anger, talking to the press about his ex-star's behavior.

  So now Zanuck and Brown have achieved an extraordinary Hollywood reversal: They have taken a "go" project and turned it into a development deal.

  Back to their directors list. Sidney Lumet. Sidney Lumet is now available and he's perfect. He's also on vacation in Venice. They contact him, he says he'll be glad to read what they've got. So they take the best of the Bridges scripts and send it to Lumet. And they also send the Jay Presson Allen script, because they liked it and, also, Allen is Lumet's partner.

  Lumet never keeps anybody waiting--no director has earned a larger reputation for efficiency and organization. Lumet calls from Venice and says yes, he's very interested in doing The Verdict.

  Which script, though?

  The Mamet version, Lumet replies. Zanuck and Brown, needless to say, have not expected this answer, since not only did they not send it, they had no idea Lumet knew of its existence. But they agree to meet when Lumet was back in New York. (Back in their executive days, they had a not dissimilar experience with Patton. There had been six versions or so when George C. Scott said he would do the part if they would go with the very first version, written by Francis Coppola.)

  In New York, Lumet explained what was wrong and easily fixable with the Mamet script. The story The Verdict has two parts: that of the trial itself, plus that of the man's redemption. Mamet had been less interested in the subject of medical malpractice than with the character. So what he had done was written The Verdict and ended it before the verdict. The trial's outcome was not included. He cared about the guy, not the courtroom conclusion.

  Lumet and Mamet went to work, an ending was written. Paul Newman was approached and requested all versions. He liked the Mamet script, regardless of what Lumet liked, which wasn't the problem, since Lumet liked it too.

  Lumet also liked Newman. When Lumet was announced, word seeped down that Redford was available. Lumet and Newman are finishing the movie now. The public's verdict on The Verdict will be within the next six months.

  And those months are perhaps the busiest, and certainly the most important, for any producer. Because those months contain the ultimate decisions on how the movie will be sold.

  The selling of a film is so important that there are some bright industry figures who feel that a movie should be divided into two equal parts: the making of it and the marketing of it. I am not equipped to detail the latter. And the audience doesn't, and shouldn't, give a damn about it: A flick comes to your local, you go or you don't, that's it. But the selling is often more essential to the fate of the film than the quality of the film itself.

  Let's just take two extremes as examples. If you have Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit XII, you are dealing with a pre-sold piece of merchandise. There is a huge audience out there waiting for it (or at least there has been in the past, and if you're the studio, since you live and die on past magic, you feel it must be out there still--please). So what you want to do is get it to that audience quickly and nationally. Often, such a film will go into as many as fifteen hundred theatres the first week. Fifteen hundred theatres means fifteen hundred prints of the movie have to be made, and a print can cost around two thousand dollars now, so you're spending three million dollars off the bat. To back that up, you spend maybe another five million or more for tv ads, print ads, etc. You don't need to build word of mouth; the earlier Smokey films have done that for you.

  But what if you've got an art film--say, Chariots of Fire. Your job there is to spend as little as possible up front and pray that word of mouth will build. So you make maybe two prints, open behind Bloomingdale's and in Westwood, and pray. Gradually, if the movie begins to work, you add a few more cities. If the movie doesn't work, it disappears, and you haven't spent a lot of money.

  Now, within these extremes there are infinite variations, and it's often here that a producer fights his ultimate battles, trying to convince the studio to release his film in a manner they consider best for their individual project.

  Another giant battle for a producer is not how his movie is released but when. All the different media have a "target audience." For pop music, that audience is made up of kids from the ages of eleven to fifteen. That's the group the pop music moguls must reach. Television's prime-time target audience is a different age group--twenty-five to forty-nine.

  For films, the target audience is different still: Movies must hit those between sixteen and twenty-four. That's the bulk of the popcorn buyers. No one knows for sure why, but the common wisdom is this: When a kid hits sixteen, he wants to get the hell out of the house, away from his folks. By the time people are twenty-four, a lot of them start getting married and having families, and the cost of a movie escalates for them--sitters, etc.

  Which is why the most lucrative time for movies is summer; and after summer, Christmas. The target audience is out of school. Which is why so many expensive films come out at those two periods, competing expensively with each other.

  Now, there is certainly logic behind that thinking. And more than a little madness. Because in the rush of product, some films are certain to be lost and left behind. One of Hollywood's leading producers, Daniel Melnick (That's Entertainment, All That Jazz), had some comments on that madness in a recent interview concerning a film of his that was scheduled to open in early '81 but, at the last minute, got shoved into the Christmas barrage.

  I wanted to release Altered States in January, because I felt there were no other major movies being released then and there would be an audience. I would rather go at a time when there are fewer people attending movies and offer them pictures they want to see, rather than to divide a larger audience with ten other desirable films.

  I think that as an industry we have very often shown the instinct of lemmings. To find ourselves releasing films basically twice a year and glutting the market is, I think, folly. I realize that historically Christmas and summer have had the highest attendance. But I think to some degree that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're all convinced that people go to the movies primarily at Christmas time, so we release our big pictures then....

  Obviously, Melnick lost his battle in Altered States. But you can assume that, like any quality producer, he didn't go quietly. A producer is really like Willy Loman trudging along with his suitcase under his arm, trying to convince people to buy what he's selling. Often they end up with no more success than poor Willy eventually found. (There are exceptions. Warren Beatty, a brilliant producer, had, as his first film, the famous Bonnie and Clyde. Only it didn't get famous its first time out. Controversial it was, but successful it wasn't. But Beatty--cajoling, kicking, screaming, God knows how--convinced the studio to give the film a major re-release soon after its original time at bat. The movie became a gigantic success, but had it not been for Beatty's unique skill, it might have been just another unknown cult film today.)

  Studios have the money, and that's always
where the power lies. I remember an early Sam Peckinpah film--still for me his best--called Ride the High Country. It opened in New York as the bottom half of a double bill with a European Mongol-type picture. It got some sensational notices, and when I saw it, I couldn't believe the way it was handled. I eventually tracked down an executive at the studio and asked why it had been dumped. He explained: "Sure we previewed it. And the preview cards were sensational. But we decided to send it out the way we did because that way we were sure to pick up a little money. We didn't believe those preview cards. The movie didn't cost enough money to be that good." (Italics mine.)

  Money today, as it always has been, is the essential glue that binds the movie powers to each other. But today the talk of money dominates as perhaps never before: The interest rates make it more prohibitive than ever for the studios to borrow money. And the money needed to mount a movie continues to escalate: The average cost of a major studio film today is over ten million dollars, a four-hundred-percent leap from just ten years ago. Everywhere you hear the cry: "We've got to do something to bring down the cost of pictures."

  I don't see it happening.

  Two examples from pictures I've worked on. Stepford Wives was probably released badly as far as the people involved in the making of that movie are concerned. It has some exploitable elements, but it wasn't Halloween. The best way to release it would have been slowly, praying for favorable word of mouth. The studio threw it on the market in hundreds of theatres immediately. Why? Because the studio's needs are not the same as the needs of the individual pictures, and right then Columbia needed cash flow badly--dollars, and now. Stepford got them some dollars. It was gone in a month, but it served the studio well.

  The other picture I can't name for legal reasons that will shortly come clear. But in this second instance, the studio purposely set out to destroy its own product.

  Madness? Not at all. (And not at all that unusual either.)

  There was a change in studio leadership. The old management, the one that had given us a "go," was out. And when new management comes in they all do the same and, for them, the proper thing: They try to prove to their board of directors that the board was correct in firing the old bosses and bringing them in. And one of the ways you do that is you sabotage the old bosses' films.

  This film opened in New York to record-breaking business and within a couple of weeks was gone. Not only did they louse up the booking, when they did advertise it, they kept changing the ads, a sure sign a picture is in trouble.

  I later talked to an executive of the company who had survived the old regime. He said to me: "Look, we're a public company, so I wouldn't say we intentionally ruined the film. We would never intentionally ruin a film, we've got stockholders to report to. But I don't think it's a secret to say that if the old guys were still around, maybe we might have tried a little harder."

  Okay, these films had one crucial thing in common: They were both, relatively speaking, cheap films. They did not have heavyweight directors, they certainly had no major stars.

  We have already talked about studio executives and their thirst for stars. Well, producers want them too. Because if you have a star, not only is your picture automatically "important"--

  --it's also expensive.

  And the studio can't dump it, can't do anything but fight like hell for it in order to try and salvage their investment. (All that campaigning that went on recently for Pennies from Heaven? That movie was an instant stiff and everybody knew it by the end of its first week. But the studio kept ploughing money into the musical, praying somehow they might be able to generate some interest. Pennies from Heaven was a twenty-million-plus movie. If it had been brought in for five, you would never have known it had opened.)

  So the Powers of the industry are sort of like the goony-goony bird that flies in ever-decreasing circles until it gets swallowed up by its own asshole.

  I'm sure of two things about Pennies from Heaven for example: that there is no built-in Steve Martin audience and that, after its failure, Steve Martin's price will go up. That's the pickle the Powers are in: They want movies to be cheaper, while at the same time, every move they make only ensures that movies will become increasingly prohibitive.

  By the end of the eighties, it wouldn't surprise me if we weren't all looking back on the good old days of a decade before, when Heaven's Gate was a cheapie....

  Chapter Two

  Elements

  There is no particular order to what follows. And none of it is meant to be factual, but everything, at least in my experience, is true....

  L.A.

  I find Los Angeles a very difficult and potentially dangerous place to work in, and I think anyone seriously contemplating a career as a screenwriter ought to move there as soon as it's humanly or financially possible.

  As to its being difficult and dangerous, that's entirely a personal reaction. I am aware of the number of brilliant writers, painters, and musicians who have thrived in the sunshine. I can't help it that from the very beginning the place has terrified me.

  Part of it has to do with money. For the hardcover publication of my first novel, I was paid five thousand dollars. Such was the glory of its reception that, for my second novel, I was paid twenty-five hundred dollars. For Harper, my first Hollywood film, I received eighty thousand dollars.

  So what's so terrible?

  Obviously nothing in a monetary way. It was a fantastic windfall. But--and, remember, we are dealing with my neuroses here--there was something unsettling about the discrepancy. If you write a novel, and you get X for your labors, that sets up a value system: You put in a certain amount of effort, you receive a certain amount of reimbursement, just like any other worker. However, if you are lucky or talented enough to become in demand as a screenwriter, the amounts you are paid are so staggering, compared to real writing, that it's bound to make you uneasy.

  It was on Harper that I first (not counting funerals) rode in a limousine.

  Late afternoon. I got off the plane at LAX and started for the baggage claim area. Then I stopped. Dead. A uniformed man was standing by the gate exit, holding a cardboard sign with the name GOLDMAN written on it. It was a paranoid moment for me, because my last name isn't all that uncommon, and I stared at him, wondering what the hell to do. Should I approach him or not? No one had told me I would be met at the airport. What if I pissed him off? The scene might have played like this:

  ME

  (perspiring lightly)

  Pardon me, sir, but are you, by any chance, waiting for William Goldman?

  HIM

  (affronted)

  No, you fool, who's William Goldman? I'm here to pick up Max Goldman, now get away.

  Finally, I went up to him and said, "Pardon me, sir, but are you, by any chance, waiting for William Goldman?" and he smiled and said, "Yes sir, Mr. Goldman," and then he took my under-the-seat bag and led me to where the luggage would come belching down the chute. (I know everybody thinks their bags always come toward the end. Well, mine do. I sometimes am convinced that there is this insidious worldwide plot. All those bag-smashers have some kind of code, and one of their pleasures is to sneak my stuff out of line, hold it, chuckling all the while, before reluctantly letting go, never last but, say, fourth from last. I travel solely with an under-the-seat bag now, if it's at all possible. It's not a really soul-satisfying revenge, but it's the best I can do.)

  Eventually, fourth from the end or so, my suitcase came clumping down and he bent for it, my driver did, easily beating me to the task, and then he said, "Just follow me, Mr. Goldman," and I did, hoping nobody I knew would see me.

  We trooped out to the sidewalk. He put my stuff down, smiled, and said, "I'm just parked over there, sir, wait right here, I won't be a minute."

  I waited until this giant Cadillac appeared. Before I could make a move, he bounded out from the driver's seat, raced around, opened the back door for me. "Watch your head, Mr. Goldman," he advised.

  I got in. I sat back. He
put my luggage in the trunk. Then he hurried around to the front, gave me a little kind of salute, moved in behind the wheel. (It's crazy the things you remember, but believe me, I remember all of this.)

  What I remember mostly was sitting in the back of that big car, alone, feeling very close to panic. "What the fuck am I doing back here--I'm not Jackie Kennedy--I shouldn't be here--what does this have to do with writing?"

  The motor turned over perfectly, he looked back to see that all was well, and then he skillfully began piloting the car into the stream of airport traffic--

  --and I yelled "Stop!"

  He stopped, glanced at me. "Forget something?"

  "Can I sit up front with you?" I said.

  He looked at me, I thought, kind of weirdly. "Of course, Mr. Goldman. Anything you want."

  Before he could even start to come around and open things for me I threw open the back door, got in alongside. And then we began the drive to my hotel.

  Dusk now. The end of it, just before it loses out to night. We're tooling along in the limo and I'm, naturally, lost: I have absolutely no sense of direction; even when I know where I'm going, I don't know where I'm going. On both sides of the street now are houses, cheek to jowl, contiguous. I can't make them out clearly, except they're all about the same height and, like I said, all huddled together. I turned to the driver and said, "Is this a housing development?"--

  --and he burst out laughing.

  Because we were right smack in the middle of one of the fancier sections of Beverly Hills. He explained that these were all half-million-dollar houses (probably two million today), and as he went on, I squinted out, trying to make it jibe, because I'm from outside Chicago--and in the Midwest, when people have money, they have property--and I couldn't help thinking, "Be careful: These people are strange out here."