I wrote him a letter:
Dear Mr. Leopold:
You have told me to remove the reference “In love with Michael Sovitz” on the fictional character Gary Samuels’s card. Gary Samuels is an agent and I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t be in love with the fictional character Michael Sovitz. We changed the name Janet Maslin to Sheila Maslin to Sheila Caslin at your mandate. If the change Caslin for Maslin satisfied you, I don’t understand why the change Sovitz for Ovitz doesn’t.
You have told me to remove the reference to the different fictional Saudi princes as well as to Hugh Grant. In a previous memo, you told me yourself that there are no such living Saudi Arabian princes and that the names themselves are unlike names that Saudi princes or Arabs anywhere would use. Then what is the problem? Your suggestion that I replace the names with the phrase “various Saudi princes” isn’t funny. Please let me be the judge of what’s funny and what isn’t—I suspect I may have a better sense of humor than you do.
As far as removing Hugh Grant’s name—let me remind you. Hugh Grant was arrested for hiring a hooker to blow him. The blow job became one of the most celebrated blow jobs in history. Hugh Grant copped—I purposely chose the word—to being blown on every talk show in the country. The blow job became a standing joke on Letterman, Leno, and Saturday Night Live. Are you really trying to tell me that to say that a woman with a checkered personal history like the fictional Aloe Vera has a lust for Hugh Grant is a libel or slander upon Hugh Grant’s character?
You have told me to remove the reference to Sean Penn. It is a Sly Stallone improvised line: “If you don’t get that camera out of my face, I’m gonna Sean Penn your ass!” Sean Penn has a lengthy and public history of beating up photographers. He even went to jail for it. His proclivity for beating up photographers has, once again, been the butt of jokes on every comedy show out there. What’s the problem? Are you a friend of his? (I am.) Do you represent him?
I hope that I will hear from you soon and that you will end all this silliness.
The esteemed and venerable Leopold, who didn’t represent Sean, probably tired of dealing with me, backed off.
As the shoot ended, Arthur Hiller and I couldn’t have been happier.
But the first screening of the movie didn’t go well.
It was my fault, not Arthur’s. Arthur had shot every word of my script—a mock, all-talk documentary.
And the research screening audience drowned in all the words.
The only solution, I felt, was to cut the film drastically and add humorous, counterpointing music (the only music in Arthur’s cut was “Hooray for Hollywood”).
At Cinergi’s request, I did my own cut of the movie.
I cut twenty-two minutes of my own words.
I put together a temporary musical score using well-known rock music.
Even though he disapproved of my cuts and disapproved of me cutting “his” movie, Arthur, in a heroic act of kindness, sat next to me in the editing room and helped me to do it.
· · ·
Cinergi liked my cut and not Arthur’s and made a decision to release mine in theaters.
Arthur felt he wasn’t being given a fair shake by Cinergi. His rough cut wasn’t a director’s cut, he said, but only a “rough assembly.” He felt he was owed further cuts and screenings.
But Cinergi’s decision was firm: my cut would go into the theaters.
After a successful screening of my cut, I said, “Arthur, you should kiss my ass in Times Square for putting all this work into the cut.”
The next day, at a meeting at Cinergi, Arthur agreed to go out into theaters with my cut and said, “I’ve already called Mayor Giuliani to make reservations for Times Square.”
We laughed and hugged.
The following afternoon, without explanation, by fax, Arthur Hiller resigned from the film.
An Alan Smithee Film was now an Alan Smithee film.
The credits would say “Written by Joe Eszterhas, directed by Alan Smithee.”
The press was all over Arthur and me.
The whole world thought the two of us had conspired in a gigantic publicity stunt.
The day after Arthur resigned, I was sitting in an editing room in Hollywood with a migraine headache.
I was finishing the cut of a movie—something I had never done before.
Cinergi, which had serious financial problems, informed me there was no more money:
A. To continue the editing process.
B. For the temporary music I was using for screenings.
C. For any music at all.
I agreed to waive my $250,000 fee so we could continue the editing process. But I had no idea how we’d be able to get any money to have any music in the movie. As I sat there, holding my head, Arthur, who had just resigned, walked in with a smile on his face.
“Well,” he said, “I just thought you might need some help. If you do, I’m here.”
I was getting up at four in the morning in Malibu to be in an editing room in Burbank by seven.
I finished at seven at night, got home at nine, and got up the next morning at four.
I did this for three months.
I hardly saw Naomi and the babies.
And I wasn’t being paid a penny for any of it.
At a certain point, God spoke to me.
“Putz,” God said. “This is what directors do. It’s time you finally realized that. You’d better be very nice to every director you work with in the future.”
I promised God on the lives of my children that I would be.
Richard Jeni, the young comedian who played the studio head in the movie, wrote me a note: “I have to say it was an honor to be in your film. I have to say that because I got paid scale and I’d feel really stupid if it wasn’t an honor. Thanks again for your support and encouraging words. If I had to sum up the experience in one word, that word would be: Fuckingreat!”
I was finally finished editing the film and now it was time to edit the music, which I thought the movie badly needed to relieve the unending stream of words and talking heads.
But Andy Vajna reiterated it: No more money. Not a cent more.
Desperate, I placed an ad in the trades begging unsigned talent for free music. A songwriters’ organization published an ad attacking me. Editorialists accused me of “ripping off” unsigned talent.
But I received 9,200 entries from all over the world. I sat down in my den from seven in the morning till seven at night listening to it all myself. It took about a month.
Andrew Shack, the head of Priority Records, who’d seen my ads, asked to see the rough cut of the movie. He enjoyed the movie, listened to some of the music that was coming in from everywhere, and made an album tie-in deal with us.
The artists whose “free music” would be in the movie would be paid and paid again if their songs wound up on the Priority CD.
No one was getting ripped off and I had miraculously gotten music for my movie.
We didn’t have film titles, though. Every movie had to have film titles. We didn’t and, I was so tired of hearing it … there was no more money!
What was I going to do now? Put an ad in the trades for free titles at the beginning and at the end of the movie?
I decided to seek out some of the best graffiti artists in Los Angeles. I told them I needed titles for my movie. I showed them the rough cut. They said they were “down” with it. They painted some striking, beautiful sketches.
I paid them out of my own pocket.
I had my titles.
I wanted to place a card at the end of the film, before final credits, which said, “Special thanks to Arthur Hiller.”
I told Arthur what I wanted to do, he thanked me and said it was fine with him, but thought I should check with the Directors Guild.
I called the Guild.
The Guild voice, very sternly, said I would not be allowed to thank Arthur Hiller.
“This is an Alan Smithee film!” the voice said, almost spitting the wor
ds.
I turned the finished print over to Cinergi, who turned it over to Disney, who by contract with Cinergi had to distribute the movie.
By then I was in a war with Disney.
During my war with Disney, I changed the title of the film to: An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn.
TO: MICHAEL EISNER
From: Joe Eszterhas
Date: January 15, 1998
Re: The Scenario for An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn
Dear Michael,
You and I collaborated on a screenplay once—Flashdance—that was pretty good. Try this one on for size; this one’s pretty bad. Here it is:
In late October, the chairman of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, Dick Cook, charming and friendly, sits down to lunch with producer Ben Myron and me. He bemoans his baseball injury, talks about the glory years of the Dodgers, and tells us that, while Burn Hollywood Burn will not get any TV ads, it “will get plenty of print—don’t worry.” He says he will be the point man of the project, asks me to speak to him directly, and says I will be receiving a marketing plan “next week.” Liking him, happy about his attitude, I give him a hug as he departs.
In early November, Senior Vice President of Publicity Terry Curtin has lunch with my wife, Naomi, and me at the Bel-Air Hotel. She is full of ideas to publicize the movie, takes copious notes, and says, “Trust me. You have an ally,” she says. “If you get Dick Cook on the phone, he’ll say yes, but you’ll never get him on the phone.”
She tells us that “Corporate Disney is a weird place to work, like a sect. I’m still trying to get used to it.” She tells us that “The reason Ovitz didn’t last at Disney is that Eisner didn’t support him and Ovitz floundered.” Naomi says, “I thought I noticed that on Larry King.” Curtin says, “Exactly. Eisner left him out there hanging.” She tells us that one of her predecessors at Disney was fired for having an affair with a top-level Disney executive (Curtin named them). Curtin says, “These old guys who pat you on the ass and give you a wink, so what? How does that hurt your career?”
She says that Disney is so disorganized at times that “We forgot to run an ad for Washington Square on opening day in one of the major markets.” She talks about how Whoopi Goldberg and her agent, Arnold Rifkin, “terrorized” Disney into giving Whoopi a $250,000 Picasso. “Whoopi got pissed off at a marketing meeting and said she wouldn’t publicize the movie. Rifkin called and said the only way to smooth her feathers was to buy her this Picasso at a New York gallery. We had to have the money there by the end of the day or she wouldn’t publicize the picture. Afterward, I called Rifkin and said, ‘Just tell me you know this was wrong.’ Rifkin said, ‘I don’t see anything inappropriate here.’”
Curtin brags about her closeness to the press, singling out Claudia Eller of the Los Angeles Times and Sharon Waxman of the Washington Post—“I’ve got them in my pocket,” she says. “I talked to Claudia this morning,” she says, “I told her I was having lunch with you and she said, “What are you having lunch with him for?” Curtin continues, “I got Sharon Waxman to kill a critical story about Disney the other day. She just had a baby, too. I said to her—‘C’mon, give me a break. I’m sitting here with a breast pump on.’”
Curtin finally gets back to Burn Hollywood Burn. “When we screened it at Disney internally,” she says, “everybody in the room was laughing. Afterward I went up to people outside the room and said, ‘What did you think?’ Everyone was afraid to admit how much fun it was. This movie is going to become one of Hollywood’s greatest guilty pleasures.”
Terry repeats her mantra—“Trust me, I’m your ally.” She says, interestingly, near the end of our lunch: “We’re probably going to be enemies when this is over.” To which Naomi responds, “I hope not. We’re tired of fighting.” Liking Terry, happy about her attitude toward the movie, we send her a bouquet of flowers after the meeting.
Days and weeks go by. No marketing plan and no return calls from my “point man” Dick Cook. No return calls from Terry Curtin either. On November 24, hearing nothing from anyone at Disney, getting no return calls, I write a memo to Dick Cook (with carbons to Curtin and your exec Phil Barlow) which is a marketing plan. The plan includes things either Cook or Curtin talked about. I get no response to the memo from anyone at Disney, though Curtin tells my publicist she is “happy” about my memo—“Joe made our job easy for us.”
I hear nothing from Disney—nothing at all relating either to my memo about marketing or about Disney’s alleged marketing plan until shortly before Christmas when Terry Curtin comes to my home for lunch. She is brimming with excitement about the Tommy Lee/Pamela video, the size of Tommy Lee’s penis, and notes that “Pamela Lee has a lubrication problem.”
She turns to your exec Oren Aviv, who has accompanied her, and says, “Did you notice Pamela’s lubrication problem?”
Oren looks down and clears his throat.
Curtin: “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”
Oren: “I did, but I’m too much of a gentleman to comment on it.”
She talks about Tommy Lee’s “beautiful face” and says she and her husband saw the video the night before.
“My husband said, ‘I don’t understand how a guy like this can get both Heather Locklear and Pamela Anderson.’
“I said to him, ‘Well, you’re no Tommy Lee.’ He said, ‘You’re no Pamela Anderson.’”
Curtin talks about how, at Fox’s publicity department, she and her colleagues had a “P File.” The “P File” consisted of full-frontal nude photos of actors, taken off the outtakes of the films they were in.
“You should see Willem Dafoe’s,” she says. “He wins the prize. His is really something.”
She talks about feeling sorry for Macaulay Culkin. “We were doing interviews in this suite. He was in the living room. We could all hear his father and mother in the next room having sex.”
She doesn’t mention Burn Hollywood until I ask her, once again, what marketing plans Disney has. Then she turns to Oren Aviv, who shows us two one-sheets—one of a naked girl whose breasts are covered with cans of film and the tagline “Good movie. Great cans.” I am told, thankfully—this movie is not Showgirls—that we are not using this one-sheet, though Dick Cook has had it in his office, “considering it” for a week.
Terry and Oren leave, but two hours later a messenger arrives. Inside the package we find the porn video of Tommy Lee and Pamela.
Terry calls back later that afternoon, “Tell Naomi to call me after she sees it. I want to know what she thinks about Tommy’s penis.”
I tell Terry that we never talked about marketing at our lunch. She says the plan is on Dick Cook’s desk, “You’ll have it tomorrow.”
· · ·
Tomorrow comes. No marketing plan … and no call to Terry from Naomi, who is horrified by the tape. Terry calls, though. She wants to know what Naomi thought of the size of Tommy’s organ. I tell her Naomi didn’t think much of the tape.
“She’s so sweet,” Terry says.
“The marketing plan,” she adds, “is on the way.”
At the end of December, two months after Dick Cook promised a marketing plan … five weeks after my marketing memo to Cook … two months before the February 27 release of the movie, I still haven’t heard anything from anyone at Disney. By now, we have missed long-lead press deadlines. I inform Rogers & Cowan that, since I’m getting no cooperation and no response from Disney, I will hire the firm at my own expense to publicize the movie.
Meanwhile, adding to my frustration, even though very few media people have seen the movie, we’re getting positive response:
“It’s an A+,” writes Harry Knowles’s Ain’t It Cool Network, which gets 160,000 Internet hits a day. “The movie rocked … I can’t wait to take my girlfriend to see it.”
Martin Grove writes in the Hollywood Reporter, “One of the funniest movies to turn up in ages … what’s nice is that the movie is really not mean-spirited. With media coverage
of Hollywood behind the scenes so widespread these days, a lot of what might be considered inside humor is going to get laughs from paying audiences.”
Charles Fleming writes in the L.A. Weekly: “The movie is hilarious … a far more savage look at Hollywood than The Player … unrelenting in its viciousness.”
In post-screening reactions: Anne Kolson of the New York Times says: “I thought it was great. Very funny in many places.”
Stephen Farber of Movieline says he “really enjoyed it” and will write a positive review.
Karen Shapiro of Entertainment Tonight says, “Very twisted and funny. I definitely laughed.”
Trish Becker of GQ magazine says, “I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the premise.”
Stephanie Tuck of In Style magazine says, “I liked it. It was very clever. I thought it was great how it came together.”
Melissa Parvel of Access Hollywood says, “I really liked it. I thought it was pretty slick and funny.”
Mimi James of VH1 says, “I liked it. It was so cheesy.”
Robert Eli of Entertainment Asylum says, “I thought there were some very funny moments. Stallone, Whoopi, and Chan could generate a whole new following.”
My publicist calls Disney to demand a meeting with Disney. Other filmmakers don’t have to demand such a meeting; it is routinely scheduled with them.
Disney grants the meeting and it is held January 9 in the Roy Disney Building’s third-floor conference room. It is attended by—from Disney: John Cywinski, Geoff Ammer, Terry Curtin, Kristy Frudenfeld, Gina Ross, Brett Dicker, Chuck Viane, Chris Edwards, and Oren Aviv.
Also attending are: Andrew Shack, president of Priority Records, Dana Mason, head of Priority marketing, Alan Nierob, Christine Lamont, and Sandy Rice of Rogers & Cowan … and producer Ben Myron.
I begin the meeting, according to our transcript, this way: “As most of you already know, I am not comfortable with the idea of Disney distributing and publicizing this movie. As a result, at my own expense, I have retained Rogers & Cowan …”
Naomi cuts in: “Can I please say something before we begin the meeting?”
Joe: “Sure.”
Naomi: “Thank you. I want to address my comments to Terry Curtin, since she is the only representative of Disney I have worked with. Terry, you sent a fax to us yesterday asking why we are angry. Well, I’d like to explain why. When we first met back in November for a four-hour meeting, I began by saying that the reason Joe and I were angry was because we felt we were being ignored by Disney. My experience in this town is that nobody ever wants to give bad news, and so instead they hide. I said that we had heard no response from Disney for weeks and we did not yet even have a distribution date.
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