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I don't know if this should necessarily be an argument of what shouldn't have been made, more of a discussion on what wouldn't have been made.
EDIT: For example, you argue that "The Fountain" wouldn't have been made because it's a bad film. I argue it wouldn't have been made because it's a very complicated film that doesn't really appeal to a lot of people that I could see a lot of execs easily dismissing. On this, both of us are arguing why it wouldn't have been made. Arguing why it shouldn't have been made is a different thing altogether.
Kill Bill wouldn't have because it was a two part film that was ultra stylistic. The two part bit would have killed it for a reader.
Star Wars was only made because of American Graffiti, and still there were reservations.
Halloween (the Carpenter version) was only made because Mustapha Akkad had some leftover money and he'd seen Assault on Precinct 13.
For one that's a head scratcher, how about The Hills Have Eyes 2 (Craven's 1985 version, not the remake...which was a hundred times better)? That load of poop shouldn't have slid off his desk, but hey, he had The Last House On The Left, The Hills Have Eyes, and Nightmare on Elm Street, so he must know what he's doing, right? Right? (shudder...)
Or there's The Adventures of Shark Boy And Lava Girl. If it wasn't Robert Rodriguez, we would never have seen the...um...creativity of his children who came up with the story. Surely, the innovative creator of El Mariachi would never give us crap.
Stallone made it between Rocky and Rocky 2, and had trouble getting it financed until he agreed to star in it himself. I remember reading something about a weird scenario with this script and the script for Rocky. I'll have to see if I can dig it up.
Angels & demons, the script has horrible. I was appalled when I read it. The movie was good though
The script maybe (I haven't read it or seen the film), but given the popularity of the book series, it was really only a matter of time before the film was made.
I was gonna mention the Kill Bill films as well, but didn't wanna get raped by QT fans...
~Zack~
I wasn't dissing the first few films in my list. I liked Kill Bill. I figured I'd hit some examples of some good films that would never have been made had the director been a nobody. If young QT had that one first, he would be working at a call center somewhere, and we'd've never seen it.
I wasn't dissing the first few films in my list. I liked Kill Bill. I figured I'd hit some examples of some good films that would never have been made had the director been a nobody. If young QT had that one first, he would be working at a call center somewhere, and we'd've never seen it.
I liked the first one, I just don't think anyone would have made it had QT's name not been on it. It would have been to risky.
"Punch Drunk Love" (which is a film I like) would have never been made without Paul Thomas Anderson being a big deal. The film works so well because of the style he brings to it, and I just don't think the script would have turned a lot of heads.
The Godfather, well in a way, without Coppolla at the helm it was going to be updated and set in the 1970's. urrghh, he had to fight tooth and nail to get that movie made the way he wanted. The studio wanted Warren Beaty to play Michael!!
I guess it depends on whether you think people in the industry would be willing to risk their careers to back a dead horse.
The way I see it, scripts get produced because someone believed in them. It doesn't matter how "in" you are. Even a megastar like Tom Cruise can get dropped by a studio the moment they show signs of conflicting personal career interests.
It's like taking out a new mortgage just to back your brother's business idea of selling ice on the internet.
I read an interesting Q&A with A-list writer Terry Rossio a couple of weeks ago that highlights this:
"JRM: How did you break in, and how did you come to be where you are now?
Terry Rossio: I'm going to try to not give the usual boilerplate answers in this interview, and that means not going along with false presumptions, no matter how seemingly benign. The question about breaking in seems perfectly legit, but really it's not. A writer must create compelling work, and then try to sell it. Once sold, the writer has to do the same thing again. It's really not true that the writer 'breaks in' - that's an artifact of the belief that the person is being judged, not the work, and also of the belief that there is an inside and an outside, which I don't think exists. There are too many screenwriters out there with only a single credit for there to be an inside, and too many writers on the outside making sales, to too many markets which are either new, changing, or undefined.
In truth buyers are just not that organized, your buyer is not my buyer, or in some cases, you can become your own buyer. Courtney Hunt was nominated for an Academy Award this year for best screenplay for Frozen River, and she's never sold a screenplay. Is she on the inside or the outside? In truth, anyone, at any time, can come up with South Park or Superman or Sandman, and that's all that matters.
I know writers want to think it's all about access, and it's true that for me, at this point, I can get a screenplay read, far easier than most. But that doesn't mean much if it doesn't sell, and no writer is so inside that anything they write sells. Lawrence Kasdan has three unsold specs. Shane Black has films he wants to get made he can't get made. When every studio passes on your project, let me tell you, that feeling of being on the inside disappears fast."
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