I really shouldn’t be too surprised at this, but here’s an excerpt from an interview with director Frank Darabont on looking for a study to produce his film version of Fahrenheit 451:
“I actually had a studio head read that script and say: ‘Wow, that’s the best and smartest script that I’ve read since running this studio but I can’t possibly greenlight it’ I asked why and he says ‘How am I going to get 13-year-olds to show up at the theater?’ And I said “Well, lets make a good movie and I bet that will take care of itself.”
– Frank Darabont
Sufficed to say that Darabont didn’t convince the executive in question.
I guess I always naively believed that at least the studio executives thought they were making good movies. I’m not sure whether this reflects worse on the executive himself or on the viewing public. He does have a point – for all our moaning and complaining about the lackluster quality of big studio offerings, we still pay to go and see them in our droves. I’d been wondering why Bradbury’s science fiction classic had taken so long to get to the screen and this about sums it up.
It’s reasons like that we get really bad horror films or nothing but remakes of concepts that already worked or nothing but remakes of really bad horror films that have already worked. And it is hard to fault the companies that are operating as responsible businesses should.
Still, it’s pretty damn crap.
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: blockbusters, dumb movies, Fahrenheit 451, frank darabont, hollywood, Movies, remakes, smart movies, studios |
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99% of hollywood is nothing, but a money-making machine. No interest in making good movies anymore, but very interested in making a good movie trailer! The funny thing is, Hollywood uses many gifted and talented artists to create something that truly sucks!
Yep. It’s amazing what they can get talented directors and actors to do. It’s a shame. But I always figured that making a good movie was kind of a tangental goal – very much secondary, but still present.
Ah well, I guess I was wrong.