Turkeys on Strike

So, I got one decent call over the Thanksgiving Holiday that an actor was seriously considering our offer but other than that the phone was pretty cold. We had one A-lister drop our project over the weekend due to script concerns. Apparently he or she thought that with the strike still ongoing the script wasn’t going to turn out the way that it was originally planned.

Back in the good old days, you could sign an actor to a five year deal and pay them 60 grand a year. They were basically puppets that did whatever you wanted. Today you have to throw anything you can at an actor before you can get them to sign on to your film. To get an A-lister you have to give them their 20 mil, backend profit participation, a huge trailer, the producer credit, the power to veto casting, a hundred other perks, and of course script supervision authority. That last one is usually just boilerplate that stays in the contract for no other reason to just say it.

It’s like one of those dick moves where you say that you’ll pay for the tickets and they actually accept your offer. You don’t drop out of a movie over script concerns especially during a damn writer’s strike. We told the actor that we were willing to do anything to complete the movie and match up the script to their approval. That wasn’t good enough and we’re back to the drawing board.

After a big time actor drops out, the studio always threatens to sue, but with at least the top ten actors in town the studio wouldn’t dare pursue any litigation. They want to work with these people again, and if they sue them for damages they are definitely not going to get them on another film. If they pursue something like specific performance the judge might order the actor to follow through the contract as formed, but do you really think the actor is going to give you a killer performance after they have been ordered by a court to act? No, they are going to turn into on onset diva that you don’t want to have anything to do with.

I thought about taking on the role myself, but I really just don’t have the time anymore. I used to cast myself in some of the comedies I wrote a few years back, and I had a great time especially when Friend was directing. Anymore, it’s just not worth it because they have to plan a whole project around me because of my schedule. When I first entered this business out of law school I used to wonder if the producers that I worked for were just acting busy to look more powerful.

I’ve learned that the truth is that they are really that busy. Agents get their secretaries to dial random numbers and they just shoot the shit to remain in you conscience mind. Every other call is some type of problem. An actor doesn’t think that they are being treated fairly or a director feels that his artistic expression is being altered by the studio’s bottom line. Starting tomorrow, I will be on the phone all day whoring out the project to the next big actor down the list. We’ll tell him that the other actor left because he wasn’t right for the role and that they were not our original first choice. Hollywood…it’s a web of lies.
LD