That Sony hack was evidently more extensive than we thought.
Sony Spider-Verse discussion thread
- Thread starter Turtletrekker
- Start date
Morbius is available on Disney plus.
It's not even April yet.
"It's not nice to be a part of something that's ripped to shreds, but I can't say that I don't understand."
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/dakota-johnson-madame-web-interview-1235843085/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/dakota-johnson-madame-web-interview-1235843085/
At least she's taking a "live and learn" attitude towards it.
It would be interesting to find out one day what the movie she thought she'd signed up for was like.
I'm sympathetic to Johnson, and I'm sure the movie that got made isn't her fault. But at some point, big-name stars who aren't hurting for money just miiiiiight want to consider a studio's track record, and demand contract clauses that ensure scripts aren't radically b̶u̶t̶c̶h̶e̶r̶ , er, revised without their approval. If that's a dealbreaker for the studio, and the studio is infamous for botching movies, maybe let a less established actor score the paycheck and roll the dice. That way, everyone from you to less established actors to the audience wins - everyone, that is, apart from crappy execs. One could call such cautionary measures taking pride in one's work.
Edit: oops, I was distracted earlier, and misread Johnson's "I can’t say that I don’t understand" quote; she's saying she does understand why people are "ripping [the movie] to shreds," which I guess is about as candid as she can get without really risking some burnt bridges. So, she deserves credit for honesty there.
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Is Dakota Johnson really a big name star who's not hurting for money?
It seems like the vast majority of her work is in indie films, which don't exactly pay a ton. Presumably she made a good amount from the 50 shades series, but that meal ticket ended 6 years ago.
She paid over $3m for her house and she has a production company. She's doing more than fine.
If Don and Melanie didn’t cut her off I assume she had a safe pad to last MCU her career.
Edward Norton did exactly that, and the result was The Incredible Hulk (2008), and him not deciding to continue in the MCU.
Well, the main reason Norton didn't continue is because he wanted more creative control, particularly in The Avengers and Marvel chose to recast. I can't remember if money was also a factor like it was the main reason for Terrence Howard's departure.Edward Norton did exactly that, and the result was The Incredible Hulk (2008), and him not deciding to continue in the MCU.
Yes, but he had a lot of script input for the Hulk film, and it was the lowest grossing MCU film of Phase 1 - so yeah, they weren't willing to give him input for later films. Had it been a B.O. blockbuster, things may have been different, but it didn't play out that way.
And still not as much as he wanted.
Giving actors script approval is no more likely to turn out well than giving studio executives script approval. People who aren't writers often have very little understanding of what makes a story work. Edward Norton apparently has some writing experience, but lots of actors don't. It would be nice if people in Hollywood would just trust their writers instead of assuming they need to tell writers how to do their jobs.
What about improv? Often that makes something better
Improvisation happens all the time, but unless you're watching a live performance, it still requires the approval of the director, producers, etc. Usually improv is worked out in rehearsal before filming and agreed upon by the participants; or if an actor improvises in each take, the director and editor have to decide which improv was the best one to include in the final cut. Film is a collaboration, and ideally everyone's free to make suggestions, but it matters who has the authority to make the final decisions. If an actor suggests an improv to a writer and the writer thinks it's good, or at least if the director seeks the writer's opinion before deciding, that's one thing. If people who don't necessarily have any writing talent are given absolute power to overrule the writers, which is usually the case in the feature industry, that's a whole other matter.
Not exactly, because the movie was slimmed down much more than he wanted. When I wrote about "clauses that ensure scripts aren't radically b̶u̶t̶c̶h̶e̶r̶ , er, revised," I meant for that to include final product edits that are significant enough to amount to de facto script revision.Edward Norton did exactly that, and the result was The Incredible Hulk (2008), and him not deciding to continue in the MCU.
(In that case, I side with the studio over the actor, but, that's neither here nor there.)
Maybe, but if actors had script approval, including control over edits that are so significant that they amount to script revision, you'd probably have fewer cases of actors being unhappy with the de facto script they ended up with. (I often wonder what the Sequel Trilogy might have ended up as had Mark Hamill insisted on script approval, including whether Disney would have agreed and hired him at all.)
That said, I disagree with your assertion; I think that on average, actors, being storytellers at heart, probably do have better "understanding of what makes a story work" than studio execs, who tend to come from less creative, business/managerial backgrounds. Also, recognizing good writing is not the same thing as being able to write well.
If that's what they insisted on for the TNG movies to get made, more power to them. They had made earned their clout and earned their money, so if they didn't want to be at the whims of the writers and studio, especially on the much bigger stage of feature films, that was their absolute right.
Of course, no one method will always produce the best possible result, but, on balance, I trust actors to champion and protect the work of writers more than I do studio execs.