« A New Low | Main | Lunch With David 13 - A Fine Whine »
October 08, 2006
Does Anyone Edit This Shit?
Laura Holson’s most edition of “They Told Me This” is pretty iffy on a lot of levels. The message is, I guess, “Fuck you all… we’re not going anywhere even after the worst summer performance by any studio in the history of the business.” And that’s okay. They did get away with it. And they have Harry Potter coming to the rescue next summer. More confusingly, Ms. Holson completely “forgets” to mention Happy Feet, which has been the industry favorite for the likely high grosser of the holiday season for months now.
But what really pisses me off is the use of a completely misleading example in the lead of the piece which could have been researched into truth (or elimination) in less than 5 minutes. If you want to take a look now and guess what I am pointing at, go ahead…
Ready?
Ready?
Ready?
Quoting from the top of the story…
“When the romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally” was released in July 1989, it made just $1.1 million during its opening weekend. But Alan F. Horn, whose film company produced the movie, was confident that, given time, it could be a hit.
He was right. The movie earned $93 million at the domestic box office that summer.
“If it was today, the headline in Variety would have been ‘When Harry Met Disaster,’ ” Mr. Horn said in an interview. “They would have killed us after that first weekend and I don’t think we would have had a chance to build that movie. In today’s climate it wouldn’t have had a chance to breathe.”
This is so false on so many levels that if it weren’t for Ms. Holson’s shocking complicity in its telling, one might say it was a lie.
Yes, When Harry Met Sally opened to $1.1 million in the summer of 1989.
It was on 41 screens. 41. Forty fucking one.
It had a $26,693 per screen. That was almost triple the weekend's leading grosser, Lethal Weapon 2 and almost 5 times the per screen of the one major release that week, the Bond film, Licence To Kill.
One week later, When Harry Met Sally expanded to 775 screens and did $8.8 million, in third behind Lethal Weapon 2 and the fifth weekend of Batman, then the biggest opener in movie history.
And that was 1989.
This summer, the comparable movie that would have been killed in the first weekend is Little Miss Sunshine, which opened on 7 screens and did $370,998. The next weekend on 58 screens, $1.5 million. The film has never had a 3-day weekend that matched WHMS’s second weekend. And yet it is headed to $60 million. It is also an epic media darling.
When Harry Met Sally is not some ancient anomaly like, say, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. And what does the lead suggest? Horn is experienced and he knows that the climate is changing, so he can ride it out.
But the climate, while it is different, has nothing to do with the unmitigated failure of last summer at WB. Did Poseidon really look like a good bet on paper? Can’t Holson call someone other than the men who greenlit it so she might know what everyone else in town does… that a $150 million-plus action film opening in the wake of M:I3 with no sellable stars, CG we’ve seen over and over already, and a horrible script was never a good bet?
How valuable is a WB-placed story about looking to the future of execs that were expected to be fired for failing so miserably last summer, trading on anticipated success for a new Scorsese movie? A million dollars. How fabulous is it for the New York Times to print whatever they were told and to run the story on the day after Scorsese has a personal record breaking weekend for a “quirky” film? Priceless.
Must be me. I’m just too tough on the NYT.
Posted by poland at October 8, 2006 10:25 PM
Comments
Holson is a moronic twat.
But Dave, these deserved attacks of yours are kinda like screaming at the heavens during a thunderstorm.
Posted by: Jeffrey Boam's Doctor ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 8, 2006 10:54 PM
You think that, JBD, but the walls have bigger ears than you imagine.
Posted by: David Poland at October 8, 2006 11:48 PM
That bit about When Harry Met Sally is incredible ridiculous.
Why was it released on only 48 screens?
Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at October 9, 2006 12:02 AM
You were only 5 camel. it was a different time - a better time.
Posted by: Jeffrey Boam's Doctor at October 9, 2006 01:18 AM
Yeah Daved but are those big ears connected to any brains?
Posted by: Jeffrey Boam's Doctor at October 9, 2006 01:21 AM
Have any of you listened to Jennifer Hudson's And I Am Telling You? It's pretty good, no Jennifer Holiday but if she acts well in this scene, ka-ching! Oscar baby.
Posted by: waterbucket at October 9, 2006 04:30 AM
"How valuable is a WB-placed story about looking to the future of execs that were expected to be fired for failing so miserably last summer, trading on anticipated success for a new Scorsese movie? A million dollars."
How do you figure that?
By the way, if Amy Pascal could survive and now be re-upped, so can this lot (provided they don't have any more cock ups). And as Nina Jacobson would remind us, a banner year is not necessarily employment insurance.
Posted by: palmtree at October 9, 2006 09:40 AM
Wow, I'm simply speechless about such careless, stupid mistakes from a major paper.
Posted by: ployp at October 10, 2006 05:56 AM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)