Saving Ferris: My Charlie Sheen Years and Yours
September, 21, 2011 11:57 am | Comments On #Ashton Kutcher, Charlie Sheen, TelevisionA decade ago, I helped oversee a “table read” at the HBO offices in Century City of an exciting new screenplay, "Save Ferris," a parody/sequel to the legendary John Hughes’ movie, "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off."
The organizer was an aspiring producer, Holly Wiersma ("Factory Girl," "Wonderland") who had talked almost the entire cast of the then-new “That 70’s Show” into reading. She had help: The HBO producer involved was legendary sports announcer Jim Lampley. (How do you think we got such swanky offices for a table read?)
But it was only in watching Monday’s "Two and a Half Men" that I began to realize how intertwined all of our stories had become. Because, as I recall it from that fall Saturday, 10 years ago it was Ashton Kutcher who...
Read MoreMy Toronto -- and Yours, Nick Lowe’s, Cindy Chvatal’s, Billy Petersen’s, Etc.
September, 18, 2011 1:35 pm | Comments On #Movies, Toronto International Film FestivalI’ve never written or even spoken about this before, but some people know the whole story, some know parts and, well, some know pieces and think they know it. But with all the news out of Toronto over the last weeks—as well as other news that dovetailed into it all -- well, I figured this was my one and only chance to do it with any relevance.
To begin: 20 years ago this week, I had a picture picked not just for the Toronto Film Festival (the largest and, internationally, at least, the most important in terms of the industry) but selected as the Closing Night Gala Premiere. Sort of like saying you won Sundance or Cannes -- in those days Toronto (then called the “Festival of Festivals” because, as the largest festival in the world, it brought together at the start of the Award season, the best of...
Read MoreWhose Captain America Is It? ... and a Final Note on Hanoi Jane
August, 22, 2011 10:22 am | Comments On #Captain America, Jane Fonda, Movies
I saw my first 3D movie the other day. ’Nuff said.
My feelings about “modern” 3D? Despite the imprecations of my old boss, Jeffrey Katzenberg (3D’s Town Crier), to embrace the “new” technology it is nothing more than the old “Smell-O-Vision” of the '50s repackaged for a new generation.
What scares me more was that no one -- Katzenberg, critics or the public, in large part --has figured out that the desperate resorting to weird technological answers to creative problems represents the paucity of creative vision now dominating our studios. Worse, it presages the kind of crash for the industry that happened in the ‘60s, when the public finally did “smell out” the fact that “Smell-O-Vision” (or whatever it’s copyrighted name was) represented nothing...
Read MoreThe Greatest Sequel Never Made
July, 18, 2011 12:43 pm | Comments On #hollyblogs, Movies
The opening of “Harry Potter VIII” this weekend, along with “Transformers III” and “X-Men: First Class,” reminds me of a story.
It was the mid-‘80s and I was still covering the industry for Newsweek. I was having lunch with David Matalon, boss of the upstart studio Tri-Star, discussing the surprising tracking for the upcoming film “Rambo: First Blood, Part II.” Predictions were for it to be the hit of the summer, which it turned out to be.
That surprised me. After all, outside “Rocky,” which by that point had run its course, Stallone had never shown pop at the box office. Don’t believe me? Let’s see: “F.I.S.T.,” “Paradise Alley,” “Victory,” “Rhinestone.”
“You’re missing the story,” Matalon...
Read MoreMichael Eisner and the L.A. Times—A Marriage Made in Heaven?
September, 13, 2010 5:54 pm | Comments On #Disney, L.A. Times, Los Angeles Times, Media, michael eisner, Peter McAlevey, tribune
Michael Eisner running to the Tribune Company, the man in charge of the Los Angeles Times? That seems to be the word – and, actually, it does make perfect sense. After all, more than most companies what does a newspaper need to thrive? A visionary leader. And more than most leaders with experience running an intellectual-property company, what does Michael Eisner have but vision?
I should know -- in my nefarious career, I happened to have worked for both the L.A. Times and Michael Eisner. Perhaps more than most I have some insight into each’s strength and weaknesses. In fact, I can hardly think of any downsides....
Read More'Expendables' Should Try On 'Kashmir'
August, 18, 2010 3:57 pm | Comments On #action, action movies, action stars, Afghanistan, Disney, Expendables, Iraq, Kashmir, Movies, Quentin Tarantino, Sylvester Stallone, The Dirty Dozen, The Expendables
It’s funny, but not only is "The Expendables” -- as many noticed -- a throwback to the heyday of ‘80s action stars (Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Statham … oops, the latter’s from the ‘00s!), but more to the point, it’s really a throwback to one of the classic action films of all time, 1967’s famous (infamous?) “Dirty Dozen.”
Now, the “Dozen” wasn’t alone. In fact, it was one in a long line of all-star WWII movies, from “The Longest Day” -- starring an old John Wayne, a young Sean Connery and everyone from Sir Richard Burton to Fabian in between -- to “The Great Escape” (Steve McQueen, James Garner, Lord...
Read MoreTom & Tom and the (Auto)biography of 'Knight and Day'
July, 08, 2010 5:35 pm | Comments On #box office, Cameron Diaz, Fox, Knight and Day, marketing, Movies, Patrick Goldstein, Peter McAlevey, Tom Cruise, tom rothman, Tony SellaI’ve always liked Patrick Goldstein: In the old days (the ‘80s) when the Los Angeles Times barely admitted the “industry” existed, he was one of the few capable of giving you an inside look.
Of course Patrick (like any good reporter) had an unfair advantage -- he had embedded himself in the industry by being married to the head of PR for Paramount, at the time the hottest studio in town. (That was when Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Don Simpson and Dawn Steel were shaking up the industry with surprise hits like “Flashdance,” “Footloose” and “An Officer and a Gentleman” and winning critical plaudits with “Reds” and “Terms of Endearment.”) Of course, that gang ultimately broke up -- and, unfortunately, so did Patrick’s marriage. But he rebounded with his always...
Read More'Flatliners' and the Long-Forgotten Secret Woid: Profitable
June, 30, 2010 5:17 pm | Comments On #Columbia Pictures, Flatliners, Joel Schumacher, Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, MoviesLast November, I wrote how the movie “Flatliners” took an unknown word and made it common parlance for everyone from sportswriters to politicians and the like. In that story, I detailed the history of the film and how it became, at the time, the most profitable film in a long time at the then-beleaguered Columbia Pictures.
Just to recap, it was written by a little-known writer named Peter Filardi and became subject of a bidding war between the company I worked for, Michael Douglas’ Stonebridge Entertainment, and producer Scott Rudin. Columbia won -- for what was at the time the enormous price of $450,000 -- Michael and his partner Rick Bieber produced; Joel Schumacher directed; Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland (who looks the same today in “24” as he did then!) and Julia Roberts starred.
The picture went on to open number 1 in August...
Read MoreA Time and a Place: Steve Reuther, R.I.P.
June, 08, 2010 12:50 pm | Comments On #Steven ReutherWow! As if it wasn’t tough enough dealing with the passings of people like Dan Melnick or Dennis Hopper (each chronicled here), who were, of course, of another generation.
3D: Déjà Vu All Over Again
May, 18, 2010 3:45 pm | Comments On #3D, Peter McAleveyAll right, so I’m ripping off Yogi Berra with that headline. Who doesn’t? What kid can’t remember a Little League coach reminding him, “Half the game is 90 percent mental” … which actually makes sense if you think about it! But that’s a story for another time.
Unfortunately, this is a sad story … and the results are likely to be as confusing for many in the industry for years to come.
But let’s recap: In 1947, the Justice Department entered into the so-called Paramount Consent Decrees, which banned “block booking” or, in layman’s terms, the right of the studios to own their own theaters (the Paramount in New York, the Fox in Westwood, etc.) because it kept competitors (who might happen to make better films, but had nowhere to show them) … out.
At the time, it didn’t seem...
Read More
- Previous
- •
- •
- •
- •
- Next
Description
Peter McAlevey is a motion-picture producer and former correspondent for Newsweek. He is currently working on a book about in vitro fertilization.
