The Losing Battle of Hollywood Greed

Greed is not...you know

Ok, let's talk film. The Warner/Fox Watchmen feud will continue till the wee hours of next year for sure. The New York Times in trying to make sense of this issue. Here is the article that tells the fine print I didn't know about called the turnaround clause. Well the turnaround clause in any studio development contract says:

On its face, turnaround is a contractual mechanism that allows a studio to release its interest in a dormant film project, while recovering costs, plus interest, from any rival that eventually adopts the project. But turnaround is a stacked deck.

The turnaround clauses in a typical contract are also insurance for studio executives who do not want to be humiliated by a competitor who makes a hit out of their castoffs.

I talked about this a couple weeks ago. We knew Warner knew it was time to reap what Fox sat on for 16 years. But in the quote is the real reason besides making money they would not have otherwise made if they did it themselves. It's all about the EGO. EGO is rampant in Hollywood. I talk about this all the time. Projects are made and destroyed by ego.

An ego project

Well these two studios are in the sandbox and Fox had the idea for the sandcastle and Warner built it. I feel like I am repeating myself cause I covered this two weeks ago, but the point I wanted to bring up is that no one is going to win in this situation. Fox will destroy itself through this childish behavior. They want to have a 20 million dollar settlement for a film they only had lunch over. Like I said before, it's blood money. But what I didn't say is that greed never wins. Every film that has been made from ego and greed has flopped. Heaven's Gate, Pluto Nash, Golden Compass, Battlefield Earth Robin Hood, Waterworld. the list goes on. All these films were made from Hollywood ego and greed and it never wins. It never will. The highest grossing film ever Titanic was made by two Studios, Fox and Paramount. Two studio collaboration. They bet on each other to win and everyone succeeded. So why can't Fox and Warner learn from this success? EGO!

The whole top ten list is made from creativity. ET, Passion of the Christ (#12 actually) Star Wars, Shrek 2, Spider Man, these films stemmed from love of the project. This film Watchmen is already suffering from greed. How do we know for sure? Well otherwise there would be no debate. Things would have been done correctly. There are thousands of very intelligent lawyers in Hollywood. I highly doubt someone missed this fine print. It's impossible for anyone to miss it. That means a lot of people knew before and after the film was made and the studios still went ahead with blood sucking each other.

Well basically Watchmen is doomed for failure. I could be totally wrong, but from what I know about greed, this project does not look good. It does not look like an inspired project or a fun project to watch. In fact I think Warner knows that it will be a flop and undo all the money that The Dark Knight made for them. Fox may know this and they may be doing this to mess with Warner's bottom line. Warner just had the best summer of their lives, Fox may very well want to screw that up. I believe that. I hope that this project reminds everyone that greed always fails. We can only pray it sinks in. Until tomorrow, let's talk film.