Script's price can spell `the end'
THIS is a tale of two scripts, one that sold for a ton of money, one that remains twisting in the wind. Both are beautifully written, but in Hollywood, while scripts are prized for great writing, they must also give a studio chief enough ammunition to comfortably answer the question: If I spend $100 million on this, will I be bankrolling a big hit, not a colossal failure?
One script, an adaptation of Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" co-written by "Lord of the Rings" filmmaker Peter Jackson, sold after an intense bidding war to DreamWorks, which will spend close to $70 million for the Jackson-directed film.
The other script, a 1938-era Hollywood thriller written by John Logan ("The Aviator") with Michael Mann attached to direct and Leonardo DiCaprio to star, made the rounds carrying a $120-million price tag. It has yet to sell, though one studio, New Line, remains interested, but only if the cost comes down considerably.
When both scripts turned up on my doorstep, I decided to give them a read in the hopes of answering the questions that have been floating around town the last few weeks: Why did "Lovely Bones" sell for so much money, even though it's a very adult drama about a 14-year-old girl who is brutally raped and murdered? And why is Mann's untitled thriller still unsold, even with a huge movie star in the package?
The reception to the two scripts offers an intriguing glimpse into the way studios view daunting material today, balancing the value of a film's artistic ambition against its box-office potential. This cautious approach is best summarized by Warner Bros. chief Alan Horn, whose studio eventually backed away from both films.
"They are really well-written scripts," he said. "I felt a pang with both projects, because it's so hard to find great material. But it came down to a pricing issue. If the movies were budgeted at $40 million, we would've snatched them up faster than a blueberry muffin. But at the end of the day -- and believe me, it was a long day -- the pictures were just too pricey for us."
One of the big complaints about "Lovely Bones" was its hefty price tag, especially for a film involving the death of a child, not subject matter that packs people into theaters. DreamWorks points to the success of "American Beauty," a strikingly dark film that made $350 million worldwide after its 1999 release. But much of that extra value came from winning a slew of Oscars, a feat hard to predict, much less guarantee.
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