When the Star Gets Fired

 

There’s an influential Hollywood website called The Ankler. It gets its name from “ankling”, a word coined by Variety, the ancient Bible of the business side of show business. Someone who “ankles” a studio is laid off, but leaves under their own power; a normal, unemotional job separation. The opposite, in Variety-ese, is getting “axed”—flat out fired, and escorted off the studio lot by security, with dueling lawyers sure to follow. It doesn’t often happen to the stars, but when it does, it’s a big, public, messy deal. This is particularly true when an entire show is shaped around them: Charlie Sheen, Jeremy Clarkson, and Roseanne Barr are recent examples. We’ll get to them.

Some actors are fired because of problems they caused on the set. Others, simply because they were miscast to begin with, or couldn’t seem to give the performance that the film or TV show needed. And with many others it simply came down to money.

On-set misbehavior got Clayne Crawford fired from the Lethal Weapon TV series, where he played Riggs, the character that Mel Gibson played in the film. Most of the show’s crew quietly applauded the move, but there is a contingent of Team Crawford that attributes the firing to reverse discrimination and political correctness. After all, they point out, his black co-star, Damon Wayans, was no shrinking violet either.

Wayans, not considered one of the warmest or friendliest of actors, was chilly and remote with co-workers, but professional. He knew his lines, hit his marks and went back to his trailer. By contrast, Crawford had screaming fits, one of them in full view of the public while the show was filming local locations. Christian Bale got away with it on the Terminator: Salvation set, but power-wise, Clayne Crawford is no Christian Bale.

A famous early case of on-set problems was Steven Hill, the first leader of the Mission: Impossible team. Show creator Bruce Geller fought to cast him; Desilu’s empress, Lucille Ball, had her doubts. Hill brought an impressively dark and brooding presence to the role. But he began to cause production to fall behind schedule because of his increasing observance of strict Jewish laws. He had to leave early on Fridays before sunset, a problem for filming as daylight hours dwindled in the winter. He wanted special linings sewn into his on-camera wardrobe. The demands started to raise hackles, which Hill interpreted as hostility to his religious faith.

The irony, of course, is he was surrounded by other Jews—Geller, Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, all of the writers, not to mention most of Desilu—who got fed up with him. There are common-sense exceptions to Sabbath rules for people whose roles in society require it—policemen, soldiers, doctors. By the Sixties, Hollywood’s large Jewish community had managed the issue for a half century, at least for Conservative and Reform Jews. But that wasn’t good enough for hyper-observant Steven Hill, so he was replaced by Peter Graves.

Sometimes it’s not the actor’s fault: they were miscast. Though it’s forgotten now, in 1975 Robert De Niro was fired from a movie that had already started shooting, Bogart Slept Here. According to Neil Simon, De Niro was a fine actor who simply wasn’t funny. Simon was able to rewrite the script, which two years later became The Goodbye Girl.

A similar case that’s much more familiar is Eric Stoltz’s firing from Back to the Future. This was a very difficult decision because it was six weeks into filming, requiring much of it to be totally redone. Sets had to be rebuilt, supporting actors brought back. It’s hard to find another example of a reshoot that major that doesn’t involve the sudden death of an actor, or an actor’s involvement in serious offscreen criminal scandal, like All the Money in the World and Kevin Spacey, or Frogman with O.J. Simpson.

It was also painful because there were no outside causes to blame, no diplomatic way to avoid the fact that Stoltz’s performance was the problem. And by all accounts it was a good performance; Christopher Lloyd (Doc) and Tom Wilson (Biff) attest to it. But it wasn’t funny, not even a little bit. Stoltz saw it as a straightforward science fiction story with a wistful, dreamlike Fifties setting. Bob Zemeckis, Bob Gale, and Steven Spielberg made one of the gutsiest decisions of their careers, and the results back them up.

Some actors are replaced over money disputes, and in those cases, making after-the-fact judgments about whether they were quit, fired, jumped or pushed is often harder. Crispin Glover (“George McFly”) didn’t come back to BTTF II, Richard Castellano (“fat Clemenza”) didn’t come back to The Godfather Part II, and Robert Duvall didn’t come back to The Godfather Part III, because the studio wouldn’t meet their salary demands.

Ditto Suzanne Somers (Three’s Company), Farrah Fawcett-Majors (Charlie’s Angels), Melina Kanakaredes (CSI:NY). In a rare case of the actors winning, the original Duke boys on The Dukes of Hazzard quit/were fired and replaced, but the ratings suffered so badly that they got rehired. But usually, the actors lose. George Eads and Jorja Fox tried it on CSI and came back without a raise. Hawaii Five-O’s Grace Park and Daniel Dae Kim provocatively added a race card to their salary fight, but still lost.

Then there are star replacements that, deservedly or not, became public relations trainwrecks. Usually it’s a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back type of thing. Charlie Sheen was known to be trouble long before he was signed to star in Two and a Half Men. His character in that show, Charlie Harper, is a caricature of an amiable Malibu celebrity known chiefly for drinking, gambling, and bedding lots of women. In other words, he was playing himself.

Show creator Chuck Lorre knew that it was a calculated risk working with someone with Charlie’s erratic behavior, but for the first couple of years Sheen kept his real-life drug use and whoring off the front pages. Finally, he couldn’t resist testing the limits and exceeding them. Yet he was the star, and the role was him. What could Chuck do?

He fired him. Lorre knew that it would be tough to keep the show going with someone else. But at a certain point, he had to take the chance. He rolled the dice with Ashton Kutcher playing a different character, and won four more years of life for his show.

Jeremy Clarkson is a slightly different case; he isn’t an actor. Well, not really, although like fellow Brit reality show king Simon Cowell, Clarkson’s forceful personality made him a TV star. He had every reason to think he was the indispensable centerpiece of his show, Top Gear. But he was so obnoxious to his bosses, not to mention the show’s staff, that after a few too many wearying fights, they canned him. Yes, they knew it would be hard to retain a good part of the show’s audience without Clarkson. But after a certain point, the producers emphatically decided “life is too short”, far too short to keep putting up with him, so they came to a parting of the ways.

Both Sheen and Clarkson recovered, going right on to other, similarly-themed shows, Anger Management and The Grand Tour (and now Clarkson’s Farm) respectively. By all accounts, this time they showed up on time and did their jobs professionally. This can be taken as a rebuke to the people who fired them: See, you idiots, if you’d treated me right to begin with, I would have behaved. But it can also be read as the performer ruefully facing reality: If I hadn’t been a jerk, I’d still have that show. Probably there’s some of both.

In May 2018, there was the bizarre, out of nowhere drama of the ABC television network versus Roseanne Barr.

Barr sent an arguably racist Tweet about Valerie Jarrett, by then the all-but-obscure chief advisor to Barack Obama. Actually, it wasn’t just arguable: it was offensive, but cryptic enough to possibly skate by with excuses about sleeping pills or supposedly hacked phones. By 2018 Jarrett did seem a peculiar subject for a drug-hazed, multi-multi-millionairess TV star to be obsessing about at two in the morning. Unfortunately, for a crucial couple of days Roseanne wouldn’t back down. “I’m a comedian!” But she wasn’t making a discernable joke.

Yes, the wokesters had it in for her. No surprise. But the key thing is the normies didn’t see a reason why they should jump to her defense. Roseanne made a big splash with her newly revived show, but it was season one; she hadn’t rebuilt a mass audience yet.

Hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake, for Roseanne and for ABC, but the network was too stiff-necked to quickly work out a backstage agreement, and Barr was too stiff-necked to make a real apology. She finally did after it was too late. For example, she could have made a well-publicized 3-week retreat to a rehab clinic, re-emerge in public life at the end of the month with an Oprah interview, and make a $50,000 contribution to a women’s group fighting Ambien addiction. There were plenty of ways she could have handled it and kept her show. But Roseanne was too much of an egomaniac to do any of that. She misjudged her strength and lost.

Some stray facts had a strong role in how this played out. It was the end of May, almost at the very end of the TV season, and before much had been done to prepare the next one. In short, strategically it was the weakest time of the year for any star to press her luck against a network, because season one’s production was about to shut down anyway and the show wasn’t due back on the air for three months.

Also, ABC wasn’t just any old network. It was a relatively small, if highly visible, part of The Walt Disney Company. Embarrassing problems can affect the image and income of the entire company, from theme parks to cruise ships, as it has learned to its chagrin. ABC likes to present itself as the family network, just as the CW features teenagers, and NBC favors urban singles. ABC has also made an effort to be perceived as the most black-friendly of broadcast networks. The head of programming was black. None of this was unknown to Roseanne. Once the Tweet became public—that is, instantly—ABC didn’t have the option of ignoring it.

Every time an actor is fired, there’s a whole branch of alternate reality: how different casting would have sometimes led to a different cultural reality. Suppose there had been no Archie Bunker. The real world of America’s 1970s was changed by the success of All in the Family and its offshoots. The real world of America’s 2020s could have been changed by the success of Roseanne, which was beginning to emerge as something unique, something different; a show set between the coasts with three-dimensional characters who earned laughs by acting out seldom acknowledged truths.

There was already an example of how to handle the situation. When Valerie Harper quit Valerie, she didn’t expect the studio and the network to be able to continue as Valerie’s Family, and then The Hogan Family. But they did. So it wasn’t unprecedented for ABC to take Roseanne and simply turn it into The Connor Family.

I wish there was a happy ending to the story. At the time, it looked like it might have turned into a case of “go woke, go broke”, but it didn’t: The Connor Family just got renewed for a fifth season.

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  1. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    Being Jewish and/or supporting Israel is the most ordinary thing in the world in Hollywood, and the city of Los Angeles generally. Roseanne gets no bonus points for that. 

    Being Jewish might be the most ordinary thing in the world in Hollywood, but supporting Israel isn’t.  Nor in New York and many other places.

    • #61
  2. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    Being Jewish and/or supporting Israel is the most ordinary thing in the world in Hollywood, and the city of Los Angeles generally. Roseanne gets no bonus points for that.

    Being Jewish might be the most ordinary thing in the world in Hollywood, but supporting Israel isn’t. Nor in New York and many other places.

    If we defined New York as the Disinvestment Caucus at the Columbia University Student Union, yes. But the city as a whole, just counting the five boroughs, has somewhere around 1.5 million Jewish residents. Los Angeles, home of Hollywood, is home to about 550,000 Jews. (IIRC, Miami’s Jewish population is roughly equal to L.A.’s.)

    They are not, by and large, a self-loathing bunch of people. Some don’t support Israel, but the majority who do are Israel’s biggest supporters, politically and financially, in the world. 

    • #62
  3. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    What Tom Cruise didn’t realize, what few people at the time realized back then, is YouTube made it possible to make someone’s over-the-top moments instantly available to everyone and permanent. It changed the way people behave on camera, because even a slight misjudgment, or a one time misreading the room, became your most prominent moment ever. 

    That’s not the half of it.  Just like Bill Clinton, Tom Cruise killed a woman:

    • #63
  4. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Best “Oprah” video:

     

    • #64
  5. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    And for good measure, “Dr Phil”:

     

    • #65
  6. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    They are not, by and large, a self-loathing bunch of people. Some don’t support Israel, but the majority who do are Israel’s biggest supporters, politically and financially, in the world. 

    The share of the Jewish vote that goes to the Democrats would tend to argue against the “politically” part of that.

     

    • #66
  7. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Franco (View Comment):

    I think Roseanne Barr was a special case. First, she insulted an insider of the Obama administration. The ‘monkey’ reference is the worst comparison because it implies sub-human. However in Planet of the Apes, the apes were the sophisticated educated intelligencia and the humans were primitive and ignorant.
    But what’s always most important is who is doing the insulting or making the gaffe.

    I think it’s useful to make the distinction of ‘saying something racist’ versus being a racist. One could accidentally say something ‘racist’ and not be a racist at all.

    This is the case with Roseanne Barr. She didn’t know Valerie Jarret was a POC. She thought she was white.

    But if you look into Roseanne’s history, you will find her record of being very close with some fairly rebellious black guys and gals, in other words, not Ben Carson and Tim Scott types. Roseanne is very close to being a Progressive and anti-Republican in general, more a Ron Paul type, and ultimately, someone who has good things to say about Trump.

    This was her biggest transgression. She and her show were normalizing Trump voters. This was something they hated. And the show was making light of political differences we have become so familiar with. This could not continue. They want division. It’s obvious to me, anyway.

    That the show was #1 on all networks made them all the more zealous in cancellation.

    As far as how Roseanne bar handled this incident, I no longer judge PR responses to overwhelming condemnation and mass social shaming. There is no way to overcome that kind of onslaught.

    She’s also Jewish ( I think) and concerned for Israel regarding Iran. (My God, this was a perfect storm!)

    She’s always been a somewhat crazy gal. I trashed her on Ricochet for her National Anthem travesty years ago..

    Can’t we just celebrate who she is rather than trying to read her mind?

    So if we can determine she’s not a racist, then the tweet should not be interpreted as an attack. Her explanation should suffice.

    It is them deliberately misunderstanding.

    That’s a careful and intelligent defense, Franco, better than any that Roseanne herself came up with at the time, but…nah, I’m not buying it. During the Gulf War, when an Arab paper depicted Condoleeza Rice as an ape, I don’t recall that we went out of our way to call it a disguised compliment. Because it wasn’t. And it wasn’t here either. I agree that she’s not a conservative, never has been.

    There’s a certain point where you can’t deduce that Mel Gibson’s drunken rant shows that he really loves the Jews, or Stephen Colbert’s offensive anti-American jokes show that he’s really the biggest patriot on TV. Sometimes you have to take people at face value.

    I’ve never met Roseanne Barr. I don’t know what’s in her heart of hearts. I have to go by her actions, because that’s all I can know about her. I’m not calling her a racist. I’m saying she made a racist Tweet. That’s my common sense reading of what she wrote. That was most people’s reading of it. That’s why there wasn’t a backlash; the normies didn’t rush to her defense because that’s the way they read it.

    Being Jewish and/or supporting Israel is the most ordinary thing in the world in Hollywood, and the city of Los Angeles generally. Roseanne gets no bonus points for that.

    If we’re going to say that The Powers that Be wanted her off the air By Any Means Necessary, then we also have to conclude that Roseanne herself must be in on the conspiracy, because she set this in motion and could have stopped it within days.

    She messed up. It doesn’t make her an untouchable human being. But it doesn’t make her a victim either.

    Anyway, thanks for a thoughtful comment. I weighed some of these ideas before I wrote the post, but I decided that she couldn’t just get a Get Out of Jail Free card.

    One thing that struck me was that Valerie Jarrett actually resembles the female lead in Planet of the Apes in her makeup – I saw a side by side comparison, and I could imagine making that remark… at least if I was somewhat drunk.  This is one of the many reasons I am not on twitter.

    People compare the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, to Groot from the Guardians of the Galaxy or a zombie because of her sunken eyes.  It’s insulting, definitely, but it is not racist.

    • #67
  8. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Franco (View Comment):

    I think Roseanne Barr was a special case. First, she insulted an insider of the Obama administration. The ‘monkey’ reference is the worst comparison because it implies sub-human. However in Planet of the Apes, the apes were the sophisticated educated intelligencia and the humans were primitive and ignorant.
    But what’s always most important is who is doing the insulting or making the gaffe.

    I think it’s useful to make the distinction of ‘saying something racist’ versus being a racist. One could accidentally say something ‘racist’ and not be a racist at all.

    This is the case with Roseanne Barr. She didn’t know Valerie Jarret was a POC. She thought she was white.

    But if you look into Roseanne’s history, you will find her record of being very close with some fairly rebellious black guys and gals, in other words, not Ben Carson and Tim Scott types. Roseanne is very close to being a Progressive and anti-Republican in general, more a Ron Paul type, and ultimately, someone who has good things to say about Trump.

    This was her biggest transgression. She and her show were normalizing Trump voters. This was something they hated. And the show was making light of political differences we have become so familiar with. This could not continue. They want division. It’s obvious to me, anyway.

    That the show was #1 on all networks made them all the more zealous in cancellation.

    As far as how Roseanne bar handled this incident, I no longer judge PR responses to overwhelming condemnation and mass social shaming. There is no way to overcome that kind of onslaught.

    She’s also Jewish ( I think) and concerned for Israel regarding Iran. (My God, this was a perfect storm!)

    She’s always been a somewhat crazy gal. I trashed her on Ricochet for her National Anthem travesty years ago..

    Can’t we just celebrate who she is rather than trying to read her mind?

    So if we can determine she’s not a racist, then the tweet should not be interpreted as an attack. Her explanation should suffice.

    It is them deliberately misunderstanding.

    That’s a careful and intelligent defense, Franco, better than any that Roseanne herself came up with at the time, but…nah, I’m not buying it. During the Gulf War, when an Arab paper depicted Condoleeza Rice as an ape, I don’t recall that we went out of our way to call it a disguised compliment. Because it wasn’t. And it wasn’t here either. I agree that she’s not a conservative, never has been.

    There’s a certain point where you can’t deduce that Mel Gibson’s drunken rant shows that he really loves the Jews, or Stephen Colbert’s offensive anti-American jokes show that he’s really the biggest patriot on TV. Sometimes you have to take people at face value.

    I’ve never met Roseanne Barr. I don’t know what’s in her heart of hearts. I have to go by her actions, because that’s all I can know about her. I’m not calling her a racist. I’m saying she made a racist Tweet. That’s my common sense reading of what she wrote. That was most people’s reading of it. That’s why there wasn’t a backlash; the normies didn’t rush to her defense because that’s the way they read it.

    Being Jewish and/or supporting Israel is the most ordinary thing in the world in Hollywood, and the city of Los Angeles generally. Roseanne gets no bonus points for that.

    If we’re going to say that The Powers that Be wanted her off the air By Any Means Necessary, then we also have to conclude that Roseanne herself must be in on the conspiracy, because she set this in motion and could have stopped it within days.

    She messed up. It doesn’t make her an untouchable human being. But it doesn’t make her a victim either.

    Anyway, thanks for a thoughtful comment. I weighed some of these ideas before I wrote the post, but I decided that she couldn’t just get a Get Out of Jail Free card.

    One thing that struck me was that Valerie Jarrett actually resembles the female lead in Planet of the Apes in her makeup – I saw a side by side comparison, and I could imagine making that remark… at least if I was somewhat drunk. This is one of the many reasons I am not on twitter.

    People compare the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, to Groot from the Guardians of the Galaxy or a zombie because of her sunken eyes. It’s insulting, definitely, but it is not racist.

    That is insulting. Groot is more articulate.

    • #68
  9. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    A closely related topic is Hollywood lawsuits, generally for the purposes of coercion (to live up to a signed contract) or punishment (for failing to). Most of these civil suits are settled before they go to court, but every once in a while, the studio is so pissed off they pursue it to the bitter end. 

    Mike Myers is an example. After getting paid to write a script based on “Sprockets”, his recurring sketch on SNL, he refused to do the film. Universal got him laughed out of court, and just about laughed out of his career with a lengthy statement of what it was like working with him. Here’s a sample: “Defendant Myers claims that this script is so poor that acting in the film would do permanent damage to his reputation. Who wrote the script? Myers.”

    • #69
  10. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Roseanne’s tweet reminded me of 2006, when Virginia’s Senator George Allen was on camera calling someone “Macaca! Welcome to Virginia!”  The young man he was talking to was, of course, from Virginia, which Allen was not. It didn’t make Allen look racist…not exactly. It made him look moronic, and independents left him by the thousands. 

     

    • #70
  11. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Roseanne’s tweet reminded me of 2006, when Virginia’s Senator George Allen was on camera calling someone “Macaca! Welcome to Virginia!” The young man he was talking to was, of course, from Virginia, which Allen was not. It didn’t make Allen look racist…not exactly. It made him look moronic, and independents left him by the thousands.

     

    Yeah, and I suspect that 95% of Americans had never heard of the term.

    • #71
  12. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Tom Cruise got his career back after a rough patch, like the jumping on Oprah’s couch incident. Mel Gibson got his career back after drunkenly denouncing the Jews. In both cases it took a few years. The process is nicknamed “being sent to Movie Jail”, and it also applies to less public meltdowns, such as having a film that really, really flops. Director Paul Feig found himself in lesser demand after helming “Lady” Ghostbusters in 2016. Marty Brest hasn’t directed another film since Gigli in 2003. 

    • #72
  13. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Tom Cruise got his career back after a rough patch, like the jumping on Oprah’s couch incident. Mel Gibson got his career back after drunkenly denouncing the Jews. In both cases it took a few years. The process is nicknamed “being sent to Movie Jail”, and it also applies to less public meltdowns, such as having a film that really, really flops. Director Paul Feig found himself in lesser demand after helming “Lady” Ghostbusters in 2016. Marty Brest hasn’t directed another film since Gigli in 2003.

    But those were just awful ideas from the start, yet the director takes the blame?

    • #73
  14. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Tom Cruise got his career back after a rough patch, like the jumping on Oprah’s couch incident. Mel Gibson got his career back after drunkenly denouncing the Jews. In both cases it took a few years. The process is nicknamed “being sent to Movie Jail”, and it also applies to less public meltdowns, such as having a film that really, really flops. Director Paul Feig found himself in lesser demand after helming “Lady” Ghostbusters in 2016. Marty Brest hasn’t directed another film since Gigli in 2003.

    I imagine that everyone concerned would like to forget that bomb.  Of course Ben and JLo had some fun…

    • #74
  15. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    CACrabtree (View Comment):

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Roseanne’s tweet reminded me of 2006, when Virginia’s Senator George Allen was on camera calling someone “Macaca! Welcome to Virginia!” The young man he was talking to was, of course, from Virginia, which Allen was not. It didn’t make Allen look racist…not exactly. It made him look moronic, and independents left him by the thousands.

     

    Yeah, and I suspect that 95% of Americans had never heard of the term.

    I hadn’t either. I looked it up; I wasn’t the only one. If you see the clip, you’ll see how he made himself look bad. Allen came out here to raise re-election money from Hollywood conservatives at one of Gary Sinise’s lunches at the Bistro Gardens, near CBS Studio City, where CSI:NY filmed. He struck me as a real phony–cowboy boots, put-on Red State accent. He pretended he didn’t know what a bagel was. But he grew up here; his dad coached here. Somehow that fake, “Ahm jus’ an Amurrican” side of him shined through the macaca clip and I think that, more than anything else, turned off voters. 

    • #75
  16. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Tom Cruise got his career back after a rough patch, like the jumping on Oprah’s couch incident. Mel Gibson got his career back after drunkenly denouncing the Jews. In both cases it took a few years. The process is nicknamed “being sent to Movie Jail”, and it also applies to less public meltdowns, such as having a film that really, really flops. Director Paul Feig found himself in lesser demand after helming “Lady” Ghostbusters in 2016. Marty Brest hasn’t directed another film since Gigli in 2003.

    But those were just awful ideas from the start, yet the director takes the blame?

    Paul Feig and Marty Brest also wrote the screenplays. Sure, the execs who bought the projects deserve firing every bit as much as they did, and maybe they were. As we’ve all heard, failure is an orphan. 

    • #76
  17. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Tom Cruise got his career back after a rough patch, like the jumping on Oprah’s couch incident. Mel Gibson got his career back after drunkenly denouncing the Jews. In both cases it took a few years. The process is nicknamed “being sent to Movie Jail”, and it also applies to less public meltdowns, such as having a film that really, really flops. Director Paul Feig found himself in lesser demand after helming “Lady” Ghostbusters in 2016. Marty Brest hasn’t directed another film since Gigli in 2003.

    In Feig’s case, it wasn’t just the quality of the movie, though that did him no favors. It was the over-the-top way he defended first the trailer (which was excoriated) and then the film. Goodwill isn’t the only kind of will one may accrue.

    • #77
  18. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Percival (View Comment):

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Tom Cruise got his career back after a rough patch, like the jumping on Oprah’s couch incident. Mel Gibson got his career back after drunkenly denouncing the Jews. In both cases it took a few years. The process is nicknamed “being sent to Movie Jail”, and it also applies to less public meltdowns, such as having a film that really, really flops. Director Paul Feig found himself in lesser demand after helming “Lady” Ghostbusters in 2016. Marty Brest hasn’t directed another film since Gigli in 2003.

    In Feig’s case, it wasn’t just the quality of the movie, though that did him no favors. It was the over-the-top way he defended first the trailer (which was excoriated) and then the film. Goodwill isn’t the only kind of will one may accrue.

    You’ve got a good memory! Yes, I agree. If they’d all have shut their mouths about how much better and more inclusive they were than the original, there wouldn’t have been as strong a backlash. Also, they totally misunderstood what made the original film popular. “We’ll prove that women can be kick-ass action heroes! Women can hold up a summer “tentpole” attraction! Because women hold up half the sky!” etc, etc. But 1984’s Ghostbusters wasn’t a superhero movie, and wasn’t even an action movie. It was a quirky, appealing special effects-laden comedy about four loveable social losers with an eccentric small business. 

    • #78
  19. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    I liked Roseanne – and her sequence of shows – but this whole #republicanracistforisrael thing is nuts.  Who did it even help?

    • #79
  20. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    He pretended he didn’t know what a bagel was.

    Unforgivable in my view.  And a bit strange when you can buy (questionable) bagels across the land (even in Australia).

    • #80
  21. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Zafar (View Comment):

    I liked Roseanne – and her sequence of shows – but this whole #republicanracistforisrael thing is nuts. Who did it even help?

    Hi’ya Z! I’ll be happy to answer if you’ll spell that out a little for me. I don’t want your comment to be misconscrewed. 

    • #81
  22. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    I liked Roseanne – and her sequence of shows – but this whole #republicanracistforisrael thing is nuts. Who did it even help?

    Hi’ya Z! I’ll be happy to answer if you’ll spell that out a little for me. I don’t want your comment to be misconscrewed.

    Greetings Mr McVey! 

    I liked Roseanne’s show tremendously.  It seemed authentic in a way that a lot of shows weren’t – by which I mean the way people spoke, their sense of humour, the witticisms they aspired to.  Honestly I think that’s why the show was so popular – it reflected white working class America really really well and it didn’t condescend to it.

    Roseanne’s response to Jarrett was, imo, not thought out or strategic or calculating – it’s how people respond when they believe that something they feel protective of (and maybe defensive about?) is challenged or questioned.  A bit ugly, but completely human.  Did it “help Israel”? I don’t think so.

    • #82
  23. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    He pretended he didn’t know what a bagel was.

    Unforgivable in my view. And a bit strange when you can buy (questionable) bagels across the land (even in Australia).

    In person, he came across as somebody trying to imitate LBJ. A couple of times, when a woman, any woman, got up to leave the room, he’d embarrass her (and himself; maybe mostly himself) by flashing a leering grin and saying “Now, y’all remember to come back here, y’hear?” as if he were the announcer at the end of an episode of Petticoat Junction. I think it was his none-too-subtle way of saying, “I’m a man! A man’s man!”

    He was the luncheon’s guest of honor. But Sinise’s co-host was also a GOP notable–Mike Pence, who did his radio show over the phone. 

    • #83
  24. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    I liked Roseanne – and her sequence of shows – but this whole #republicanracistforisrael thing is nuts. Who did it even help?

    Hi’ya Z! I’ll be happy to answer if you’ll spell that out a little for me. I don’t want your comment to be misconscrewed.

    Greetings Mr McVey!

    I liked Roseanne’s show tremendously. It seemed authentic in a way that a lot of shows weren’t – by which I mean the way people spoke, their sense of humour, the witticisms they aspired to. Honestly I think that’s why the show was so popular – it reflected white working class America really really well and it didn’t condescend to it.

    Roseanne’s response to Jarrett was, imo, not thought out or strategic or calculating – it’s how people respond when they believe that something they feel protective of (and maybe defensive about?) is challenged or questioned. A bit ugly, but completely human. Did it “help Israel”? I don’t think so.

    I don’t think she was posing it as helping Israel, as much as she and her defenders were trying to drag in a cause that was popular, at least in the US, to offset the unpopular reason why she was suddenly in the spotlight. When Harvey Weinstein was about to go down the drain, he whined about how much good he’d done, like fighting the National Rifle Association, which was supposed to activate liberal support for ol’ Harv. It didn’t work. 

    • #84
  25. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Here’s another lawsuit-strewn part of Hollywood hiring: the completion bond. Hard as it is to believe, the stars and directors of every major film have to undergo a medical exam first. Otherwise, the production can’t secure a completion bond, basically a specialized kind of high deductible catastrophe insurance policy that pays out if the film can’t be completed. 

    Sounds straightforward enough. But sometimes it causes problems. Back in the Eighties, when AIDS was still new, actors who were known to be gay were suddenly uninsurable, even if they tested negative for HIV. The completion bond companies, and there are only a handful of them, stood firm. They didn’t have to reveal why actor so-and-so couldn’t be “bonded”. Eventually the threat of having the state government in Sacramento investigating them was enough to get the bond companies out of the don’t ask/don’t tell business. 

    BTW, completion bond companies are the ones who have to deal with films where the star dies mid-picture, like Natalie Wood in Brainstorm, Oliver Reed in Gladiator, or even, way back in the day, James Dean in Giant

    • #85
  26. Dotorimuk Coolidge
    Dotorimuk
    @Dotorimuk

    Lori Lightfoot is Beetlejuice.

    • #86
  27. Clavius Thatcher
    Clavius
    @Clavius

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Here’s another lawsuit-strewn part of Hollywood hiring: the completion bond. Hard as it is to believe, the stars and directors of every major film have to undergo a medical exam first. Otherwise, the production can’t secure a completion bond, basically a specialized kind of high deductible catastrophe insurance policy that pays out if the film can’t be completed.

    Sounds straightforward enough. But sometimes it causes problems. Back in the Eighties, when AIDS was still new, actors who were known to be gay were suddenly uninsurable, even if they tested negative for HIV. The completion bond companies, and there are only a handful of them, stood firm. They didn’t have to reveal why actor so-and-so couldn’t be “bonded”. Eventually the threat of having the state government in Sacramento investigating them was enough to get the bond companies out of the don’t ask/don’t tell business.

    BTW, completion bond companies are the ones who have to deal with films where the star dies mid-picture, like Natalie Wood in Brainstorm, Oliver Reed in Gladiator, or even, way back in the day, James Dean in Giant.

    The bond companies are also a part of the plot in All That Jazz.  Bob Fosse, played by Roy Scheider, has a heart attack during production of the musical, Take Off With Us.  There is a scene with the accountants where they are adding up the costs and comparing it to the insurance payout and the closing line is “You could be the first Broadway show to make a profit without opening.”

     

    • #87
  28. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Dotorimuk (View Comment):

    Lori Lightfoot is Beetlejuice.

    Nope. Beetlejuice is too animated.

    • #88
  29. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Wish the audience could require a completion bond for the movie not dying or skipping town in the third act.

    • #89
  30. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    Clavius (View Comment):

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Here’s another lawsuit-strewn part of Hollywood hiring: the completion bond. Hard as it is to believe, the stars and directors of every major film have to undergo a medical exam first. Otherwise, the production can’t secure a completion bond, basically a specialized kind of high deductible catastrophe insurance policy that pays out if the film can’t be completed.

    Sounds straightforward enough. But sometimes it causes problems. Back in the Eighties, when AIDS was still new, actors who were known to be gay were suddenly uninsurable, even if they tested negative for HIV. The completion bond companies, and there are only a handful of them, stood firm. They didn’t have to reveal why actor so-and-so couldn’t be “bonded”. Eventually the threat of having the state government in Sacramento investigating them was enough to get the bond companies out of the don’t ask/don’t tell business.

    BTW, completion bond companies are the ones who have to deal with films where the star dies mid-picture, like Natalie Wood in Brainstorm, Oliver Reed in Gladiator, or even, way back in the day, James Dean in Giant.

    The bond companies are also a part of the plot in All That Jazz. Bob Fosse, played by Roy Scheider, has a heart attack during production of the musical, Take Off With Us. There is a scene with the accountants where they are adding up the costs and comparing it to the insurance payout and the closing line is “You could be the first Broadway show to make a profit without opening.”

     

    Great movie but thoroughly depressing…

    • #90
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