Making Movies is REALLY Expensive 2: The $200M Movie

Further to Derek's relating of the 3-day set-up for a 20 second-shot in the coming Shaggy Dog picture, I have my own recollection of how big movies get to be really expensive.

In a previous incarnation, I dated an independent producer. "Independent" in Hollywood parlance means she didn't have a 3-picture deal with a studio with a $4B market capitalization. The movie she produced was a huge $120M budget thing, starring one $20M star, directed by an A-list director, and had an ensemble cast of no less than 3 already well known actors, plus 2 new hot-faces of the year, and the up-and coming beauty love interest. The movie was shot largely in Hawaii which ain't cheap, but movie people love to work in because -- hey, it's Hawaii. It's kind of like the Keck Telescopes for us astronomers -- also in Hawaii -- it's where you can do your best work, because the facilities are the best and, hey, beaches on the off-hours.

Anyway, after that was all done, I was going to spoken-word nights round LA (mostly the ones hosted by Rachel Kahn ( website ) and I took the opportunity of an open-mic public confessional to express my regrets for done-done relationship. We all move on, but I still like the rhythms from rattling it off.

Comeback
June 2002

I want to die and come back
as a two hundred million dollar movie
Variety-headlined high-five payday
for the freshman team
three-studio deal sharing radioactive risk

to die and come back as a
two hundred million dollar
Woo/Lucas/Raimi/Spielberg film-by
twelve month pre-production, two hundred-day shoot

to die and come back
as a two hundred million dollar
inspired by true events
history never happened
story never told

my sets
bursting with producers
black as absence
my sets bursting with producers assistant
bursting with producers executive
producers associate
producers co-
four Titan producers vanilla plain
and a lonely line, loved by all

a two hundred million dollar
triple trailer double lear-jet stars
production companies that would bankrupt MGM I say
not far these days you say but wait a minute.

two hundred million dollar movie of
locations, locations and locations
Truola Valley Hawaii
Tunisia
New Zealand
Bali St. Basil’s Boise Burundi Big-Ben Bilbao Burbank Soundstage
locations
and a third team shooting three weeks in Columbian civil conflict
two P.A.’s dead.

two hundred million dollar movie of
kraft services with
four meat lunches
roving ice frappuccino
five AM egg-white omelet
thousand dollar daily budget of
Red Bull and Krispy Crème

Two hundred million dollar movie of
gasoline explosions brighter than a billion suns
phosphorus glinting fountains of
twenty million dollar stars tumbling off the tops of skyscrapers
faces disfigured
bubbling skin ripped like cloth from broken fibrous ribs and
beauty violated, beauty lost, beauty stripped like an ashen tarp
balletic violence, gorgeous violence, ultra-violence, anti-violence
p-PG-13 stripped from the folded arms of
Jack Valenti

Two hundred million dollar movie
ruins the Hollywood marriage ignored
the forty-five hundred crew members
all libidinous sweaty, muddy excitement
every night on days
every day on nights
and twice daily on set.

The pre-release buzz
the NPR history on the history of histories
and E!
Discovery Channel, People and Time
covers on the
history of histories.
She, on Madamoiselle
He, a quarterly for gentlemen
Television final week advertising saturation
Ice-cream cross promotion

release

promoted on the profits of
Your Whitest Teeth Tonight of
neck tendons swaddled in three percent body fat of
the newest star on the walk of fame of
Congressional Medals for wartime valor of
That Hollywood/White House screening of
that Hollywood marriage ignored re-fired like phoenix in victory of
that Hollywood marriage ignored exploded by
your whitest teeth tonight by
three percent body fat by
sweaty, muddy days and nights.

And a line, four months long, of 15-year-old cheerleaders
high pitched screeching in the blackest background
of the ten-o’clock live news broadcast.

Two hundred million dollar movie with
digital projection and fifteen thousand screens distribution domestic and

Oh! A one hundred and fifty million dollar opening
with five percent drop off,
legs stretched luxuriously from April to August,
teenagers sprinting into seats,
and seven months along, blue-hairs waddling into matinees, antiquarian
finding an audience hungry for fiction
all because they want to believe
eyes roiling in breathless titilation
true events.