Patrick Stoner welcomes
your questions about movies and the men
and women who make them. Send your questions to
pstoner@whyy.org.
Patrick Stoner welcomes
your questions about movies and the men
and women who make them. Send your questions to
pstoner@whyy.org.
Here's the current question and answer...
The former is a common occurrence. If, for example, Under Seige II seemed like it could have been titled Die Hard on a Boat and Sudden Impact could have been called Die Hard with a Puck, then you're simply recognizing that Hollywood has duplicated a successful formula. This is quite common. It might be something as obvious as the ones above -- sequels with different characters, essentially. Then again, it might just be an age-old formula, as true in theater as it is in film -- just as Hamlet follows the formula of the revenge tragedies that date back to the Greeks and Romans. Some formulas simply work so well with audiences that you will see them used, reworked and reused.
Then, of course, there are the genuine coincidences: Concepts based on generally circulating themes that erupt all over at about the same time. This might be called the "movie-of-the-week phenomenon" where the story about O.J., Tanya, Zsa Zsa, or the Unabomber can be created quickly on TV. Less urgent concepts in this area -- like the 500th anniversary voyage of the guy who sailed the ocean blue -- gave you at least one too many Columbus films not long ago.
There is another trend that is unique to films--and perhaps to Hollywood films, in particular. This is what you've noticed when there seemed to be a plethora of Wyatt Earp films, or even transvestite travel sagas. Without making any specific accusations in those cases, it's nonetheless worth noting how projects get done in Hollywood. You don't have to read it here; just rent Robert Altman's The Player, forget the murder mystery aspect, and just absorb the most accurate behind-the-scenes view that's ever been made.
Here's a typical Hollywood movie tale, starring "you:" You have an idea. You "pitch" it to a studio or someone with the power and money to "greenlight" the project. The concept--usually pitched in about 25 words--may be accepted or rejected. You may have a script. You may get an option (which sounds like it must mean your project will get made but really means you're not able to get it made anywhere else until the option runs out). You'll certainly hear a lot of nice words (Hollywood is a passive/aggressive town--seldom is heard a discouraging word, to your face). Your concept may even eventually make it to the big screen. Time will almost certainly pass before that happens--much more time than will seem reasonable to you. When it opens, it may not look very much like the idea you once described and pictured.
In the meantime, during that time lapse, your concept might find itself being discussed in other places. Its parentage is soon forgotten. It gets adjusted and "improved." Perhaps the group here moves faster than your "official" group, and this project gets released first. You would then have the difficult job of proving that your idea, which still wasn't in the movie houses, was the original concept, and this now-familiar film was really the interloper.
These arguments get nasty and expensive, as the people involved in the films While You Were Sleeping (a reasonable hit last year) and Mrs. Winterbourne (which opens next week) could tell you. Both appear to be derived from a similar source, although the former is about a woman who lets herself be mistaken for the girlfriend of a guy in a coma and the latter is about a woman who lets herself be mistaken for the wife of an acquaintance who died in a train wreck. The courts may eventually decide that one.
Meanwhile, the Hollywood lunches at the Four Seasons continue. The pitches are thrown; the rumors circulate; the players maneuver. Don't be surprised if there's more than one film about naked skydivers landing on talk show hosts next year. I already overheard that idea...