Read Online What Just Happened? by Art Linson - Free Book Online

trying.’
    Let’s just say for now that Rothman, after receiving his new promotion, was short on humility. He did not share this disease alone. After all, when you get ‘chosen,’ you contract the same virus that everyone else gets in Hollywood when presented with some power. You think you
know
. Before the marketplace gets the chance to punish you, really punish you, you actually believe you’re onto something. You know what works. You were born with it. Within a short time, however, you’re hopelessly bedridden, just praying that one of the giant directors will come along and revive
Planet of the Apes 4
or
Star Wars 6
or
Terminator 3
and save your sorry ass. If that doesn’t work, you’re on the phone with Robin Williams’s agent begging him to get Robin to put the multiflowered dress back on and play an older woman one more time. Once one of those tent poles gets released, Rothman and his ilk will be front and center, crowing about their newfound legacy, the legacy they had nothing to do with, hoping not to be found out. Murdoch has shown a knack for seeing through that charade.
    Early proclamations of making pictures with integrity, support for new directors, or the need to be progressive soon fades like cheap designer jeans. It is more than just an exhaustion of fresh ideas; it is the sticky fear of taking a risk. In less than a year, the executive’s appetite to be a pioneer is replaced by the desperation to hold on to an overpriced job – hold on, no matter what. Fortunately, since Mechanic and Chernin were still running the show, Rothman’s early pontifications proved to be an annoying but minor inconvenience.
    For me, I had to get a cast and secure a director, or
Bookworm
wasn’t going to get made.
    â€˜Do you know why you are rapidly losing the hair on your ankles?’
Dustin Hoffman asked me, noticing I was not wearing socks.
    â€˜No. Not really,’ I said, glancing at my feet.
    â€˜You’re getting older.’
    â€˜Oh.’
    â€˜It’s a genetic thing.’
    â€˜Interesting.’
    â€˜Loss of testosterone, really.’
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜It doesn’t happen to everyone.’
    â€˜Can something be done?’
    â€˜I’m afraid not.’
    â€˜Nothing?’
    â€˜I don’t think so.’
    I looked over at Lee Tamahori, wondering if he knew how to shift the focus of the conversation. We were entering into the second hour of our meeting with Dustin, and we still hadn’t gotten to the script. Lee returned the look as if to say, ‘Is this how you guys do it up here?’ Preliminary small talk was taking on a new meaning.
    Lee, a Kiwi, had recently directed his first movie,
Once Were Warriors
, a spirited tale of a Maori family dealing with contemporary life in urban New Zealand. This spirited, raw, hard-edged movie with an emotionally aching core had become the highest-grossingfilm in New Zealand’s history. After seeing the movie, I sent
Bookworm
to Lee and was buoyed by his interest. The studio, because of the sizzle that
Once Were Warriors
had created, was cautiously encouraging us to get a couple of ‘stars’; only then, they implied, would they fund the movie. No guarantees, but so far so good.
    We met with Mechanic and Jacobson to make cast lists. Jacobson could not, at the time, have known that the guillotine was inches from his neck, the lever having already been pulled. We were there to ask: Who were the key actors who could play an aging, wealthy bookworm? Who were the key actors who could play a younger fashion photographer intent on stealing the bookworm’s money and wife? These lists did not necessarily include the ‘best’ actor for the job. For example, Robert Duvall may be a brilliant casting choice for the bookworm, but when the computer tallies up his recent box office wreckage, he may not be considered as good a business choice as Bill Cosby. Trying to create a