Proof of Hollywood Blacklisting
To Whom It May Concern (or Interest):I recently received the May 2003 issue of WIRED magazine,
which contained the following article concerning the current
high-tech abilities Hollywood has at their full disposal to
effectively blacklist any actor, director, producer, or script. I
felt that given Sean Penn’s current situation that it was
appropriate to post this article here, so knowledge of these
practices can be spread as far and wide as possible.This style of blacklisting is similar to what I suspected when I
posted the article “WHY DB GETS NO RESPECT FROM THE
LABEL” some time ago. If this exists in one industry --- and
we have the documentation right here --- then it is likely to
exist in industries beyond Hollywood feature films. It was
because of the knowledge of practices such as these ---
which may be the REAL REASON why David saw his last
release tank in a pretty spectacular flameout. According to
sales figures that I received from a label rep, HCTNFU sold
less than 10,000 copies during its’ initial release, and to this
day, still hasn’t broken that barrier. Read the following article, and understand that there are
many more layers to life beyond what we are allowed to see.
It literally surrounds us everywhere we turn. Are you brave
or aware enough to see it for what it really is?I would certainly be interested in knowing what Mr. Penn
would have by means of a comment on this matter --- as I
imagine that since he is one of the top-tier actors, he must
certainly know about the existence of such a repugnant
system.In fact, because of his courageous pro-peace political stance,
it is likely the tracking boards may be something of which he
is already intimately familiar.Thank You . . .“To Live And Die In L.A.”
by Ben MezrichInformation leaks, bid-rigging, pumping and dumping.
Just another day inside the secret network that will
make or break you in Hollywood.
I am at a party, and it’s as crowded as it is glamorous.
Elbowing my way to the balcony for a breath of fresh air, I
gaze down at the unreal scene below: fur coats draped over
pink tank tops, sable hoods dyed to match, Gucci boots with
impossibly high heels, designer cell phones in waterproof
holsters, pashmina scarves, sunglasses hanging from
platinum straps. Nobody seems to care that its’ 30 degrees
outside, with a stiff wind sweeping down from the
mountains. There’s enough star power here to keep
everyone warm: Matt Damon, Tobey Maguire, Kate Hudson,
J. Lo, Ben Affleck.“Welcome to fucking Sundance,” somebody next to me says.
I turn to see Dana Brunetti, who’s also watching the crowd.
Brunetti is a producer with TriggerStreet.com, Kevin
Spacey’s production company. He’s the reason I was able to
get past the black-clad goon at the door.The truth is, I don’t belong here. I am not a Hollywood
player. I am a writer from Boston, a novelist and occasional
journalist. Over the past few years, like a million other
struggling writers out there, I have chased the dream of
breaking into the movie business. I’ve collected hundreds of
rejection slips from agents, producers, and studios. Recently,
all this changed. I wrote an article last year called “Hacking
Las Vegas” (WIRED 10.09), and the next thing I know I’m
being approached to turn it into a movie starring Spacey.
(We’re in the very early stages of negotiating a deal.) I want
to believe that Hollywood sat up and took notice of my talent
and hard work. But I’ve head rumors that have made me
question my confidence --- whispers of a dirty little industry
practice thathas brought me here to Utah on a mission both
personal and journalistic.I’ve been tipped to the network of semisecret cyberhallways,
called tracking boards, that are open only to the most elite
power players in the industry. In simplest terms, these
boards are sophisticated chat rooms and BBSes where high-
level executives at various studios trade information about
potential projects.They may seem innocuous at first glance, but the boards are
where a writer meets his fate. Before a script goes out, it
either gets deep-sixed or hyped up. Often, it’s said, execs will
go online and leak privileged information or even lie about
projects in order to drive prices up --- or down. If the rumors
are true, it means that the fix is in: major collusions
between studios, arbitrary blackballing, a system that mocks
any standard of fair play. It’s not just scripts --- books,
directors, even actors are tracked.I need more than rumors, so I have arranged a rendezvous
with a tracker. She’s here, wedged between two frumpy
screenwriters and a director with a shaved head. She’s a tall,
striking brunette with pouty lips and oil spills for eyes. As I
approach, she shakes free and beckons me toward a quiet
alcove near the coatroom.“If you use my name,” she says by way of a greeting, “I’ll
have lawyers all over you.”She knows why I have asked for a meeting. She’s talking to
me as a favor to Brunetti, but she’s defensive. She’s an exec
herself, a director of development at a studio synonymous
with Oscar-quality fare. She --- and people like her --- control
the purse strings that make movies possible.“I am NOT kidding,” she continues. “I could get fired for
talking about this.”She takes a breath, then plunges in. “Bottom line,” she
says, gesturing to the scene around us, “all of this starts
with the boards. You’ve heard of the herd mentality, right?
How no decisions in Hollywood are made independently? A
project that’s interesting to one studio is interesting to all
studios; likewise, a project with one detractor is dead with
everyone. Well, the tracking boards are the herd mentality
gone digital.”One detractor? A single, semi-anonymous comment can sink
a script? I’d heard as much from others writers but assumed
it was just the fruit of febrile imaginations --- or sour grapes.
But here was the woman who signs the checks, confirming
my paranoia.“If you get behind a project that nobody else wants and it
fails, you’re fucked. If you buy a project that everyone
wants, you’re at the front of the herd,” she explains. I know
she catches the expression that flashes across my face,
because she pauses briefly before continuing in a low voice.
“This business runs on fear,” she says, “and the tracking
boards give that fear a voice.”I look around the room --- at the stars, writers, directors,
producers --- and for a moment, I can actually see the
system at play. A positive track leads to a heated auction, a
seven-figure deal, a blockbuster movie --- not to mention
parties at Sundance. But more likely, the trackers conspire
to end your Hollywood career before it gets off the ground.“If you’re dead on the tracking boards,” the executive
whispers, “you’re dead in this business.”
Back in L.A., I decide to dig a little deeper. Acting on a tip, I
find what I’m looking for in a black glass building in Santa
Monica. There’s no lobby: It’s just a stack of Spartan offices
that rises high into the smoggy sky. Rafi Gordon, president
of Baseline-Film-Tracker, and Alex Amin, executive vice
president, are waiting for me when the elevator doors open
on the fifth floor. They’re young, bright, and shiny in that LA
way, affable and smiling. They introduce themselves as they
lead me through their office.Five years ago, there were just a few homegrown tracking
boards in Hollywood; today, there are many, but they are all
managed by Gordon and Amin. FilmTracker’s parent
company, Hollywood Media Corporation, specializes in
industry-specific databases --- film credits, bios, and the like -
-- but the glamour end of the operation is the by-invitation-
only boards. They’re kept small by necessity. Membership is
strictly controlled. Any time a new studio executive,
producer, or development person is hired, one of the first
things they do is try to sign on to a board. They’re let in
either by a democratic vote or an administrator who decides
if the applicant is qualified. “We have the tracking-board
business pretty much cornered,” Amin says.“I think we’re up to 200 separate boards now, tracking over
2,000 projects,” Gordon adds, as we reach a corner office.
They shut the door behind me. Amin takes a position at a
computer on one side of a cluttered desk, Gordon by the
window. “In the beginning,” Amin explains, “there was this
very rudimentary message board started by a guy named
Roy Lee. I was at MGM at the time, about 1997 --- hell, we
didn’t even have e-mail or Internet capability --- and Roy
started this service that was basically just a bulletin board.
People would add comments to a text stream about spec
material that was going out for auction.”Spec material --- original projects in either script or
treatment form --- are the lottery tickets of the movie
industry. Unlike assigned projects, which are always given to
established screenwriters, spec material can come from
almost any source: unknowns, wannabes, even novelists like
me. Through spec auctions, new projects and writers are
introduced to Hollywood. When a studio buys a spec, a
career begins.“Around 1999,” Amin continues, “about 12 major-studio
junior execs --- me included --- got together. We wanted
something more sophisticated. We wanted to be able to
search for the info we needed, to keep archives, to do this
quickly. So we built ScriptTracker --- which eventually
became FilmTracker, a central web site where tracking
boards are managed and maintained.”While he’s talking, he’s hitting keys on the computer in front
of him. I can’t see the screen, just the blue-green reflection
in his eyes. “And who uses these boards?” I ask, looking
from Amin to his boss. “Pretty much anyone who has any
power,” Amin answers. “From the top levels down to the
junior execs. Studio VPs, heads of development, producers,
buyers, sellers, and assistants. They pay anywhere from $15
to $300 per month for the privilege, depending on their level
of access. Currently, we have almost 10,000 members.”
Robert Dowling, the editor in chief and publisher of The
Hollywood Reporter, corroborates: “Everybody uses the
boards,” he says, “and at the highest level they can.”Still, it seems remarkable to me that these two photogenic
kids built a machine that’s used by everyone from Jerry
Bruckheimer’s assistant to the head of development at
Paramount, from the grunt who reads scripts for Matt
Damon to the major buying executives at MGM. “People
begin tracking projects the minute an agent mentions it to
anyone else,” Amin continues. “By the time a script goes to
auction, everyone’s already tracked it.”Opinions, comments, information on buying and selling --- all
of it is available before a project is officially on the market.
It’s a Hollywood cartel. “All the information you need on a
project is at your fingertips,” Amin says smiling. “In fact, I’ve
got your tracking page right here in front of me.”With a flourish, Amin positions the computer screen so I can
see. My name flickers past in glowing green type, followed by
a description of my Vegas project --- and a string of
comments from various handles, presumably Hollywood
heavies. I quickly read some of the posts:Crime caper. Need more info now. Getting buzz.
In at Warner. But they aren’t going to . . .And then Amin spins the screen away. I feel cold.Hollywood’s way of making sure you know where the power
lies is to keep you waiting --- which explains why a certain
development executive at one of the biggest studios in town
is 20 minutes late for our meeting. I’m just cooling my heels
in her stark corporate office. Nothing personal.She finally sweeps into the room and answers the question
I’ve been saving up for her. “Of course you can manipulate
the tracking boards,” she says, all business except for the
playful smile tugging at her lips. “It happens all the time.”I sit up in my chair. If the boards can be gamed, then the
auctions that result --- and, in turn, the daily liaisons that
shape the movie industry --- are inherently corrupt. “Why
would people manipulate the boards?” I prod, trying to push
her toward the answers I already suspect. She crosses the
office to her desk and drops into her chair. Opening her desk
drawer, she pulls out a cordless telephone headset.“If I wanted to get back at an agent who screwed me on
something, I could put on the board that my studio is
passing on their script. That would pretty much kill the heat
on the project. Likewise, maybe as a favor to an agent, I
could post something like; “I love this, my boss loves it.”
That will create buzz, and quite possibly people will start
bidding preemptively because they’re afraid of losing the
project.”Movie titles flash before my eyes: Bubble Boy, Kangaroo
Jack, Dude, Where’s My Car?To prove her point, she logs on to the FilmTracker board and
gestures for me to come over to her side of the desk. “At
about 8 this morning, this script called Pet Store appeared
and it’s getting some interesting hype.” Leaning over the
back of her chair, I scan the tracker’s comments. Each
begins with a handle, followed by a few words:This is everywhere.In at Paramount. My boss is jumping on this!Better move fast . . . And then, simply: Huh? Talking animals?On their own, the comments seem inconsequential. But it’s
the collective wisdom of 27 top development executives at
the major studios --- Paramount, Universal, SONY, MGM.
“When someone wants onto the board,” she explains, “the
moderator e-mails us all and asks if that person is OK. We
can blackball someone we don’t like. It’s like a sorority rush.”Is she joking? I can’t tell.“I know all these people. So this hype makes me interested.
The next step is to call the script’s agent, see what’s
shaking.” She hits the speakerphone. After three rings, a
male voice answers. She tells the agent on the other end
that she loves Pet Store (no matter that she hasn’t actually
seen it yet) and she wants to know where it stands. He gives
her the standard agent line: “It’s hot, very hot --- we’ll have a deal by the afternoon. You
better get moving, blah, blah, et cetera.”She rolls her eyes at me, then gets off the phone to show
me the synopsis. Pet Store is about a pet shop. All the
animals talk, and there’s an evil cockatoo who hacks into the
owner’s computer, somehow getting the store’s bank to
foreclose. Now the animals are finding a way to fight back . .
.She rolls her eyes again. But the tracking is good, the hype
is still rising.“It’s really about the buzz,” she says, deferring to the will of
the herd. “Tracking boards create it. This script, as bad as it
sounds, has it.”The thing is, as far as I can tell, no one has actually read the
script yet. It hasn’t even gone out to auction --- nobody is
supposed to have this script. I have to ask: “Would a studio
buy a project based on positive tracking, without ever
reading it?”She gives me that smile. “They’d never admit it.”I try a different approach.“Would you turn down a project without reading it because
of negative tracking?”She doesn’t even pause --- “Absolutely.”Another day, and another bigwig movie executive won’t go
on the record. We’re sharing a booth at a nightclub, and he’s
giving me a fat dose of Hollywood reality. “The bottom line?
It’s the studio’s job to say no. A bad track simply gets the job
done.”We’re in Vegas for yet another movie industry party, and the
club is swarming with development people. It all seems a lot
less glamorous now. I’m not star struck anymore --- I’m
angry.“Is it legal?” I ask. “Opinions are one thing. But collusive
behavior, or manipulative lies --- like the pumping and
dumping on an Internet stock board --- these are more
complicated issues. With no regulation, there’s just no way
to know how dirty the system really is.”My rant is interrupted by a curvaceous blonde hostess
brandishing a bottle of Cristal. The producer replies: “Sure,
people do try and manipulate the boards. But whether it’s
unethical or mildly illegal --- does it really matter? Good
projects turn into good movies. Bad projects turn into bad
movies. The buying is just one part of the process.”“It doesn’t seem like a very fair system,” I say, but I can’t
sustain my righteousness. I’m embarrassed by how naïve I
sound. I’ve seen how the system works, and can no longer
pretend that projects are considered purely on their own
merits. I am an insider now, reeling from a week that
started in Utah, passed through L.A., and ended in Sun City.“No shit,” the producer laughs. “I get agents calling all the
time: ‘Hey, I know you have this project, please don’t kill it.’
I don’t want any part of it --- I actually try to read the damn
things.”I nod, but I don’t believe him. His words are noble, yet I can
see the glint of shark in his eyes.Someone slides into the booth next to us. It’s Dana Brunetti.
He’s been eavesdropping. He takes a glass of champagne and
waves it in my direction. “You realize, of course, now that you know all our secrets,
we’re going to have to kill you.”I’m pretty sure he’s kidding.
______________________________________Source: WIRED – May 2003 (pgs. 130-135)NOTE: Ben Mezrich ([email protected]) is the author of
“Bringing Down The House: The Inside Story of Six MIT
Students Who Took Vegas For Millions.”This article is © 2003 WIRED Magazine, and is reprinted
here with the generous permission of the “fair use” clause
of federal copyright law.
W
WIRED
(view)
To Whom It May Concern (or Interest):I recently received the May 2003 issue of WIRED magazine,
which contained the following article concerning the current
high-tech abilities Hollywood has at their full disposal to
effectively blacklist any actor, director, producer, or script. I
felt that given Sean Penn’s current situation that it was
appropriate to post this article here, so knowledge of these
practices can be spread as far and wide as possible.This style of blacklisting is similar to what I suspected when I
posted the article “WHY DB GETS NO RESPECT FROM THE
LABEL” some time ago. If this exists in one industry --- and
we have the documentation right here --- then it is likely to
exist in industries beyond Hollywood feature films. It was
because of the knowledge of practices such as these ---
which may be the REAL REASON why David saw his last
release tank in a pretty spectacular flameout. According to
sales figures that I received from a label rep, HCTNFU sold
less than 10,000 copies during its’ initial release, and to this
day, still hasn’t broken that barrier. Read the following article, and understand that there are
many more layers to life beyond what we are allowed to see.
It literally surrounds us everywhere we turn. Are you brave
or aware enough to see it for what it really is?I would certainly be interested in knowing what Mr. Penn
would have by means of a comment on this matter --- as I
imagine that since he is one of the top-tier actors, he must
certainly know about the existence of such a repugnant
system.In fact, because of his courageous pro-peace political stance,
it is likely the tracking boards may be something of which he
is already intimately familiar.Thank You . . .“To Live And Die In L.A.”
by Ben MezrichInformation leaks, bid-rigging, pumping and dumping.
Just another day inside the secret network that will
make or break you in Hollywood.
I am at a party, and it’s as crowded as it is glamorous.
Elbowing my way to the balcony for a breath of fresh air, I
gaze down at the unreal scene below: fur coats draped over
pink tank tops, sable hoods dyed to match, Gucci boots with
impossibly high heels, designer cell phones in waterproof
holsters, pashmina scarves, sunglasses hanging from
platinum straps. Nobody seems to care that its’ 30 degrees
outside, with a stiff wind sweeping down from the
mountains. There’s enough star power here to keep
everyone warm: Matt Damon, Tobey Maguire, Kate Hudson,
J. Lo, Ben Affleck.“Welcome to fucking Sundance,” somebody next to me says.
I turn to see Dana Brunetti, who’s also watching the crowd.
Brunetti is a producer with TriggerStreet.com, Kevin
Spacey’s production company. He’s the reason I was able to
get past the black-clad goon at the door.The truth is, I don’t belong here. I am not a Hollywood
player. I am a writer from Boston, a novelist and occasional
journalist. Over the past few years, like a million other
struggling writers out there, I have chased the dream of
breaking into the movie business. I’ve collected hundreds of
rejection slips from agents, producers, and studios. Recently,
all this changed. I wrote an article last year called “Hacking
Las Vegas” (WIRED 10.09), and the next thing I know I’m
being approached to turn it into a movie starring Spacey.
(We’re in the very early stages of negotiating a deal.) I want
to believe that Hollywood sat up and took notice of my talent
and hard work. But I’ve head rumors that have made me
question my confidence --- whispers of a dirty little industry
practice thathas brought me here to Utah on a mission both
personal and journalistic.I’ve been tipped to the network of semisecret cyberhallways,
called tracking boards, that are open only to the most elite
power players in the industry. In simplest terms, these
boards are sophisticated chat rooms and BBSes where high-
level executives at various studios trade information about
potential projects.They may seem innocuous at first glance, but the boards are
where a writer meets his fate. Before a script goes out, it
either gets deep-sixed or hyped up. Often, it’s said, execs will
go online and leak privileged information or even lie about
projects in order to drive prices up --- or down. If the rumors
are true, it means that the fix is in: major collusions
between studios, arbitrary blackballing, a system that mocks
any standard of fair play. It’s not just scripts --- books,
directors, even actors are tracked.I need more than rumors, so I have arranged a rendezvous
with a tracker. She’s here, wedged between two frumpy
screenwriters and a director with a shaved head. She’s a tall,
striking brunette with pouty lips and oil spills for eyes. As I
approach, she shakes free and beckons me toward a quiet
alcove near the coatroom.“If you use my name,” she says by way of a greeting, “I’ll
have lawyers all over you.”She knows why I have asked for a meeting. She’s talking to
me as a favor to Brunetti, but she’s defensive. She’s an exec
herself, a director of development at a studio synonymous
with Oscar-quality fare. She --- and people like her --- control
the purse strings that make movies possible.“I am NOT kidding,” she continues. “I could get fired for
talking about this.”She takes a breath, then plunges in. “Bottom line,” she
says, gesturing to the scene around us, “all of this starts
with the boards. You’ve heard of the herd mentality, right?
How no decisions in Hollywood are made independently? A
project that’s interesting to one studio is interesting to all
studios; likewise, a project with one detractor is dead with
everyone. Well, the tracking boards are the herd mentality
gone digital.”One detractor? A single, semi-anonymous comment can sink
a script? I’d heard as much from others writers but assumed
it was just the fruit of febrile imaginations --- or sour grapes.
But here was the woman who signs the checks, confirming
my paranoia.“If you get behind a project that nobody else wants and it
fails, you’re fucked. If you buy a project that everyone
wants, you’re at the front of the herd,” she explains. I know
she catches the expression that flashes across my face,
because she pauses briefly before continuing in a low voice.
“This business runs on fear,” she says, “and the tracking
boards give that fear a voice.”I look around the room --- at the stars, writers, directors,
producers --- and for a moment, I can actually see the
system at play. A positive track leads to a heated auction, a
seven-figure deal, a blockbuster movie --- not to mention
parties at Sundance. But more likely, the trackers conspire
to end your Hollywood career before it gets off the ground.“If you’re dead on the tracking boards,” the executive
whispers, “you’re dead in this business.”
Back in L.A., I decide to dig a little deeper. Acting on a tip, I
find what I’m looking for in a black glass building in Santa
Monica. There’s no lobby: It’s just a stack of Spartan offices
that rises high into the smoggy sky. Rafi Gordon, president
of Baseline-Film-Tracker, and Alex Amin, executive vice
president, are waiting for me when the elevator doors open
on the fifth floor. They’re young, bright, and shiny in that LA
way, affable and smiling. They introduce themselves as they
lead me through their office.Five years ago, there were just a few homegrown tracking
boards in Hollywood; today, there are many, but they are all
managed by Gordon and Amin. FilmTracker’s parent
company, Hollywood Media Corporation, specializes in
industry-specific databases --- film credits, bios, and the like -
-- but the glamour end of the operation is the by-invitation-
only boards. They’re kept small by necessity. Membership is
strictly controlled. Any time a new studio executive,
producer, or development person is hired, one of the first
things they do is try to sign on to a board. They’re let in
either by a democratic vote or an administrator who decides
if the applicant is qualified. “We have the tracking-board
business pretty much cornered,” Amin says.“I think we’re up to 200 separate boards now, tracking over
2,000 projects,” Gordon adds, as we reach a corner office.
They shut the door behind me. Amin takes a position at a
computer on one side of a cluttered desk, Gordon by the
window. “In the beginning,” Amin explains, “there was this
very rudimentary message board started by a guy named
Roy Lee. I was at MGM at the time, about 1997 --- hell, we
didn’t even have e-mail or Internet capability --- and Roy
started this service that was basically just a bulletin board.
People would add comments to a text stream about spec
material that was going out for auction.”Spec material --- original projects in either script or
treatment form --- are the lottery tickets of the movie
industry. Unlike assigned projects, which are always given to
established screenwriters, spec material can come from
almost any source: unknowns, wannabes, even novelists like
me. Through spec auctions, new projects and writers are
introduced to Hollywood. When a studio buys a spec, a
career begins.“Around 1999,” Amin continues, “about 12 major-studio
junior execs --- me included --- got together. We wanted
something more sophisticated. We wanted to be able to
search for the info we needed, to keep archives, to do this
quickly. So we built ScriptTracker --- which eventually
became FilmTracker, a central web site where tracking
boards are managed and maintained.”While he’s talking, he’s hitting keys on the computer in front
of him. I can’t see the screen, just the blue-green reflection
in his eyes. “And who uses these boards?” I ask, looking
from Amin to his boss. “Pretty much anyone who has any
power,” Amin answers. “From the top levels down to the
junior execs. Studio VPs, heads of development, producers,
buyers, sellers, and assistants. They pay anywhere from $15
to $300 per month for the privilege, depending on their level
of access. Currently, we have almost 10,000 members.”
Robert Dowling, the editor in chief and publisher of The
Hollywood Reporter, corroborates: “Everybody uses the
boards,” he says, “and at the highest level they can.”Still, it seems remarkable to me that these two photogenic
kids built a machine that’s used by everyone from Jerry
Bruckheimer’s assistant to the head of development at
Paramount, from the grunt who reads scripts for Matt
Damon to the major buying executives at MGM. “People
begin tracking projects the minute an agent mentions it to
anyone else,” Amin continues. “By the time a script goes to
auction, everyone’s already tracked it.”Opinions, comments, information on buying and selling --- all
of it is available before a project is officially on the market.
It’s a Hollywood cartel. “All the information you need on a
project is at your fingertips,” Amin says smiling. “In fact, I’ve
got your tracking page right here in front of me.”With a flourish, Amin positions the computer screen so I can
see. My name flickers past in glowing green type, followed by
a description of my Vegas project --- and a string of
comments from various handles, presumably Hollywood
heavies. I quickly read some of the posts:Crime caper. Need more info now. Getting buzz.
In at Warner. But they aren’t going to . . .And then Amin spins the screen away. I feel cold.Hollywood’s way of making sure you know where the power
lies is to keep you waiting --- which explains why a certain
development executive at one of the biggest studios in town
is 20 minutes late for our meeting. I’m just cooling my heels
in her stark corporate office. Nothing personal.She finally sweeps into the room and answers the question
I’ve been saving up for her. “Of course you can manipulate
the tracking boards,” she says, all business except for the
playful smile tugging at her lips. “It happens all the time.”I sit up in my chair. If the boards can be gamed, then the
auctions that result --- and, in turn, the daily liaisons that
shape the movie industry --- are inherently corrupt. “Why
would people manipulate the boards?” I prod, trying to push
her toward the answers I already suspect. She crosses the
office to her desk and drops into her chair. Opening her desk
drawer, she pulls out a cordless telephone headset.“If I wanted to get back at an agent who screwed me on
something, I could put on the board that my studio is
passing on their script. That would pretty much kill the heat
on the project. Likewise, maybe as a favor to an agent, I
could post something like; “I love this, my boss loves it.”
That will create buzz, and quite possibly people will start
bidding preemptively because they’re afraid of losing the
project.”Movie titles flash before my eyes: Bubble Boy, Kangaroo
Jack, Dude, Where’s My Car?To prove her point, she logs on to the FilmTracker board and
gestures for me to come over to her side of the desk. “At
about 8 this morning, this script called Pet Store appeared
and it’s getting some interesting hype.” Leaning over the
back of her chair, I scan the tracker’s comments. Each
begins with a handle, followed by a few words:This is everywhere.In at Paramount. My boss is jumping on this!Better move fast . . . And then, simply: Huh? Talking animals?On their own, the comments seem inconsequential. But it’s
the collective wisdom of 27 top development executives at
the major studios --- Paramount, Universal, SONY, MGM.
“When someone wants onto the board,” she explains, “the
moderator e-mails us all and asks if that person is OK. We
can blackball someone we don’t like. It’s like a sorority rush.”Is she joking? I can’t tell.“I know all these people. So this hype makes me interested.
The next step is to call the script’s agent, see what’s
shaking.” She hits the speakerphone. After three rings, a
male voice answers. She tells the agent on the other end
that she loves Pet Store (no matter that she hasn’t actually
seen it yet) and she wants to know where it stands. He gives
her the standard agent line: “It’s hot, very hot --- we’ll have a deal by the afternoon. You
better get moving, blah, blah, et cetera.”She rolls her eyes at me, then gets off the phone to show
me the synopsis. Pet Store is about a pet shop. All the
animals talk, and there’s an evil cockatoo who hacks into the
owner’s computer, somehow getting the store’s bank to
foreclose. Now the animals are finding a way to fight back . .
.She rolls her eyes again. But the tracking is good, the hype
is still rising.“It’s really about the buzz,” she says, deferring to the will of
the herd. “Tracking boards create it. This script, as bad as it
sounds, has it.”The thing is, as far as I can tell, no one has actually read the
script yet. It hasn’t even gone out to auction --- nobody is
supposed to have this script. I have to ask: “Would a studio
buy a project based on positive tracking, without ever
reading it?”She gives me that smile. “They’d never admit it.”I try a different approach.“Would you turn down a project without reading it because
of negative tracking?”She doesn’t even pause --- “Absolutely.”Another day, and another bigwig movie executive won’t go
on the record. We’re sharing a booth at a nightclub, and he’s
giving me a fat dose of Hollywood reality. “The bottom line?
It’s the studio’s job to say no. A bad track simply gets the job
done.”We’re in Vegas for yet another movie industry party, and the
club is swarming with development people. It all seems a lot
less glamorous now. I’m not star struck anymore --- I’m
angry.“Is it legal?” I ask. “Opinions are one thing. But collusive
behavior, or manipulative lies --- like the pumping and
dumping on an Internet stock board --- these are more
complicated issues. With no regulation, there’s just no way
to know how dirty the system really is.”My rant is interrupted by a curvaceous blonde hostess
brandishing a bottle of Cristal. The producer replies: “Sure,
people do try and manipulate the boards. But whether it’s
unethical or mildly illegal --- does it really matter? Good
projects turn into good movies. Bad projects turn into bad
movies. The buying is just one part of the process.”“It doesn’t seem like a very fair system,” I say, but I can’t
sustain my righteousness. I’m embarrassed by how naïve I
sound. I’ve seen how the system works, and can no longer
pretend that projects are considered purely on their own
merits. I am an insider now, reeling from a week that
started in Utah, passed through L.A., and ended in Sun City.“No shit,” the producer laughs. “I get agents calling all the
time: ‘Hey, I know you have this project, please don’t kill it.’
I don’t want any part of it --- I actually try to read the damn
things.”I nod, but I don’t believe him. His words are noble, yet I can
see the glint of shark in his eyes.Someone slides into the booth next to us. It’s Dana Brunetti.
He’s been eavesdropping. He takes a glass of champagne and
waves it in my direction. “You realize, of course, now that you know all our secrets,
we’re going to have to kill you.”I’m pretty sure he’s kidding.
______________________________________Source: WIRED – May 2003 (pgs. 130-135)NOTE: Ben Mezrich ([email protected]) is the author of
“Bringing Down The House: The Inside Story of Six MIT
Students Who Took Vegas For Millions.”This article is © 2003 WIRED Magazine, and is reprinted
here with the generous permission of the “fair use” clause
of federal copyright law.
