For years...hell, decades...I thought the overriding idea behind financing a project in Hollywood was that it would make money. Art didn't count. Meaning didn't count. Quality didn't count. What mattered was how many bucks could be brought in, be it in theaters, DVDs, VODs, whatever. Ego played a part in it, sure; ego's always a shading of the deal in Hollywood. But just a layer, not the whole damned onion.
Well...that ain't necessarily so (to steal from Gershwin's Porgy & Bess). Sometimes ego is all there is. Sometimes that's why you wind up with a project aimed at making dollars the old-fashioned way -- guns and tits & ass -- but because some of the people involved got so caught up in their grandiose self-certainty, they didn't bother to note that others would not want to do things for them if they did not get paid. "Adding to the resume" don't hack it when your rent's due.
That's why some projects get going but wind up in a crash and burn -- they run out of money not so much because of cost overruns (tho' that does happen), but because not all of the promised funds were made available. And because the powers that be were just absolutely certain once things got going, there'd be no problem.
Now, mix into this your everyday scam artist out to use people's blindness and desperation to feed his own rampant ego...an ego that seems to think he's worth any money he steals from you, and if you're dumb enough to let him steal it, it's your own damn fault...and you wind up just like a closed casino in Atlantic City -- a big, bright, empty cash drain that does no one any good.
Ah, Hollywood...where even if you're smarter than the average bear, there's still one smarter out there who will take away your honey.
Well...that ain't necessarily so (to steal from Gershwin's Porgy & Bess). Sometimes ego is all there is. Sometimes that's why you wind up with a project aimed at making dollars the old-fashioned way -- guns and tits & ass -- but because some of the people involved got so caught up in their grandiose self-certainty, they didn't bother to note that others would not want to do things for them if they did not get paid. "Adding to the resume" don't hack it when your rent's due.
That's why some projects get going but wind up in a crash and burn -- they run out of money not so much because of cost overruns (tho' that does happen), but because not all of the promised funds were made available. And because the powers that be were just absolutely certain once things got going, there'd be no problem.
Now, mix into this your everyday scam artist out to use people's blindness and desperation to feed his own rampant ego...an ego that seems to think he's worth any money he steals from you, and if you're dumb enough to let him steal it, it's your own damn fault...and you wind up just like a closed casino in Atlantic City -- a big, bright, empty cash drain that does no one any good.
Ah, Hollywood...where even if you're smarter than the average bear, there's still one smarter out there who will take away your honey.
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