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Warner Bros kicks Joel Silver to the curb.

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Seems like the majors are cleaning house in a big way.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompson...-up-must-come-down?page=1#blogPostHeaderPanel

How are the mighty fallen. Warner Bros. has unceremoniously kicked producer Joel Silver, of "Matrix" and "Lethal Weapon" fame, to the curb.
This smacks of when Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone axed Tom Cruise's rich deal at Paramount after the star threatened to take home more back-end cash on "Mission: Impossible II" than the studio. Or when Disney shut down Bob Zemeckis's rich deal after "Mars Needs Moms" lost a fortune.

Both Silver and Zemeckis are finding new homes at Universal, but not on the same terms. Silver will have to find financing for his upcoming films just like everyone else. He's fixing up a new office in Venice as Warners pays off the producer with $30 million, reports Variety, estimating the future worth of his WB projects (which do not include his indie-financed Dark Castle films) against the loans they advanced him over the years, so that the studio wouldn't have to continue paying him his share on the movies that he originated with them.

This is a sign of the times. Studios are recalibrating the worth of some of their on-lot producers. For Silver this is a new day because for decades he was at the top of the studio food chain. He specialized in wrangling big budget actioners, often with macho stars and VFX elements. But he never had the kind of creative commercial savvy that Jerry Bruckheimer commanded over decades, turning out (with inevitable exceptions) surefire tentpoles such as "Armageddon," "Con Air," "National Treasure," "Black Hawk Down," "Crimson Tide," and "Pirates of the Caribbean." Truth is, even Bruckheimer has had some slips of late at Disney, such as "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "Prince of Persia"; it's a good thing the guy's so successful in television, as "The Lone Ranger" looms large in his future.

More at the link.

Silver has had a notorious reputation for being an absolute back-stabbing piece of shit when it comes to finally paying people and giving them their contracted due. He has worked on a number of successful films like the Lethal Weapon films and The Matrix, but there have often been reports of him acting like a total scumbag to people who he decided he could no longer use.

I'd say the one good thing he did was take a shot on Shane Black as more than just a writer, by helping him with his directing debut. Outside of that I say good riddance.
 

Alrus

Member
Bruckheimer to be next? The Lone Ranger doesn't really look like a guaranteed hit, despite the ridiculous budget.
 

commedieu

Banned
It really is like Hollywood is looking in every direction to cut/trim, instead of looking at the less than useless products they are making.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
What do producers do? Just throw money around and order directors to make unnecessary changes to their films?

Cause... that's what I know of them. :p
 

smurfx

get some go again
why is prince of persia being used as a failure for Bruckheimer when it made a bunch of money overseas?
 

Alrus

Member
why is prince of persia being used as a failure for Bruckheimer when it made a bunch of money overseas?

Because it had a huge budget, was somehow expected to be the next PoTC (yeah...) and it didn't really make that much money overseas in the end, not enough to compensate the low domestic run anyway.
 

FStop7

Banned
Joel Silver had a pretty nice office on the WB lot. Guess it's vacant now. :)

By the way - the asshole movie producer in True Romance is based on Joel Silver.
 

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
Andrex said:
What do producers do? Just throw money around and order directors to make unnecessary changes to their films?

I had a slightly awkward phone conversation with Joel Silver once. He rang to say he needed a game built for a movie that we had walked away from. He wasn't happy. I told him what we needed to make that happen. After that he managed to get done what I needed in less than 24 hours, when a bunch of other executives and lawyers couldn't deliver over months beforehand.
 
I had a slightly awkward phone conversation with Joel Silver once. He rang to say he needed a game built for a movie that we had walked away from. He wasn't happy. I told him what we needed to make that happen. After that he managed to get done what I needed in less than 24 hours, when a bunch of other executives and lawyers couldn't deliver over months beforehand.

So basically a glorified middleman.
 

Zapages

Member
Because it had a huge budget, was somehow expected to be the next PoTC (yeah...) and it didn't really make that much money overseas in the end, not enough to compensate the low domestic run anyway.

From what I know it was success, but was not a huge success that they could go with a sequel with.
 
So he will destroy Jurassic Park 4 instead.

JP4 will destroy itself somehow before Silver can even get close to it if it isn't destroyed already. Hiring the Rise... Apes writers was the first red flag IMO. I've just accepted that I'm either not going to get another JP film, or another good JP film.
 

Suairyu

Banned
What do producers do? Just throw money around and order directors to make unnecessary changes to their films?
What? No.

Producers do manage the money, yes, but they're often key creative people themselves. Often, the thing is their idea, their creative vision, and they have hired the director they know can best realise their visions, always over-seeing it and getting the final call on decisions.

I know outside of media there's a big tendency to see the directors as the artist and the producers as the clueless men in suits, but that's really not the reality a lot (most?) of the time.
 
I truly admire people that still have faith in Jurassic Park after The Lost World and Jurassic Park 3.

Eh, TLW definitely had its share of flaws, but it was still entertaining; the scene in the two trailers hanging over the cliff was particularly well done. JP3 was terrible, though.
 
I truly admire people that still have faith in Jurassic Park after The Lost World and Jurassic Park 3.

The Lost World has a lot of inspired moments surrounded by a lot of muck. Jurassic Park III was a dumb but entertaining popcorn film. There's still plenty of room to fall from even these "lofty" goals.
 

J10

Banned
I wonder if this means anything for the Wachowskis. He produced almost everything they've done up until Cloud Atlas.
 
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