Hollywood producers juggle many roles

By Matthew Belloni

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - What, exactly, does a producer do? Besides supervising the production schedule. And hiring and firing talent. And managing the financing and the budget. In short, besides everything.

Heading into awards season, six producers of some of the year's most ambitious films -- Brian Grazer ("Changeling," "Frost/Nixon"); Dan Jinks ("Milk"); Michael London ("The Visitor," "Milk"); Rob Lorenz ("Changeling," "Gran Torino"), Frank Marshall ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") and Marc Platt ("Rachel Getting Married") -- discussed their profession, making good movies in a bad economy and all the different jobs they do.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: WHAT IS IT IN A PIECE OF MATERIAL THAT SAYS TO YOU, "ALL RIGHT, THIS IS A MOVIE?"

Rob Lorenz: A story that stays with me after I put it down. Pretty simple for me. I don't delve too much beyond that.

Michael London: For me, it's usually a character that I can engage with. And the voice of the writer. Once or twice a year, at the end of those 90 minutes or two hours of reading, I just feel it.

Brian Grazer: In the case of "Frost/Nixon," I read the play and I had no idea if it could be a movie. I just knew that I liked it and I thought it was smart. More often than not, it's whether some world or subculture captivates me. If it does, then I dig inside and later it gets determined if it will be a movie.

THR: HOW INVOLVED ARE YOU IN THAT "DIGGING" PROCESS?

Grazer: I don't just say, "Go write this." (The digging) is the part that's personally fun for me. I like to be involved and meet interesting people. Science, medicine, politics, religion -- people who are experts in fields outside of my own. That just helps inform the subjects and informs my sensibility. But I get very involved because it's time-efficient. The more involved I am at the beginning in understanding the subject or the dynamics of the characters, the fewer drafts I have to read.

THR: HOW MUCH DOES TASTE ACCOUNT FOR A SUCCESSFUL PRODUCING CAREER, OR IS IT THE ABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE?

Frank Marshall: I think it's a little bit of both. Making movies is hard. You have to be passionate about it. What am I going to be passionate about 24/7, and is that a story I want to see on the screen?

THR: HOW HAVE THESE REQUIREMENTS CHANGED IN THE PAST 10 YEARS?

Grazer: The talent part of it -- creating a foundation (for the film) -- might be slightly easier because of the economics of the business, which have gotten worse. From my perspective, it has made more talented people available. Since there's less money, the studios are more brutal toward talent. By redesigning the backend or the front-end of their compensation, they are more aggressive. So by tearing that wall down, it has made it easier for me to approach A-list directors or A-list stars that I wouldn't have been able to approach 10 years ago.

THR: OR AFFORD ON A BUDGET.

Grazer: Everyone understands that they have to adapt now to the new financial climate of the movie business. So stars are willing to take less money to make something that they care about. It has probably forced talent to look more inward toward the subjects and themes that they care about, as opposed to personal compensation.

London: Actors and directors are so hungry to do movies that matter to them because most studio movies -- not to say there aren't great studio movies -- but studios are getting more and more conservative. A lot of them are not great; they're not about the acting. On "Milk," it was extraordinary. Once Gus Van Sant and Sean Penn were attached to the movie, we almost didn't have any negotiations. It was actors simply saying, "I'm there. Pay me as much as you can under your budget, but nothing is going to stop me from participating in the story."