Directors and studios sharing economic pressure

By Tom Roston

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Catherine Hardwicke had every reason to celebrate as her latest film, "Twilight," opened to nearly $70 million in November.

The haul exceeded even the most optimistic expectations, and reviewers credited Hardwicke for breathing cinematic life into novelist Stephenie Meyer's vampire romance. But when Summit Entertainment immediately began fast-tracking a sequel, "New Moon," Hardwicke was conspicuously absent.

The director had concerns about the direction of the new franchise and the amount of prep time available. Summit, by some accounts, had reservations about working with the indie-minded Hardwicke again. The studio soon announced it would hire another director, Chris Weitz, to ensure its follow-up film would be ready by November.

An isolated instance of financial dictates undercutting a director's power? Perhaps. But there is evidence this awards season that the challenging economy is forcing studios to take tougher stands when it comes to keeping directors happy.

"It's the climate that's different," says one producer, who declined to be identified. "It's not so much the conversations. Conversations about budgets have always been difficult. But in the last year, (they've) been markedly different. There's even more of a pressure on budgets."

When Danny Boyle turned in "Slumdog Millionaire" to Warner Bros., which was in the process of shuttering specialty divisions Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse, the studio was no longer interested in distributing the film -- even though it had invested in it. Instead, Warners allowed Fox Searchlight to take over distribution, and the film has since become an Oscar front-runner.

Director Stephen Daldry begged producer Harvey Weinstein for eight more filming days on "The Reader," so Weinstein made him agree to a Faustian bargain: In exchange for the shooting upgrade, Daldry had to consent to test an early cut of the movie. If it passed muster with the audience, the director would then be obligated to finish the film in time for a 2008 release.

Never mind that both films were specialty fare, where the director's vision is more highly valued. Business interests took precedence.

Of course, the days when directors were given blank checks and full creative freedom are long gone. No way would Dennis Hopper be allowed to disappear into Peru for a hallucinogenic project like 1971's "The Last Movie." Francis Ford Coppola likely could not set up base camp for months on end in the Philippines, as he did to capture 1979's "Apocalypse Now" -- the excesses of Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate," which crippled United Artists in 1980, saw to that.

But even in the current era of corporate Hollywood, the downtrodden economy is putting added pressure on filmmakers.

That's partly because studio execs don't control their own destiny. Rather, it's their bosses at conglomerates like Time Warner, News Corp., Disney, Viacom and Sony who call the shots.

A studio regime that enjoys a good year at the box office can't automatically roll over some of those returns into its upcoming production slate. Instead, with parent companies decreeing cost cuts, and companies like Disney and Paramount cutting back on the number of films they release, it's become even more challenging to mount a risky movie.

Oliver Stone, forced to turn to independent financing for "W.," adopted a near-gonzo style, knocking off the biopic in just 46 filming days and shooting in Louisiana to take advantage of tax incentives.

Even Clint Eastwood, known for his economical shooting style, picked up the pace. Back in 2004, his "Million Dollar Baby" was budgeted for 39 shooting days and he completed it in just 37. But he raced through his latest film, "Gran Torino," in a mere 32 days, while also agreeing that Nick Schenk's script, originally set in the writer's home state of Minnesota, be reworked so that it could be shot in tax-friendly Detroit.

In fact, tax incentives played as large a role as anything in shaping this season's awards hopefuls, making the Australia-shot "Australia" feasible and also leading David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" to be set in New Orleans rather than the Baltimore of the original F. Scott Fitzgerald short story.