Hollywood producers discuss firings, finances

By Matthew Belloni and Stephen Galloway

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - What does a movie producer actually do? To find out, The Hollywood Reporter gathered the men behind six of the season's most buzz-worthy films -- Lawrence Bender ("Inglourious Basterds"), Jon Landau ("Avatar"), Laurence Mark ("Julie & Julia"), Bill Mechanic ("Coraline"), Mace Neufeld ("Invictus") and Ivan Reitman ("Up in the Air").

WHAT'S THE TOUGHEST DECISION YOU'VE MADE AS A PRODUCER?

Laurence Mark: Jennifer Hudson. Toughest decision. Because if you go wrong there, you go wrong on that movie ("Dreamgirls").

Jon Landau: Ultimately it goes back to casting. There was a film I was on several years ago where we had to fire our second supporting actress. That was a very tough decision to do a couple weeks into the shoot, but you have to because ultimately that's what movies are about. There was no chemistry.

Mark: It's hard to say goodbye to someone, but you almost always should.

Ivan Reitman: If you're thinking about it, you better do it.

Landau: That applies to cast or crew or whoever.

Reitman: I've been doing this for about 40 years and I've produced about 50 movies and I think in that process I remember only firing one director. And I've worked with about a dozen first-timers. I'd say the toughest decisions have to do with firing people, but in particular firing the director.

Landau: Thank God Jason is talented! (Reitman's son, Jason, directed "Up in the Air.") (Laughs)

Mace Neufeld: I had to fire an actor because the director didn't like the toupee he was wearing. The actor didn't want to change his toupee and the director didn't want to fire the actor. (Laughs.) And on "The Hunt for Red October," we started shooting without Sean Connery: We were two weeks into the shoot and Klaus-Maria Brandauer was supposed to play Markus Ramius, and he wouldn't sign his contract. He said, "I need 10 days in the middle of the schedule because I've directed a film for a friend," and I said, "We can't give you 10 days." Connery had turned the part down because he thought he had throat cancer and I got a call from (his agent) Marty Baum and he said, "What about Sean for that part?"

Bill Mechanic: We shot for 30 days on "X-Men" without Wolverine, without Hugh Jackman. It was originally somebody who got very big and dropped out, and literally we went off an audition tape. He was doing Gaston (in an Australian stage production of "Beauty and the Beast") and he looked like a young Clint Eastwood. We flew him in and said, "If he's got charisma he's got the job."

JON, HOW HAS YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH FOX CHANGED BETWEEN "TITANIC" AND "AVATAR"?

Landau: For "Avatar," the originality of the piece -- not being based on material, not having a star -- that was the biggest hurdle in getting going. The day-to-day production is pretty much the same, from a studio-funded perspective.

Mark: Do you find the studio is watching you a little more now?

Landau: I don't think "Avatar" is a good case to judge that. Overall, absolutely, studios want to control and control and control. The studios have lost an appreciation of how to work with producers, and what role a producer can play to benefit them.