A Tale of Two Movie Studio Chiefs : Fox’s Goldberg Makes It Big With ‘White-Bread’ Tastes

It takes some luck to make it as a studio chief. With “Big,” Leonard Goldberg got unusually lucky.

Shortly after taking charge of 20th Century Fox Film Corp. some 22 months ago, the ex-network executive learned that Robert De Niro (“Taxi Driver,” “Mean Streets”) was in line to play “Big’s” Josh Baskin, a 13-year-old boy who wakes up one morning transformed into an adult.

Ferociously middle-brow, Goldberg hated the oddball casting. But director Penny Marshall loved it, and producer James L. Brooks backed her to the hilt.

“Then this will be a short movie, because here’s what happens,” snapped Goldberg, according to studio sources. “The kid wakes up in the morning, goes into the bathroom, and sees that he’s grown up to become Robert De Niro. He opens the medicine cabinet, takes out a razor, and slits his throat. That’s the end.”

Brooks and Marshall won that round. Fox Chairman Barry Diller, though he agreed with Goldberg, went to work on De Niro. By one informed account, the actor was set to play the role until his negotiator “literally blew the deal over a fingernail”--leaving Goldberg free to pursue safe and sane Tom Hanks, who had just dropped out of Warner Bros.’ “Clean and Sober.”

Hanks worked. “Big” grossed more than $100 million, while De Niro’s summer comedy, “Midnight Run,” lagged at Universal. And Leonard Goldberg, Fox president since Dec. 1, 1986, began to look like a winner despite the gossip--and there is plenty--about his “white bread” tastes and assertive ways with film makers as powerful as Brooks.

For the first nine months of 1988, Fox has boosted its share of the U.S. box office to 11.8%, up from 8.3% for the same period last year. After a dismal spring, when four Goldberg-picked movies bombed in a row, “Big” and “Die Hard” turned into major hits, while “Young Guns,” a medium-priced film picked up from an outside producer, grossed a respectable $37 million.

In a business where success very often breeds success, Fox--if it can sustain its performance through Christmas--could become an entrenched “third force,” vying with recent leaders Disney and Paramount.

Having scored fairly well with issues-oriented “Wall Street” and “Broadcast News” last year, the studio is betting on “heart” for the holidays. Fox will open the Christmas season with “Cocoon II: The Return,” a sequel to the studio’s 1985 hit about older people and aliens, and then follow with “Working Girl,” a Mike Nichols-directed romance about the life and loves of a Staten Island girl on the make.

Goldberg calls it a “comfortable” Christmas. Yet very little is truly comfortable about Fox, which remains cut by some fierce creative tensions, or about the silver-bearded, 53-year-old studio chief, who is known among Hollywood’s sassier young agents as “The Killer Santa Claus.”

“Killer” refers chiefly to Goldberg’s supposed penchant for firing directors. As an independent producer, he dismissed Martin Brest from “WarGames,” and John Avildsen quit “Space Camp” in a creative dispute with Goldberg. At Fox, he fired first-time movie director Jan Eliasberg from “How I Got Into College,” which has yet to be released. He also considered removing writer-director Christopher Crowe from “Off Limits” after seeing less than a week of dailies, but was dissuaded by subordinates, who argued that Fox would get a reputation for meanness.

(Crowe was entitled to a “possessory” credit before the film’s title, but removed it out of dissatisfaction with Goldberg’s handling of the movie, according to individuals familiar with “Off Limits.” Crowe could not be reached for comment.)

Directors as strong as Mike Nichols have found it tough going with Goldberg. For instance, Nichols wanted Melanie Griffith for the lead in “Working Girl.” Goldberg wanted a bigger star. Nichols was initially dismissive: “He thought Len was just one more studio executive acting tough,” says one Fox source. Neither the movie nor Griffith got a green light, however, until Nichols assuaged Goldberg by finding name-brand stars, Sigourney Weaver and Harrison Ford, for the other roles.

If Leonard Goldberg is difficult, it is principally because he knows what he wants, and is loathe to bother with what he doesn’t.

“I like mainstream movies. I like positive entertainment. Jim Brooks says to me, ‘You like happy endings.’ I like happy endings. I’m sentimental. I like to cry in a movie. I like to laugh in a movie,” says Goldberg, relaxing in his office suite, across the hall from those of both Diller and Rupert Murdoch, chief executive officer of News Corp., Fox’s corporate parent.

Goldberg doesn’t like “horror,” “stupid comedy” and “mindless action”--and he appears deeply suspicious of excessive sophistication in films, leaving him open to possible clashes in taste and style with the more worldly Diller, who 20 years ago was a young assistant to Goldberg, then head of programming for ABC. Before becoming a movie producer, Goldberg was Aaron Spelling’s partner in Spelling-Goldberg Productions, which made “Charlie’s Angels,” “Fantasy Island” and other TV hits.

At Fox, both Diller and Goldberg lay some claim to picture-picking authority; yet associates say the pair don’t have quite the same confrontational chemistry that made Diller a natural, if stormy, match with Michael Eisner during their decade at Paramount.

Diller strongly credits Goldberg with bringing the studio “an internal rhythm” that could make it a consistent performer. But he quickly adds: “I have always felt the chief executive officer--which I am, and remain--cannot delegate ultimate responsibility for whether or not a film gets made.”

In Goldberg’s version: “We basically talk every day. But the understanding I had with Barry when I came in here was that I was going to run things, and he’d be kept informed of and consulted on anything. . . . When I want to make a movie, I send it to Barry and we talk.”

An early difference between the two arose over “Less Than Zero,” based on Bret Easton Ellis’ novel about wealthy L. A. youths snared in the drug culture. Diller, according to several studio executives, was extremely high on the project. “Barry saw ‘American Gigolo’ in it,” says one close associate of the chairman.

But Goldberg despised the film, and was prepared to scrap it, along with $2.5 million in development costs. “I hated it with a passion. It was everything I’m against, (everything) I don’t like, (everything) I resent,” he said.

Ultimately, Fox made the movie, but only after softening its uglier edges and beefing up its anti-drug message at Goldberg’s behest. The result failed with critics and audiences alike.

According to Goldberg, Fox was plagued by “lack of focus” when he took over in December of 1986.

Diller, who came from Paramount in 1984, had spent much of his time wrestling with a movie division that he says lost $300 million over two years. Some pictures had begun to register--for instance “Aliens” scored $79 million at the box office in the summer of 1986. But the company lacked stability, and was chewing up executives at a frightening rate.

Longtime producer Larry Gordon’s brief reign as movie chief gave way to an 8-month stint by ex-Embassy chairman Alan Horn, who walked out in 1986 citing differences with Diller. For a time, Diller picked the pictures in partnership with production president Scott Rudin. (Rudin resigned earlier this year to become an independent producer affiliated with Columbia. Recently, Goldberg appointed former United Artists executive Roger Birnbaum as production president.)

Fox didn’t lack projects when Goldberg arrived. By his count, there were approximately 125 films in development. But many, in Goldberg’s view, carried an “art-house” stamp.

About one-fifth of the total, moreover, were being developed by Gordon, who had set up shop as an independent producer on the lot after leaving Fox. Goldberg, though Gordon’s longtime friend, asked his Fox subordinates: “How can Larry directly supervise 24 projects?”

Gordon, who co-produced both “Predator” and “Die Hard” for Fox, declines to discuss his relationship with Goldberg or the studio.

Goldberg slowly pared back the development roster. He aims to carry about 60 active projects at any one time (less than a third of the number carried by heavy developers like Warner Bros.), and to produce about 12 movies a year. Paradoxically, however, he found that--other than several pick-ups, including Michael Cimino’s ill-fated “The Sicilian”--Fox had no major movie in the works for the summer of 1987.

To get films quickly, Goldberg violated at least two of his principles. First, he commissioned a “stupid comedy”--”Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise,” which could be launched because a script was already written. Second, he agreed to put an additional $2.5 million into “Predator,” a fairly simple-minded action film that was being co-produced by Gordon, and had run out of money before the climax was shot. Both did well and eased Goldberg’s regime toward Christmas, when he had “Wall Street” and “Broadcast News,” two relatively safe bets, to bank on.

Movies are now a money-maker for Fox. Like most studios, Fox lumps TV production earnings and those from library sales to video and cable with their current movie profits. But Diller says that motion picture production is “cash positive”--and recent estimates by Daily Variety showed that Fox’s four summer films brought the company $115 million from box-office receipts alone, but cost only $67 million to make.

Goldberg says his weak picks for the spring, among them “Off Limits” and “Satisfaction,” grew from a period when his new administration was still short of sound prospects and struggling to find its balance. On his desk is a photo of his teen-age daughter, with a caption that reads: “Cheer up, Dad. It’s going to be a terrific summer.”

Still, critics point out that Goldberg’s biggest successes have come from relationships and deals that were in place when he arrived. “He was dealt a much better hand than Tom Pollock at Universal,” says one top agent, who questions whether Goldberg-supervised scripts--for instance that of Fox’s upcoming “Alien Nation”--will sustain Fox’s streak.

Though generally suspicious of long-term producer relationships, Goldberg says he regrets that producer Joel Silver (“Predator,” “Die Hard”) moved his deal to Warner Bros. recently. Silver declines to comment on the move. Producer Gail Anne Hurd similarly left the studio for Columbia, but continues to work closely with Fox. “As a film maker, I like Leonard’s definiteness,” she says. “When somebody tells you what he doesn’t like, you have a chance to change his mind.”

Fox’s showcase deal with writer-producer-director Jim Brooks, is said by studio insiders to work largely through Diller, a longtime Brooks friend who is generally in tune with Brooks’ dark-edged humor. “Jim is not on Leonard’s wavelength,” says one Fox insider, who maintains that Goldberg was initially reluctant to endorse Brooks’ plan to produce “War of the Roses,” a black comedy, for the studio.

Goldberg concedes that he was “on the fence” about the film, which describes a degenerating marriage. But he says he is now happy with the script and Danny DeVito’s plans for directing it. Diller, for his part, strongly denies that Goldberg is in any sense excluded from dealing with Brooks. “You just don’t set up companies within companies,” he says.

Brooks didn’t return calls.

If there is major risk in Goldberg’s future, it appears to be “Abyss.” Produced by Hurd and currently being shot by director Jim Cameron in South Carolina, the movie is an unconventional science-fiction tale that takes place largely underwater. One Goldberg associate says the film may have “the biggest budget Fox has ever undertaken”--a claim that Diller denies, though he declines to provide the budget figure.

Goldberg predicts that “Abyss” is “going to be a classic movie, a great movie, a movie that will last.” His associate, who declines to be identified, tends to agree--although he adds: “If it isn’t a smash, it will overwhelm all the rest of what he has done.”

U.S. BOX OFFICE SHARE

11%

10%

9%

8%

7%

6%

Leonard Goldberg appointed head of Fox on Dec. 1, 1986.

Thomas Pollock appointed head of Universal on Sept. 18, 1986.

SOURCE: Daily Variety, Exhibitor Relations and industry data

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