Journalists: Let Public Judge a Film’s Success

I’ve had plenty of highs and lows in my career as a film producer. The peaks came when I made “The Sting,” “Taxi Driver” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The lows came with films like “Cannery Row,” which broke my heart. It’s a tough business. Some you win, some you lose.

I know what it’s like to suffer a flop, but I also know what it feels like to walk up on stage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and accept the Oscar for best picture (“The Sting”). Unfortunately, now I also know what it feels like to be the hit-and-run victim of a newspaper story.

I’m speaking of Alan Citron’s article (Business, Jan. 17) headlined “Hard Times for ‘Sting’ Producer.” I don’t quarrel with The Times for doing a story on Mercury Entertainment and my decision to take it private. After all, many small independent companies like Mercury have had financial difficulties. However, the story was not only unusually harsh, but also filled with distortions and inaccuracies. More important, the article raises the bigger question of how the press evaluates success or failure when writing about films.

First I must correct a few of the errors that, when I read them, ruined an otherwise fine breakfast:

My 1984 film “The Flamingo Kid” was by no means a “mild disappointment,” as Citron states. The film cost only $10 million to make and went on to earn over $23 million in domestic box office alone. It was one of the top-grossing films of that year’s Christmas season and was critically well-received. To this day people smile and thank me for it.

Citron states that last year’s “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” “died at the box office.” The baby sitter might have died, but the film lived on quite well. It had a run of over 100 days and earned over $25 million. It was one of Warner Bros.’ best summer performers. (Ironically, The Times reported on July 19 that the film was one of the “summer’s top 10 hits.”) Not bad for a $10-million film targeted at teen-agers. Best of all, it should earn net profits for the participants (a real rarity in the film business--just ask Art Buchwald).

Citron says my next two films “proved to be losers.” They haven’t even been released yet! One is set to go through Warner Bros. this summer. The other will be released through Epic later this year. To say the least, he’s a little premature in his judgment.

We are living in an age when the film business is under close scrutiny. Frequently there is more written about the money side of movie making than the creative. But artistic criticism is by its very nature subjective; the coverage of the business side is not. It’s one thing for a critic to pan a movie, it’s another for a financial reporter to cavalierly toss around terms like “died at the box office” and “loser” without understanding the facts.

There are many ways to label a film a success or a failure. A film might make money for its distributor but not for the financier, or vice versa. It could do strong business in one part of the world but not another. A small film might perform modestly but be a huge critical success and bring a number of benefits to its studio. A big grosser might never come close to recouping its costs. And so on.

Admittedly, the finances of the film industry are complex. Perhaps we in the industry have contributed to the problem by making a mystery of its economics.

However, reporters must do their homework when writing about the financial side of moviemaking. The press should not judge success by setting an arbitrary blockbuster standard for grosses and applying it to all films.

Worse yet is a growing tendency to prejudge a film before it opens. There is an attitude, especially in financial reporting, to print every rumor whispered about the health of a film prior to its release.

This gossip can become self-fulfilling. It can affect the willingness of theater owners to book the picture.

Of course, Citron’s article may prove to be good luck. In 1977, New York magazine wrote a pre-release story about “Close Encounters” and predicted in its headline that the film would be a “Colossal Flop.”

That too made for a bad breakfast. But down the road there was a feast.