Lots of Pitches, Few Hits

Those who look at the flooded movie marketplace and think Hollywood executives just don’t know how to say no may be comforted to know that, in fact, there are times when they turn down movie pitches.

Otherwise, we might be awaiting the opening of films about futuristic devil robots bent on world domination, Jackie-Chan-Meets-”Waiting to Exhale” and a Mafia musical.

In an era when everyone complains that simply too many movies get made, here’s a glimpse at just what doesn’t make the cut with development executives and others who green-light films.

Though no one can articulate the winning formula in movie making, Hollywood executives have very definite ideas about what doesn’t work, which genres are dead as doornails and which projects should never make it to the mega-plexes.

In the best of all possible worlds, the pitch is an established Hollywood tradition that consists of filmmakers and wannabes snappily offering up their best and brightest ideas to studio honchos who consider them thoughtfully. In this idyllic scenario, the film concept is then snatched up, scripted and packaged, with the result being a box-office hit.

But most pitches never make it past that first set of ears. Some are interesting concepts, but uncommercial. Others are simply unacceptable--a yawn at best, downright ridiculous at worst.

Producer Brian Grazer was recently followed out of his office building and through the parking lot by someone pitching a film about futuristic devil robots.

“This guy asked for just 20 minutes, then he walked me down to my car saying, ‘Let me just talk to you,’ ” Grazer said. “It was a story about tough evil robots that are going to take over the world. First, I don’t get robots to begin with. And evil robots? I’m lost on that. He had even done storyboards. I told him, ‘I don’t get it. I’m sorry.’ ”

Gramercy Pictures President Russell Schwartz recently went through a spell where a disproportionate amount of pitches involved projects starring actress Janeane Garofalo. (The studio’s “The Matchmaker,” starring Garofalo, opened this month.) The worst pitch, he said, was one that featured the dark-eyed, wisecracking Garofalo as a serial killer.

“That’s good casting,” Schwartz joked. “Over three months we got pitched about eight films with her attached. We did some spot-checking with her manager and found out she didn’t know about any of them. Last year, we got about a dozen with Frances McDormand attached.”

Lindsay Law, president of Fox Searchlight Pictures, which produces lower-budget movies and art films, says he gets pitches for a variety of literary-based projects, some of which cannot and should not be translated to the screen.

“They come to us with lots of dreary literature,” Law said. “All the obvious ones have been made into movies, so people are constantly going through their dustbins or their Penguin libraries. We get all these well-meaning pitches, but what they aren’t telling us is it’s slow and dull and dreary.”

If dawdling literary adaptations are out of favor, don’t bet on frenetic or nihilistic, violent fare either. That well has gone dry after a string of low-budget misfires including “Keys to Tulsa” to “Truth or Consequences, N.M.”

“Anything that’s Tarantino-esque is out,” said Mike De Luca, president of production at New Line Cinema. “It’s kind of been done.”

“I don’t want anything that has negative role models or negative themes,” Grazer said. “Really bad guys--gangsters, psycho killers--are totally uncool. And so are soulless movies about revenge. Anything that doesn’t have a soul, I give a big ‘X’ to.”

When a genre movie has been a dud at the box office, you can bet that related pitches will fall on deaf ears. Thanks to the resounding failure of “Cutthroat Island,” swashbucklers need not apply.

“The pirate genre is dead,” said Justin Dardes, vice president of APA, Feature Literary division. “People just cringe. It’s not even worth bringing it up. It’s a period thing and it’s difficult mounting a film on water. There’s always an exception, but in that particular genre, we couldn’t find one.”

Straight-ahead action movies, such as those that star Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme, are no longer a hot commodity--unless they have a unique spin.

“One thing that people are passing on is formula,” said Marc Platt, Universal Pictures’ president of production. “I think people tend to say no to the kind of action films that were done in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. People are searching for what will make this story line and genre fresh and original, what will set it apart in a crowded marketplace.”

“The action genre has kind of run its course and needs to reinvent itself like ‘Cliffhanger’ reinvented the genre,” Dardes said.

“The idea of ‘Die Hard’ in a building or in a streetcar, their eyes roll when they hear that. It has to have very strong character development. There has to be a reason why we go along for this ride.”

Tales of alien invasions are a gray area. Some say they’re still selling; others avoid them as they would a black hole.

“Anything alien is out,” De Luca said. “It’s been post-moderned out by Will Smith.”

“Anything with an alien is good,” Dardes said. “That’s the absurd thing about this business. We’re like cattle being led to slaughter.”

Period pieces are iffy, as well. Largely, it depends on the period. Westerns are pretty much out, though there are some exceptions, like the hip western.

Likewise, the clock is ticking on stories of women feeling the pressure of their biological clock.

“Movies about women needing to get married because their mothers want them to have children: It’s just boring,” De Luca said. “Don’t you think there’s more you can say about women? When you hear those pitches it’s like those voices of adults in Charlie Brown: ‘Wah Wah Wah.’ You immediately tune out.”

Then there are those that are just plain odd, the half-baked ideas that leave studio executives cold.

Law recalled how he and some other Fox executives were treated to an hourlong pitch (most are under half an hour) centering on an obscure psychologist (he couldn’t recall which) and his theories and dreams.

“They described the entire movie scene-by-scene,” Law said. “In five minutes we knew we didn’t want to do it. It was a wildly unlikely fantasy and not at all palatable.”

Also from the unlikely department: De Luca was pitched a slim concept titled “Mac E,” the rap version of “Mack the Knife.”

“It was from five white guys, no less,” he said. “When I asked what music they were thinking of using they said, ‘Oh yeah. We can get the music later.’ That kind of genre mixing is a big no-no in my book.”