Can 'Angels' Save Columbia's Pascal?

By CLAUDIA ELLER

Oct. 27, 2000 12 AM PT

In the grand tradition of old Hollywood, the limousines lined up by the dozen Sunday night at the historic Mann’s Chinese Theatre for the premiere of “Charlie’s Angels.” “Angels” co-star Cameron Diaz stepped out onto the red carpet in red-mesh stockings and a head-turning black micro-mini dress, joining a parade of hip young stars, agents and gadflies who made Columbia Pictures’ premiere the go-to event.

Afterward, the cast full of Hollywood’s young royalty held court at a glam party where more than 1,000 guests passed through pyrotechnic explosions and showers of metallic confetti to jam shoulder to shoulder sipping bottles of Saki through straws.

“I’m going to faint, it’s so hot in here,” complained Columbia Pictures Chairwoman Amy Pascal.

Through the evening’s glitter and excitement, 42-year-old Pascal is sweating more than just the heat of an overcrowded party. As the studio executive charged with putting movies together, Pascal is holding the bag on a years-long drought at the box office during which too few hits failed to balance out too many misses.

What Pascal did not know the night of the premiere was that her soon-to-be-retiring boss, Sony Pictures’ 70-year-old chairman John Calley, was quietly devising a succession plan that would further diminish her authority at Columbia. Sony Pictures’ TV chief, Mel Harris, was to be elevated over her in a restructuring intended to quell talk of an unstable studio.

Needless to say, Pascal has a lot riding on next Friday’s release of “Charlie’s Angels,” a hip film version of the popular ‘70s TV show that she fought to make and guided through an obstacle course of casting, script and production problems.

Like the heroines of her movie, played by Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, Pascal has gone far on her smarts and ingenuity. But, while considered one of Hollywood’s brighter stars with her strong relationships with writers and an earnest advocacy for projects, her rise to the top and four-year tenure at Columbia has been a struggle.

It wasn’t supposed to be.

The movie industry stood up and took notice when Pascal, Calley and a small circle of other smart production executives, including Lucy Fisher and Gareth Wigan, took charge of what had become a chaotic, misdirected studio under two former regimes.

While the new brain trust brought some creative and fiscal sanity to the party, it failed to bring much in the way of creative success. Many believe that running a studio by committee was an ill-conceived idea, no matter how smart its members might be.

In the last three years, the studio’s biggest and only home-grown hits were “Stuart Little,” “Big Daddy” and “Blue Streak”--all of which Pascal can rightfully claim credit for shepherding. At the same time, she must also take the blame for serving up such flops as “Center Stage,” “Loser” and “8mm.”

Unfortunately for Pascal, she also gets unwarranted credit for such big money losers as Mike Nichols’ comedy “What Planet Are You From?” and Sydney Pollack’s melodrama “Random Hearts”--movies put together by her boss, Calley.

Still, for Pascal, “Angels” could be the beginning of a turnaround. There is strong buzz on such upcoming releases as the action-adventure “Vertical Limit” and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “The 6th Day.” And Oscar heat is building for Pascal’s holiday release, Gus Van Sant’s “Finding Forrester” starring Sean Connery.

In a joint interview this week with Calley, Pascal talked about her struggle to set the studio on a profitable course. Neither executive hinted at the pending corporate changes, which Pascal had been told about shortly before the interview.

Pascal said that about a year ago, the two of them had looked at their slate and reevaluated the kinds of movies they were making.

“We said, ‘We need to make sure that we’re making movies for everybody,’ ” said Pascal, explaining that meant event pictures with mass appeal and smaller genre specific movies for targeted audiences.

“We need to know exactly who the audience is when we make them,” Pascal said.

Pascal is ultra-sensitive about criticisms from her detractors that “Charlie’s Angels” is yet another “girl movie,” after bombing with such female-driven films including “28 Days,” “Hanging Up” and “Girl, Interrupted”.

But, Pascal believes that unlike those films, “Charlie’s Angels” will be to today’s young female audience what the 1992 hit “A League of Their Own”--a project she also guided--was in its time.

“This is a movie about totally positive female energy, and I think it’s an important thing that girls can be great at everything they do,” Pascal said. “They can be in love, be tough, have jobs and not sacrifice anything and be able to fly through the air and look great and be brilliant.”

Pascal plainly acknowledged how personally important the success of the film is to her.

“I really want this one to work because it hasn’t been the world’s greatest year, and it would be great for this to be the beginning of the turnaround. And it’s my story.”

Pascal’s own story is that of a native Angeleno who followed the classic Hollywood route from secretary to studio production head. After working as an assistant to producer Tony Garnett in the 1980s, she got her first studio job as a vice-president of production at Fox.

She went to Columbia Pictures in 1987, spending seven years as a top production executive, rising to executive vice president of production under then studio chief Dawn Steel. But her big break came in 1994 when she was hired to build Ted Turner’s fledgling movie division, Turner Pictures, to augment the output of the media mogul’s New Line Cinema and Castle Rock Entertainment.

Pascal never got a chance to really fly. Her tenure was cut to a short two years with the merger between Turner’s empire and Time Warner, which owns Warner Bros. Turner Pictures was shuttered before Pascal’s two hits--Nora Ephron’s comedy “Michael,” starring John Travolta, and “City of Angels,” with Nicolas Cage--were released by New Line and Warner Bros., respectively.

After turning down a top job at DreamWorks SKG, Pascal returned to Columbia in 1996 as president of Columbia Pictures.

Last year, she was promoted to chairwoman of Columbia Pictures, becoming the third woman in Hollywood to hold that title. But, unlike Paramount Pictures Chairwoman Sherry Lansing and Universal Pictures Chairwoman Stacey Snider, she was given no responsibility for marketing and distribution. The consequence: She has never been perceived as more than a head of production.

The hierarchy at Sony has been such that Calley had retained all the power, despite his constant mantra that “Amy is the one running the studio.” The problem is Hollywood is confused by the double message.

Calley still makes that claim, even though under the new operating structure, Pascal is part of a troika of movie executives who now report to Sony Pictures president and Chief Operating Officer Harris.

It might not actually matter to Pascal, who has long claimed that her love is making movies. “I wake up every day, even on the worst days, and I love this job.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Praying for a Hit

It’s been a prolonged dry spell for Columbia Pictures Chairwoman Amy Pascal. “Charlie’s Angels,” her new high-energy chick flick due in theaters next weekend, could reignite the studio’s box office with its cheeky humor and sex appeal.

AMY PASCAL BIOGRAPHY

* Personal: Born in 1958 and raised in Los Angeles.

* Education: UCLA with a BA in political science.

* Career milestones:

Assistant to producer Tony Garnett in the 1980s

Vice president of production at Fox (1986-87)

Vice president, production at Columbia (1987)

Executive vice president, production at Columbia (1989)

President of production at Turner Pictures (1994)

President of Columbia Pictures (1996)

Chairwoman of Columbia Pictures (1999)

AMONG PASCAL’S WINNERS