Where They Root for Failure

The other day The Times’ Business section did a story about MGM reporting a loss of $61.3 million in its second-quarter earnings because of a pair of box-office flops. But what really caught my eye was something studio chief Chris McGurk said at the end of the piece. After boasting that his current hit, “Legally Blonde,” had already made more than $50 million at the box office, McGurk felt compelled to add that his movie “didn’t have any $20-million actors with high-gross participation” in it.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that McGurk was taking a thinly veiled shot at “America’s Sweethearts,” the Julia Roberts-starring film from Revolution Studios that was ranked higher in this paper’s Company Town Film Profit Report than “Legally Blonde.” In other words, it was not enough to brag about his movie--he also had to question the profitability of a rival’s movies.

The Germans have a word for it-- schadenfreude the pleasure one takes from the misfortune of others--and in Hollywood it’s a way of life. If show business were a religion, its first commandment would be: Instead of enjoying your own success, take pleasure in others’ failure. One producer I know used to go around his office chanting “OPMF.” Translation: Other people must fail. As Ned Tanen, a former studio chief at Paramount and Universal, once put it: “The only words you need to know about Hollywood are ‘negativity’ and ‘illusion.’ Especially ‘negativity.”’

Why do so many people in Hollywood root for everyone else to fail? You could chalk it up to jealousy and insecurity. You could say it’s a telling example of Hollywood’s spiritual emptiness. You could blame it on an insular culture that encourages cutthroat competition. Whatever the reason, schadenfreude is deeply imbedded in Hollywood culture. “This is a town filled with envy and jealousy,” says “Tomb Raider” producer Larry Gordon, who’s been a high-profile force in Hollywood for years. “You’ve got two kinds of people--the people who’ve made it who are angry that they’re not more successful and the people who haven’t made it who are angry because they think the other guy is a lucky [expletive].”

The equation is simple: Power + Success = Envy. In the 1980s, the backbiting focused on Creative Artists Agency czar Michael Ovitz, whose velvet glove grip on the industry inspired a storm of schadenfreude . When Michael Eisner let Ovitz go at Disney in 1996, there was dancing in the streets. When Mark Canton ran Sony in the early 1990s, he was a fat target: He made bad movies, kept people waiting forever in his office and paid Jim Carrey $20 million to star in “Cable Guy” at a time when studios were trying to hold the line on star salaries. Jealous of the adoring press DreamWorks got after its launch, many in Hollywood openly exulted when the studio’s much-ballyhooed debut animation film, “The Prince of Egypt,” failed to perform up to expectations.

Last year the sniping focused on Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein because the industry felt Weinstein’s crafty “Chocolat” marketing blitz had won the lightweight romance an undeserved best picture Oscar nomination. When Disney’s “Pearl Harbor” opened to withering reviews this summer, there was a tidal wave of gloating directed at Disney chief Michael Eisner, who is widely disliked in many industry circles, and director Michael Bay, who is perceived as being arrogant and untalented.

It’s tempting to view some of this behavior as classic testosterone guy stuff, Hollywood being full of young men in a hurry, eager to get to the top. But women aren’t so sure. “There’s very little sisterhood in Hollywood--the cat claws come out when successful women meet other successful women,” says screenwriter Leslie Dixon. “Most women perceive so little room at the top of the pyramid that they’re suspicious of any woman who wants to get up there.”

S chadenfreude is hardly confined to the movie business. Washington insiders were gleeful when Newt Gingrich fell from power and Hillary Clinton was beset by legal and marital woes. Record business insiders have reveled over the legal woes of Lizzie Grubman, the high-powered publicist who allegedly backed her SUV over 16 clubgoers after calling a bouncer “white trash” when asked to move her car. Be they publicist or politician, there was a common thread: People believed each target had acted arrogantly and abused their power.

Similarly, many in Hollywood are rooting for Jim Cameron to fail, not because “Titanic” was such a blockbuster, but because of the filmmaker’s “I’m king of the world” speech at the Oscars.

“This has a lot to do with how people behave when they’re at the top,” says CAA’s Bob Bookman. “If you’re smug about your success, people are far more likely to be resentful. If you have some self-deprecation, people are much more likely to cut you some slack.”

People who handle power with grace and honor generally have few enemies--at least until they become too successful. When Bob Daly ran Warner Bros., it was rare to hear a bad word said about him; likewise with ex-20th Century Fox chief Bill Mechanic. Universal’s Ron Meyer and Sony’s John Calley are also viewed as classy straight-shooters. Until recently, Revolution chief Joe Roth was considered a model executive too: smart and generous, without a whiff of arrogance. But in recent months, the daggers have been out for Roth.

Why? In a word: envy. Coming off several big years at Disney, he put together a lucrative financing deal for his new company with commitments of $3 billion to bankroll 36 films over six years. Roth was on the cover of Forbes magazine before he’d released his first film. If that didn’t prompt enough jealousy, he went off to direct “America’s Sweethearts,” with such stars as Roberts, John Cusack and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Roth felt his directing job sent a message that people at his company could creatively fulfill themselves, but many industryites viewed it as an act of hubris for someone who’s previous films as a director weren’t exactly Oscar material. The backbiting increased when Roth launched his slate of pictures with two low-brow comedies.

Roth also got a black eye, by association, when Todd Garner, his unofficial production chief, waged a brazen campaign to take credit for dreaming up “Pearl Harbor,” culminating with a Wall Street Journal interview in which Garner referred to his newborn child as “his second-best creation.”

Has Roth changed? Not a bit. I’ve seen him when he’s hot and when he’s not and he’s always the same. But getting to start the company of his dreams--and direct a movie too--started Hollywood’s jealousy meters buzzing. As Ray Stark used to say: High profile, broken nose. When you’re a $3-billion media darling, people want to throw sand in your face.

“Joe is the most envied guy in town not because he makes millions of dollars,” says producer Bill Gerber, who grew up in Hollywood, the son of a successful MCA agent. “He’s envied because he’s classy, treats people well and goes home to his wife and kids. He’s such a nice guy that it blows everybody else’s alibi.”

There’s nothing new about this mind-set. In 1975, when director Peter Bogdanovich was at his egomaniacal peak, his new film, “At Long Last Love,” had a disastrous premiere, prompting Billy Wilder to quip that as news of the debacle spread, “you could hear the champagne corks popping all over town.” In the old days, when the industry craved respectability, people weren’t so quick to turn on one another.

“The early moguls were fierce competitors, but they shared an immigrant experience that created a bond between them,” says DreamWorks marketing chief Terry Press. “They needed each other, so when someone else succeeded, it meant success for the industry. Today the business is a mirror of our culture, which is full of cynicism and insecurity. At DreamWorks, we operate every day under the assumption that nobody wishes us well.”

Hollywood is also a place that tolerates bad behavior. “Most businesses require a certain level of decency as part of your job description,” Roth says. “But there’s a lack of rules in the movie business that allows all kinds of bad behavior. It’s not about competition. Sports thrives on competition, but nobody goes around hoping their rival gets hit in the head with a baseball.”

In the end it all comes down to one thing: Hollywood is bursting at the seams with insecure people who soothe their nerves by rooting for the guy on the rung above them to stumble. It’s an attitude born out of a peculiarly sad desperation: If someone else’s movie deal falls apart, maybe my project will move to the head of the pack. If someone else loses their job, maybe mine will be more secure.

“Show business is a very mercurial way to make a living,” says talent manager Bernie Brillstein. “If you have a hit, you don’t know how long it’s going to last. You don’t even know why it’s a hit. It encourages you to root against the other guy. It’s all about insecurity. The only people who are stable in this town are the psychiatrists.”

The Big Picture runs each Tuesday in Calendar. If you have questions, ideas or criticism, e-mail them to patrick.goldstein@latimes.com.