The good, bad and ugly of making movies today
Re “Horror Director Impales Disney in Tell-All Book,” June 23
In reading this article, I was struck by the clarity of what is truly the good and bad in the movie business today, as portrayed in the exchange between studio president Nina Jacobson and director M. Night Shyamalan.
The good is that there are still straightforward people like Jacobson unafraid to ruffle the feathers of the artistic elite when it comes to making and financing better films. I can say from personal experience that Jacobson’s creative instincts are as good or better than just about any “suit” with whom I have worked in the last 20 years.
The bad is how stars like Shyamalan grow so insulated that they believe an executive disagreeing with them must evidence a “decay of her creative vision,” instead of what was probably a well-needed opportunity for him to reexamine his new project and improve its viability. Just the fact that Shyamalan, whose last four movies display a stultifying commercial sameness, refers to himself as an “iconoclast” gives a glimpse of how stars can become over-coddled, with the result being really bad and expensive movies like “The Village.”
GAVIN POLONE
Los Angeles
The writer is a film and TV producer.
Only good movies
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