Don’t know about your memory, but mine can be just out of sorts, if you know what I mean…
So, don’t ask me to title your next film. I will probably not have an catchy ideas about that. In fact, I have a hard time keeping up with the changes as they come. One of those times was for Maid in Manhattan (2002). I knew I had worked on it, but I could not remember the shooting title without looking it up. I could remember the location, the tweeks we did to the pictures, the names of the stars, even the art director Patricia Woodbridge. (Jane Musky designed it. I met her on Ghost, I think, but that is another story for another day.) I finally located the info. The shooting title was Chambermaid. I don’t know if the title change helped the picture. The stars went on to bigger and better and are still hot today. And Maid did a hundred and a half million in box office. Not too shabby. Not at all.
About the only lesson I have learned about movies and their successes is this one. Make sure that the audience cares about somebody in the movie. Some character has to be one that the audience really wants to win, live, survive, be remembered if they don’t survive, get kissed, get married, get free, get rich, or just wake up to a new day. This is the one they bring up the theme music on at the end. You know…
Bonfire of the Vanities was a good book. Did very poorly as a movie. Only one tenth the box office of Maid and cost a lot more to make. Big time director- Brian DePalma, Great DP Vilmos Zsigmond, and my buddy Richard Sylbert as the designer. Big stars like Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Kim Cattrall, and Morgan Freeman. But about whom did we care? (Notice that I actually did not end the sentence with a preposition. I need validation. Give me a gold star on my report card. Please. Or just an attaboy.)
If you are thinking of making a movie about Gaddaffi, Saddam, Bernie Madoff, or some other modern villain, remember to include somebody in the story that we can care about. That we can empathize with. Connect to. Lock on. Hope for. Just sayin’…
So Ralph Fiennes and Jennifer Lopez were the big winners. And I could see my backings in the movie when they were in the hotel room together. Yeah, they “hooked up.” Big spoiler. Sorry.
The big deal for me was to lower the Chrysler Building so that you could see it in the shot. Have a look. Day and night. We made these in backlit vinyl at 80X18 feet.
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