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OT: The "Looming Up" of Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman" (Now that the QT is Out)

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
8 replies | jump to latest

I don't think it is too coincidental that Netflix waited until just AFTER QT's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" opened and got its day in the sun to unleash the first trailer for Martin Scorsese's The Irishman. (Its on YouTube.)

In some ways, "OAITH" stole "The Irishman'" thunder. "The Irishman" went into production first and one of its claims to fame is that it is the first Scorsese movie with Al Pacino.

Ah, but then we suddenly got "the first Tarantino movie with Al Pacino."

So Big Al is back in action in movies for TWO major directors he never worked with. His "Hollywood" role proved to be a somewhat extended cameo; I think Pacino will be in The Irishman at more length. He plays Jimmy Hoffa -- hey, Jack Nicholson played Hoffa way back in 1992. Oh well, Al and Jack both played the Devil, too.

There are other "hooks" to The Irishman: Robert DeNiro returns to his mentor Scorsese after years away(years in which Leo DiCaprio took the slot over from DeNiro) .Joe Pesci rejoins Scorsese AND DeNiro and comes out of retirement to do so. And Harvey Keitel comes back to Scorsese decades after "Mean Streets" and "Taxi Driver."

Another hook: as visible in the new trailer for "The Irishman," a current rage (CGI "de-aging" of old actors) will be used to give us "young DeNiro, young Pacino, and young Pesci"(at least) in some scenes. You can see the effect in the trailer -- it looks a little "glazed" to me, but what the heck.

And of course there is the hook that this is a Scorsese mob movie. We've had a few: GoodFellas, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Departed -- but we can always use another. We're talking Irish mobsters(like The Departed) but also Mafia? And we're talking Jimmy Hoffa.

Anyway, I'm guessing that Netflix held off on promoting "The Irishman"(for fall release) until the QT cloud had settled. Not to mention, with Pacino in a hot new movie for ANOTHER auteur(QT) it helps sell "The Irishman."

Which brings me to an/the interesting aspect of "The Irishman."

Its for Netflix. And evidently Scorsese was balking for awhile -- backtracking on his agreement - that this movie NOT be shown in a lot of theaters. It will be shown for a short time in a FEW theaters, but "Netflix wants to be Netflix" THEIR selling point is: "Netflix has produced this great Scorsese movie, so you have to watch it on Netflix."

It looks like Scorsese is giving in. He gave an interview this week in which he said "no other studio wanted to make this movie at this expense..I'm grateful that Netflix gave me the chance."(paraphrased.) Translation: "The Irishman" won't be opening on 3,500 screens. Just a few. Mainly it will be on Netflix. (Scorsese had started balking, by the way, when his pal Spielberg came out in public to say that Netflix movies should not be nominated for Oscars.)

I've personally gotten used to "the Netflix movie" pretty quick-like. I've given my "best movie of 2018" slot to "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs," a Coen brothers movie that I was only able to see on Netflix. I couldn't see it in a theater locally. And I know that "Roma" is a big deal.

Indeed, I suppose this personal question looms before me: "Will The Irishman beat Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as my favorite movie of 2019...and will The Irishman being a Netflix movie affect that decision?"

Not to mention: my favorite movie of the 2010's so far is my favorite movie of 2013: Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street. Can/will Martin Scorsese's The Irishman beat THAT?

Thus, life stays interesting. Hah.

Anyway you cut it, I am excited to soon see a Martin Scorsese mob movie with DeNiro, Pesci, Keitel, and Pacino. And Ray Romano, too!

PS. Word is that Scorsese is finalizing talks for the stars for his next movie: Leo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro -- Scorsese's two greatest proteges -- together for the first time in a movie about murders of Oklahoma Native Americans in the 1920s, as part of a scheme to take their oil. Bobby's the villainous oil baron; Leo's...FBI? Not sure. We'll see. (I think this story was one of the segments in the old 1959 James Stewart movie, "The FBI Story.")

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

It looks like Scorsese is giving in. He gave an interview this week in which he said "no other studio wanted to make this movie at this expense..

Note that it's *still* utterly mysterious whether Netflix *has* a real, even potentially profitable business model. They are spending incredible sums of money on original content but without ever having the obvious feedback from a ticket-buying public. Everything we know about Hollywood since the arrival of TV suggests that the business is always going to be tight: you'll make at least 10-20 misses for every hit. The difference between a profitable studio or distributor and a bankrupt one is often the difference between being 90% wrong and being 95% wrong. We know that Netflix is dropping $100 million+ on films and series that end up with almost no profile, e.g., Affleck in Triple Frontier from All is Lost's director, so is it at 90% or 95%?No one knows. The Irishman will get a lot of attention at least...

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Note that it's *still* utterly mysterious whether Netflix *has* a real, even potentially profitable business model.

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Yes, the more I read about how this company exists -- making these ultra-high budget movies almost exclusively on streaming --- the more I wonder "where's the money come from?" and "who's making the big bucks?" (On that one: the movie stars, at least.)

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They are spending incredible sums of money on original content but without ever having the obvious feedback from a ticket-buying public.

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They seem have lost something the movies and TV had: a measure of a true hit, a blockbuster. "Back in the day," we KNEW that The Sound of Music, The Godfather, The Exorcist and Jaws were blockbusters. We knew from the long lines we had to stand in and for how many months these movies played. And the studios (pretty much) knew the money coming in.

We knew the TV hits. We knew when Bonanza was Number One; or Laugh-In; or All in the Family. And again, there seemed to be "mass community" aware of these shows.

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Everything we know about Hollywood since the arrival of TV suggests that the business is always going to be tight: you'll make at least 10-20 misses for every hit. The difference between a profitable studio or distributor and a bankrupt one is often the difference between being 90% wrong and being 95% wrong.

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Interesting.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

We know that Netflix is dropping $100 million+ on films and series that end up with almost no profile, e.g., Affleck in Triple Frontier from All is Lost's director, so is it at 90% or 95%?No one knows.

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Yes. I sample the "major star" Netflix movies, and none of them thus far have seemed like REAL movies. I'm thinking of the one with Affleck, and the one with Sandra Bullock, and the recent one with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston(Sandler was a very big movie star, who, on the fade, switched to Netflix to earn big bucks while still making lousy movies.)

Even my personal fave "Buster Scruggs" had me scratching my head. Several of the stories were so small scale and slight(even if gorgeously photographed) that I kept asking myself "WOULD this play as a movie movie?" (My answer: yes, on the basis of two stories -- "Buster Scruggs" and "The Gal Who Got Rattled" alone. Plus its better than Hail Caesar and Burn After Reading.)

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The Irishman will get a lot of attention at least...

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Yes. It drew my attention(with that cast, the "returns" and the Mob) early on...and then I got worried when I heard it was Netflix. I'm still a little worried, but there is this:

It is a movie starring...three old men: DeNiro, Pacino, Pesci. None of whom is really, on their own , a major box office draw. At least OATIH has "young" Leo(44) who can open movies, and "young" Brad(55) who sometimes can.

Anyway, things default for me to my "mainstream" tastes. "The Irishman is the kind of movie, from the kind of director, with the kind of cast...I love. I love this film before I see it(this happens with the QTs, too.)

But I am waiting to see how and when Netflix is gonna deliver a REAL blockbuster.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

"How the OT becomes the on-topic":

I'm reminded that, in his own way, in his own day, Hitchcock got personally involved in "different distribution of his product."

He made at least a movie a year but...he also had that TV show. And he became a true TV star as well as a great film director.

Meanwhile, he explicitly made "Psycho" using much of his TV crew and filming at TV soundstages at Universal(more famous for TV than movies.) One particular critic, Dwight MacDonald, wrote: "Psycho is just an episode of the TV show, with overlength and padding , and more sadism." Uh...yes, and no. There is a lot of content in Psycho that never would have passed the TV censors; and the shower scene alone is a cinematic task no TV show schedule could accommodate(the staircase murder, too.)

And yet: panicking(before Herrmann put the score on), that Psycho was a flop, Hitchocck felt it had been cheap enough to make that he COULD broadcast it as a multi-part episode of his TV series(with cuts of course.)

In short, Hitchcock already had his eye out for the "fluidity" between the movie theater and the home screen.

However, in the late 60s, Hitch told one interviewer that he would never make a "made for TV movie" because "then I'm working for a price." i.e. no chance of the kind of surprise profit that Psycho made.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Everything we know about Hollywood since the arrival of TV suggests that the business is always going to be tight: you'll make at least 10-20 misses for every hit. The difference between a profitable studio or distributor and a bankrupt one is often the difference between being 90% wrong and being 95% wrong.

Another entry in the 'how hard it is to run a profitable movie company' file:
https://www.vulture.com/2019/08/annapurna-megan-ellison-larry-bailout-bankruptcy.html
Indirectly the case makes you realize yet again the value to Hollywood of directors like Hitchcock & Nolan & QT - their films have a lot of idiosyncratic style but they're not arthouse, their films almost always have something *delicious* or genre-friendly & marketable right up-front. They have long tails of cinephile rewatchability but they're not arthouse, don't have production blowouts, and cover their costs in their original mass market releases. Annapurna has tended to stick with directors who've had a hit or hits (Bigelow ,Barry Jenkins, etc.) but these directors aren't commercial-minded enough (currently) to even cover their costs almost every time out, let alone to regularly produce profits enough to cover all the misses.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Another entry in the 'how hard it is to run a profitable movie company' file:
https://www.vulture.com/2019/08/annapurna-megan-ellison-larry-bailout-bankruptcy.html

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If I get this right, here is a movie company pretty much funded for the daughter out of daddy's deep Silicon Valley pockets. Oh well, his to spend...his to lose.

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Indirectly the case makes you realize yet again the value to Hollywood of directors like Hitchcock & Nolan & QT - their films have a lot of idiosyncratic style but they're not arthouse, their films almost always have something *delicious* or genre-friendly & marketable right up-front. They have long tails of cinephile rewatchability but they're not arthouse, don't have production blowouts, and cover their costs in their original mass market releases.

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I've always said that Hitchcock can be studied as a film artist AND as a businessman. Guided by Lew Wasserman from the early fifties on, but possessed of his own canny business instincts, Hitchcock just kept making decisions that made him rich. The move to Paramount. The TV show. Psycho. Selling Psycho and the TV series to Universal. The accumulation of MCA-Universal stock. Withholding "the Hitchcock 5" until after his death -- thus becoming famous and richer still in death.

But Hitchcock WAS deferential to "the money men" and offered praise and respect for them in interviews, saying things like 'I'm so grateful that these people entrust their money with me, I feel an obligation to spend it wisely , on budget, and to get a return for them."

Compare that to Orson Welles, William Friedkin, and Michael Cimino (for three) -- all of whom demonstrated a contempt for the money men that led to all three of their careers collapsing.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

However, Hitchcock also did something that modern "players" like Jack Nicholson(acting) and Scorsese(directing) do:
to pepper the box office hits (Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much) with some "personal" filmmaking(The Trouble with Harry, The Wrong Man, Vertigo.) It was as if Hitchcock felt any time he had a big hit, he was entitled to make a riskier movie next. And then go back for a hit after that.

Nicholson did 'The Witches of Eastwick"(big summer hit) in 1987, and he followed it with the bleak "Ironweed" with Meryl Streep(low profit Oscar bait.) Scorsese did The Departed AND Silence. Etc.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Annapurna has tended to stick with directors who've had a hit or hits (Bigelow ,Barry Jenkins, etc.) but these directors aren't commercial-minded enough (currently) to even cover their costs almost every time out, let alone to regularly produce profits enough to cover all the misses.

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I suppose the idea here is that the studio system was large enough to gather profitable stars, producers, and directors in one place(like, say, Paramount in the fifties, with DeMille, Hitchcock, Wilder and Wyler on board.)

But smaller companies can't guarantee that kind of "flow of profitable product from guaranteed producers."

Harvey Weinstein -- you should pardon the name -- "discovered" Tarantino pretty early on and made QT the linchpin of his Miramax movie company. The company spent a lot of time competing for Oscars with their other films (Shakespeare in Love, Silver Linings Playbook), but Weinstein knew that QT was his crown jewel for press, for popularity and for profitable -- but not MEGA-profitable -- films . QT's films don't make Marvel money, but on their indie-plus budgets, they make a LOT of money. Disney bought Miramax, and Weinstein created the Weinstein Company and QT stayed with him -- until it all ended(which was great.)

But I suppose that's an example of how a smaller company DOES survive. You need a modern day Hitchcock. you need QT.

Speaking of QT: as much as I really, really like The Hateful Eight, it made less than half of Django and/or Inglorious Basterds. Some call it a flop. It certainly "underperformed." So its another reason why QT might well want to retire. I'm not sure that the mellow and quirky(yet bloody) OAITH is going to hit the profit heights of Django. We shall see.