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Topic:
The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters -- #1: The tyranny of the opening weekend box office
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
12/20/07 11:25pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --20. Martin Scorsese losing the Best Director Oscar to Costn
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Neither Redford nor Costner are directors of Scorsese's caliber or even close. But everyone concentrates on the consequences to Scorsese, instead of the consequences to us of rewarding Costner. The result was a raging case of megalomania and two of the silliest flops ever: "Waterworld" and "The Postman."
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KnightWriter
Title:
Administrator Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
12/20/07 11:34pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --20. Martin Scorsese losing the Best Director Oscar to Costn
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Zaz posted:
Neither Redford nor Costner are directors of Scorsese's caliber or even close. But everyone concentrates on the consequences to Scorsese, instead of the consequences to us of rewarding Costner. The result was a raging case of megalomania and two of the silliest flops ever: "Waterworld" and "The Postman."
Waterworld almost blockaded Titanic, and poisoned the water ahead of it. Luckily, it steamed past anyway.
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dp4m
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
12/20/07 11:40pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --20. Martin Scorsese losing the Best Director Oscar to Costn
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KnightWriter posted:
Why was it a disaster?
I never got what was so good about Goodfellas, though I'm sure it's more me than anything else.
Well, to be fair, Goodfellas WAS excellent but I don't consider this a disaster either that Scorsese lost here as I thought Dances With Wolves was the better film. However, I agree that it was bad from an enabling-Costner standpoint. 
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"Awarding experience points for cleverly and creatively generating an enjoyable experience. How warped is that?" - Darths & Droids
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Armenian_Jedi
Registered:
Mar '03
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Date Posted:
12/20/07 11:42pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --20. Martin Scorsese losing the Best Director Oscar to Costn
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I think Scorsese losing to Redford is worse then his loss to Costner.
Raging Bull> Goodfellas
and KW, Goodfellas is the third greatest mafia movie behind Godfather 1 and 2... how can you not see that?!
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yankee8255
Registered:
May '05
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Date Posted:
12/20/07 11:47pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --20. Martin Scorsese losing the Best Director Oscar to Costn
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I'm also in the camp that feels Goodfellas was vastly overrated. A very good movie, but not the masterpiece everyone makes it out to be. Dances with Wolves, on the other hand, is one of my favorites, so I never had a problem with Costner getting the Oscar.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
12/21/07 7:24pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --20. Martin Scorsese losing the Best Director Oscar to Costn
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"Dances With Wolves" is a zeitgeist movie, IMO>
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Drac39
Registered:
Jul '02
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Date Posted:
12/21/07 10:53pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --20. Martin Scorsese losing the Best Director Oscar to Costn
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Disaster? No the Academy is very silly and had been prejudice toward Marty. His oscar for the Departed was really more of a "Were sorry for ignoring you" rather than it being such a great film or directorial effort.
People shouldn't use the oscars as a rating system in the quality of film. The Academy isn't perfect and the voting system is flawed. You don't have to see all the nominees for Best Picture in order to vote for who will win it.
I think a lot of the conservative voters saw Goodfellas as too out there.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
12/22/07 3:33pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --20. Martin Scorsese losing the Best Director Oscar to Costn
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Well, perhaps. "Good Fellas" is way too long, IMO, but its flashes of genuine black humour redeem much.
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NYCitygurl
Title: Manager of SFFBC, C&G, and NSWFF
Registered:
Jul '02
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Date Posted:
12/28/07 10:03am
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --20. Martin Scorsese losing the Best Director Oscar to Costn
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19. Orion Pictures' sudden nosedive from the top of a heap of Oscar gold.
Failing to reap crucial profits from ancillary businesses like TV and home video, the mini-major filed for bankruptcy in December of '91, months after scoring seven Oscars for Dances with Wolves and just three months before The Silence of the Lambs racked up five statues.
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dp4m
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
12/28/07 12:32pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --19. Orion Pictures' sudden nosedive from the top
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NYCitygurl posted:
19. Orion Pictures' sudden nosedive from the top of a heap of Oscar gold.
Failing to reap crucial profits from ancillary businesses like TV and home video, the mini-major filed for bankruptcy in December of '91, months after scoring seven Oscars for Dances with Wolves and just three months before The Silence of the Lambs racked up five statues.
See, now THIS was a disaster. Orion had some of the excellent movies going in the 80s and it was shocking that, even with all of the tax loopholes, that Orion had to file for bankruptcy.
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"Looks like you're about to get pwned" - Eric Cartman
"Awarding experience points for cleverly and creatively generating an enjoyable experience. How warped is that?" - Darths & Droids
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Palpateen
Registered:
Apr '00
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Date Posted:
12/28/07 1:02pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --19. Orion Pictures' sudden nosedive from the top
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All the wolves and all the lambs couldn't save Orion. That's amazing because both of those were very successful films both financially and in terms of awards.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
12/29/07 4:14pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --19. Orion Pictures' sudden nosedive from the top
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This was a genuine disaster, no question. The founders of Orion were originally at United Artists, and then they left to form this company. In the end, though, both UA and Orion suffered the same fate: they went bankrupt (UA was done in by "Heaven's Gate") and were sold to MGM. If you want to know why so many more interesting films were made back in the day, the absence of these two companies are part of the reason.
From Wiki: "Orion Pictures Corporation was an American movie production company, formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. Pictures and three former top-level executives of United Artists. UA co-chairmen Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin along with chief executive officer Eric Pleskow had resigned after disputes with UA's then parent, Transamerica. Orion's first films included 10, Time After Time, Caddyshack, Arthur, Excalibur, Monty Python's Life of Brian, and A Little Romance.
History
In 1982, Orion merged with Filmways, Inc. (which had produced well-remembered TV shows in the late 1960s, such as The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Mister Ed and The Addams Family, but was a second-string studio by the late 1970s and mainly interesting for its ownership of American International Pictures), and became an independent company, in addition to entering television production and distribution. It also introduced a new logo, featuring an animated depiction of the constellation Orion.
During the 1980s, its output included Woody Allen films, Hollywood blockbusters such as the first Terminator film and the RoboCop films, comedy movies such as Throw Momma from the Train, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Something Wild and Academy Award winners such as Amadeus and Platoon. Dances with Wolves and The Silence of the Lambs would also earn many Academy Awards in the early 1990s for Orion. Billionaire John Kluge invested in the company as a favor to Krim, and by 1990 his Metromedia organization had become majority owner.
Orion Classics
In 1983, Orion Pictures introduced art-house division Orion Classics, luring away Michael Barker, Tom Bernard, and Marcie Bloom, who had previously run United Artists Classics. The subsidiary presented mostly foreign-language films such as Babette's Feast and Pedro Almodovar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and U.S. independent films such as Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train and Richard Linklater's Slacker.
Early 1990s financial problems
In the early 1990s, Orion had severe financial problems, and declared bankruptcy in 1992. The studio effectively sold the finished negative of the film version of The Addams Family to raise the funds to open Silence of the Lambs while the company's other lucrative properties such as the Terminator franchise went to other studios. The Addams Family was distributed in the U.S. by Paramount Pictures, with Orion retaining international rights. Several projects in production at the time, such as Blue Sky, Car 54, Where Are You? and Clifford, had their releases delayed by three years (from 1991 to 1994) because of the bankruptcy filing. Orion was eventually able to exit bankruptcy in 1996, but few of the films released during the four years under bankruptcy protection made much of a critical or commercial impact.
Divestitures
As a result of Orion's financial troubles, its television division was sold to ABC and became ABC Productions (which produced the television series The Commish and My So-Called Life), although Orion continued to retain ownership of all its television output up to the time of the bankruptcy. The company's financial troubles also prompted the trio of Michael Barker, Tom Bernard, and Marcie Bloom to leave Orion Classics, taking the rights to the highly anticipated Merchant Ivory Productions adaptation of Howards End with them; at the invite of former Orion president Mike Medavoy, who was now relocated at Tri-Star Pictures, the three set up Sony Pictures Classics, with Howards End as the company's first release.
Just prior to MGM sale
Towards its sale to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1997, Orion produced very few films, and primarily released films from other producers, including LIVE Entertainment. Orion Classics, minus its founders, continued to acquire popular art-house films such as Boxing Helena before Metromedia fused the subsidiary with The Samuel Goldwyn Company in 1996.
Sale to MGM
In 1997, Metromedia sold Orion (as well as The Samuel Goldwyn Company and Motion Picture Corporation of America) to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with the deal finalized in late 1998. Orion still operates today as an in-name-only subsidiary of MGM.
Orion's library
Almost all of Orion's releases from 1982 onward, as well as most of the AIP and Filmways backlogs and all the television output originally produced and distributed by Orion Television, now bear the MGM name.
However, in most cases, the 1980s Orion logo is retained—or added on, in the case of the Filmways and AIP libraries. Orion releases produced by the Hemdale Film Corporation are included in MGM's library as well, although MGM did not acquire these films (which included The Terminator and Platoon) until it bought the Epic Productions library that owned the Hemdale library—this has since been incorporated into the Orion library.
MGM does not own all of Orion's releases, however. Most ancillary rights to Orion's back catalog from the 1978–1981 joint venture period remains under the control of Warner Bros., with the exception of Monty Python's Life of Brian, now owned by the late George Harrison's Handmade Films and the Python production company; and two films produced by American Zoetrope, Hammett and The Escape Artist, now owned by Paramount Pictures.
Also, two Saul Zaentz films originally released by Orion are now owned by Warner Bros.: The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Amadeus. Also, First Blood, which was produced by Carolco Pictures, currently belongs to successor company StudioCanal; Up the Creek and ¡Three Amigos! belong to HBO (although television rights and all international rights to the latter film are held by MGM)."
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The2ndQuest
Title: :
-LACWAC
-Lit Mod of Death
-Games
Registered:
Jan '00
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Date Posted:
12/29/07 5:25pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --19. Orion Pictures' sudden nosedive from the top
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Orion will always mean Mac & Me to me 
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
12/30/07 6:03pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --19. Orion Pictures' sudden nosedive from the top
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It's a natural disaster, absolutely.
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NYCitygurl
Title: Manager of SFFBC, C&G, and NSWFF
Registered:
Jul '02
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Date Posted:
1/26 5:56pm
Subject:
RE: The 50 Biggest Hollywood Disasters --19. Orion Pictures' sudden nosedive from the top
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18. Roman Polanski's Lolita episode with a 13-year-old girl.
Facing a rape conviction and possibly a half-century behind bars, the Chinatown director fled to France and became a fugitive from the law and his flourishing career.
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