Movie studios like their films to be pretty safe.
But every now and then, an expensive, dark and edgy project comes through the system… How did it get through the system?
Ultimately, thanks to a man called Bill Mechanic.
In fact, beforeFight Clubwas done, the bill would be up to $63m before marketing costs.
Fincher would change very little about the film this time as a result of studio input.
The lessons ofAlien 3were fully registered.
He would ultimately pay for it with his job.
When he first sawFight Club, Fox owner Rupert Murdoch hated it, and made his feelings known.
What could have saved Mechanic would have been ifFight Clubhad hit big.
Its also regarded in many quarters, certainly these ones, as a modern classic.
However, it certainly become one, with the bill to make the film over $60m.
That said, there was another major reasonEyes Wide Shutwas on peoples radar: Stanley Kubrick.
Thanks to Kubricks long-standing relationship with Warner Bros.
But for the best part of 25 years, itd be in his mind.
ButEyes Wide Shutwas, without doubt, A Stanley Kubrick Film.
Whatever your views onEyes Wide Shut, its very much the work of a particular cinematic author.
So what happened next?
Well, it depends who you talk to.
Some laudEyes Wide Shutas a criminally underrated Kubrick masterpiece.
Some, it would be fair to say, dont.
That said, Francis Ford CoppolasApocalypse Nowwasnt always going to be a major film.
The Marlon Brando it got and the Marlon Brando it paid for were very different, however.
That said, the aforementionedHearts Of Darknessdocumentary tells this story far better than us.
In fact, a wrap on filming wouldnt be called until May 1977.
And an enormous amount of money for a war film running to over 150 minutes.
ThatThe Black Cauldronmade it to the screen at all in the end was down to a few factors.
Firstly, it fell between two different management regimes at the studio.
And in that time, elements were ultimately tempered.
Katzenberg himself reportedly oversaw taking two to three minutes out of the final version of the film.
So how did it get through the system?
Firstly, by the fact that animation at Disney wasnt taken seriously enough by the extreme high-ups.
Its taken a long, long time for Disney to come to terms withThe Black Cauldron.
For a long time it was impossible to get on video, and then DVD.
But its now freely available, even if its no candidate for a Blu-ray release right now.
And in this case it came from a huge studio.
Nothing like it ever has.
This was a gigantic risk.
The Wachowskis were championed at Warner Bros by the-then upcoming president of production, Lorenzo di Bonaventura.
di Bonaventura, who has since gone on to oversee the likes of theTransformersandG.I.
The turning point was a 600 page storyboard that the Wachowskis presented directly to the Warner Bros top brass.
The Matrixhit big, even though Warner Bros didnt quite know how to sell something so different.
Thus, they hired the usual billboards, staged the usual junkets, and ran the usual trailers.
This time, though, the word of mouth on the film was spectacular.
A franchise was born.
Given the length of this article, wed had to put it across two pages.
Its essentially the hero story told again.
George Miller, The L.A. Times, 1996
Babeproved just the kind of breakout hit that movie studios love.
Made in Australia, it was co-written and produced byMad Maxs George Miller.
One of the easiest decisions Universal ever had to make.
Theres a simple answer to this question: Universal desperately wanted that sequel.
But then there was a key change in personnel.
George Miller thus took on directing duties this time, and Noonan wouldnt be involved in the script either.
It would be fair to say that you could tell.
The studio realised it had a problem, and not a small one.
As beautiful as the film was and is to look at, it still feels far moreMad MaxthanBabeflavoured.
Well, lots of critics liked it.
Gene Siskel would go on to name it as his film of 1998.
Thats less than a third of the originals haul.
This naturally enough killed theBabeseries stone dead.
Whats happened since though is a reappraisal in some quarters as to the qualities of the film itself.
That its a dark, challenging piece of cinema, from someone with an untempered voice.
You could argue it did it again withConspiracy Theorya few years later.
1989sBatmanwas a turning point for the studio, and for the movie business as a whole.
The sticking point was Tim Burton.
The director, as hes freely admitted, didnt have the best of times makingBatman.
Naturally enough, the McDonalds Happy Meal tie-in wasnt as successful as hoped.
Joel Schumacher, er, wouldnt), about politics, and about big business.
Not always very well, but it does make them.
These were what sat in place of the poster-friendly screen-gobbling Jack Nicholson performance of the earlier film.
Batman Returnsopened bigger than its predecessor, and closed smaller.
WhilstBatmanwould take $411m worldwide, Batman Returns came in at $266m.
OnlyBatman & Robinwould fare worse.
He did, andBatman Foreverwould prove to be a far more (commercially) successful enterprise.
Burton, to date, has never made a sequel since (although hes flirting withBeetlejuice 2).
Rango
Its little secret that were huge fans ofRango.
Not just in its words, but from the dusty visuals upwards.
Thanks to the way director Gore Verbinski went about making the film, and the backing of GK Films.
This is also one of those moments where a movie star helped.
Depp, back with hisPiratesdirector?
Consider the cheque signed.
Throughout, Verbinski looked at differing approaches too.
He got his actors together to shoot them live for 20 days.
There was an another element that perhaps played intoRangos hands.
Aided by that aforementioned marketing campaign, and positive reviews,Rangodid solid box office.
Paramount was reportedly interested in aRango 2, but Verbinski was not, and still isnt last we heard.
Off the back of the films relative success, Paramount announced it was launching an animation division.
The first fruits of that arrive next year, with the release ofThe Spongebob Squarepants Movie 2.
At least three further animated projects are planned.
Warner Bros pursued the project without him, and writers duly got to work on ideas.
The problem was that writers got to work on ideas, but none of the ideas were passing muster.
Warner Bros, frustrated at the lack of progress, returned to Dante.
And surprisingly, Warner Bros agreed.
Dante did not waste this chance.
As it happened though, Dante was able to make a hugely personal film in studio clothing.
Dante once apparently said that Warner Bros put the film directly oppositeDick Tracyto help protectBatmans box office record.
