Is Joaquin Phoenix worth $5,000,000 for 46 days?

For the same price you could make ten “Napoleon Dynamites” or three “The Squid and the Whale’s” or even a “Full Monty” (which went onto gross $256,900,000 world wide!)Well is he? It seems that that’s what he got paid for ten weeks to make M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village” - in fairness we should also add prep time, fittings, adr and the days he spent doing press junkets.

I’m going through casting lists on my Errol Flynn movie as we try to work out whom to make pay or play offers to. A pay or play offer is when we go to an actor and offer them $1,000,000 to be in a movie that will shoot on x date. If they agree then we have to pay them the million even if, for any reason, we don’t shoot the movie - Denzel Washington got $20M when they canceled American Gangster the first time round and John Cusack is currently suing Intermedia for $6M for a movie that got canceled.

I have to say, it’s a tough one. To be honest we aren’t looking at Joaquin for this movie he’s just the only fee that I could talk about as I knew the budget was online for everyone to see. I’m sure his price was inflated to $5M because it was a studio movie AND a Shyamalan project where everyone knew the box office would be huge. But seriously, when you look at an actor and their fee you have to look at; are they really worth it? And, you’d be surprised as to how some actors, whom you might not have heard of, can help you sell your movie and some, whom are big names, won’t get it shifted for love nor money. I was chatting to a international sales agent a little while ago, and whilst they were lukewarm on Dennis Quaid they felt they could really sell Emily Blunt! Now to me I would have thought more people have heard of Dennis (for the record I think Emily is great too) but when it comes to independent sales it seems world popularity isn’t 100% key.

When it comes to independent financing the right actor can get you a green light over night. I have a contained thriller that we’re talking to the Willis Brothers (Bruce and David) about developing.  Before we ended up chatting to David we had a small number of good indie financiers read the script. The reaction was great but it always came down to get Kevin Costner, get Bruce, get Pierce Brosnan and we’ll greenlight the movie at $12M. Of course they would! If I got either of those then I’d have my pick of financiers!!!! Financier’s please take note! It’s one of the most stupid things you can say to a filmmaker. Of course you’d finance my movie at $12M with Pierce Brosnan! Any financier would!!! Try getting it to Kevin or Pierce! Their agents are only really interested in an offer which means that I have money already! And if I got Pierce or Kevin why should I now come back to you… Either you want the script so come on board or you don’t, in which case fine… but don’t tell me to come back with Pierce when you could call his agent and say “Hi Mr. Agent. I’ve got this great script and we’ll finance it if Pierce comes on board” You’d have a lot quicker response than I would!!!!

And that’s where the actor’s production company comes in key for an independent production. Bruce has his brother David run his company, Kevin has Tig Productions and Pierce has Irish DreamTime (where creative Exec Chris Charalambous is based - more about him later). Now if you can get the script to their company and they start to champion it as a producer as well, then you can get some really good names attached to indie movies and they can happen quickly. Pierce did this with “The Matador” ($10 million budget) and perhaps most successfully Don Cheadle did this with “Crash” ($6.5 million budget).

But it is so unfortunate how many great scripts there are out there that just can’t, for what ever reason, get cast attached. Chris at Irish Dreamtime (one of the few people in Hollywood who has amazing taste and everything he’s given me to read has been brilliant) gave me one of the most beautiful screenplays I’ve read. It was wonderfully written by Simon Vaughan and it is a crime that this British movie (in the vain of Finding Neverland) has not yet been made. Whilst they already have a director on the project, I just know I could have brought Simon’s amazing script to life getting it the enormous praise it deserves. So Big Name Actor; I don’t think they have anyone attached to play the leading man so get a hold of the script and make this one happen! - You’ll be celebrating come awards season I promise!

To finish I urge you to check out THE CASTING DIRECTOR’S blog. As soon as I heard that Matthew had cast “Mean Creek” I bowed down in awe to his extraordinary ability to bring together such an amazing, young cast. I then urge you to check out THE INDIE FILM PRODUCER who talks about how tough independent financing has now become. I also want to apologize. I’m moving away from my set syllabus as I realized that I want to talk more about things that are affecting me on a week-by-week basis. I’ll talk about filming with Jeremy Irons, as we shot a scene where he broke down in tears in front of me and the building we were shooting in went up in flames, another time.

Oh and, incase you’re a British producer or screenwriter reading this, I’m really hoping to find a great script to take me back to the UK. Britain has SO SO SO much to offer an international audience of cinema goers - but more on that too… another time…