The days of a director getting "final cut" are long gone

Except for a choice few, total control for Hollywood directors seems to be a thing of the past.
Interesting read:
Dan C

http://www.msnbc.com/news/992337.asp?0bl=-0

Final cut takes on new meaning

Jackson’s $20 million deal marks a first for filmmakers

By Stephen Galloway
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 11 — When the news leaked that Peter Jackson would receive $20 million to direct Universal Pictures’ “King Kong,” it drew gasps within the film industry.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT marked the first time in history that a director had ever been paid as much as a top-level star. True, the fee would also cover Jackson’s duties as co-writer and producer, but these were quibbles in the minds of most observers, footnotes to what remained a mold-breaking deal.

But the truth of the matter is that Jackson’s salary was indicative of something else: An increased polarization between the very top directors and the rest of the directing community — a community composed of filmmakers who are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain full control over their projects in a bottom-line-minded corporate world.

Nowhere is this more evident than with the issue of final cut. A decade ago, final cut — the right of a director to edit a film exactly as he pleases and have it released in theaters that way — was almost mandatory for any filmmaker who wanted to prove that he had arrived.

It was granted to directors who had truly demonstrated their worth, either artistically or at the box office, from Spike Lee to Kenneth Branagh, Martin Scorsese to Steven Spielberg.

THE ELUSIVE FINAL CUT
Today, many directors say it is almost impossible to get final cut from a major studio, and if they are lucky enough to get it, it is a concession laced with provisos, often stipulating that the director’s cut will stay in place only if test screenings prove highly successful. In other words, a director gets final cut provided that the test audience loves his film.

“There was always a kind of tug-of-war between management and talent,” says Sydney Pollack (“Out of Africa”). “But it has gotten much worse as (the business) has gotten more corporatized. The ’70s was the great decade in terms of director freedom, but it continued quite a while into the ’80s. It started becoming curtailed in the ’90s, and it is becoming more and more so.”

A typical contract, obtained from one major studio, reads as follows:
The director will have his “Artist’s Cut(s)” so long as: “(a) Artist delivers the Picture to the studio in accordance with the provisions of Paragraph 8 below; (b) the final negative cost of the Picture does not, or in the studio’s sole opinion will not, exceed 110% of the final below-the-line budget approved by the studio (excluding costs due to force majeure, changes approved in writing by a Business Affairs Executive of the studio, retroactive union scale increases, and losses to the studio reimbursed by insurance); (c) production and/or post-production of such Picture is not over-schedule by the lesser of three (3) days or ten percent (10%) of the total number of days of principal photography of such Picture; and (d) Artist is not in breach or default hereunder.”

Then, and only then, “subject to the studio’s release date plans and release exigencies, Artist shall be entitled to have final United States Theatrical Cut (‘U.S. Final Cut’) of the Picture.”

This language is not reserved for newcomers or unproven players. Michael Bay, one of the highest-paid helmers in the business, only received final cut on “Pearl Harbor” in exchange for promising the Walt Disney Co. that the budget of the film would not exceed $145 million.

He also had to accept that overages would come out of his fee agree not to take any upfront salary. Even then, he shared final cut with producer Jerry Bruckheimer. “But that’s fine because Jerry has never said, ‘You have to take this out,”’ Bay says.

LIFE IN A ‘TENTPOLE’ WORLD

Some studios never give final cut at all — although exceptions can be made if a Spielberg or a James Cameron wants to sign onto a project. Most would rather offer a top director an exorbitant salary than surrender ultimate control of a film; top directors can now earn $5 million or more per movie, with a share of the back end.

“The studios are more willing to throw money at a problem than give up control,” notes Jay Roth, national executive director of the Directors Guild of America. “In this sort of ‘tentpole’ world, as you move toward a slate where you have $100 million-plus investments in (a film), not counting marketing and prints, the director may have much more economic power — because you need that director to bring in the project on time and with a vision and for a budget — but you are probably more reluctant to turn over final cut to him. Where the power is has shifted.”

Many executives say a number of factors are contributing to the studios’ wariness when to comes to the final cut clause, the foremost being today’s turbulent economy. The average cost to make and market a film is roughly $89.4 million per studio release, and studios have recently had to tangle with directors who either had final cut or refused to cooperate with the studios’ requests in the editing of their films.

Many insiders at Universal felt “Meet Joe Black” would have been far more successful at the boxoffice had Martin Brest agreed to cut it from its 178-minute length. But the director had final cut and refused.

DIRECTOR VERSUS STUDIO
The scandal surrounding New Line’s “American History X” and the studio’s battles with director Tony Kaye stands as a more high-profile example. While Kaye did not have final cut on that film, the publicity surrounding it — which lead to Kaye’s exit from the picture and its recutting by actor Edward Norton — soured the studio on the idea of giving any helmer too much liberty.

“Generally speaking, if it comes to the issue of recutting a director, you are probably already in a lot of trouble,” notes one high-level studio executive who asked not to be identified. “In 15 years, I can count on less than one hand the times when it became an issue, and the reason is because if you get to that, if both sides aren’t listening to each other, then you are already toast.”

In some cases, though, top stars and producers are awarded final cut privileges. Tom Cruise gets final cut on his films, as does Bruckheimer (though Bruckheimer has been known to share it, as he did with Bay, and as he also did with Joel Schumacher on Disney’s “Veronica Guerin”).
Among producers, Scott Rudin had sole final cut on last year’s “The Hours.” Yet when director Stephen Daldry was asked recently about the final cut issue, it was so far from his thoughts that — like several others interviewed for this article — he initially thought the question referred to the computer program rather than the contractual matter.

“For me, it totally depends on my relationship with the producer,” Daldry says. “If one were in a combative relationship or didn’t trust your producer, you’d argue for it. But then you could say you shouldn’t be in that relationship in first place.”

The success Daldry had with “The Hours” means that he will now rank among the directors who do get final cut, if he wants it. Others who regularly are given final cut include Woody Allen, James L. Brooks, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, Clint Eastwood, Ron Howard, Michael Mann, Anthony Minghella, Pollack, Robert Redford, Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone and Robert Zemeckis.

BLESSING OR CURSE?
“Final cut is like being told you have a life-jacket when you get onto an airplane — it’s cold comfort,” Minghella says. “I think the reality is that the distributor has authority over the film finally because the way the film is presented to an audience is in the distributor’s and exhibitor’s hands.”

Even if a director has final cut, he or she still must accept the reality that final cut has become a moot point for most studios, which can withdraw their full backing when it comes to marketing a film if they don’t like the cut the director has given them — or worse, never work with the director again. Kaye, for instance, has yet to be employed by a major studio.

Bernardo Bertolucci had final cut on his soon-to-be-released “The Dreamers,” but Fox still insisted on cutting full-frontal nudity from the film. Bertolucci went public, denouncing Fox at a Venice Film Festival press conference, even though the studio’s pickup deal stipulated that he deliver an R-rated film.

Bertolucci’s producer, Jeremy Thomas would only to say: “We had a contract for an R-rated film, and unfortunately the film we made was an NC-17 film. We cut a short amount out of it.”
The cuts, he notes, “are minor, nothing serious; they only run a minute or so.”

EXORCISING A DIRECTOR FROM HIS FILM
Morgan Creek opted to take matters into its own hands on its latest project “Exorcist: The Beginning.” Following the death of the movie’s original director John Frankenheimer, Paul Schrader (“Auto Focus”) was hired to helm the “Exorcist” prequel, only to be let go during the editing process when Morgan Creek decided that it was unhappy with Schrader’s cut of the film.

“I showed (my cut) to (Morgan Creek chairman James G. Robinson), and there was a conversation of maybe five or 10 minutes in the screening room,” he says, adding that he recut the film and offered to screen in again for Robinson. Rather, he says, “the editor was fired (and) I was told that Morgan Creek wanted to execute its cut. It was suggested that there was no reason for me to be there.”

Renny Harlin was then hired to shoot an additional 10 weeks of material, which will cost between $6.5-$8 million, but he will receive no directing credit when the film comes out.

“Schrader shot the movie, he gave us his cut, and I felt and everyone else felt that his cut just wasn’t good enough,” says Robinson, who has only once given final cut to Paul Mazursky on “Enemies: A Love Story.” “So we went back in, and now we are going to reshoot.”

The situation perfectly illustrates just how different a place the industry can be for directors who are not the Peter Jacksons of the world. Then again, Jackson’s work has made New Line billions of dollars richer, and that, ultimately, speaks loudest in Hollywood.

“This is all about economics anyway,” Pollack says. “And anybody who thinks it isn’t is a fool.”

© 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

 

I scanned the beginning of this when it was first posted with plans of going back to it later. However, I forgot. I just found it again. Now that I've read it what can I say but ?

 

I don't see anything wrong with the above article. If a director is a proven success, who can deliver a commercial product, make some money for the studio (who is putting up all the money after all), and make an artistic statement - then he may eventually earn (or negotiate) the right to have final cut. But I've seen too many instances where the directors get their way and cost the studios millions of dollars by delivering something that the studios can't sell.

The "Meet Joe Black" example noted in the article is a perfect case in point. After that debacle, we used to joke around here that the studio should have paid Brest a million bucks to get out of his "final cut" deal. With some tightening, it could have been a much better and more profitable film, and that extra million would have been made back ten times over.

Personally, there are only a very small handful of directors I would entrust to getting "final cut."