Jonathan Demme: Hollywood Is Out of Control

By Jo Piazza Posted Jun 21st 2011 10:00AM

Director Jonathan Demme is a pretty big deal in Hollywood. In the 1990s he was an even bigger deal when he consistently pumped out awards bait like 'Silence of the Lambs,' 'Philadelphia' and 'Beloved.' These days he prefers to focus on independent flicks and self-financed documentaries about such high-minded fare as Hurricane Katrina, Haiti and Neil Young. His move away from the big screen smash has been due mainly to the outrageous costs of producing a Hollywood blockbuster today.

"Film making exists now in is revenue void. To do these high style films now it costs so much to make them and I am not comfortable spending a lot of money on a movie any more," Demme said during a chat at this month's Aruba Film Festival. "The money is needed in other places. I love the stuff you see on YouTube made by 12 year-olds."

The straw (or check rather) that broke the camel's back for the director was 2004's $80 million 'The Manchurian Candidate' starring Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber and Meryl Streep which brought in only $65 million at the domestic box office.

"I made a version of 'Manchurian Candidate' that cost a fortune. It was just so much money and you think something like 'Napoleon Dynamite' made for under $100,000 and you're like f--k, I want to do that," Demme said. "The effort going into making these huge budget Hollywood movies wasn't for me. After 'The Manchurian Candidate' I had to rest up and get re-acquainted with myself."

If Demme had his way he would democratize how films get made inside and out of Hollywood.

"I want to take all of my footage of New Orleans and put it on the Internet and allow other people to make their own documentary using my footage," he said.

Demme's current project is an animated adaption of Dave Eggers 'Zeitoun' which he is trying to develop without an outsized budget.

"We tried getting development financing and we came to understand we need a much richer idea on paper about what it will look like so I am back into writing the script and hope to have it finished by the end of the summer," the director said.

► Follow @JoPiazza on Twitter

Tags: Jonathan Demme

Comments

(13)

Tuesday 21 June

By captzeppelin

Vote down Vote up Report this

Mr. Demme.......one word.....STORYBOARDS !!! See where your money is going before you roll....call me.

By themeeker

Highest Rank Vote down Vote up Report this

They're not only out of control, they're out of ideas.

Green Lantern? NO THANX.

By ccoll004

what's so wrong about the green lantern?

saw a nice preview for it, while i was in the theaters to see Super 8. and my lord, even my brother retaught his initial perseption of what this movie is going to be like.

I saw it, and it suuuuuuuucked. Don't waste your money. Ryan Reynolds has no talent for the superhero, and he was all wrong.

By Mike

Hollywood is paying big bucks for "B grade" acting. What a farce.

By courtney

High Rank Vote down Vote up Report this

I wholeheartedly agree with Johnathan Demme that modern day hollywood has gone out of control. nor is most of what's conisdered talent now a days actually talent think about it this way in the 10th anniversary edition of the film Philadelphia Mr Demme called Joanne Wodward a national treasure and one of the most talented actresses he's ever directed and she only had a minor supporting part in the movie

By cathy

ho...ho...ho....so is Washington!

By the yapper

First off Mr. Demme should never have tried to remake Manchurian Candidate." It was a perfect film the first time around. It wasn't just a great story but also had some of the finest actors such as Lawrence Harvey, Frank Sinatra etc.,...The actors in the remake...were B-grade at best. Secondly, with exception of a few popular actors you could count the good ones on one hand. Thirdly..Hollywood has run out of ideas and it doesn't know how to tell a good story when it see's one. You have all these idiots only there to make lots of money on 13-15 yr. olds. Sex, violence, vampires and technology are all they know about. You don't need money to be good and creative...just talent. Most often we go to the independents....however,don't expect all of them to be good....most are not. However, you need to keep trying since that's where most of the gems of good story telling are.

By Helen O'Gorman

Finally someone with high ideals....so few and far between .

By B.P. Dumas

Ok, first off I love silence of the lambs, the truth, hollywood is out of ideas. every other movie ad I see is for a remake,
like "the mechanic", the 1972 original is still excellent, I have no interest in a flashy remake, I love the original"theday the earth stood still",why would I care about a CGI laden remake, the 1951 original made the point and it was a superb story.
Hollywood is out of stories, "the taking of pelham 123" is another example, I did see it on cable, the remake wasn't bad, and travolta was sinister as the leader of the gang, but the
1974 original is still very good, trouble is, older films are rarely on cable anymore. even acclaimed movies like taxi driver.
so current movie goers have never seen the original.
Hollywood get off the remake treadmill, find some original stories. 80 million for the Manchurian candidate,a pretty timeless story, you can set it anywhere, latin america, the middle east, wherever. the 1962 original was extremely controversial because of the allegations that the chinese and north koreans had brainwashed American POW's when they were in thier custody. Alot of the controversey might have been that the US was experimenting with LSD and other mind control agents and the original film cut a little too close to the bone.

By Ed

No new ideas but they have plenty of Fudge-packers and Carpet- munchers

rethought*

By the_fool

Too much money on remakes with costly special effects with lower quality acting.

Page 1 of 1