Finchers 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'

[Dark Donnie]

http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/09/02...euds-with-david-fincher-over-benjamin-button/

Confirmed: Paramount Feuds with David Fincher Over Benjamin Button
Posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm by: Peter Sciretta

Last week, I screened 20 minutes of clips of scenes from David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In our first impression article, I expressed my concern and disappointment over the footage shown, partly because I felt some of the short scenes dragged. It was good but not great. I wasn’t alone, FirstShowing and Jeff Wells also posted articles about the disappointing buzz the footage received at the festival.

In my blog posting, I told you about the rumors of Paramount’s vicious fight with Fincher behind the scenes over the running time of the film. We also tried to connect the dots between the departure of Fincher’s planned adaption of Heavy Metal and the rumored fight. Now The Playlist has found an interview with Kevin Eastman, creator of the Ninja Turtles and publisher of Heavy Metal, where he finally confirms the rumors:

“We developed it for Paramount in January… And it was time for them to make a decision [about going forward with the project] and they were at odds with Fincher over another project, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,’ [because] they wanted him to reduce the running time… and so they said, ‘Until you step up to do what we want you to do with Benjamin, we’re not going to greenlight any other of [your] movies.’ And David said, ‘Fine, fu*k you, I’m going to set up [Heavy Metal] somewhere else,’ so we jumped over to Sony and set it up there.”

Yes, Fincher is a bad ass who won’t take crap from anyone - including the studio who has supposedly spent over $150 million on a film aiming for award consideration. I’m guessing this might be both his best and worst quality as a filmmaker.

But what if Paramount is right? I loved Fincher’s Zodiac, but I think the theatrical cut could have benefited by losing 20-30 minutes on the back end. (Hey, there will always be a director’s cut on DVD) It seems to me that Paramount might believe they are in the same situation with Button. It is worth noting that around the time of the Heavy Metal departure, the film was supposedly just under three hours long. An AICN reader saw a screening of that cut and admitted that “By an hour and a half/forty five, the audience was getting restless.”

Anne Thompson’s sources claim the film has since been cut to around two and a half hours, which probably meets with Fincher’s studio obligations. But is that still too long? I contend that the scenes Paramount and Fincher decided to screen at Telluride dragged in parts. I’m hoping the pacing issues will be resolved in the finished movie / in the context of the finished movie, because this film has the potential to be really magical.

 

[RedIsNotBlue]

The longer the better for me personally. I can sit through any running time as long as the film is good.

 

[Crook]

So this film got negative buzz after a festival screening?

 

[Cinemaman]

Didn't expect this

And honestly, I feel bad for Paramount, as guys spent so much money to make a drama thta could be done with $100m as max.

 

[Commodore Schmidlapp]

That's interesting, although I do agree with the author of the article about Zodiac being just a little bit too long. Fincher is awesome and I have no doubt this will be a good movie. I love the way he sticks to what he believes and doesn't just bow to studios.

 

[Symbiotic]

Agreed. Hollywood needs more like him.

 

[miltonh]

That sucks... Zodiac is the best movie what I've seen in last X years...

 

[matrix_ghost]

So this film got negative buzz after a festival screening?

Are you referring to an actual festival screening or the 20 minutes that was screened for some press

 

[Carmine Falcone]

And honestly, I feel bad for Paramount, as guys spent so much money to make a drama thta could be done with $100m as max.

Meh, don't be. They've got plenty of money. And they'll get it back eventually.

 

[Dark Donnie]

Didn't expect this

And honestly, I feel bad for Paramount, as guys spent so much money to make a drama thta could be done with $100m as max.

The film is shot using groundbreaking SFX similar to those used on Avatar. Not mention the film is shot entirely on location, and it is a period piece. The film should make some nice money at the box office. One review compared the film to Titanic with it's love story, with similar story telling of Forest Gump (I believe the same writer). I think it will be a tremendous film. Also who cares about the studio...they've got plenty of money, weren't they the number once grossing studio last year? If the film is great like most of Finchers films I'm happy. Look at Zodiac the film didn't do well at the BO but it was one of the best movies of last year easily. If this doesn't make it's money back his next film will probably have a much smaller budget, but I'm almost certain the film will still be great.

 

[Zephyr Alexian]

The trailer for this film is pretty good. I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Cinemaman]

The film is shot using groundbreaking SFX similar to those used on Avatar. Not mention the film is shot entirely on location, and it is a period piece. The film should make some nice money at the box office. One review compared the film to Titanic with it's love story, with similar story telling of Forest Gump (I believe the same writer). I think it will be a tremendous film. Also who cares about the studio...they've got plenty of money, weren't they the number once grossing studio last year? If the film is great like most of Finchers films I'm happy. Look at Zodiac the film didn't do well at the BO but it was one of the best movies of last year easily. If this doesn't make it's money back his next film will probably have a much smaller budget, but I'm almost certain the film will still be great.

Lets not forget that film business is still business and everything costs money. So if such movie as this one with the budget of approximately $150m fails making money, the studio will be a big loser. The reason consists of the fact that losing in box office puts the whole company under a great risk. People who trusted Fincher (executives, producers) will also get nothing from their deserved back-end profits and may even lose their jobs. What will happen to Fincher? Nothing, so he just doesn't care about anybody else and never had that enthusiasm in team work, in which everybody worked their asses to complete the picture, but all claim goes to one director. Therefore, many studios will firstly think twice before hiring Fincher, who are too selfish to work in team. I don't blame him, but I am tired that people just claim that it's all studio's fault, while such directors as Fincher are introduced as poor puppies. So in my opinion, both of them are wrong, but to reach the agreement, one should sacrifice.

 

[Cinemaman]

Meh, don't be. They've got plenty of money. And they'll get it back eventually.

Today you make $1,000,000. Tomorrow you have only $1 left.

 

[Dark Donnie]

Full trailer is apparently attached to Eagle Eye prints.

 

[Hunter Rider]

Great news.

 

[Dark Donnie]

Great news.

Clocks in at 2:30 to so there should be alot of footage.

 

[Nirvana]

Awesome, more of a reason for me to go see Eagle Eye.

 

[Doctor Jones]

This movie looks excellent. I was facsinated by it when I saw the first trailer with KOTCS. Then I saw David Fincher's name attached. Hope this is good. I though Zodiac was an overlooked film last year. Completely snubbed at the Oscars. Best film of 2007 in my opinion.

 

[TNC9852002]

Eagle Eye should be at least worth watching the trailers for..

-TNC

 

[Poeman]

okay so paramount is only scared because they know most 3 hr films that arent epic wont bring in 150 million dollars that easily

 

[Cinemaman]

^^^

Not really. They feel that the movie is too boring and there won't so many people, who would spend their 3 hours watching a drama about two lovers. They may be right, as people, who have already checked it out, said some of unnecessary stuff had had to be cut.

 

[War Party]

^^^

Not really. They feel that the movie is too boring and there won't so many people, who would spend their 3 hours watching a drama about two lovers. They may be right, as people, who have already checked it out, said some of unnecessary stuff had had to be cut.

Wasn't Titanic a three hour drama about two lovers? Of course I'm not saying this film is even capable of putting up Titanic numbers, but I think this movie will find an audience based off its story. And it does have some stars in it and there's David Fincher followers. But I think it will do well.

 

[Cinemaman]

Wasn't Titanic a three hour drama about two lovers? Of course I'm not saying this film is even capable of putting up Titanic numbers, but I think this movie will find an audience based off its story. And it does have some stars in it and there's David Fincher followers. But I think it will do well.

Titanic had a lot of action equal to a huge summer blockbuster, and that's what Benjamin Button doesn't have. Yeah, it has some great work on vfx, but no real action except that sea battle. And what if it doesn't find its audience? What's then? Three years and $150m will be wasted.

 

[War Party]

Titanic had a lot of action equal to a huge summer blockbuster, and that's what Benjamin Button doesn't have. Yeah, it has some great work on vfx, but no real action except that sea battle. And what if it doesn't find its audience? What's then? Three years and $150m will be wasted.

I was talking about the drama aspect. There's an audience for that type of story. And I think people will definitely be intrigued by the reverse aging aspect of the story. Again, I'm not saying it's going to be popular or not. I'm just saying there's an audience for this type of thing. And if it gets a good marketing campaign and strong word of mouth, it may do fine.

And from what I remember, Titanic had one big action sequence and that's when the boat sank and everything happening in those scenes. I don't see much a difference, except that Titanic was a freak of nature of a film when it came to box office and popularity.

 

[Cinemaman]

I was talking about the drama aspect. There's an audience for that type of story. And I think people will definitely be intrigued by the reverse aging aspect of the story. Again, I'm not saying it's going to be popular or not. I'm just saying there's an audience for this type of thing. And if it gets a good marketing campaign and strong word of mouth, it may do fine.

And from what I remember, Titanic had one big action sequence and that's when the boat sank and everything happening in those scenes. I don't see much a difference, except that Titanic was a freak of nature of a film when it came to box office and popularity.

But I doubt it will be able to make more than its budget, which is equal to summer blockbuster's budget. I mean how could a drama cost so much? The answer may be that Fincher is known for his trend to run out of all possible financial resources to make a film that could be made for way less than what he spent. The best example is his Zodiac, the budget of which was $65m, but could have been easily done with $40m.

There will surely be an audience, but I doubt it will be large enough to be considered gurantee that the film will make a lot of money.