WEBVTT - Michael Eisner Wants a Good Movie to End Quickly 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:05.320 This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to. Here's 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:10.080 the thing, My chance to talk with artists, policymakers, and performers, 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:14.560 to hear their stories, What inspires their creations, what decisions 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:21.760 change their careers, what relationships influenced their work? Happy Days 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:26.040 Barney Miller, Greece, Raiders of the Lost Arc. Michael Eisner, 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.280 my guest today, had a hand in bringing all of 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:33.120 these projects to life. At ABC. He helped turn the 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.760 network from number three to number one in prime time, 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:43.919 daytime and children's television. While he was president of Paramount Pictures, 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.280 the company moved from last place to first among the 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.600 six major studios. But Eisner is best known as the 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.160 former chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, a 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.560 position that he held for over two decades. Michael Eisner 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:00.160 grew up and started his career in New York, but 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.639 an early trip out West changed that. I asked where 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:05.320 the people stayed that went to l A. Had never 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:07.800 been to l A. And they said the bel Air Hotel. 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:09.679 And I got to the bel Air Hotel and there 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.640 were swans, and there was flowers, and there were weddings 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.520 and all this stuff. I called my wife, and I said, 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:17.320 I think we should move to l A. And then 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.520 I it took me three years to manipulate it. That 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.200 to convince ABC that being in New York was not 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:25.360 going to be effective, that that I was always a 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:29.960 day late and getting casting, getting scripts. Uh, we were 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.000 fourth among three, and nobody cared about ABC. And they 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:35.480 paid us through the owned stations. They couldn't even pay 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.000 us through the network. They didn't have enough money. And 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.080 and I was lucky because the things that I was 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:42.280 in charge of just happened to turn to number one 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:44.319 when I got there, so it looked like I did it. 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:46.920 So when I said, you you have to move to 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:48.800 l A, we have to we have to do it 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:51.240 in l A. And in that era, l A was 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:53.760 very laid back. People came in at ten, they left 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.520 at eleven. They looked like they were gonna play golf. 0:01:57.320 --> 0:01:59.560 And Barry Diller and I both moved to l A, 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:01.400 and we were wearing suits, and we had this New 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:03.760 York mentality, and we actually arrived earlier in the morning 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.520 and we stayed late, and we were Type a's and 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:10.600 all of a sudden, ABC became a Type A administration, 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.800 and we eventually became number one and even in prime 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.280 time with a movie that week and a lot of 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:22.440 other stuff. Spelling it was we convinced Aaron Spelling to 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.040 UH to make a direct deal with us, not to 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.160 go through his agent. That created a lot of unpleasantness 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.600 for me because I didn't realize the power of William Morris. 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:34.359 They went to the chairman of I forgot about this 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:36.760 for about thirty years. They went to the chairman of 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.320 of ABC and asked for both of us, Barry and 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:42.720 I to be fired because we were not we can 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:45.560 do and Norman, oh no, it was a last vogel. 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:50.320 It was even above Norman. And they and Leonard Goldenson 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:52.280 called us into his office. We thought, I thought it 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:54.800 were gonna be fired for for not dealing with the 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:57.280 system and the great of the agency, package commissions and 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:59.519 all that stuff. And he put his hand across the 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:01.960 table and gratulate us for trying to change the business. 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:04.520 So I know, But why when you got out of 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:06.839 college did you go to television in the first place? 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:11.000 What about it? No one in your family was in media, correct, No? Uh, 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:14.480 I graduated from college. I was a premed. I was 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:16.960 an English major, and then was a theater major. Because 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:18.880 there was a girl that wouldn't date me, so I 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.120 wrote a play for her, and then she still wouldn't 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.120 date me. But I became a theater major. I went 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.239 to Europe to become a writer for a year. I 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.240 stayed a week, came back and got a job as 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:32.840 an usher usher at NBC. I didn't know what I 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:34.880 was gonna do. I moved out of my parents apartment. 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:37.440 I found my own apartment. I thought that was pretty good. 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:41.160 I was liberated. Um and I became an usher and 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:44.160 I worked backstage with Jack Parr. I took telephone calls. 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.600 I gave tickets to the Tonight Show. And I loved it. 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:49.520 It was like fun. It was like it wasn't a job. 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:53.320 And and and I always like theater. And I grew 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.400 up in Manhattan, and every my kids always went to 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:58.840 check E Geese on their birthdays. But we when I 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:00.280 grew up in New York. He went to a show, 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:03.720 you went to see you know, Charlie's Aunt or Where's Charlie? 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.680 You went to Sea House Pacific in Oklahoma and Arthur 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.640 Miller and all this stuff. So I really had it 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.320 at the bug I did. And then and then I 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.880 just worked my way up at UH at ABC. I 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.120 really decided. Actually, my father was kind of a gentleman 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.640 farmer in Vermont, and he bought the apple orchard next 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:25.280 to him, and then he bought a lot of apple orchards. 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:27.520 And we've been in the apple business for fifty years, 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.960 my family, and we made a profit twice in fifty years. 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:33.279 And I decided that I was not going to be 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.360 a business in a business where God was my partner. 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.320 I just couldn't take the the frosts and the lack 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.359 of blossoms for the bees and the but but I 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.320 decided I was gonna do I actually know something I 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:50.520 wasn't really equipped to anything else. Described for me what 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:55.120 made Diller successful? Because he because he becomes a huge 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.760 figure in your life and and a big you know, 0:04:57.839 --> 0:04:59.919 mentor in your life, and you follow him around for 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.240 quite a bit. He takes you with him and and 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.960 elevates you. What made Diller Diller? Well, first of all, 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.719 he's extremely smart, So let's start there. And and uh, 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.640 he came comes from Los Angeles, and he understood he 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.720 would in the William Morris office, and you know, like 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:19.960 I worked at the page, he worked in the mail room. 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.000 We're exactly the same age, although he looks much older 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.720 than the I know. Um. We started ABC within three 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.480 months of each other. He worked for a vice president 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.160 who actually had power. I worked for a vice presidents 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:36.200 being fired. I didn't know it, uh, And he was 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:40.960 brusque and he was dominating, but I could deal with him. 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.520 And then we all did different things. I mean I 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:45.720 did when I was doing daytime, he was doing this. 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:49.520 Eventually I went to California worked for him, and then 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.760 eventually he left ABC and went to Paramount, and then 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:55.279 I joined him. So you and he were running the 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.000 network in California. How long were you there in California 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.800 before he goes to Paramount? He went a year after 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.000 I came to California. I went three years later. I 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.479 was I was kind of too state at ABC while 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.320 he's at Paramount. For two years, I was very declass A. 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.800 I was TV and the movies were in and all 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.000 the important people in the movies at the Bob Evans 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:16.560 and the Sioux Angers and all those people. And I 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:20.000 was still doing TV, but the movies weren't doing so 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.320 well in that era. And so somebody came to me 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:25.279 from another company and Barry heard about it, and he 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.880 called me up and he brought me over there. Uh 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.120 he said, I was. I resolved my problems, one of 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.120 which is I wasn't beturing my phone calls quickly and 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.400 things like that. So I resolved that. And other than 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:40.039 the fact that I kept calling movies shows, which drove 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:44.760 him out of his mind. And until we had yes, 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.239 there was I was still talking, you know, Happy Days, 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:53.440 and he was talking, you know, Atlantic City. So uh. 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:55.680 But then when we hit was Saturday night Fever in 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:58.359 Greece and Heavington waited and foul playing all that, it 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:00.640 was okay that I called them shows, But but we 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.920 still describe I mean, this is a broad question to 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.960 described what was the movie business like you're a paramount 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.840 from nineteen seventy six to nineteen eighty four. You're thirty 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.520 four years old. I mean you're I mean, there are 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:16.840 there there are younger men that have keptained some of 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.640 these companies, but that's still pretty young. And you're over 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.040 there with him running the show from seventies eighty four. 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:26.800 What was the state of the movie business in seventy six, Well, uh, 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.440 it was, it was up and down. It wasn't as 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.800 bad as five years earlier or seven years earlier, an 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.480 easy rider kind of changed the whole nature of the business. 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.720 Paramount wasn't doing well, but we decided we would use 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:44.560 our like minor leagues to baseball, television and movies. We 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:48.160 would use our kind of creativity in a box. We 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.520 would create a financial box and then anything inside the 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:55.360 box was okay. You just had to be responsible. And 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.360 we over the next uh eight ten years, were number 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:03.320 one almost every year. Warner Brothers was number one when 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:07.360 we weren't those years, and Warner Brothers had a completely 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:10.240 differ philosophy. They dealt only with stars. They would send 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.840 Steven Spielberg's dog to Wide and meet him. They they 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:17.120 had Steve Steve Ross, Steve Ross, They had you know, 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:21.520 villas in Mexico, and we were like traveling coach and 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:27.720 uh half of ourn he he did, except for we 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:29.920 were number one financially and we were number one of 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:36.400 the box office, all on strong ideas young or talented directors, 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:40.080 new talent, old talent too. They accused us of waiting 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:44.920 outside of Betty Ford a rehab center and getting actors 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.000 at a discount. We did down and out in Beverly Hills, 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:50.880 I guess that was our first movie at Disney, but 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:53.719 we kept this philosophy going with that. Middle and Nick Nolty, 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:57.319 who both had graduated from there, who did a pretty 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.760 good movie for us. So our strategy, you was needed 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.440 a hit, and we needed a hit, and it worked well. 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.920 And I've done a lot of movies of them. It 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:10.040 all worked, not all, but most. I think the idea 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.720 of we were always twenty or more times less than 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.320 the industry average and movies, and we always were number 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.880 one or two, by the way, for thirty years, twenty 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:22.960 six of those years, I was number one or number two, 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:33.240 always being economically thoughtful, but going with instinct good material, 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:37.960 interesting material, different material as best we could. But so 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:40.559 that that leads to a question that's a really important 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.160 one for me, which is um, and I'm not saying 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.400 this in a critical way, but you never spent a 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:49.040 moment as a salary and salaried employee on the set 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:50.920 of a film in any of the crafts you know, 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.920 you were in a sound mixer, or you didn't direct films, 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:57.040 you didn't do costumes, you didn't do any editing. What 0:09:57.160 --> 0:09:59.200 have you? You've been on the set of films, your 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:03.240 entire career as an executive described for people what that 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:07.360 creative processes like, meaning, for example, in Paramount in the 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.760 Slate seventies and early eighties, what number of creative staff 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:12.720 did you have that advice you want, what films you 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:14.520 should be making and should not be making? How many 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.560 people did you listen to? Well, I was kind of 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:19.679 in the weeds. I did a lot of it myself. 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.440 There was a guy by the name of Don Simpson 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:25.120 who was in the story department. And he was the 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.840 only person that I found when I arrived other than Barry, 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:31.800 that I trusted. So what about him? Did your trust? 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:39.199 He just seemed smart, he worked, he was came from Alaska. 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:42.800 I would he was single. I was married with a 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.720 bunch of kids. We would go on we would go 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:51.160 on film testing and all sorts of different states around 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:52.720 the country. I love being with him. He told me 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.720 all these great stories that I couldn't participate in, that 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:57.880 that it was a different breed he was. He was 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:01.280 just he finally had a problem with drugs. But but 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.319 that's somebody I listened to. But but mainly I was 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:10.600 an English major mostly uh, I was a theater goer 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.280 mostly all my life and I love the written word. 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:16.560 I can't tell you how a movie has made. My 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:18.840 son is a director. I can't even talk to him 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.880 about I don't understand even where the film goes. What 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:26.559 I'm think I'm good at is recognizing good ideas, really 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.760 good with the written word, And I'm good in the 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.160 post production area. I can see a film and and 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:36.040 and work with it. As far as how I just 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:38.280 read about Angle making this movie. They just got a 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:43.120 tremendous reception technically and in Las Vegas. If somebody said 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:44.520 to me you had to do that would be like 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:46.760 saying to me, you had to operate on somebody's brain. 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:53.960 My strength is so limited two the idea, the script, 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:59.079 the casting, the director, the putting it together and bringing 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.360 the most talented people ago you can and try and 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.600 in find somebody that nobody else's those is talented, defining 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:08.280 the people that are talented that have yet been not discovered. 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:10.200 I always say that we know, I said we I said, 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:12.400 we were working on this film. I was doing an 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.280 Alden Erin Reich, who actually played my son, he played 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.079 Kate Planchett's son, and Blue Jasmine that I did with Woody, 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.199 and we were saying No, we don't just want alden 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:22.960 Aran Reich. We want cheap alden erin Reich before he 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.360 really hits it big and becomes too expensive for us. 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.880 But so so essentially you let me. Let me say 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:31.440 this because because I'm always accused of trying to find 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:36.120 the new inexpensive. There are many actors who are worth 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:39.199 everything they get paid. Give me an example, Well, you're 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.600 an example that's very I mean like Hanks Crews. Yeah. 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.560 There there are actors who, by very nature of being 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:48.320 in the movies, you get two things. One, they're actually 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:52.480 very good. When you sit and talk to Dustin Hoffman, 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.760 it is not an accident that he's been so good. 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.960 He really is good. So you get what you paid 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.920 for Set and Lee. There are actors who actually appeal 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:06.280 to people. The movie would not perform as well without 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:11.760 those actors. So for that, in the business of the movies, 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.720 it is totally worth paying up whatever it takes. Who's 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.320 a filmmaker you loved working with back then in the 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.840 earlier Who's someone you said, God, this is a great experience, 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.120 scor said, he's the same with people that that that 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:27.120 you would name Alan Parker, Uh, what'd you do with 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:31.120 Alan he made a small movie. I'm trying to make 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:33.680 a name of it in the in the seventies. I 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:38.880 cannot after fame or before fame, before fame really early. Um, 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:43.280 it just was a you know, there's something about dealing 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:47.560 with any in any field. It could be my son 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.079 is in the in the cottage cheese business, and my 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:55.640 young son uh and and I'm serious. He didn't want 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:57.360 to be in the entertainment business. My other two sons 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.520 in the entertainment business. He went, he's kind of an entrepreneur. 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:03.480 He went to the grocery stores. He looked at what 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:07.120 hadn't been innovated. You know, yogurt had been innovated. Everything 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.040 else to be had innovation. Cottage cheese had not. I said, 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:14.320 are you crazy? He did example he he is in 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:17.800 every whole foods now with his good culture cottage cheese. 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.560 And meeting the young people that he has in cottage 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:25.240 cheese is like meeting a new young actress, a new 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.600 young actor, a new young doc age. She's the way 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.440 you felt about TV back there. And maybe maybe, but 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:35.440 the fact is, I really like I like my children's 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.240 friends that all went to film school. I talked to 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:39.960 all of them. I keep saying to my wife and 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:42.080 mother talked to them and talked to our friends, and 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.160 she gets very upset about that. But no, I like 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.720 I like the new But so at Paramount, you're there 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.160 and Dealer is the head guy, and you're with Dialer 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:57.040 and explain to people who don't know how Dealer acquiescence 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:58.400 to you, and you say to him, these are the 0:14:58.400 --> 0:14:59.880 movies that we're gonna make. Did he have did you 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:01.960 confer with him? Did he ever say to you know, 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:04.280 I don't like this. Were you completely on your own? 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:07.040 You were self determining by and how many releases on 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.880 average were you doing back then? We were probably doing 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:14.320 fourteen and twenty releases. Um, he, we were a team. 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:16.240 I did not do any of my own. He did 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.760 not do any of his own. I mean we talked 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.320 twenty times a day. Uh. Mostly he would say I 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:24.680 hate it, and I would say, well, then, Barry, we 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:28.040 have no films. And then we would argue about the film. 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.040 Or he would call me up and say we talked 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.520 about Warren Baby for a Warren has a film that 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:39.560 is a problem at Warners. Uh, let's read it in 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:41.160 the next hour, and if we say yes, Warren will 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:45.000 do it paramount, so that took an hour. Some films 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:49.680 American Jigglow or or other films. Officer and a gentleman 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:53.680 in terms of a German took longer. But we discussed. 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.440 We argued always in private. In public we were one team, 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:01.960 a team, and uh, it just weren't he was. He's 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:06.080 a very good critic. Uh, And we we discussed it 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:07.520 a lot. What's the movie you bet on and you 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.440 were wrong? What's the movie? You really went to the 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:12.400 mattresses before he said we got to make this movie 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:14.720 us his name one. I never had to go to 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:16.760 the mattress. We always came to an agreement. But we 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.160 made a movie called White Dog, which I still think 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.320 was misunderstood. I hated that movie White Dog, my guy. 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:25.560 I couldn't stand White Dog. Well, you were not alone, 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:27.680 so I can't believe you could confessing you made because 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:29.680 I always wondered, I wonder if I ever meet the guy, 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.400 the greenlit White Dog man, I am not going to 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:33.880 give him a piece of my mind. I want my 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:35.840 money back. You want to hear what the idea was posted, 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.280 because a lot of times you go from the script 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.160 to the stage to the screen and it's not what 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.840 you thought it was. Many times it's been the opposite. 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:46.920 It's it's it's turned out so much better than I 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:49.240 thought it would be. With our Lion King or whatever was. 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:54.440 There's an actress and she's a young actress and she's 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:58.240 driving to Beka commercial and she's she hits a dog, 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:02.000 a white dog, right German chef, and she is so beset. 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:03.760 She goes, she thinks the dog to the vet. She 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.240 brings the dog home. So the first act is her 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:10.000 love affair with this dog and they're inseparable. And then 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:13.880 she brings the dog to a a set to make 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:17.520 a commercial. And sometimes how in the set the dog 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:21.000 sees somebody walk across and goes after him. To make 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.199 a longer story short, the whole second act is the 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.840 dog is somehow a racist. This dog is a racist. 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:31.000 She goes to the supermarket and the dogs in the 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:33.920 car and African American family walks by, and this dog 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.119 goes nuts. The bottom line is you it really is 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:39.960 a white dog. It's white on many levels, no question 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.840 about it. Then the third act you find out that 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:48.840 this white dog was trained in a southern state to 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:53.720 be a attack dog, and so she takes the dog 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:59.640 to another trainer to untrained the dog in this thing, 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:04.760 and eventually the trainer that D programmed D program And 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.120 the whole idea of the film was supposed to be 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:12.040 that prejudice is learned. You aren't born with prejudice. It's 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:14.119 part of your environment, as part of your parents, as 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.400 part of your community, and you can if you're trained 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:20.480 to be a racist, you can be maybe trained to 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:24.840 get to not well. We picked the director who was 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.600 an action or end director, who was a mistake. He 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.040 made a film that basically we got killed for her. 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:33.560 So that was a film that I really felt was 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:38.800 an interesting idea with an interesting character that just never 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:40.879 achieved what I wanted to. So I hope that the 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.480 lesson for you was that you and Barry stopped bringing 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:48.639 your park Avenue in Beverly Hills, lefty consciousness to the 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:50.879 film slater and let's just make money and let's forget 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:53.639 about de programming racist dogs. Was that the lesson for you? 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.439 Or I never really was ever trying to make political films. 0:18:57.440 --> 0:18:59.800 I mean, we did make reds, we made we made 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:04.160 any film that sounded interesting. It just happened. I thought 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:11.000 this idea of this white dog and many people have 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.920 made animal films. Was an interesting twist. I was completely wrong. Now, 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.159 obviously the business is littered with there's a lot of 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:22.040 twisted wreckage on the runway here of people in your 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.159 position who the opposite is true. There's movies that you 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:25.760 say goodbye to that you don't want to make, and 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:28.159 they go off and become Because what's an example of 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:29.640 that for you, of somebody who took a movie from 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:33.280 you and they jampen into the hoop. Well, I had 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:37.879 we made a movie, uh, with Goldie on called foul Play, 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:41.879 and I'm very friendly with Goalie from that movie. And 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:45.520 somebody presented a movie to us and I said, to 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:49.080 her her William Mars agent. But I saw a picture 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.200 of her. She's kind of heavy. Uh. He said, Oh, 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:54.919 you ought to sit down with her. So I said, okay. 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.159 So she came to the office and she said, so 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:58.840 you think I'm fat? She said, you know, I just 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:00.320 had a baby. I said I didn't know. Oh, I 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:06.960 just said I'm sorry. So then she pitched uh and correctly, 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:11.000 So uh, Private Benjamin one of my favorites. Right. So 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:14.720 I met with her and I said and and and 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.359 others uh, And I said, I don't think that's the 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:19.960 third act. The first act is great when you have 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:24.960 the guy died at the wedding and called Albert Brooks 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:29.320 actually died away and Yale and right, and I thought 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.239 Goldie Hans in the army. But you don't have a 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:36.920 third act. So between not saying you're a third act 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:38.840 and the next day they went and sold at the 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.320 Columbia and the movie came out was a giant hit. 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.200 It still didn't have a third act. It didn't matter. 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:47.720 It was this unbelievable hit. And it was kind of 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:51.240 a lesson for me because I knew this from television, 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:53.359 from the movie of the Week, from Barry and I 0:20:53.480 --> 0:21:00.000 and all that stuff. That a really unbelievable concept. Unbelievable concept. 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.640 It's kind of hard to kill, especially in TV where 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:05.119 it's all about the promotion for the one time only 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.439 it's not like word of mouth, and this concept of 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:14.439 Goldie Horn playing Private Benjamin, you couldn't kill it. And 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.520 I just was shortsighted about that because I just wanted 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:23.000 a third act and it was stupid. The eventually, I 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:25.719 guess it's what year does not that we would remember 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:31.520 this eventually? Uh Diller leaves Paramount, and you're hoping you're 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:35.280 going to get that job. Correct. Not really what happened 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:39.040 was um Charlie Bluehorn, who was the CEO of Golfing Western, 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:43.479 which owned Paramount. Jeffrey would always do his impersonations for me. 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:47.440 That's good. So with Bob Evans. Bob Evans was good 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.720