I used to watch that show Entourage. Not because I found it stimulating or profound, but because it was a new version of escapism that appealed to my interest in film. If you’ve not seen the show, it’s an overly dramatic bromance comedy that uses the inner workings of the Hollywood movie industry as a plot device. But, mostly, it was an LA version of Sex and the City, aimed at men. What was interesting about the show was the soft insights it offered about the dealings that go into a film production away from the set. The pre-production, selling of scripts, planning of production, promotion, pandering, etc.
And while the storytelling often seemed overly dramatic and exaggerated, there were plenty of things that happened on Entourage that we’ve seen happen in real film productions. Take upcoming should-be blockbuster World War Z – a mega production that saw Actor / Producer Brad Pitt and Director Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball, Stranger than Fiction, Finding Neverland) having constant issues. More on that later; first, some history.
It’s started with a bidding war. As World War Z, the book, is considered precious material, the rights to the project was a hot topic in Hollywood that led to an intense bidding war between two of today’s biggest stars, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. Pitt won and more or less handpicked Forster to direct after seeing the work he did on the very good Quantum of Solace. The two talked about styling their zombie apocalypse epic after the first Bourne moving, a movie noted for its hyper-realism brand of action. Despite never quite getting the script right, the studio rushed into production on World War Z, having major troubles along the way. For starters, they lost their cinematographer, the legendary Robert Ricahrdson (Scorsese, Tarantino, etc.), before production began. It’s also been rumored that Pitt (mind you, the guy who bought the script and is Lead Producer) didn’t like how Forster was directing the action scenes. The two supposedly fought so much that they ended up not speaking to one another. Enter Hollywood legend Simon Crane, a stunt coordinator known for his abilities as a Second Unit Director (also a friend / collaborator of both Pitt and his wife). In short, Crane is the man if you’re making an action film. So much the man that he often ends up doing more than the director. It’s been said that Crane saved the film’s production, much to Forster’s chagrin.
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