Why George R.R. Martin Broke the Cardinal Rule of Hollywood (2024)

(hollywoodreporter.com)

13 points | by throwoutway 17 hours ago ago

13 comments

  • valiant55 17 hours ago ago

    > The cardinal rule of Hollywood is: Never use your own money

    Since it wasn't explained in the opener.

    • ghssds 15 hours ago ago

      I don't understand. Someone gotta put their hand in their pocket and break the rule or nothing would ever happen.

      • Jtsummers 15 hours ago ago

        It's like many startups: spend other people's money by finding investors.

        It's a bit of a semantic game, but investing != spending. Paying someone's salary is not an investment in that you don't get money back from that person, you get something of value hopefully, but not a monetary return from them. Investing in a movie or a startup has an expectation of a monetary return, so the investment is not "spent" (relevant synonyms: exhausted, consumed, depleted) by the investor.

        Then whoever is actually making the movie, versus investing in it, is the one spending money. But it's not their money, it's the producers' money.

      • add-sub-mul-div 14 hours ago ago

        That's the problem with people needlessly going out of their way to post the tl;dr which encourages people not to read the actual source with nuance and context. Of course we won't understand.

    • cafard 17 hours ago ago

      Thanks.

  • poisonborz 16 hours ago ago

    He wrote Thrones explicitly to challenge Hollywood clichés and inject real medieval mechanics in an otherwise throbbing overblown drama. He made a bank, got a following, sold the rights, and it's not his fault that after the source material ran out, it turned to be exactly what he hated. But he's rich, lives for his hobbies. I don't think he owes anyone anything.

    • marklubi 14 hours ago ago

      > He wrote Thrones explicitly to challenge Hollywood clichés

      Hard disagreement on that one.

      He wrote an epic story known as A Song of Ice and Fire (started in '96) that ended up getting out of hand and tied up with too many Goordian knots to complete. Sadly, we'll probably never get a conclusion to it.

      Along the line, a producer came along who thought they could make money with it. First few seasons weren't terrible, but were too short to capture it all. The rest were completely rushed and unable to take on all that was going on. They went off the rails after a few seasons.

      I will agree that he doesn't owe anyone anything though. My philosophy is that I create for me, if others also enjoy that, excellent.

      Edit: I'm still a little bitter after going to a trivia night and losing a question because I gave the canon answer that was different from the show

    • gdulli 14 hours ago ago

      He's the one who gave HBO permission to do so, so I do consider him ultimately responsible.

    • AtlasBarfed 16 hours ago ago

      So OUTSOURCE it. There are probably a thousand very talented writers that would collaborate on writing the books, coming up with plot, tracking canon, and GRR can just cruise in and edit/supervise.

      Hell, you can probably train an AI to check the canon.

      If he just likes being famous and making money, do that. He'll be more famous and more rich, and the people get books to read.

      It's going to happen when he dies, so if he wants some say in what happens, he should do it now. Otherwise it will get Disney Star Wars'd.

      And you know what? GoT will NEVER be remade the way it is. I guess he doesn't have any children, so he doesn't care.

  • sorokod 15 hours ago ago

    Apocalypse Now was financed by Coppola.

    • dole 12 hours ago ago

      Coppola secured a lot of funding for Apocalypse from United Artists. Megalopolis still follows the rule.

  • lapcat 15 hours ago ago

    (2024)

  • 11 hours ago ago
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