Ego’s Not the Half of It
Nina J. Easton’s article “The High Price of Ego in Hollywood” (Aug. 11) overlooks one other major flaw in most industry “deal makers.” Today, virtually none of the people who make the movies ever go to the movies.
The mainstream audience is nothing but a bunch of Cinema-Score statistics to them, and we all know how statistics are prone to interpretive distortion.
No one who was familiar with the real audience would have been surprised when the notorious “Ishtar” failed. Elaine May may have a great reputation behind studio walls as a script doctor, but the paying public remembers her--if at all--only as half of an old comedy team that appealed to snooty intellectuals.
Warren Beatty is a darling in Hollywood social circles, but to most moviegoers he is another aging alumnus of the beefcake brigade. Dustin Hoffman may be admired for his versatility, but audiences don’t rush out to see him in something they aren’t otherwise interested in.
Not a living soul who pays for his movie tickets would have given the project 1 chance in 10 billion of succeeding, star egos or not.
MARVIN JONES
Panorama City
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