Hollywood in Transition: Cleopatra

30 Years of The Simpsons!

We Love L.A. Week! “Die Hard”

When 20th Century Fox went looking for a building that could portray Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard, it found one right behind its own backlot- the almost completed Fox Plaza Building that it was constructing behind its studio lot.

A Shirley Temple New Year

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“Miracle on 34th Street”

Die Hard: Yippee Ki Yay, Mister Falcon!

Fox released Die Hard into theaters in July of 1988. Following CinemaScore’s recommendation, it de-emphasized Bruce Willis and heavily featured the action in print and on television. Several ads didn’t even feature Willis in them at all.

The ads that did have Bruce Willis in them didn’t feature him prominently. It was an odd choice, considering how much Twentieth Century Fox had paid him for the film.

The film, modestly budgeted at $28 Million ended up grossing over $140 Million, exceeding Fox’s wildest expectations and three times the box office gross of Commando. By the end of the summer, Twentieth Century Fox had the mega franchise it wanted and Bruce Willis became an A-List superstar.

Die Hard: Under Production

With Die Hard surviving obstacles that would have felled greater projects, 20th Century Fox finally began production on its long awaited action film. Director John McTiernan was not satisfied with the script and thus production began before the script was completed. The original book had the crimes being undertaken by terrorists against a building owned by a German company. One of the first changes made by McTiernan was to change the owners of the building to a Japanese company to take advantage of the American belief at the time that Japanese companies were buying up the country. Thus, the action would take place at Nakatomi Plaza.

It just so happened that Twentieth Century Fox was building a new office building on its lot. McTiernan thought that the fortuitous timing would give him an easy place to film; after all, wouldn’t Fox easily approve the use of its building by one of its own productions? It turned out that it would, but it wouldn’t do it easily. The negotiations would drag on far longer than McTiernan had hoped or needed.

McTiernan never liked the idea of the criminals being guided by politics and terrorism. A few weeks into filming, he finalized the script, making the terrorism a red herring meant to disguise a theft. Since many scenes had already been filmed using the requirements of the original script, a few continuity errors made their way into the film. The compressed production time and budget didn’t allow for many reshoots, so the production pushed ahead. With the film’s casting and script issues, nobody was expecting much from the film. Fox desperately needed the movie to become a hit. By July 1988, Fox could only cross its fingers and hope for the best.

Die Hard: Cast Harder

With the ancient Sinatra out of the way and Schwarzenegger having turned down the role, Twentieth Century Fox was desperate to find a big star to play the lead in what was now being called Die Hard. They wanted to get a big name who could jumpstart the action franchise they envisioned. Director John McTiernan and Fox studio executives put together a short list of actors who they thought would make an excellent John McClane

Die Hard Director John McTiernan

Fox began wooing a who’s who of big name action stars for the role. Fox worked its way down the list, but they shockingly kept getting rejected. Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, Richard Gere, Burt Reynolds, Don Johnson and Harrison Ford all turned down the role. Twentieth Century Fox was desperate- why were all these actors turning down the role? There was a fear that the project was dying before it even had a chance. They did have one actor who was interested, but neither McTiernan nor Fox was seriously considering him. That actor was Bruce Willis.

Up until then, the only film that Bruce Willis had a starring role in the modest hit Blind Date, whose success probably had more to do with its director Blake Edwards than with Bruce himself. He was best known for co-starring with Cybill Shepherd in the gigantic hit Moonlighting, but that was a talky television show, not a big screen action hit. 

Bruce, however, had bigger aspirations and he felt that Die Hard would get him where he wanted to go. If only he could convince McTiernan and Twentieth Century Fox. Bruce was a hot commodity at the time, but was he right for a blockbuster film? Fox turned to Hollywood consultants CinemaScore to see if their research could predict Bruce Willis’ potential. They believed that he would be an excellent choice, provided that the marketing focused more on the action than him. This convinced both Fox and McTiernan. Despite its initial hesitance, Fox offered Bruce Willis a staggering salary. This project had to progress quickly and Willis would need to juggle both Die Hard and Moonlighting. The high salary, criticized at the time, was seen as being necessary to keep things rolling. Die Hard now had its John McClane.

Die Hard: Origins

Hollywood’s biggest secret isn’t related to someone’s scandalous misdeeds. The biggest secret is that despite everyone’s best efforts, there really isn’t a way of knowing if a film will be successful either critically or financially. Some producers might claim to have a sense of what people will like and how well a production is going, but until the film is edited and released, there really is no way to know how it will be received. Some easy and seemingly surefire projects fail spectacularly while other difficult, messy and problematic projects turn out to be huge successes. While we now know that 1988’s Die Hard was practically an instant classic, its troubled production might have led one to believe that Twentieth Century Fox had a disaster on its hands.

Is my career over here somewhere?

The story of Die Hard begins decades earlier at around the same time that our previous subject Skidoo was causing headaches for Otto Preminger. Much like Preminger, Twentieth Century Fox was looking to connect with the young people of the day. No longer hamstrung by the strict Hayes Code, studios could now feature more complicated characters in their films. Previously, the police had to be depicted as always being ‘good’ and ‘right’ with little room for anything in between. Criminals had to be either dead or in prison by the end of the picture. The new freedom granted by the ratings system meant that more adult situations and complex characters could now be depicted. Twentieth Century Fox, therefore, purchased the film rights to Roderick Thorp’s crime novels looking to turn them into gritty dramas.

An adult look? Like a stag film?

The Detective was a grittier take on a detective film, featuring a homosexual character and a detective who wasn’t afraid to blur the lines. That it featured Frank Sinatra was even more amazing. The film was a modest hit and spurred Twentieth Century Fox to sign a contract with Sinatra guaranteeing him first right of refusal if another film based on the Roderick Thorp novels were made. None were proposed until nearly twenty years later. Thorp released a new book called Nothing Lasts Forever in 1979 in which the character portrayed by Sinatra was forced to rescue his daughter and grandchildren who were trapped in an office tower. Sound familiar?

There might be some subtext to this picture.

After the blockbuster success of Beverly Hills Cop and its sequel, the studios were rushing to find properties they could turn into mega action franchises. Twentieth Century Fox thought Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Commando was just the film that could spawn an action franchise. Since it already owned the rights to Roderick Thorp’s books, it wanted to turn Nothing Lasts Forever into Commando 2. One thing stood in its way, however. The contract with Sinatra stipulated that he get the first right of refusal to star in any adaptation of Thorp’s novels. He was obviously way too old for the role, but he could force Twentieth Century Fox into making the sequel with him in it. Luckily for them, he declined it, leaving the path open to adapt the book into an extension of the Commando franchise. Arnold Schwarzenegger, however, was uninterested in a sequel.

I won’t be back!

With the Sinatra roadblock lifted and Arnold not on board, Twentieth Century Fox took the basic premise of the Thorp novel and turned it into something completely different- an action film it hoped it could turn into the franchise it desired- Die Hard.

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20th Century Fox Week: Century City

20th Century Fox Week: Fox Studios

20th Century Fox Week: 20th Century

20th Century Pictures was founded in 1933 by Joseph Schenck and Darryl Zanuck. Mr. Schenck had previously worked for United Artists, but left to form his own studio with the blessing of his celebrity bosses, who promised to allow 20th Century Pictures to use their distribution system. Darryl Zanuck was leaving his previous employers- the Warner Brothers- due to a falling out with the temperamental brothers. 20th Century Pictures would also get a powerhouse partner in Louis B. Mayer, who invested in the company to get a job for his son in law, William Goetz. Louis B. Mayer offered the new enterprise MGM’s mighty stable of talent, who could be lent to 20th Century Pictures at a moment’s notice.

20th Century Pictures would start things off with a bang. Only one of the studio’s first year pictures would lose money- the rest were extremely profitable. Things quickly went south, however, as United Artists became stingy with allocating its resources and tried to shut out Mr. Schenck from any further investment in the studio. 20th Century Pictures needed to find a new distributor- and quickly.

Meanwhile, Fox Film Corporation had made a move to acquire Loews, Inc. the parent company of MGM. Sensing that such a merger would mean the end of his career, Louis B. Mayer fought back, successfully fighting the takeover. The collapse of that deal, coupled with a car accident and the Great Depression ruined William Fox.

Fox Pictures was bankrupt and had a distribution system. 20th Century Pictures was financially stable and needed a distributor. It was seemingly a match made in Heaven. 20th Century-Fox was born.

20th Century Fox Week: In the Beginning

While audiences today know the major studios as the behemoths they are, most all of them had humble beginnings. This week, we’ll take a look at Twentieth Century Fox, which is currently scheduled to be acquired by The Walt Disney Company.

Twentieth Century Fox is actually the result of a merger between two studios- Twentieth Century Pictures and Fox Film Corporation. The older of the two studios was Fox Film Corporation, which was founded by William Fox.

Unlike other film moguls, William Fox wasn’t a showman. His skills were more entrepreneurial. He could have entered any field, but he chose show business, buying a small theater and parlaying it into a theater chain. Eager to get more films to exhibit, he created his own studio- the Fox Film Corporation- in 1915.

The studio was founded in New Jersey, but it quickly moved out west, chased away by Thomas Edison’s overzealous patent enforcement. The temperate climate found in Southern California, while not the biggest reason for the studio exodus, was icing on the cake. William grew his studio out west, setting up newsreel operations and becoming one of the first picture companies to fully embrace sound. William Fox’s operation was seemingly unstoppable. Mr. Fox was even investing in other studios- he purchased a large stake in MGM, which angered studio boss Louis B. Mayer.

Unfortunately, the MGM stock purchase and two crashes would severely weaken William’s empire. He was involved in a horrific automobile accident which was his fault, then the stock market crashed, further weakening his finances. A chain of events that would lead to a shotgun marriage between two movie studios.