People will bemoan the supposed 2nd class status -- the television screen vs. theatrical movie -- but actually a far larger audience stands to see the play on HBO, where it will get a long life and end up on on-demand. All good news.
I like this much better. I can't see Normal Heart doing well in a commercial Hollywood release. A story like this is better suited for HBO than depending on a market that sets box office records with sophomoric super hero movies. And unless Spielberg, Scorsese or Clooney take over directing, the Academy won't acknowledge it.
There's a very good reason HBO ends up with more Emmy nominations than any other station EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.
Well and I think you just nailed it. Murphy knows that he's got an Emmy nom/possible win in the bag for this, where he would never stand a chance at an Oscar nom. I'd be willing to bet that played a large part in the decision.
Still hate tha Murphy is attached to this (I doubt Larry will let him tamper the script, but as much as I question a lot of Murphy's writer, he's not a particularly talented director)--but HBO makes a *lot* of sense for me.
BARBRA wanted to go with HBO before she lost the rights to the project. KRAMER was adament against it. As you know, there is a big feud over this project between them. Kramer got so angry at BARBRA he outed Jason HIV status.. Had he listen to her, this film would have been made 15 years ago and directed by BARBRA. What a waste!!
His status has been rumored for years, mainly in the gossip rags, but as I understand it, in one of his releases about Barbra, Kramer directly alluded to Jason's status as though it were fact. Given his contact with Barbra on the project, and the nature of the project itself, I'd assume he'd know.
Neither Babs nor Larry (nor Ryan Murphy) have reps for being easy to work with. For the 1 person on here who hasn't read Barbra's defence here http://www.barbrastreisand.com/ca/node/14745 I do think much of what she says makes sense--it's a much easier climate to film Kramer's script now than it was on the 80s (I don't think HBO was even doing high profile tv movies at the time). Then again, I'm sure Barbra was responsible for turning Prince of Tides into essentially a romantic drama, and I could see some truth to Larry's argument that she wanted to make the female doctor the star.
I wonder how much Larry is getting for the film this time, if this is true:
"Streisand also says Kramer rejected a deal from HBO to turn the play into a TV project after major studios balked at its subject matter. “Larry wouldn’t accept their highest offer of $250,000. He wanted a million dollars,” says Streisand. “Larry held out for the money. I didn’t. Why not advance your cause? Why keep this movie unseen for all these years?” Kramer claims he never heard about such an offer and says Streisand repeatedly abandoned the project to work on other movies."
Maybe he had to eat **** and accept that HBO was pretty much the only opportunity it was going to get in this day and age, especially with Ryan Murphy on it.
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joined:5/7/03
Posted: 11/13/12 at 01:19pm