Days of Thunder prompted Paramount's dumbest choice in decades

Days of Thunder is not a great movie. Actually, it's quite terrible and I say that even though I like it. It's like comfort food on a cold day. You can just watch the scenes one likes while fast forwarding through the rest of the garbage.

But, this movie marked, in my opinion, Paramount's dumbest move over the past several decades.

And that is, it drove Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer to Disney.

Thunder underperformed and Paramount requested that the producers repay certain budgetary items to make up for the disappointment. Considering that Simpson and Bruckheimer made most of Paramount's biggest hits of the 1980s (Flashdance, Beverly Hills Cop 1 and 2, and Top Gun), one could see why they would have balked at the request and why they decided to leave Paramount.

Five years later, Simpson and Bruckheimer began a highly successful partnership with Disney, with some work with other studios. Simpson would die a year later, but Bruckheimer would continue the work of the company.

With Columbia, the company would make "Bad Boys" and its sequel.

With Disney would come "Crimson Tide," "The Rock," "Con Air," "Armageddon," "Gone in 60 Seconds," "Pearl Harbor," (which still made $200 million and a profit), the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, "National Treasure," and many more minor hits.

Paramount's nickel and diming cost them the minds that made these hits.

On the other hand, a bit of irony occurs in that Bruckheimer became the television mega-producer of the "CSI" shows on CBS, as well as his other hits like "Cold Case", "Without a Trace," "Eleventh Hour" and "The Amazing Race."

The company that owned CBS also owned Paramount.

But, still, Paramount messed up big in nickel and diming the producers.

Disney knows not to do the same with Bruckheimer when he makes a "King Arthur," knowing that a "National Treasure" is just around the corner.

I wonder what Paramount thought about Disney's success later on.