I enjoyed seeing WILDER NAPALM recently via netflix, having missed the theatrical run back in 1993. At that time I was attending nearly all new releases, but this one slipped through the cracks.
Finally getting to see it, I was struck with its intentional quirkiness/oddness, even strangeness. This undoubtedly accounts for X number of people hating or at least being disappointed with the result, but it struck me as a very interesting indicator of a Hollywood (and world cinema in general) phenomenon worth addressing.
There are screenwriters (and directors too) that have a reputation for being offbeat and original -I daresay Charlie Kaufman and France's Jean-Pierre Jeunet are the current champs. The point is that audiences (and critics) know what to expect from them: not really the "unexpected" but rather oddball originality.
This is of course what writer Vince Gilligan delivers in WILDER NAPALM, but without the cachet. I see he has become very successful in TV subsequently (producer of "The X-Files" and "Breaking Bad") but has only two (both odd comedy) films made after WILDER: HOME FRIES and HANCOCK.
What I've inferred is several key points. First, the major Hollywood distributors, of which TriStar was one back in 1993 as stablemate with Columbia Pictures -owned by Sony already, had a script development system dating back several decades.
Scripts are commissioned, developed, go into turnaround and occasionally get the green light. It is a familiar process, giving rise to such terms as "Development Hell", and many would-be writers have made a living (perhaps temporary) having scripts they wrote paid for even though they NEVER got one made into a feature film.
With producers, directors and professional readers on staff going through tens of thousands of scripts in development, one can surmise the importance of originality. As computerized methods of actually writing/transcribing scripts have taken over, the formulaic approach, with three acts, clear arcs of characters, routine introduction of plot gimmicks and barriers the protagonists must overcome, must make ploughing through these scripts a tedious job.
So the goofiness and originality of a WILDER NAPALM jumps out at you, and obviously impressed the folks at Barry Levinson's Baltimore Pictures who produced it for TriStar (where Levinson had most recently produced BUGSY and AVALON).
I was also reminded while watching WILDER of how a network has grown up around "hot" scripts which haven't been made. Most recently THE BEAVER, ultimately turned into a notorious flop by the odd couple Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson, was widely, if only underground, known as a fabulous script, too edgy to get made. It did get made, and I suspect 20 years from now will re-emerge as a subject for debate, pro and con.
Summing up, my point is that even in an era where so-called "indie" films are on a pedestal (even though so many of these productions latterly are merely shot-on-video or vanity projets, not equivalent to what indie filmmaking meant back in the '60s, '70s and even '80s when John Cassavetes and many other pioneers were at work), the current "blockbuster" mentality means that creative, offbeat films are still at a premium and worth nurturing -even for major studios.
Most majors' schedules are centered around high-concept projects, formula rom-coms, time-tested remakes/sequels, expensive animated films or adaptations of Marvel Comics, videogames and the like. I suspect that a true original, and not merely an established director ranging from Woody Allen to David Lynch doing "more of the same" from their own odd starting point, will always generate interest among jaded, "seen it all before" producers and story readers.
"Three quarters of what is said here can be completely discounted as the raving of imbeciles" - Donald Wolfit in Blood of the Vampire (1958)
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