I enjoyed this documentary, but the sound quality was poor, and I had to step out once or twice, and I missed the exact reason why Stanley was fired from the production (after 4 days I believe).
Can anyone explain why?
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"A person of any mental quality has ideas of his own. This is common sense." - Franz Liszt
I think it's pretty clear he was fired because the producers had "no confidence" that Stanley could complete the project. Of course, from the start, there were some execs that did not support him but if Stanley had taken the reins and took charge he might have had it his way. Sadly, from the accounts, Stanley became more insulated, kept to himself, did not attend production meetings and seemed lost when confronted with issues. Not the best traits for a leader of a large production.
Stanley isn't entirely to blame. The reliance on troubled big names, egos, bad weather and distant locations are equal in blame.
Stanley is clearly an intelligent, creative guy who sadly was not yet ready for a studio picture. I would love to have seen his version made.
This is a very good documentary on big time filmmaking gone wrong.
Sounds like he was fired TWICE.
Before production had really started, and after Brando had signed on, producers decided to hand the project over to Roman Polanski. Multiple interviewees admit that they'd already started having doubts about Stanley's readiness to handle a project of such magnitude.
Only after Stanley met with Brando, who apparently took a liking to him, was Stanley back on board. So sticking with Stanley was Brando's doing more than the producers.
What's never answered is whether Brando had any objections to Stanley being replaced for a second time, or why he or the producers weren't able to shield Stanley from some of the lunacy, most of which seems prompted by Kilmer.
Bob Shaye started to lose confidence in Stanley because he took 3 sugars in his coffie. WTF?
shareFour.
And his point is that he was a weird guy. If you're a business man looking to invest millions in a project, and the guy you have to entrust all that money to has no equivalent experience, starts talking about casting spells to ensure things go well, and is hepped up on sugar overload, you might think twice as well. It's not like he fired him at that point - he just had a bad impression.
It became clear that he wasn't able to manage the situation. By even the accounts of those friendly to him he basically withdrew and did nothing when confronted with major problems.
If allowed to make this as a small production he may have been fine, but anyone who thinks that at the point he was fired he was still even remotely capable of pulling off a film any better than what we got, is seriously deluded. If Frankenheimer couldn't control the situation, he sure as hell couldn't.
Well, he only mentioned the sugar. It's not clear the executives knew about the whole "casting spells" shyte. But in any case, they were hiring an artist. Of course he's going to be a little eccentric. You don't flip out because your director likes a lot of sugar in his coffee.
shareI got the impression that he was just incredibly overwhelmed with having to handle a major production like this, which is something he had no experience doing. It sounds like he basically had some kind of a mental breakdown from all of the pressure and refused to go to production meetings, as well being incredibly strange and difficult by doing things like climbing up a tree on the set and refusing to come down.
shareThe suits at New Line insisted that Stanley begin filming the ocean scenes. But bad weather and Val Kilmer made the scene impossible to shoot. They couldn't even control the boats enough to get the right camera angles. Then the suits at New Line saw the footage and fired Stanley for incompetence. The real problem was Val Kilmer and the location, but neither could be changed. Instead, they changed directors and nothing improved.
shareI heard Kilmer pushed him out. And apologized because Frankenheimer was worse.
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