Hollywood

In mid-October a group of three dozen actors, writers and producers, led by conservatives--screenwriter Lionel Chetwynd and documentary producer Craig Haffner--put together the first formal exploratory meeting with two lower-level White House aides. Within a month, the "creatives" were pushed aside, and the November 11 meeting was reconfigured at the highest level: Bush's right-hand man, Rove, and the all-powerful business-side "suits" who run corporate Hollywood. "What Hollywood and Washington have in common is reverence and respect for the orderly making of money," says Robert Rosen, the dean of UCLA's Film and TV School. So he's not surprised that the contacts would take place at the highest level. But Rosen, like most observers, expects little direct or visible effect on Hollywood's product as a result of détente with Washington. Any comparisons to Hollywood's prolific pro-war output during World War II are simply misplaced, he argues. "During World War II there was no TV," he says. "The only way you could 'see' the war was through the movies. That's hardly the case today."

The eighteen-month minimum lead time on movies also makes them a poor carrier of urgent topicality. And that's all for the better, argues director Sydney Pollack. At a forum of Hollywood directors held a month after the attacks, he reminded the audience that the very best films about Vietnam were produced with tempered hindsight, years after the conflict had concluded. "The worst that could happen now," he said, "is everyone in Hollywood feeling a sense of obligation to do something about [September 11] that turns into some sort of agitprop."

In the meantime, Hollywood movie executives, already notoriously cautious about which films get made and which do not, are expected to do more of the same after September 11. "Nothing has really changed," says critic Rainer. "It's the usual uncertainty, the same syndrome as always, just a slightly different cast of characters." More than any political consideration, it will be, as usual, interpretation of audience desire and sensibility that will determine future film product. Says producer Obst: "The box office is God. And there shall be no false gods before it. Period."

The informal consensus in Hollywood is that the safest bet in the current atmosphere is the "family market." Certain kinds of war movies are under consideration. Supernatural thrillers that get the audience out of the uncertain material world are considered attractive. And all those yuppie-millionaire movie projects are being replaced by stories featuring gritty and courageous blue-collar heroes. (Got an NYFD script molding in your top drawer?) There are also a lot of movies shaped for export under consideration, as sales in the international market now provide the thin margin of profit for an increasing number of producers.

Indeed, Robert Greenwald, who has produced or directed more than forty TV, cable and independent feature films, says it is the recession, much more than the war or overt political entreaties, that is likely to shape the future of Hollywood production. "Economics trumps everything in this business," he says. And while 2001 is promising to be a record $8 billion year for Hollywood box-office receipts, TV, film and commercial production is in a deep and worrisome slump; industry employment is at its lowest level in four years. "Prior to September 11, we were already feeling an enormous recession in my world of cable, network and independent feature films," says Greenwald. "And since September 11, it has already gotten radically worse. Production is dominated by big multinationals and vertically integrated conglomerates, and right now they're all cutting back. Funding is drying up all around us."

There could have been no clearer indication of the economic imperative that rules Hollywood than an incident that took place just seventy-two hours before the Hollywood-Washington summit meeting. On the Thursday night before the Sunday meeting, President Bush asked for network airtime to make a major address to the nation on the unfolding war in Afghanistan. Of the four networks, only ABC ceded the President the prime-time half-hour he wanted. Even Roger Ailes, former President George H.W. Bush's campaign strategist and now head of the right-leaning Fox Network, refused to turn over the airtime to his former client's son. The decision by three of the nets not to cede the costly airtime was made by many of the same executives who came to meet with and applaud Karl Rove three days later.

Their reticence was confirmed by the overnight ratings. Calculations by Nielsen Media Research showed that only 11 percent of viewers tuned in to ABC to watch the President's speech on the progress of the war. But twice that amount watched Friends and a rerun of Will & Grace on rival NBC, and 18 percent saw Survivor on CBS. The Hollywood executives who applauded Karl Rove will surely be pondering those numbers every bit as carefully as the fine print of the talk given them by the President's adviser.

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