So what's this movie you're gonna pitch me? Okay so there's four women talking
about sex but they're old. You mean like thirty two? Older. Thirty
seven? Older! Fun fact book club was written and produced in part by the pink
Power Ranger Erin Sims. that doesn't mean anything but it's it's there. It's a it's
a fact book club is an incredibly cheap movie that looks like it was written in
about a week and then shot in another week and then cut in three days there's
not a whole lot to really really say about the movie itself because it's more
or less exactly what you would expect it's a very quick and cheap cash in on
on some brand recognition kho-kho promotional power with the Fifty Shades
Fifty Shades tie-in aspect including a cameo from from one Erica Mitchell AKA
el james she she walks through the background at one point and and yeah
what I would rather talk about with it is how a movie like this kind of comes
to exist and the the way that a movie like this goes about making money so the
target market for a movie like this is actually not audience really at all this
is the kind of movie that is basically a made-for-tv plus type movie it has the
budget and production value of a slightly expensive made for television
movie but stars theatrical theatrical actors and the actual target market for
it is not audience but is broadcasters so you get this movie that once it's
made it goes to theater so it is a theatrical movie and then from there
really who you're selling it to is you're selling it to distributors and
broadcasters and other middleman vendors so as a producer
that's where you end up making your money is you sell it to you know some
cable channel in Germany who needs to fill out a 7:00 p.m. slot on Thursday
and and then they in turn convince advertisers to buy slots during during
that's run and all along this basically everybody is just selling this movie to
other people who are then going to turn around and try to sell it to other
people and it's not until you get to like the very end of the line and in
fact because it's advertisers who are buying that spot on television at no
point do you ever really need to worry about selling it to an audience you
worry about it a little bit during the theatrical during the theatrical phase
but not actually that much so if you look at a movie like Catwoman Catwoman
was a huge theatrical bomb but it continues to make actually a lot of
money for like the producers and the producers the writers the actors anyone
who receives royalties on it they continue to make a decent amount of
money because in part because it was a bomb its then really easy to sell sure
it's being sold to broadcasters for a budget price but it's being sold whereas
if you have a you know prestige movie where you're asking a lot for it fewer
people are going to go in so this is really just a different sort of strategy
for selling it it's a it's it's the budget title strategy and actually I I
had the opportunity a few years back to work with Herschell Gordon Lewis on his
last film blood mania it's terrible don't watch it but we spent we spent a
good bit of time when we were on set talking about sort of his original his
original strategy back in the back in like the 60s how they would make movies
and he would he would say they would they would make a movie and they
wouldn't actually worry about distribution really the distribution
would kind of end up taking care of itself because what they would do is
they would just lock in like one or two exhibitors like you know drive-ins
usually they would get one or two exhibitors in like Ohio will give it to
you for like a cheaper price and will let you take a bigger cut so even if
fewer people come to see it you'll get you'll take home more money Disney's big
movies with like the Star Wars movies they're taking a huge cut from the
exhibitors for like the first like three four weeks that that it's in there so if
you think about a movie that's going to take a 75 80 90 percent cut that's all
going back to the studio well as an exhibitor you're making very very little
money off of that even if you're selling out every single show in every single
theater for you know days on end so if another movie comes in where the where
the distributor like the distribute of the studio everybody is only taking say
50% cut 40% cut and you you then don't even need to pack that house you can get
it half full two-thirds full less even and you're going to be taking you're
going to be pocketing more money than if you had sold out another theater of Star
Wars this was kind of this was Herschel's strategy strategy at the time
and this kind of maneuvering within the industry is still still alive and well
you see it with with films like book club which are no doubt incredibly
incredibly cheap and and it's it it all gets very very hazy and very complicated
but sort of the the root of it is that people are making money without anybody
actually needing to buy something without audiences actually buy something
and that's kind of its it shows it shows this is a movie that was very definitely
made to be trimmed down ever so slightly to air at you know 8 9 p.m. on a
Thursday on on basic cable I I guess I actually do have a bit that I want to
say I guess I did I I guess I actually do have a bit that I want to say about
the movie itself because I am I am reasonably certain that
neither of the writers have read the books like okay this is very much this
is very much a movie that was written by people who have absorbed Fifty Shades
purely through cultural osmosis like they they don't actually they didn't
read the books beforehand because they figured they didn't bother like they
didn't need to like why bother so there's there's a number of moments in
the movie that like directly reference the book 50 shades like things that
happen in the book but are wrong one character like in okay so one character
says to another that it's like you know she should not have signed that contract
she doesn't like in the book she doesn't sign the contract that's that's the
entire conflict they spend so long they spend so much time in the back half of
the book arguing about the fact that Ana hasn't signed the contract and that she
doesn't sign it and she never signs it it is it is a substantial part of the
book is that Ana doesn't sign the contract and and it's not just a
character in the movie getting the detail wrong because the other
characters in the scene just like agree and go with it like this is a scene that
was written by somebody who like just has absorbed Fifty Shades but not
actually but wasn't aware of the details I was like oh we need some specific
references because we we're in this like co-production brand deal one of the
things that I'm actually trying to unravel that I'm actually super curious
about is whether basically who approached who first was there a pitch
about like hey we're gonna do a like Fifty Shades related movie that we then
that they would then approached they then approach to Yale James and her her
representation about like hey can we basically license fifty shades for for
this purpose or were they shopping around a garbage rom-com to make a quick
buck and and sent out feelers and were like hey anybody interested and then
Yale James and her people came and said like yeah will will participate with you
on this here's a here's sort of our expectations so it's like basically I'm
wondering what's the chicken and what's the egg did Yale James and the Fifty
Shades camp Commission the movie or did the movie go out seeking sponsorship or
brand deals or you know whatever which who who can't whose people called whose
people first did did they pay for the rights to use Fifty Shades or is Fifty
Shades being you know just getting like a cut of things or did Fifty Shades in
fact like initiate and be like that they paid the movie for inclusion like is it
product placement because there's a pun there is a bunch of product placement
there is actually some really funny product placement not just the Fifty
Shades stuff there okay so so Jane Fonda's character like jumps in in a car
to get driven to the airport to like you know head off head off her love interest
before he gets to to the airport because he okay so there's a big declaration he
makes this big declaration of love actually he makes this small declaration
of love yes super tiny they're they're building up to like a classic like 90s
like like airport gate moment and they're driving in the car and it's like
they get stuck in traffic and the drivers like I don't think we're gonna
make it on time and Jane Fonda says are you using Waze
yes ma'am I am and then and then it just does this and it just ends it just art
just ends right there and then they go they go back to a previous location that
they had already filmed that because you know one the old like meet at the gate
just doesn't happen anymore because of the way that like airports just operate
and to that would mean another location to secure so basically any location that
isn't a private residence or a hotel room is green screened actually yeah
there's a lot of there's a lot of very weird weird green screen in this movie
that shows big romantic dinner beside the ocean green screened like to a point
that it looks just completely hyper real like it almost they they wound up like
softening and smoothing it so much that it looks CG very very quickly shot a lot
of continuity errors like not just not just the kind of things that you would
it's like okay that you kind of come to expect in a cheap comedy like hand
positions but there's another scene Mary Steenburgen spends like three minutes
just filling the same cup with ice over and over again because of all of the
continuity overlap so one of the things is sort of unavoidable is the fact that
like it's like okay Jane Jane Fonda's in this and Jane Fonda currently has a very
funny very touching dramedy on Netflix called grace and Frankie and it's it the
whole way through the whole way through this movie I couldn't help but just go
over in my mind how so much of the subject matter that the that the movie
tries to touch on and like make jokes out of is done so much better in Grayson
Frankie so so Jane Fonda's thing
now I guess her her her role in these days is to be the the 60 year old who
talks about sex and and in Grayson Frankie that's really well done because
it's woven with a lot of good character relationships and a lot of really funny
well-crafted jokes and here that is the joke that's that's the some entirety of
the joke is that she talks about sex and she's old and and that's that's that's
the joke she's she's a woman over 60 and she's talking about sex
laughs Diane Keaton Diane Keaton's in this and she is just she is so checked
out she's just amazingly checked out she's she is not here she is not
mentally or emotionally present for anything and to the point to the point
that her character her character is named Diane sometimes sometimes it's
just a coincidence but in this case it just it really felt like like she told
them that she was only gonna give them like 5 days 7 days and they have to
shoot out all of her stuff super fast and she was like not gonna do like she I
it's like she just straight-up told them like look I am NOT doing more than the
absolute bare minimum for this so my character is going to be named Diane so
that nobody needs to call me anything other than Diane or miss Keaton you will
call me miss Keaton or you will call me Diane
and her character just dresses like Diane Keaton like she doesn't dress like
a Diane Keaton character she just dresses like Diane Keaton but she
doesn't behave like Diane Keaton she behaves like Diane Keaton who has not
been told who character is and didn't really read the script and is just
looking forward to getting home she actually gets to be part of one of the
like weirdest just things in the movie like her her entire
subplot is that her adult children want her to move out to Arizona to live in
their basement so that they can keep an eye on her because she's old now you see
she's she's so old and B she's old and in in her climactic scene she's moved to
Arizona and is is having lunch with her adult daughters and they're like bugging
her about about like how she shouldn't have driven her car out she should have
got somebody else to do it for her cuz she's so old now and she's just like you
know what I don't need to deal with this I'm not moving in and just goes out and
gets in her car and drives off with her u-haul she just says I'm leaving and
leaves and they're like okay bye mom I did end up actually kind of kind of
settling into the movie eventually about about a like after kind of the first
third like really once we got into the once we got into the second act I did
actually kind of settle into it it was it stopped it stopped being painful
basically once they stopped talking about Fifty Shades once they stopped
trying to look like anyone gave a crap about this book and once they stop
gushing about it in ways that were clearly not grounded in any sort of
actual engagement with with the book once once they got past that and it was
just like okay you you still at the end of the day have these immensely talented
actors even if the material they're given is just thin and hacky and not
very good like you know they can they can sell a line there there's charisma
and there's charm they're just fantastic talented talented cast so even with just
garbage material there is a charisma there and when they can just kind of
like bounce off of just whatever like you can you
you gotta get into it it's it's it's bearable but oh my during the actual
during the actual book club scenes there and when when they're reading the book
like suspicious there's a few moments where they act they actually do like
quotes from the book they do readings from the book and you know you can just
tell you can just tell that it was just like okay alright we got a copy okay
I don't know just flipped through until until you see something his hand moves
back to concentrate on my nipple once more and his teeth scrape along my jaw
do you know how hot you are Anna his voice is hoarse as he rocks
harder against me oh god this is actually almost exactly the moment in
the book that they wound up at in the movie one of the things that was also
funny I know way too much about these books like there there's a moment where
you know they're sitting there watching like you know they're showing a
character who's like reading and she's got the book open and and she's oh my
this is so hot but I can see I can see it's it's it's it's like this far into
into the book into the first book and I'm just like no now you're you're not
even out of the interview there is nothing happening in that chapter the
part that you're reading right now nothing happens there that is not a hot
chapter that is a chapter about about Anna arguing with Kate about nothing
you are not reading a hot chapter because the sex in the first book
doesn't show up for like a while so
I feel sad now I can't actually use my copy of the first book for examples
because we basically since directed while we were doing all of those
close-ups for the actual video go watch my video