Soccerboy in LA: A Silver Bullet

What a day! Today was one of those days where everybody in town who works in the industry was all talking about the same thing. Days like these are when it really feels like high school again, in the good way. At your first break between classes you email/call/text/facebook your BFF to find out what they know!

What exactly went down? Today, on the Warner Brother’s lot, there was a shakeup at Silver Pictures. You remember Joel Silver, the head of Silver Pictures, right? He’s who brought us The Matrix (yay!) and most recently Fred Claus and Speed Racer. (ouch.) Now would be a good time to remind everybody that the entire industry thought something like this would happen as soon as we saw Speed Racer’s opening night grosses. What could seem less than interesting to some civilians, is like candy to a crackhead when you’re in the industry.

What’s a shakeup? In this situation, it involves two of the top executives at Silver Pictures resigning from their post. One of the executives, Susan Downey told Silver that she would not be renewing her contract when it expires in February. The other exec, Navid McIlhargey, asked Silver to get out of his contract so he could become a senior vice president at New Regency, which Silver agreed to. The big question in town is what is Downey going to do next, she’s been there for ten years?! Set up her own production company with her husband? (She’s married to Robert Downey Jr.) That’s the current talk around the lockers.

One thing this shakeup does for sure is put even more pressure on the new Guy Ritchie movie, RocknRolla. We all know what’s been said about Ritchie (we also know what I said too) and even though all critics seem to love this pic, it still has to capture the attention of the public and convince them that they care about seeing it in the movie theater. As if this movie needed more pressure! That’s like finding out that the AP Chem test you're taking in three hours also decides whether or not you get into college at all! JK!

Worse – the cliques at the commissaries are beginning to make up nasty rumors about the future success of Silver Pictures. I will say this: Often times, when a company has an excellent track record then endures a couple of misfires, they re-jigger their organization. They rethink what positions are needed, what duties those positions will have and what kind of people are best suited for those positions in the company. Joel’s Silver’s company has been on the lot at Warner’s for 22 years! I for one fully expect that this shakeup will allow Silver Pictures to run in a leaner, more efficient way and will also allow fresh, modern ways of thinking. This company will come out on top because at the end of the day, they’re still here because they know what their doing.

© 2008 MD TOTAL all rights reserved.