January 2, 2001
Deconstructing De Luca
Staff Reporter
You’re going to do one a year? They’ll be released once a year starting December 2001. So there is a lot of flexibility here. We can do films for under ten and take it all the way up to ninety. But we can’t abuse that privilege. There has to be a reason. And most of our films are in the middle range.
What if Lord of the Rings totally tanks? Companies move on, and they recover. I always feel like the next hit’s around the corner. This is a weird business, because you can commit mistake after mistake and not lose your job, or get another job next year, or get a golden parachute. It’s just movies. I’ve never worried about my livelihood, because I always felt like either I’ll do something else or, literally, the next hit is around the corner.
If the first one tanks, are the second two dead in the water? No, we’ve got to deal with it. If the first one doesn’t work, God forbid, we’ve got two in the can. So we’re going to have to be pretty innovative about how we deal with those.