Thursday, July 07, 2011

Splashing Through the SPA

Part of yesterday afternoon was spent at Sony Pictures Animation, a stone's throw from what used to be M-G-M, (which isn't, by the way, the reason for the picture above) ...

In the course of meandering, I stopped by story artist Darrell Rooney's office -- where he -- like many others -- is working away on Hotel Transylvania. And I got an opportunity to paw through his new book about Jean Harlow.

Hell of a book. Not only is the tome filled with lots of Jean Harlow photographs you've never seen before, even if you're a major league fan of Ms. Harlow, but it's gracefully written as well.

Darrel and I fell to talking about Jean's Alpha personality mother, and the scarlet fever that wrecked her apparently kidneys years later and ended her life at the age of 26. (Jean Harlow went home from the movie-set of Saratoga on May 29th, 1937, and never came back. She dies a week later, with her part in the picture 75% complete.

M-G-M, in the finest Hollywood tradition, cobbled the balance of the picture together with a bad double for Ms. Harlow, and released the movie anyway.

On another movie front, other board SPA board artists tell me they are working furiously for an oncoming screening of Hotel Transylvania for crew and execs. I asked if Adam Sandler, recently cast to a Transylvania voice role, is chipping in with his two cents. The answer: "Oh, sure."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"...if Adam Sandler, recently cast to a Transylvania voice role, is chipping in with his two cents. The answer: "Oh, sure.""

Oh great.

Yet another cook on that mess.

Anonymous said...

Was that "Oh, sure" sarcastic?

Anonymous said...

Was that "no" sarcastic?

Anonymous said...

The transylvania film has been in deep trouble for a very long time. Going after big-named stars at this stage (late in the game) probably means they're hoping they'll bring something more than their name to the table. This means trouble for the film, as whoever the director is on the project this week will have to cow-tow to their notes (most likely never meeting the star, as the studio wouldn't want that to happen--the animation director isn't important enough to them). There will be little to no forum to discuss the merits of the "star's" ideas and/or notes, and the budget, already out of control, will spiral upwards yet again.

Steve Hulett said...

Was that "no" sarcastic?

Tedious, aren't you?

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