M.G.M. takes over United Artists

Press, 12 November 1981, Page 16

M.G.M. takes over United Artists

A happy man is Mr Frank Rosenfelt, chairman and chief executive of Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer Films, which two weeks ago agreed to buy out the studios of the United Artists group for S3OM. The acquisition gives him the chance to feed two production lines through a single distributing organisation and achieve the lowest distribution costs per film in Hollywood. After years in which it made few films, M.G.M. has stepped up its production programme. Ten films • are completed, eight are before the camera and, in 1982, it expects to distribute 14. United Artists, after the trauma of “Heaven’s Gate” (on which S4OM was spent and lost), needs revitalising. That is now Mr David Begelman’s job. He has been switched over from M.G.M. to head United Artists and get its demoralised production unit moving again. He has only two constraints: No film must cost more than SISM and the whole programme must achieve an average cost of ?10M. ‘,‘Keep to that,” says Mr Rosenfelt, “and you may lose some money on a few pictures, but you cannot have a disaster.” Why? Because modern films have many after-lives on video, pay television, network television, etc., all of wiiich are greedy for products. Take M.G.M.’s new film, “Rich and Famous,” which cost SIOM and recently opened to favourable reviews in America. “Let’s assume,” says Mr Rosenfelt, “that the public does not like it and we get back only half the cost from theatrical release. We will still get $2.5M from cable television, S4M from the networks and S2M from foreign television syndication. We’ll make a profit even if it bombs.” The way he tells it, it all sounds easy and a world away from the industry rule of thumb that only one picture in 10 washes its face. Avuncular, pipe-smoking Mr

Rosenfelt, though, is a hard man to doubt. He could charm anybody into believing that red is black. Until the box office returns are in, every film is going to be a smash hit. Of “Whose Life Is It Anyway?”, he is prouder than of any film since “Network.” Of “Poltergeist,” he hopes great things, since it was written by Steven Spielberg, who made “Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” It is not, however, a Steven Spielberg film. The director, Tobe Hooper, is best known for “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” Mr Rosenfelt, as befits the owner of United Artists, has currently lost his heart to its new film, “The French Lieutenant’s Woman.” “I thought it would be an art-house movie that would appeal only to the upper east side, but I was so wrong. I just floated out of the screening room,” he babbles as the tears flow all the way to the bank. In his view, United Artists came a cropper and fell into his lap because, in later years, it knew all about accountancy and little about movies. He knows whereof he speaks. M.G.M. is currently reaping a big profit from one of the direst pictures it has ever made. “Tarzan, the Ape Man” was crucified by the critics, but the S6M movie grossed SIOM in its first week in a saturation booking in 1000 cinemas. “Quality meant nothing,” says- - Mr Rosenfelt. “It was just the notion of Bo Derek running around in that jungle that pulled in the public.” Sometimes you need the courage of your own bad taste. The Dereks (Bo and husband John, who directed) proved difficult people. “I ended up the only person she would talk to,” says Mr Rosenfelt. But he will not work with them again: “Life is too short.” —Reprinted from the London “Observer.”