Hollywood's Broke: What Would Robert Evans Do?

In the late 1960s, early 70s, Hollywood was in a lot worse shape than it is now. The studio system was on its last legs. Major corporations were buying up the studios and the execs didn’t know how to run them. But the town was about to undergo a huge revival. But that was still a few years ahead. In the early 70s, things were bleak.

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Over at Paramount, which was owned by the oil company Gulf and Western, former actor turned producer Robert Evans was given the job of running the place. Evans cut costs dramatically and ran a tight ship with very few managers. He’d inherited some bloated films that lost the studio money. The Gulf and Western Board was meeting to decide if they were going to let Paramount keep the lights on. Evans knew he had to do something to convince them that his movies were going to save the studio. So he got with a friend and made a film for the board (see above), hoping it would turn his fortunes around.

Here’s how Evans Evans puts it:

I thought I was about to be fired. So I had Mike Nichols shoot this 40 minute film for me, which I presented to the unsmiling, 18 member board of Gulf and Western (Paramount’s then-owner) in New York, convincing them at Paramount would be the No. 1 studio in town after the release of Love Story and The Godfather. I signed resignation papers when I arrived in the office, saying they could keep the $300,000 it would cost them to buy out the rest of my contract if they’d just watch this 40 minute film. They agreed. After I screened it, Charlie Bluhdorn, my boss, called me into his office and told me to go back to work. I said “But Charlie, I resigned.” He said “Whaddya want, more money?”

Evans was given the chance to continue making films. And a year later, Love Story and The Godfather were huge hits. He was on a roll. Many more hits were to follow like Rosemary’s Baby, Harold and Maude, True Grit, Chinatown, Marathon Man, Godfather II, The Getaway. The key to his tenure was a lean company that invested in stories and was concerned about the quality of the end product. At a time when the business was floundering around trying to find its way, Paramount lived up to it’s name.

Evans once said that when he ran the studio it was just him and a handful of managers making over 70 films a year. Now it’s hundreds of managers making a few films a year.

Hollywood could learn a lot by looking at the back to basics approach that Robert Evans made and by focusing on quality scripts. In an era of shrinking returns on product, the industry is going to have to learn how to make quality movies again that get audiences personally invested in the stories.

For more info on Evans, make sure you check out his film “The Kid Stays In the Picture.”