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the G-man said:
Kevin Costner Almost Got 'Lady' Lead

    There are plenty of revelations in Michael Bamberger’s new book about director M. Night Shyamalan. The strangest is that Shyamalan briefly considered replacing Oscar nominee and indie-film favorite Paul Giamatti with … Kevin Costner. He even checked his availability at one point. Right away, you know something is off with Shyamalan.

    But Disney isn’t stupid. They got out of making “Lady in the Water” by offering the director only $60 million in all. Shyamalan declined, and now Warner Bros. will release the film on Friday. The budget was $75 million.

    No one I’ve talked to likes this movie. Two nights ago, Warner Bros. held a premiere at the American Museum of Natural History and banned all columnists from attending. One reporter from The New York Times was invited, but she was instructed not to speak to the press.

    Even Ron Howard, father of star Bryce Dallas Howard, skipped the event, a rarity for him. He must have been tipped off.

    Surprisingly, only Variety and the Hollywood Reporter were allowed to cover the premiere. After all, the Variety reviewer, Brian Lowry, said "Lady in the Water" was “a ponderous, self-indulgent bedtime tale. Awkwardly positioned, this gloomy gothic fantasy falls well short of horror, leaving grim theatrical prospects beyond whatever curiosity the filmmaker's reputation and the mini-controversy can scare up.”

    The Hollywood Reporter was kinder, but eventually Kirk Honeycutt gets around to the business at hand. “The film utterly fails,” he concludes.

    Warner Bros. owns up to the $75 million budget for “Lady,” which probably means $100 million, with another $50 million for prints and advertising. That’s a $150 million write off if they can’t convince audiences that early reviews are wrong. Of course, the studio is still wrangling with the “Superman Returns” dilemma, as the failed blockbuster peters out around $170 million domestically.

    But now things get interesting. Last night, Disney fired Nina Jacobson, the executive who almost made “Lady.” This is on the eve of the publication of Bamberger's new book about Shyamalan called “The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale,” which describes how the movie was planned, and how it ultimately switched studios.

    Jacobson didn’t have exactly the greatest taste — she made the Kate Hudson movie “Raising Helen.” But according to Bamberger’s book, she at least confessed early on, after reading the sixth draft of “Lady,” that she had no idea what it was about.

    Now the ball is in Warner's court — and if “Lady” becomes a total disaster, the Warner Bros. crowd may be looking for their own scapegoat. The method would be easy — see if anyone can explain the film.


Superman made more than 170 million domestically......they are full of shit.

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