William F. Orr...I've always spoken about my dealings fairly frankly and have never worried about libel or slander, for one simple reason...I always tell the truth or state my opinion as my opinion (You may have noticed in last night's post all the IMHO's, "I found", "I felt", "I thought"...). I'm always on safe ground because I always have the facts to back me up and they know it. And I also realize that some may view certain things in a different light, so I make sure it is my opinion being expressed in qualitative areas where a definitive proof or truth can't be arrived at.
Frankly, this whole dispute on DRAGONHEART, played out very big in the local LA Times and various genre film magazines at the time. Neither the producer nor the director got in it too deep with me, because they knew that everything I was saying was true and they also knew that I could go much deeper, if I had too...I tried to keep everything about the work, but if they had wanted to play dirty, I knew where all the bodies were buried. In fact, at one time a labour rep at Universal called the WGA with claims from the producer of something about me that just wasn't true at all...Fortunately, I had a huge paper trail of faxes that disputed her intention and gave them to the guild. She was caught in her lie. The labour rep came back and said I could say anything I wanted to about the film. But I also know they were spreading some pretty vicious calumny in other quarters ( I got it from the exec on the film who told me outright and remains a friend and both I and my press agent were told outright by the Universal PR people: "Don't tell us anything you're doing, because we have orders to squash it.") I had the foresight to hire my own PR people...which I recommend any writer do...from about two/three months in advance of the film's opening through to two/three months after its release. I won the PR wars, which was a rather pyhrric victory...since the film was diminished. My battle in the press was what got me elected to the Board as a champion of writer's rights.
But everybody I respect and want to work with in this town shares exactly the same opinion of the director that I do. I remember having lunch with a very prominent writer/director/novelist who told me "I hate Rob Cohen and love telling people I hate Rob Cohen." If you watch the commentary that BK did you can see this man's overweening ego.
Unfortunately, petulant, insecure loathsome and self-loathing people thrive in this business all the time and like all petualnt, insecure loathsome and self-loathing people their self-hatred and insecurity manifests itself as bullying. They can only make their own light shine brighter by trying to dim the light of others.
Another of my favourite fantasy writers is Thomas Burnett Swan, writer of such books as THE DAY OF THE MINOTAUR, QUEENS WALK IN DUST, HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN, WHERE IS THE BIRD OF FIRE, all very poetic, gentle mythological fantasy...usually centering around dying falls...Here's the opening to one of his books:
" 'And you will wed your uncle, the priest of Melkart, as befits a princess of Tyre.'
"The words of her brother the king, inscribed on papyrus-thin ivory, screeched in her ears like a cry of marauding Harpies. She, fifteen-year old Dido, to marry a plump, middle-aged man with a shaved head who collected babies for the belly of Baal and reeked in his shapeless robes of smoke and blood!"
Great writer...
