By Movie #6 – Cotton Club
Year – 1984
A mobster period piece based on a story by Mario Puzo and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Sounds great, right? Except we’re not talking about The Godfather.
The film was set against the backdrop of the legendary jazz club of the same name. It had a sprawling cast, amazing sets and great music. It also had legendary film producer Robert Evans at the helm. He intended to make it his directorial debut but eventually acquiesced and hired Coppola. (Evans had produced both Godfather films.) The film went drastically over-budget and is rumored to have cost $65 million (and don’t forget we’re talking 1984 dollars here). Evans had spent $13 million before he even hired Coppola.
The production was a text book example of Hollywood waste. Over 600 people built sets, designed costumes and arranged music at a cost of $250,000 a day. They wrote 12 different scripts in a five week period. Five of those scripts were produced in a 48-hour period. One of the film’s screenwriters estimates that, all told, there were anywhere from 30 to 40 scripts produced for the film.
Adjusted for inflation, the film lost over $70 million.
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