Who needs MGM? Who needs any of these places?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Under no circumstances would it be right for me to go with MGM. Irene shares my opinion.
We're talking to New Line. They've got a couple projects they're interested in me doing and I'm having meetings at MGM. There's a lot of available projects.
When you worked in a studio it was the studio system that you kind of missed because it was a big, big family. I mean MGM had 5,000 people working a day there. You miss it.
In Chicago, actors start up companies and get together and produce things, and there's a really rich, vibrant non-Equity theater scene out there.
Most of the contract people at MGM stayed and stayed and stayed. Why? Because the studio looked after them. Warner Brothers wouldn't - they were always spanking somebody or selling them down the river.
The newly decorated theatres produced things like car parks and restaurants, so you could have a good night out, quite cheaply without all that bother of having to go somewhere else.
There are so many good venues in Chicago.
The only one that seems to be able to hold the business is Disney. They do it is because they have a fabulous philosophy about marketing- but even they wavered.
I hope to build not the largest film and media studio in the world, but perhaps one of the coolest and also the most inclusive.
I kind of go for the MGM version of every musical style.