" The only reason I left the studio (in London] and took on the horrific Raggedy
Ann assignment was to become bankable. Because thought, if I do this
four-and-a-half-million dollar movie, that makes me bankable. And then we can
easily get money to complete The Thief: It just works that way--if you've done a
big thing, that's a credit. What happened was, I did become bankable, but the
lesson I learned was the Golden Rule: "Whoever has the gold makes the rules."
Whoever has the monetary control of the picture controls the picture. So they can
do what they like with it, they can control the story, the way you work, fire the
key people if they want, bring in idiots, lock you away in a room, do anything they
like. That isn't going to happen on The thief I won't accept the money. We're
quite powerful in London--self supportive--and we've earned our own money and we
spend very, very heavily on The Thief. We've put in well over a million dollars
already. And that would have been profit. Now if the California studio is as
strong, which it is rapidly becoming, well have two sources of income which allows
us to advance the picture. Then all I need to do is get finishing money from some
outfit or whatever, and that's not gonna screw up the picture because the real
creative work is done. All that's left is finishing production. We think we can
finish The Thief in two or three years, but I would go indefinitely rather than
have the picture wrecked. If we get finishing money, we could complete it in two.
We have 70 minutes in pencil test now. We changed the picture all around six
orseven years ago, but the Thief himself,
which we invented, was all done by Ken Harris for the past 10 years, and he's
virtually finished that character. All the good work [from the original start] we
kept. We threw out all the garbage, and the main character which I had done.
It's just a question of money now--if we sold out, we could do it quick. But
Raggedy-Ann, which I had virtually no
control over, cured me of that. The Thief and the Cobbler is my picture. If it's
gonna be good or bad, I'm going to be responsible for it. On Ann I had a very
silly contract--i was contracted only for two weeks of every month, and I was
supposed to be just a supervisor. I kind of got pushed into being the official
director. But there were very many chefs in that thing. And I was coming in and
out, trying to keep to my contract, and work on The Thief the other two weeks, and
I just got trapped, and had to work on Raggedy Ann all the time--for the same
money--and really had no control over it.
And maybe I'm naive about just how it is in America, but when I got on
Raggedy- Ann and had to go through all
these meetings all the time, I kept saying, "All this talk doesn't get you
anywhere, folks, we have to work--I have to work!" But they don't want you to work
over here, they want you to be the front man, and you have a bunch of gnomes to do
the animation. That's the pattern. And that's one reason we're so small in
California. We could have opened big, but I want to build it the way we work. I
front it, but hell, I work--i don't spend my life beating my gums."
Funnyworld 19 1978 Fall issue
Mike Ventrella's take on the whole Completion Bond Company situation with The Thief:
> If you are hired to produce something, and the person paying the bills doesn't
> like it, then you change it.
No. That is totally not the discussion. Williams approached the bond company to
invest in his already existing film. He wasn't "hired". He was the owner. Get that
factory worker out of your head Mike. These people couldn't have concieved a film
like this if they had lived to a thousand. This was not a service job. It was
completing someones life work. In this kind of investment you A) do not invest
because the almost complete film is the not the way you like it or
put your money up to help complete a film you have faith in. It is a simple choice.
Williams wasn't exchanging money for co-directors.
Tell me, if you get money from the bank to finance your car has the bank hired you
? Are you their employee ? No and you would probably not buy the car if you
thought they were going to sit in the back and tell you how to drive. Get it ?
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