Just before the 2014 Academy Awards, producer Cassian Elwes blogged about raising the money for ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ at TheWrap.
It makes fascinating reading. An excerpt:
“A year later in New Orleans, while we were doing “The Butler,” a young agent from CAA named Laura Lewis called me and was upset:
“You can’t believe what just happened. All that Canadian money for the ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ fell through. Matthew has already lost 35 pounds (of the eventual 47) and he has to do ‘True Detective’ right afterwards in January. He can’t put the weight back on and lose it again; it would be too dangerous his doctors say. You’ve been in this position before – what do you do?” she asked.
“When’s the film supposed to start shooting?” I said.
“Seven weeks from now, in mid-October.”
A few minutes later I got a call from Robbie who said very simply: “Save the movie please. You always wanted to do it now is your chance. Please just do it.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Today’s Tuesday and realistically we have to be in prep on Monday so I guess three days and the weekend.”
“Three days?”
“Yes.”
I hung up the phone. There was simply no time to do the presales and a bank loan – the usual indie arrangements. No, this was going to have to be something special and if I didn’t do it now I knew the movie would go back into hibernation and I would probably never get another shot at it.
I stared at the ceiling in my office for twenty minutes. I kept thinking: Who really, really owes me in the business?”
My take: what a Hollywood ending!