Happy ever after in the market place
Money and marriage seem to go together like love & marriage in the movies. Why not since we are living in the real world, or at least the material one. So naturally when folks get hitched up money issues get highlighted. That's why the legal profession thought up the pre nup as a form of marriage insurance. Now a famous Hollywood ex wife is helping the law talking guys dream up some new precedents that could impact the way movies get made, for better or for worse.Deandre Douglas is the ex wife of Michael Douglas. She was his wife back when he had a booming movie career instead of cancer. They split up some where along the way and the usual financial arrangements got made. Deandre went away quietly and Michael went off with a woman who's seldom quiet. That's Happily Ever After on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
Fast forward several years. Michael is still hitched up to Catherine Zeta Jones. He's also make a motion picture come back with Wall Street 2 - Money Never Sleeps. The sequel is an idea you can bank on in Tinsel Town cause it's like betting on success. The people who enjoyed you're previous work will probably come out to see you "to be continued" stuff. That is unless you got drunk, went nuts, and turned racist or something. Then forget about it. Your celebrity career will consist of nothing but beating up your Russian girlfriend and getting your mug shot taken. But enough about Andy Dick.
Wall Street 2 did pretty good because Michael Douglas is a very talented actor director producer screen writer etc. That's just the stuff he takes credit for and not including writing the musical score and working out some snappy choreography that unfortunately never made it in. Plus he's a nice guy by Hollywood standards, which translates into not usually a jerk in man in the street terms. So the flick made some money.
That's where Deandre comes in, and out of the wood work. She's suing mike for a piece of the action. "Didn't she get paid off already?" many of you might be asking. Sure she did. Mike might be a strong willed sex addicted ego maniac but he's not a stinge. Then why is she coming back dogging an ill man? Well as usual there's a catch.
the better half better have!
According to divorce law when a couple splits the better half is entitled to everything the more valuable half earned during their years together. Mike & Didi split up years ago and back when Catherine Zeta was a mere 40 year old slip of a thing. However Wall Street 2 is the sequel to a movie made when Mike was with Didi. So she's arguing that this is a continuation of the first film. So it's covered by community property. So she should get half of Michael's take from the flick.
It's an interesting legal argument that might have some basis. The idea is that this is a totally separate project. The reality is that this plays on some past work. A good portion of the film's success comes from people having enjoyed the previous film. Deandre is entitled to her share from the original, so she has an argument for a piece of this. Whether her lawyers can get a judge to agree with that is a matter for the courts.
This is where the story gets interesting. Hollywood has been running out of good ideas ever since American writers stopped doing good novels and Andrew Lloyd Weber killed Broadway. With the usual sources of good ideas gone that makes sequels an important source of new screenplay material. So tons of these things get made. Most of them aren't as watchable as anything Michael Douglas might do.
Now it's no secret that almost everyone in Hollywood is as into serial marriage as they are into making sequels. It's also common knowledge that divorces cost the big players a bundle. Steven Spielberg got taken for half his net worth when Amy Irving cut him loose. That was about 100 million at the time. Pre nups were supposed to provide the big boys with some kind of coverage. However if this goes through and sets precedent then no one's safe anymore. That means every time some one pumps out some sequel from some thing done tens years or so ago, then the ex and her jackals could come out of the wood work to open old wounds. Since no one wants that this means the death of the sequel!
Since sequels are totally over done and an excuse to get good money out of bad films, it might be worth rooting for Deandre. She could be the woman who kills the sequel. Id f she can pull that off then she'll have changed the way that movies get made. No more resting on past laurels. That can only be good for the industry. Just think of a film industry with no more sequels. So they can get on to making other kinds of flicks. Like stuff based on comic books, video games, and classic TV series. So you go girl!
