Money Money Money, it's a development exec's world

By Steven Zeitchik

To get through the Golden Globes is to feel like you've just run a marathon and then realized you're still only at Mile #15.  The only thing stronger than the grogginess is the dawning sense that it's not over yet.

But Risky Biz has little time for jadedness what with Sundance set to start, projects and remakes and directors all swirling around various studios, and the awards season indeed kicking into an ever-higher gear. (Besides, the Globes deadline room was fun thanks to the insights, both aloud and in print, of fellow blog-stained types like Tom O'Neill. That and the endless supply of caffeine.

The first story we jumped back into covering is a development one -- recession topics as project fodder. From studios to startups, big-time directors to aspiring auteurs, everyone seems to have a Bernie Madoff story -- a tale of the criminals and greedmongers along with the people they affected.

It may sound like a pain worse than, well, a Globes press conference, and you wouldn't be wrong to think that; there's a copycat-ism to the projects, and the lingering sense of an industry that feels a need to be relevant -- a need only underscores irrelevancy, given how long it can take a film project to get from script to screen.

But what we've been struck by is how thoughtful these projects are. Baz Luhrmann may be chided for his grandiosity, but there's no doubt that his "Gatsby" will, for all its candy-colored enthusiasm, an unabashed take on the greed of that era.

James Surowiecki may not be the first name you think of when the subject of note-perfect camera angles come to mind, but having the New Yorker writer as a consultant on your project, as startup producers Half Shell do, probably will give it some pretty good backbone.

And Mark Waters may be known for his chronicling of teen cliques, but the "Mean Girls" director probably knows a little something from gigs like that of the haves and have-nots,  background that will help as he takes on corporate greed with a Participant project called "Minimum Wage."

Many of these, will result in compelling stories. And while they may not have the distance of a good period piece or the urgency of a able news report, they will do what good movies should do: reflect some element of contemporary society in an entertaining way.

Just don't underestimate that the audience still wants some of the other stuff. As Syracuse prof Robert Thompson says, "We've spent years lapping up 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. It's not like we're suddenly going to become interested in 'Lifestyles of the Foreclosed and Indigent.'"