May 26, 2009

Peters Book on Hold; Giant Mechanical Spider Mothballed

Jon Peters is the kind of old-Hollywood mogul who would list the women he’s seduced on his resume.  His proposed tell-all book “Studio Head” (double entendre intended, no doubt) seems meant as much to gloss his cocksman’s credentials in retirement as to chronicle a rags-to-riches story from a broken home in the Valley to the corner office at Sony Pictures, among other more traditional career achievements.  Indeed, his book proposal to Harper Collins lingers on such lurid details as his early job as a “muff-dyer” in a salon catering to call-girls, back when “bush” was uncapitalized and a dirty word with mostly pleasant connotations.  Peters is the kind of dinosaur who shamelessly boasts of bagging Barbra Streisand and Catherine Zeta-Jones as if they were power-hitters his split-fingered fastball had embarrassed at the plate.  His proposal, which intrepid truth-teller Nikki Finke posted large excerpts of, has sparked such a “firestorm” of criticism (as Peters himself put it) that “with regret” he immediately declined the offered book deal.  In a letter to the publisher (also posted by Nikki), Peters ruefully announces his intention to cloister himself and write the book before making a triumphant return with manuscript in hand.

Peters’ excesses have already been well-chronicled in “Hit and Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood” by Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters.  But his proposal reads as the gleeful crowing of a thug recounting his crimes, fully knowing that there is always a large and diverse audience for dirt.  While many of his readers may condemn him, Peters is fully aware of the vicarious thrill “good” people enjoy in sharing the exploits of a bad boy.  “I would never do that,” the reader thinks, secure in moral superiority, while meanwhile cackling at the salacious details he reveals.  The book will sell.  Period.

And yet, his era has passed and the dinosaur is virtually extinct.  Not only does the culture as a whole hold its public figures to a higher standard of interpersonal conduct, the industry has become more corporate at its highest levels.  In the age of TMZ, Peters’ playground is closed and camera-monitored.  Even his bullying brand of business is a relic of another time.  It’s not that human decency is served at every table along with the Evian, but that collective expectations for behavior, gender relations and fiscal sense are enforced by almost instantaneous disclosure.  The Bale blowup or I Heart Huckabees on-set tiffs are just the tip of the iceberg.  Even back-room behavior is only a Tweet away from public examination.  The stakeholders of this business can’t afford a decadent, cash-burning caveman calling the shots.  The same public appetite for Hollywood scandal that will help Peters wring a few more millions out of his decades-long rampage provides a disincentive for it to be repeated.

It isn’t so much his creative sensibilities, or lack thereof, that are untenable today.  Standards for storytelling are so spotty that Peters’ bizarre fetish for giant mechanical spiders (getting one into Wild Wild West hasn’t stopped him from trying to work one into everything from Sandman to Superman) isn’t half as outdated as his use of physical intimidation on his enemies or alleged coercion of conquests among the common class.  Based on their box-office returns, if not DVD sales, it seems that silliness and stupidity are here to stay.  But that’s a topic for another time.

What is the Peters legacy, really?  The fact is that he did seize power like any of history’s charismatic warlords.  Through aggression, relentless drive and yes, a rough-hewn charm, an illiterate and unprincipled man was able to cut a swath through Hollywood’s buttery heart.  But evolution is an unstoppable force.  Enjoy your last hurrah, dinosaur.  Your day is done.