An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn (1997) on Netflix
Challenger Films hires English film editor Alan Smithee to direct Trio, a big-budget action picture. He is chosen for his inexperience, and James Edmunds keeps reworking the script around him.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Alan Smithee is an acclaimed English film editor. Challenger Films, led by its president Jerry Glover, hires him to direct Trio, a big-budget action picture, with producer James Edmunds in charge of the production. The company picks him because he is inexperienced and expects to control him, and he throws himself into the work. Edmunds orders constant rewrites, brings in more writers and sends notes throughout the shoot, while the film's stars interfere too, and Smithee grows withdrawn. Edmunds also arranges for Michelle Rafferty to approach a drunken Smithee, whose marriage is unhappy, hoping to collect blackmail material.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The fallout from An Alan Smithee Film helped end the pseudonym it was named for: the Directors Guild of America officially retired the Alan Smithee credit in 2000, decades after directors first used it to disown a film.
- Joe Eszterhas became the first person to win four Golden Raspberry Awards for a single film, taking Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay and both Worst Supporting Actor and Worst New Star for a brief cameo in the film.
- In May 1997, director Arthur Hiller took his name off the film after writer Joe Eszterhas recut it, removing 19 minutes of footage and changing the music, after two test screenings Eszterhas held without consulting Hiller allegedly scored higher.
- The script originally had Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis playing fictionalized versions of themselves in the film-within-the-film Trio; only Stallone agreed, and Schwarzenegger's part was refitted for Whoopi Goldberg.
- Directors Albert and Allen Hughes were initially slated to play fictionalized versions of themselves, but their roles were rewritten and played instead by Coolio and Chuck D.
- An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn was the last film released by Cinergi Pictures before the company declared bankruptcy.
