# Studio executives requesting bizarre/random changes to movies/TV shows **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 9, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974 "2012-01-09T21:57:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/22 "2012-01-10T14:55:40Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > The original pilot for “lost in Space” didn’t have the evil Dr Smith and the programmed to destroy the Robinsons robot on it. Some CBS executive may have suggested it. In the end, once Allen and Jonathan Harris turned the two into a comedy putdown/repartee act, it became the only worthwhile thing about the series. According to “Pioneers Of TV” Allen wanted to compete with the more campy “Batman”. One more example of money winning over substance IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/23 "2012-01-10T15:07:21Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Someone posted here that when Roddenberry was pitching the first Star Trek movie to Paramount an exec requested they put some Mayans in the movie… Actually, this was Harlan Ellison, not Roddenberry, who was pitching his ideas, and I think you can find the story in HE’s collection [Strange Wine](http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Wine-Harlan-Ellison/dp/0743479890). ETA: [404 Error — Forgotten Trek](http://www.ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/phase2_7.php) Actually, the story can be found in Stephen King’s _Danse Macabre_. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/24 "2012-01-10T15:42:00Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Actually, this was Harlan Ellison, not Roddenberry, who was pitching his ideas, and I think you can find the story in HE’s collection [Strange Wine](http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Wine-Harlan-Ellison/dp/0743479890). > > ETA: [404 Error — Forgotten Trek](http://www.ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/phase2_7.php) > > Actually, the story can be found in Stephen King’s _Danse Macabre_. Harlan’s **always** good for an executive-meddling story! Say, what ever happened to him, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/25 "2012-01-10T15:43:17Z")
He’s still writing and bitching. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/26 "2012-01-10T15:44:06Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Somewhere on the Annotated Pratchett file/ L-space, there’s a quote where Pratchett talks about his dealings with US movie producers who wanted to film Mort, but, just as the deal was about to be signed (that is, after weeks or months of deliberations) “You know, we like the story, but can we loose Death? The viewers find that too dark”, and the Brits were “Did you read the book?” “yeah, sure, great book, let’s just do it without death and move the story to America.” > > Pratchett declined at that point. Thinking of Terry Pratchett reminded me of Neil Gaiman, and a story I’d heard about a proposed _Sandman_ movie. Screenwriter Ted Elliot described pitching a script to Warner Brothers that he’d co-written with his usual writing partner Terry Rossio, a script that Neil Gaiman had told him personally that he liked, and later being told by the studio that the script was so bad it was “undeliverable” and that they would not be paid the usual fee for completing it. Elliot suspected the actual problem was that the producer was upset that his suggestion that Morpheus be imprisoned by _kids holding a seance at a slumber party_ (not a serious, grown-up occultist as in the graphic novel) had been rejected. I just pulled up Elliot’s account and was not-that-surprised to learn that the producer was Jon Peters, who’s already been mentioned in this thread. Anyone who wants to read this story can go to [http://www.wordplayer.com/archives/SANDMAN.cover.html](http://www.wordplayer.com/archives/SANDMAN.cover.html) and click “INTRO” at the bottom of the screen, a direct link doesn’t seem to work for some reason. A draft of the unproduced screenplay is also available there. Terry Rossio has also written about how bad things can happen to good scripts, see for instance [this Wordplay column](http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp06.Crap-plus-One.html). ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/27 "2012-01-10T16:14:49Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > I can’t remember who it was that put it in but on a commentary track for “Armageddon” they say the reason why the vehicle they use to travel on the meteorite had guns was because research shows toy vehicles with guns sell better. On his commentary track for _Batman and Robin_, Joel Schumacher (while not totally excusing himself) said one of the reasons the movie sucked balls was because the execs wanted it to be really “toyetic.” > [@](#): > > Schumacher wanted to adapt Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One graphic novel, but the soulless studio suits forced him to make a feature-length commercial for Batman toys…Schumacher also says he relied heavily on the input of his 6-year-old godson while making the film. Interesting overview of the commentary at the Onion AV Club. > **[Home](https://www.avclub.com/)** > > The A.V. Club digs deep into film, TV, music, games, books and more. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/28 "2012-01-10T21:49:55Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Tom Clancy had a lot of problems with the filming of “Patriot Games” The studio wanted things like a boat chase ending with one of the boats running into a coral reef. Clancy told them that everyone knows that liberals like you Hollywood guys are retarded but even you have to know there are no coral reefs in the Chesapeake Bay. The bay, however, does have many navigation hazards such as shoals and sandbars (as Clancy would be well aware) and the ending of the film, as patently Hollywood as it is, is still better than the ending Clancy wrote into the novel, which spends the penultimate chapter going down on the unnamed Prince of Wales in a fashion that would make Linda Lovelace look like a virgin. There are other problems with _Patriot Games_, but a boat meeting an unhappy end to its high speed traverse of the bay isn’t really one of them. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/29 "2012-01-10T22:04:54Z")
There’s a book called [A Martian Wouldn’t Say That](http://www.amazon.com/Martian-Wouldnt-Say-That/dp/0967606152) which collects some of the most peculiar memos from movie and television execs. My favorite was the executive who was worried that a gangster named Rocco Balboni might be an offensive Italian stereotype, so he sent a memo to the writer to change the character’s name – to Seth Balboni. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/30 "2012-01-10T22:22:20Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Actually, this was Harlan Ellison, not Roddenberry, who was pitching his ideas, and I think you can find the story in HE’s collection [Strange Wine](http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Wine-Harlan-Ellison/dp/0743479890). > > ETA: [404 Error — Forgotten Trek](http://www.ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/phase2_7.php) > > Actually, the story can be found in Stephen King’s _Danse Macabre_. My recollection is from Harlan telling the story to Tom Snyder - this was during the '70s - and I am pretty sure that Roddenberry was with him, as you’d expect. As for another example, there was his short lived series the Starlost, which Ben Bova was an adviser on. Bova turned the experience into a novel call “The Starcrossed.” ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/31 "2012-01-10T22:28:46Z")
Roddenberry was likely in the group (I seem to recall that as well), but it was Ellison who flipped out. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/32 "2012-01-10T23:48:59Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > He’s still writing and bitching. 😃 How come I never see a new Ellison book in the SF section any more? ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/33 "2012-01-10T23:59:20Z")
I remember hearing some story about a young director who was friends with Steven Spielberg (who was also attached to the film somehow). The director was getting really crazy and stupid suggetions from a studio exec, and Spielberg ended up senting a letter to the exec, thanking him for the “joke memos” he was sending out and telling him how funny they were. Naturally the exec was too embarresed to admit they weren’t jokes and the matter was dropped. Does that familiar sound to anybody? PS Never mind. The movie was **Back to the Future** and the “young exec” _was_ Sidney Sheinberg. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/34 "2012-01-11T00:03:49Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > How come I never see a new Ellison book in the SF section any more? Yeah, I guess you’re right… looks like the last published thing of his was around 2001 and his website was last updated in 2007. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/35 "2012-01-11T00:19:10Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > > [@JohnT](#): > > > > He’s still writing and bitching. 😃 > > How come I never see a new Ellison book in the SF section any more? 'cause in the latter stage of his career he seems to have focused a lot more on the bitching 😛 He’s still putting stuff out but apparently not at a volume that made it commercially viable to do print fiction collections for bookstore sale during the '00s (there was a spike of reissues and compendia in '10-'11). ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/36 "2012-01-11T00:35:32Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Roddenberry was likely in the group (I seem to recall that as well), but it was Ellison who flipped out. Apparently literally. Stephen King, in _Danse Macabre_, cites the Ellison incident, noting that Ellison flipped them the bird (presumably the Cordwainer Bird), and stormed out. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/37 "2012-01-11T00:39:09Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Yeah, I guess you’re right… looks like the last published thing of his was around 2001 and his website was last updated in 2007. That’s really weird. I could have sworn there was a fancy newer website just a couple of years ago. He had another one of his personal memorabilia sales just about two years ago and I remember visiting the site for more information (I bought a recording of Jeffty is Five on vinyl and a limited edition Frank Miller poster from Ellison’s roast back in the 80s) ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/38 "2012-01-11T02:59:18Z")
My son and I were surfing for something to see on Netflix or Hulu one night and came across this movie Age of Dragons. It was described as a retelling of Moby Dick but featuring a dragon vs. a whale. On land. With a landboat traversing a forest. On wheels, but still a boat. With Danny Glover as some sort of whacked-out Ahab. Who has a totally hot daughter harpooner on the landboat. And Ishmael as some shit-hot harpooner who romances the daughter and saves the day. Could it reek of stoopid movie exec any harder?? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/39 "2012-01-11T03:05:30Z")
I think we’ve stumbled on why SyFy movies suck so very badly. They have no creative talent, only executives. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/40 "2012-01-11T03:10:43Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > That’s really weird. I could have sworn there was a fancy newer website just a couple of years ago. He had another one of his personal memorabilia sales just about two years ago and I remember visiting the site for more information (I bought a recording of Jeffty is Five on vinyl and a limited edition Frank Miller poster from Ellison’s roast back in the 80s) The site I went to was [www.harlanellison.com](http://www.harlanellison.com) ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974/41 "2012-01-11T03:40:26Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > I think we’ve stumbled on why SyFy movies suck so very badly. > > They have no creative talent, only executives. Some of them have turned the corner and they are SO bad they are actually pretty good entertainment. In a thread not too long ago, I predicted the movie _Nazi Dinodragocrocosharktopus_, and I am still waiting. I have more titles if they need them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studio-executives-requesting-bizarre-random-changes-to-movies-tv-shows/608974.md?page=3)