I do actually have a reasonable grasp of many things relevant to the local film industry.
In my capacity as unit accountant much of the cash needed to actually shoot a feature film passed through my hands. Naturally, how this money was spent was the direct concern of the executive producer - and any director or HOD (Head Of Department) requiring more cash was obliged to get it (or not) by running his request past said EP.
There can be little doubt that financially things have tightened up considerably in the past 25 years, but many foreign movie companies are still capable of some quite inexplicable and grotesque waste. A while back I worked on a French-produced feature with a substantial budget. According to the producers it was fine to blow thousands of euros on champagne and fine wines for the cast, but I was hauled over the coles when I sanctioned a perfectly reasonable €10 request for a taxi to bring to and from the set a very efficient crowd marshall from his home in Fgura. Not the first aberration of this kind... nor the worst.
Talking of aberrations; what about the film commissioner chappie, Johann Grech? Definitely a case of "having fun with someone else's money. Now I don't know the person myself, but we do have quite a few mutual acquaintances. For starters the word on the street is that Mr Grech is both extremely arrogant and pompous. Then, on the contrary, word from the Gladiator 2 crew is that, among the foreigners, he is regarded as something of a joke. So a figure of fun he may well be, however some of his pronouncements to the local media mark him out as... how shall I put it, not very well versed in the ways of Malta - or any - movie industry. By its very nature the film industry in Malta is a very intermittent employer, so Mr Grech's assertion that he is safeguarding Maltese jobs... can be seen as frankly just what it is... tosh.
However, the current Hollywood artistes and writers strike has certainly affected the shooting of this big money sequel. I don't know if Mr Grech is aiming for a first here, by making Glad 2 more profitable than Glad 1, and good luck with that. But I, and a hell of a lot of other people, won't be putting too much money on it. So why chuck so much money at a product that will, at best, lose just a few million theatrically... unless it goes straight to streaming or even video, where it might stand a chance of breaking even?
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Please tell me, I'm dying to know... What did you make of that now infamous kiss on the lips from the head of the Spanish FA to that rather cute Spanish female world cup winner? My immediate reaction was... well... Yuck! For goodness sake, why should that rather attractive young woman be forced to tolerate that? She quite obviously was not enjoying the ordeal... whatever he claimed about it being mutual.
I mean come on, he's not exactly George Clooney or Brad Pitt. He is actually a dead ringer for Riff Raff, Richard O'Brien's character in the 1975 movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And believe me that guy bore no resemblance to either Pitt or Clooney. But now I see the guy's mother has gone in to bat for him. Altogether now: "Aaaaw!" She must be a special person to first admit to giving birth to that and then later to defending the horror.