Media Decoder: Defying Naysayers, ‘Gatsby’ Proves a Box-Office Winner

LOS ANGELES — “If history is any indication,” a Forbes report read on May 3, “ ‘The Great Gatsby’ will bomb rather hard.” BoxOffice.com at one point projected very soft opening-weekend sales of about $24 million. Early on, several studios were so worried about the movie’s multiplex prospects that they passed on making it.

Oops.

“The Great Gatsby,” directed by Baz Luhrmann, has become the latest example of the Hollywood machinery getting audience interest wrong. “Gatsby,” adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel and starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role, is now expected to take in at least $330 million worldwide.

With that kind of box-office success, the movie should be able to generate $200 million or so more from ancillary sources like DVD sales and reruns on cable channels, studio executives said.

Profitability is another matter, affected by unknown factors, including how compensation for Mr. DiCaprio and Mr. Luhrmann was structured. The movie was also expensive to make; executives who worked on “The Great Gatsby” contend it cost about $105 million after heftier-than-normal rebates from filming in Australia. Global marketing costs, after factoring in partnerships, ran $90 million. (Some insiders say those costs were substantially higher.)

Is it surprising that “The Great Gatsby” has succeeded? Apparently not to a lot of movie fans. Who would bet against Mr. DiCaprio in a flashy retelling of one of literature’s best-known stories?

A lot of people did. Village Roadshow, a film financier and production company, showed interest early on, agreeing to collaborate with Sony. But Sony, which had a flop with “How Do You Know” around the time “The Great Gatsby” was getting under way, decided it was too risky.

Members of Mr. Luhrmann’s management team said he then approached other studios but got one no after another: too expensive; mainstream audiences would not be interested; his last movie, “Australia,” was a disappointment.

Warner, with Village Roadshow, finally said yes, but only after Warner’s president of production, Greg Silverman, became an avid supporter of the project.

So, with the money now rolling in, is Mr. Luhrmann’s camp saying “told you so”? In true Hollywood fashion, it is gloating in private while trying — successfully, apparently — to get the word of its vindication out there.

The Media Equation: Cable TV’s Shift to Darker Dramas Proves Lucrative

We used to turn on the television to see people who were happier, funnier, prettier versions of ourselves — people like Mary Tyler Moore, or Ashton Kutcher. But at the turn of the century, something fundamental changed and we began to see scarier, crazier, darker forms of the American way of life.

Pinning down a realignment in the zeitgeist is dicey business, but more than a few people might point to Feb. 7, 1999. On that night on HBO, a character named Tony Soprano went with his daughter, Meadow, to inspect a college. It’s an oft-deployed television trope, but this time it came with a mind-altering twist. While at a gas station on the way to the college, Tony spotted a former associate who had become an F.B.I. informant and entered witness protection. In between the quotidian tasks of touring the campus, Tony hunted the man down and used his bare hands to kill him.

Rather than being revolted, audiences and critics began to chatter, and the episode, the fifth in the first season of “The Sopranos,” won an Emmy for outstanding writing in a dramatic series. The rest was television history.

It was not only a profound shift, but a highly lucrative one as well. Built on lush portraits of human pathology, subscription- and ad-supported cable channels gradually became hotbeds of quality and profits, even as broadcast networks withered.

Click on ambitious cable channels now, and you will find a high school science teacher who makes meth when he is not dissolving his enemies in vats of acid (“Breaking Bad”); a successful Madison Avenue advertising executive whose entire life is a lie (“Mad Men”); a forensics investigator who is a serial killer on the side (“Dexter”); and another New Jersey gangster, this one in Atlantic City, who is also very much the family man (“Boardwalk Empire”).

It has been a winning formula, but the execution risk is high. In “Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution,” to be published in July by Penguin Press, the author, Brett Martin, suggests that the manic and dark shows, which were so riveting for audiences, were produced by men — and they were mostly men — who were as tortured and sometimes as despotic as the antiheroes they hung their plots on.

Mr. Martin suggests that there is a fundamental lesson about where greatness comes from. If you want to create original programming, you are going to have to deal with the idiosyncrasies of some very original characters. Artists, and that’s what they were, require a wide berth, even when tens of millions of dollars is at stake.

In this new order, writers suddenly became director-producers, filling their writing rooms with talented cronies, who may or may not have had television experience. Crews would stand by for days while the creators mulled details and handed out freshly printed pages of entire new scenes. Directors, studio executives, even the actors themselves became game pieces in the creator’s effort to build a television version of the universe he saw in his head.

“This isn’t like publishing some lunatic’s novel or letting him direct a movie. This is handing a lunatic a division of General Motors,” one television veteran told Mr. Martin, remaining anonymous presumably because he or she hoped to make more television — and more money — with said lunatics.

What becomes remarkable in retrospect is not just the rise of a new kind of storytelling, but the realization that an entire industry was built and controlled by writer-producers, men who typed for a living. Among others, Mr. Martin recounts the rise of David Chase, the creator of “The Sopranos”; David Milch, who came out of “NYPD Blue” to create “Deadwood”; David Simon, a former reporter for The Baltimore Sun who created “The Wire”; and Matthew Weiner, a “Sopranos” alumnus who conjured “Mad Men.”

E-mail: carr@nytimes.com;

Twitter.com/carr2n

Leap From Broadcast News to Big Law Proves a Happy Fit

Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker litigator Valeri Williams

Before embarking on a midlife career switch eight years ago, Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker litigator Valeri Williams spent 20 years as a television news reporter. Along the way, she became a familiar face in the Dallas area, which, she learned, can create complications in the courtroom. "When I've done jury trials, occasionally we've had to knock out a juror," says the 51-year-old Williams, who joined Wilson Elser as of counsel in the firm's business litigation and employment and labor practices in Dallas last month from Dallas firm Figari & Davenport.

Williams first considered becoming an attorney after graduating from college in 1983. Instead, she parlayed a $4.75-an-hour job at a small Texas TV station covering the Temple-Waco market into a two-decade run as a reporter during which she won two Edward R. Murrow awards and a local Emmy Award. One of the biggest stories Williams covered while she was with WFAA-TV in Dallas was the federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco in 1993. She gained some firsthand experience with the legal system as a result of her coverage when a rival reporter sued her and the station for allegedly defaming him by implying in its reporting that he had tipped off members of David Koresh's cult about the impending raid. The Texas Supreme Court eventually dismissed the suit in a ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court let stand.

Williams says she grew disenchanted with journalism over time, and in 2004, with her late husband's encouragement, she entered law school. Upon earning her law degree, she joined 24-lawyer Figari & Davenport as an associate, establishing a litigation practice focused on employment and labor issues, as well as insurance defense and commercial matters. The move to Wilson Elser, which has some 30 attorneys in Dallas and nearly 800 lawyers across the United States, offers her the chance to expand her practice, which also includes providing media consulting services to some clients. The Am Law Daily talked with Williams recently about making the transition from one career to another and what the future holds for her at Wilson Elser.

Tell me about your journalism career, when it started and how you entered that field.

I knew when I was 15 that I wanted to be a journalist. I spent 20 years as an investigative reporter. I worked all over Texas, primarily in Dallas, and I also worked for the network, ABC News. I got to do a lot of exciting things. I've been to the North Pole. I've covered an exploding volcano. Over the course of time, the journalism field changed. I've always believed in developing a story, and it got to the point where there was very little room to develop investigative reports. So, in 2003, I had a real tough decision to make. My contract was going to be up and I could renew or I could go somewhere else. But, it didn't look like things were going to be any different anyplace else. So, that Christmas there were two gifts for me under the tree and one of them was an LSAT book. My husband -- he was a great guy -- he said "You need to do this." So, I took the LSAT and went to law school.

What was it like going back to school, and then balancing that time commitment with the rest of your life?

It was like spinning plates. Law school was humbling to me, because it had been more than 20 years since I had taken an exam. There's a big difference between the way institutions test now and when I was in school. This was really apparent to me when I took the LSAT. The LSAT was scary to me because it didn't feel right, and it made me worried about law school. But I ended up graduating cum laude. I think it took me more effort than it probably took a younger student, to be honest with you.

How does your schedule now compare to what it was like when you were a journalist?

It's structured in the sense that I'm not leaving town on the fly and not knowing exactly when I'm coming back. I no longer travel with a suitcase in my trunk. People frequently ask me "What's the difference between being a reporter and practicing law?" Really, the two fields overlap tremendously, because they require the same type of skill sets. As a reporter and as a lawyer, I take facts and I put them together in a cogent story, and then I tell those facts. The difference is as a reporter I was paid to be unbiased. Now I'm an advocate.

Do you see yourself on a partnership track?

Yeah. The law profession fortunately is probably more stable than the journalism profession but it's not much more stable. Because I was married and I liked stability, I didn't jump around as much as most reporters do. The average reporter with a newspaper or a television outfit spends about two years and then it's on to the next employer. [For] lawyers, that's not a good way to run a practice, because you build a base of clients and what you look for when you're growing your practice is a place where you like the people you work with. And Wilson Elser and the Dallas office has been great.

Do you ever get recognized by clients or colleagues from your time on television?

When I've done jury trials, occasionally we've had to knock out a juror. One time I did this jury trial -- and you never know the reaction you're going to get from jurors -- they're going down the list, there's probably 60 jurors in the room. [The jurors were asked] "Do you recognize this woman?" A lot of people said "Yes." So, finally they say, "Well, she used to be on WFAA." And they get to this one gal and she says: "I don't recognize her from WFAA, but she was in my sorority in college!"

Is there anything you miss about journalism?

When I was a journalist, there was nothing like coming out and being able to do a story that really, really mattered -- that had tremendous impact -- and being the first person to tell that story. In a court of law, generally, you don't get that opportunity. You get to tell the story, but it's after it happened. There's a part of me that still misses being the first.

The "scoop"?

Exactly, the scoop. As a lawyer, you should probably not be scooping. In fact, you're more cleaning up.

Leap From Broadcast News to Big Law Proves a Happy Fit

Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker litigator Valeri Williams

Before embarking on a midlife career switch eight years ago, Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker litigator Valeri Williams spent 20 years as a television news reporter. Along the way, she became a familiar face in the Dallas area, which, she learned, can create complications in the courtroom. "When I've done jury trials, occasionally we've had to knock out a juror," says the 51-year-old Williams, who joined Wilson Elser as of counsel in the firm's business litigation and employment and labor practices in Dallas last month from Dallas firm Figari & Davenport.

Williams first considered becoming an attorney after graduating from college in 1983. Instead, she parlayed a $4.75-an-hour job at a small Texas TV station covering the Temple-Waco market into a two-decade run as a reporter during which she won two Edward R. Murrow awards and a local Emmy Award. One of the biggest stories Williams covered while she was with WFAA-TV in Dallas was the federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco in 1993. She gained some firsthand experience with the legal system as a result of her coverage when a rival reporter sued her and the station for allegedly defaming him by implying in its reporting that he had tipped off members of David Koresh's cult about the impending raid. The Texas Supreme Court eventually dismissed the suit in a ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court let stand.

Williams says she grew disenchanted with journalism over time, and in 2004, with her late husband's encouragement, she entered law school. Upon earning her law degree, she joined 24-lawyer Figari & Davenport as an associate, establishing a litigation practice focused on employment and labor issues, as well as insurance defense and commercial matters. The move to Wilson Elser, which has some 30 attorneys in Dallas and nearly 800 lawyers across the United States, offers her the chance to expand her practice, which also includes providing media consulting services to some clients. The Am Law Daily talked with Williams recently about making the transition from one career to another and what the future holds for her at Wilson Elser.

Tell me about your journalism career, when it started and how you entered that field.

I knew when I was 15 that I wanted to be a journalist. I spent 20 years as an investigative reporter. I worked all over Texas, primarily in Dallas, and I also worked for the network, ABC News. I got to do a lot of exciting things. I've been to the North Pole. I've covered an exploding volcano. Over the course of time, the journalism field changed. I've always believed in developing a story, and it got to the point where there was very little room to develop investigative reports. So, in 2003, I had a real tough decision to make. My contract was going to be up and I could renew or I could go somewhere else. But, it didn't look like things were going to be any different anyplace else. So, that Christmas there were two gifts for me under the tree and one of them was an LSAT book. My husband -- he was a great guy -- he said "You need to do this." So, I took the LSAT and went to law school.

What was it like going back to school, and then balancing that time commitment with the rest of your life?

It was like spinning plates. Law school was humbling to me, because it had been more than 20 years since I had taken an exam. There's a big difference between the way institutions test now and when I was in school. This was really apparent to me when I took the LSAT. The LSAT was scary to me because it didn't feel right, and it made me worried about law school. But I ended up graduating cum laude. I think it took me more effort than it probably took a younger student, to be honest with you.

How does your schedule now compare to what it was like when you were a journalist?

It's structured in the sense that I'm not leaving town on the fly and not knowing exactly when I'm coming back. I no longer travel with a suitcase in my trunk. People frequently ask me "What's the difference between being a reporter and practicing law?" Really, the two fields overlap tremendously, because they require the same type of skill sets. As a reporter and as a lawyer, I take facts and I put them together in a cogent story, and then I tell those facts. The difference is as a reporter I was paid to be unbiased. Now I'm an advocate.

Do you see yourself on a partnership track?

Yeah. The law profession fortunately is probably more stable than the journalism profession but it's not much more stable. Because I was married and I liked stability, I didn't jump around as much as most reporters do. The average reporter with a newspaper or a television outfit spends about two years and then it's on to the next employer. [For] lawyers, that's not a good way to run a practice, because you build a base of clients and what you look for when you're growing your practice is a place where you like the people you work with. And Wilson Elser and the Dallas office has been great.

Do you ever get recognized by clients or colleagues from your time on television?

When I've done jury trials, occasionally we've had to knock out a juror. One time I did this jury trial -- and you never know the reaction you're going to get from jurors -- they're going down the list, there's probably 60 jurors in the room. [The jurors were asked] "Do you recognize this woman?" A lot of people said "Yes." So, finally they say, "Well, she used to be on WFAA." And they get to this one gal and she says: "I don't recognize her from WFAA, but she was in my sorority in college!"

Is there anything you miss about journalism?

When I was a journalist, there was nothing like coming out and being able to do a story that really, really mattered -- that had tremendous impact -- and being the first person to tell that story. In a court of law, generally, you don't get that opportunity. You get to tell the story, but it's after it happened. There's a part of me that still misses being the first.

The "scoop"?

Exactly, the scoop. As a lawyer, you should probably not be scooping. In fact, you're more cleaning up.