Studio executives, as we have observed, are totally responsible for what we see on the screen. I’m sure even the biggest stars have some pet subject or another they can’t get off the ground—Jane Fonda has been trying for years to make a movie about industrial cancer, for example. We’ve also noted that they, like the rest of us, don’t know what will work. But there is one thing they absolutely do know, and that is what has worked. Which is why it is safe to say that movies are always a search for past magic.
