Realizing that US studio financing was not in CRANES immediate future, I started pursuing international financing and distribution.  I assumed that Japanese studios and distribution entities would be the best place to start.

Over the last several years, I had come to know a few international film sales agents. Kathy Morgan had been in the foreign sales game for a number of years. I liked Kathy and more importantly she seemed to like the films that I and my team were developing at DD. Kathy put me in touch with Penny Karlin, another veteran foreign salesperson that was representing Shochiku Company Ltd. , a famous Japanese movie studio and production company. Penny and Kathy graciously ushered me thru the corporate hierarchy of Shochiku, finally putting me in touch with their most senior executive responsible for foreign acquisitions.  Shochiku “seemed” to be interested in CRANES. I assumed they would be as Hollywood films based upon a Japanese theme always did well in Japan. THE LAST SAMURAI grossed $111 million in the US and $119 million in Japan.

On yet another trip to Japan, and yet another 9 course formal dinner, I sat with Shochiku’s top brass and tried to negotiate an agreement for financing and distribution of A THOUSAND CRANES. Negotiations with Japanese is an art unto itself. First there is the difficulty regarding language but real complications arise regarding culture.  Japanese eschew legal agreements, take forever in their decision making process, need to get to truly “know” you and build  meaningful relationships before a deal can be struck. Additionally, as I’ve stated before, the Japanese word for YES is “Hai” and the word for NO is “Hai” though said whilst sucking air between ones teeth.

A ‘deal’ was struck, and a press release was announced:

Visual effects production studio Digital Domain has entered an international co-production deal with Shochiku, one of Japan’s largest and oldest distribution, production and exhibition companies.

The companies are partnering on the epic love story “A Thousand Cranes,” with Shochiku making an equity investment of nearly $25 million in the film and picking up the rights for Japan.

The film tells the story of a taboo love affair between a young Japanese translator and an American spy amid the backdrop of the atomic blast in Hiroshima.

“Cranes,” developed by Digital Domain CEO Scott Ross has been Ross’ passion for several years…

Twenty five million dollars down and $125 million to go.

Unfortunately, a very short time after the above press went out, Shochiku announced serious financial woes and much of the senior management of Shochiku exited .  As a result, the new management backed away from the deal.

Covering my bases while in Tokyo, I visited a very wealthy individual that was the owner of Japan’s biggest cable TV provider “WOWOW”. This gentlemen was in fact wowed by CRANES and pledged that he and his company would cover the entire budget of $150 million if we met one condition. I braced myself, and waited for the translator to interpret his only caveat. It seemed that if I was able to procure the directorial services of Steven Spielberg, then and only then, would he deposit $150MM into an escrow account for the production of the film. I tried, in vain, to explain that if Spielberg had signed on to CRANES, we wouldn’t need his money. We took the perfunctory photo, the one where I shake his hand and smile, and then I bowed deeply and said “Sayonara”.

I guess by now, you, the reader can tell that I am (was) unflappable in my pursuit of getting this project underway. CRANES had become my passion. I was doggedly determined to bring CRANES to the big screen. It had become my life’s work and in many ways defined the rest of my life.

I continued pursuing financing alternatives in Japan. Fuji TV, Toho, SEGA, Ninetendo were all approached, and they all said “Hai” through clenched teeth. I finally started to realize, through insightful conversations with Japanese friends, that the Japanese had not come to terms with losing WWII, let alone with the Atomic Bomb and Hiroshima/Nagasaki. As opposed to Germany, WWII was, in Japan,  rarely mentioned at all. Japan, in many ways, was terribly embarrassed by the only war they had ever lost. And in some ways, their world wide economic dominance became their revenge.

Back in New York City, Jeremy Leven and his two “assistants” were supposedly busy working on a rewrite. As I had mentioned, DD was funding an office and two employees under Leven’s direct supervision. I had chosen Leven not only because of his prior work but also because he, unlike some famous writers, actually wrote the scripts they were hired to write. Now, I know a few of you just said “WTF ?”… but there are writers that employ a staff of junior writers that write screenplays that have “oversight” by their famous screenwriter boss.

I was quite excited to be working with Leven and was so looking forward to his new “take” on a screenplay that, to date, had four other writers already ( not including me!). I had become close with one of Leven’s assistants as I had hired her directly. I would check in with her almost daily while she was in Leven’s NY office. After a few months had passed and I wasn’t receiving any pages from Leven, I started to get worried.  Speaking to Leven’s assistants, I started to get disturbing reports that Leven had other projects that he was working on as well.  This was not my understanding of how things were to work.  Eventually, I let Leven go. It upset Jeremy and he threatened legal action.  At this point, I had enough. I never used anything of Leven’s yet he said he was going to go to the Writers Guild and tie CRANES up with chain of title issues.

After all these years, and the incredible efforts by all involved, I had decided to shelve CRANES. It broke my heart to do so, but for the time being, I was done. Finding funding for a story where an American atomic bomb drops on a mostly civilian population whilst George W Bush was sitting in the White House and two of the largest film studios were controlled by ultra conservatives seemed impossible.  On the other hand, maybe the script sucked, though I only got positive reactions from all those that had read it.

I had spent eight years of my life and almost $1.5 million of Tsuzuki’s cash on pursuing a dream, producing the definitive peace film. It had been over 60 years since August 6th,1945 and in today’s zeitgeist there are now nine countries (excluding Iran) that possess nuclear weapons. And the weapons of today are a thousand times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima.

And I still fold a crane every year.

 

Post Script

When I sold DD back in 2006, the new owners, Wyndcrest Holdings headed up by DD’s new CEO John Textor was unwilling to let A THOUSAND CRANES revert to me. To this day, it sits in a file folder somewhere within the halls of Digital Domain, collecting dust. Maybe, one day, DD will either produce this important film or return it to me. I’d fold a thousand cranes if that dream became a reality.

Post Post Script

Much has happened to Digital Domain since I sold it back in 2006.  Wyndcrest Holdings and John Textor led the Company into bankruptcy in 2012. Textor and his management took huge sums of money from the State of Florida with promises that DD would build an animation studio in Port St. Lucie FLA. Textor’s hopes were that DD FLA could become the new PIXAR. Though DD FLA hadn’t a distribution deal nor the necessary funding or talent to produce an animated CG film, the Company not only made promises to the State of FLA but also went public on the NYSE (DDMG). Neither effort worked out well.  Textor left the Company just before it declared bankruptcy. The now bankrupt company was put on the blocks and was ultimately sold to a Chinese company, Galloping Horse Beijing (80%) and Reliance Media, and Indian company (20%).  There have been a lot of rumors about how the deal was done… whether there was Chinese money laundering involved and whether the new owners of DD were actually shills set up by its real financier, Che Fung, who has since been arrested and is now spending his days in a Beijing jail.  The new DD, now renamed DD3.0 is owned by yet another public company called Digital Domain Holdings (0547.HK ). Various reports of black market dealings, off shore companies as tax havens, continued money laundering, IP law suits, a murder of Galloping Horse’s CEO and general hanky panky continues. And though all that nastiness is still purportedly happening, DD ( the VFX company) continues to make incredible images, albeit losing millions of dollars a year in the process.

Over the years since the sale back in 2006, I have been very concerned about the company that I founded. I worried about the artists, the reputation and frankly my legacy regarding this once great organization. During that time, I took Mr. Textor to task. I used all social media available to reveal the truth about what was really happening behind the curtain.  The Wizard, in my opinion, was either a crook or just plain stupid. At times, I couldn’t tell.  I once asked one of Textor’s partners if he thought John was evil or delusional. His response, “both”.

Years went by and I saw DD become a shell of what it once was. Time passes. Passion fades. But, the one thing I could never let go of, was A THOUSAND CRANES. I tried every trick in the book to get my script back.  After all, DDMG, DD 3.0, DD 2.0 or DDH seemed to have no intention whatsoever of doing anything with CRANES.  It seemed to me, that the only reason I was unable to have CRANES revert back to me was DD management’s desire to somehow punish me. I mean, they did nothing with this screenplay for a decade.  Additionally, as I had raised the development money from Tsuzuki, and that there was still several hundred thousand dollars unused, didn’t DD have some form of legal and moral obligation to, at minimum, return the money to Tsuzuki? I contacted Tsuzuki and told them that I was willing to act as their agent to get the script and the unused portion of the money.  I told DD that they had a possible lawsuit on their hands if they didn’t return the money and the screenplay.  In the end however, Tsuzuki-san passed away and his heirs were unwilling to pursue any legal action. Textor and friends were unwilling to even have a conversation with me.

After the bankruptcy in 2012, all DD assets, including A THOUSAND CRANES, were placed in trust with the bankruptcy court. When the Chinese bought DD out of bankruptcy, they were not interested in A THOUSAND CRANES and so that asset remained under the control of the bankruptcy trustee. I must have contacted that trustee a half dozen times over the years trying to buy the script. I was always told the same thing… ” The court has not yet determined what it wants to do with all of the assets, please check back”. Needless to say, I did just that… every six months to a year. And every time I made that call or wrote an email, the response was the same.

A few more years passed. One day, about 6 months ago, I get a call from who other than … John Textor himself. It seems that John had negotiated a deal to get all of the DD assets that were not acquired by Galloping Horse, which included… my script.

John then made me an interesting offer. He said ” I acquired the script because I knew that you wanted it… and as soon as the proceedings close, the script is yours”. Needless to say, based upon my previous dealings with John, I assumed this was a trap. Several months went by and I would occasionally drop Textor a line ” So, John, what’s happening with A THOUSAND CRANES”? Sometimes he would respond with “Oh, yeah, we are working on it” and sometimes I would get no response at all. After awhile, I guess I just gave up.

But a couple of weeks ago I get an email from John.  “The script is yours. Here’s the conveyance, sign it and send me $10”.

The journey was finally over.

Eighteen years had passed since that meeting in Hiroshima. The script was now mine and there were no legal entanglements.

And now…the next chapter.

I wonder what happens if one folds two thousand cranes?