Killing Them Softly

"It doesn't always work, like Cabin Boy," she says, referring to her recent flop, a companion piece of sorts to another Di Novi misstep, Meet the Applegates. When I ask the inevitable Cabin Boy query, "What were you thinking?" Di Novi says, "It's painful. Maybe I need a year's perspective on it to figure [that] out because that script was one of the funniest I've ever read. I thought the movie was funny [too]. But with every movie I make, there's always a level of insecurity about it. Like, Is this going to work again? Is this kind of weird movie really going to touch people? Tim Burton is a master at proving that point, yet we're going through that with Ed Wood right now. I think it's really Tim's most mature work, much deeper than anything he's done, but this is definitely a weird movie."

Since Di Novi has brought up Burton, with whom she's made six movies, why don't we kick around her dramatic decision, widely reported about two years ago, to exit the top executive spot at his company? True, since they split they've made Cabin Boy and Ed Wood and they are readying James and the Giant Peach, an animated fantasy that Nightmare director Henry Selick will helm. Yet the rumor mill about their split never did grind down, did it? People say Burton had become a bratty diva and that Di Novi, among others, had tired of his not giving her or anyone else a shred of credit for his successes. Some stories have the producer and director parting in a fury. Others say he out-and-out canned her.

"All that was really sad," Di Novi observes. "Because people said, 'They hate each other' or, 'They had a fight.' It was painful because I was very proud of my relationship with him. I thought we had been really good for each other. It was not true that he was upset and that I was upset. Tim called and said, 'Why can't people think or believe that everything is okay? Why do they have to see that what happened is bad, negative?' It was, in a strange way, a positive thing. But that was such an alien concept to people, that they couldn't accept it to be true until we made another movie together, like, five minutes later. Then, it became clear that we didn't hate each other."

Right. But what actually happened! "Directors hate most producers," she admits. "There are not many producers who can work with great directors over and over again. Or producers directors want to work with. There are not many alliances formed. Tim is a very sensitive person; he saw that I was unhappy and said, 'What the heck is wrong with you?' I said, 'I like making movies but I just don't like running this company thing.' I also felt like I needed more personal freedom. I delivered my son a month before Edward Scissorhands opened. My son was only three months old when I started Batman Returns, a project which, by definition, isn't so much making a movie as running a city. Thank God I did it, I was one of the luckiest people in the world, but I cannot describe the enormous weight of that. So, it had been a very intense time. I needed to not be responsible for another person for a while. I think Tim sensed that and he deserved to have somebody who wanted to do that. It was a great job. I think he saw that he should have somebody different, too, to run his company and to be his partner. He said, 'You're not happy. What do you want to do?' I said, 'I just want to produce a movie with you.' He said, 'Then that's what you should do. What's the big deal?'"

How did Di Novi's work methods--she is a meticulous planner and organizer--mesh with Burton's looser, more intuitive . approach? "Tim is a genius, and I don't use that word lightly," Di Novi says.

"The definition of a great artist is someone who doesn't care much what other people think. Tim cares what people think of his movies but he has that core essence, that compulsion, to do his art. I accept that about him. And his instincts are unerring. I've never seen them to be wrong on any small or large decision. Ever. His instincts emanate from a place that's very pure, truly artistic."

Has Burton become, as rumored, stingy about acknowledging the contributions of others? "To me, the question of 'Is he generous?' or 'Did he give me credit?' wouldn't arise. He wanted to work with me, and he validated my contribution. I don't know if he did that in the press, but he really doesn't talk that way to the press. It's not about getting credit. It's about, did the movie turn out well? Was I part of a really great movie?"

But one can freeze in a genius's shadow. Did she ever feel her role in her projects with Burton to be overshadowed? "It's overshadowed, definitely," she agrees. "But if that bothered me, I should be a director, not a producer. The only way to judge a producer is by what choices and associations they make. There are producers that like to work with weak directors or always hire first-time directors. I could have chosen to work with another director than Tim. I'm proud that I chose to work with somebody like Tim and that I did contribute. I know I contributed."

I ask Di Novi why so many Hollywood partnerships peter out. Think David Brown and Richard Zanuck, Peter Guber and Jon Peters, Lynda Obst and Debra Hill, and scores of others. "Because they're as much a marriage as a man and wife," she asserts. "And how do 75 percent of marriages turn out? They end, and for all the same reasons: you get sick of each other, grow in different directions, build up petty resentments. Like a marriage, you are either with somebody who lets you be who you are or they resent who you are. Tim and I got to a point where we just accepted that we were each who we were and that we needed to do what we needed to do to be happy. It's like a married couple that divorces and stays best friends. What I miss about him the most, on a daily basis, is that he's the funniest person I have ever known. He is incredibly witty, like Dorothy Parker."

Di Novi adds, "Making a movie is really hard; it's amazing that any relationship lasts long. Really, it's against the odds. Whenever you're a partner, at some point, you want to differentiate yourself. The thing Tim and I have in common is that we don't like that many movies. I think he's genuinely happy that I'm getting to make Little Women, a script and a project that I really love."

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