How To Run a Movie Studio

(2 of 2)

6. Instead of blaming the press, blame your rivals: they really want you to fail. "I got so many calls over the weekend from people gloating," says a studio head, chuckling over his faxed copy of the disappointing Last Action grosses. "I never knew there were so many vicious people." The same executive helpfully pointed out that Last Action Hero is really the "first big picture" developed by Canton at Columbia, thus denying him credit for A Few Good Men and Groundhog Day.

7. Sound philosophical. As Canton says, the movie business is "cycular." * And as his more eloquent boss Guber says, "Failure is not the end game -- it is an almost inevitable cul-de-sac on the road to success."

8. Get back on the road to success immediately. Luckily for Columbia, next week the studio is releasing In the Line of Fire, Clint Eastwood's entertaining, hugely commercial thriller, which will help the bosses forget this bad patch -- Arnold? Arnold who? -- and turn them back into blithe motion-picture geniuses, their jobs safe. "Remember," says an executive who knows Canton and Guber, "Guber is inextricably tied to this guy." Inextricably? "Yes," the bigwig confirms. "For a while, anyway."