NEWSWEEK EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Lansing Says She Leaves Paramount With 'No Regrets'

NEWSWEEK EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Lansing Says She Leaves Paramount With 'No Regrets' ---- 'I Believe That Marketing is More Important Than the Movie ... That, to Me, is Tragic,' She Says of Today's Film Industry NEW YORK, Jan. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Outgoing Paramount Pictures Chairman Sherry Lansing tells Newsweek in her first exclusive interview since stepping down that she leaves the job with "no regrets." "If I think long enough, maybe I'll come up with one," she says in the January 24 issue (on newsstands Monday, January 17). "I'm going into a whole other world and a whole other chapter, and I feel 20 years younger ... I feel like everything is going to be ... new." (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050116/NYSU004 ) After 12 years at Paramount, Lansing tells Senior Writer Sean Smith that the biggest change in the industry today is how marketing has overtaken the importance of having a good movie. "You made a good movie and you didn't really worry about opening weekend, because you knew that with word of mouth, the second-weekend gross would be bigger than the first. Today I believe that the marketing is more important than the movie, and that, to me, is tragic. 'Fatal Attraction,' opened at $7.6 million. Think about that. It went on to make $156 million domestic, but if a studio movie opens at that amount today, it's over." Over her three-decade career she has presided over a long list of culture-defining films, including "Kramer vs. Kramer," "The China Syndrome," "Fatal Attraction," "The Accused," "Forrest Gump," "The First Wives Club," "Saving Private Ryan" and "Titanic." But when she first started out in the business, things were different. "I got promoted to senior vice president [at MGM], and I went to the head of the studio and I asked for a raise, to be equal to the guy who had the same job, and I was told that I was earning quite enough money for a single woman. He said to me, 'Look, we have to pay him more because he has a family to support.' I have to say, at the time, I accepted that." In the last two years she has faced criticism that Paramount didn't take enough creative risks, a charge she denies. "We take creative risks constantly. The problem is that after a movie becomes a hit, people don't remember how risky it was. People say, 'Of course you said yes to "Forrest Gump."' Really? It's a movie about a mentally slow guy sitting on a bench and telling his story. Mel Gibson in a kilt? That was pretty risky, too. Look at 'The Hours,' a film about three gay women who want to commit suicide, and tell me that everybody knew that would get nominated for Best Picture and make $109 million worldwide. Please." Still she admits that the company made some mistakes. "Sometimes we were too tough on a deal, too tight with someone's budget ... Other studios were spending more money on movies and on marketing, so we needed to start spending more money on both of those things to stay competitive." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6830712/site/newsweek/ Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050116/NYSU004 AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/ AP PhotoExpress Network: PRN1 PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com Source: Newsweek CONTACT: Rosanna Maietta of Newsweek, +1-212-445-4859 Web site: http://www.newsweek.msnbc.com/ ------- Profile: International Entertainment