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Just to note here: This was the last film Elaine May was ever allowed to make. She hasn't directed a major motion picture in the 33 years since ISHTAR's release. Think about how many fucking movies Michael Bay has made in that time. #IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
"If all of the people who hate Ishtar had seen it, I would be a rich woman today." – Elaine May
#IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
#IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
Okay. Let's talk about why Ishtar landed Elaine in director jail.
Ishtar cost $40 million to make — the most expensive comedy to date, but it had two major stars with big paycheck demands attached — but earned only $12.7 million at the box office.
#IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
Ishtar cost $40 million to make — the most expensive comedy to date, but it had two major stars with big paycheck demands attached — but earned only $12.7 million at the box office.
#IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
"[The media] kept reviewing the budget, which is really embarrassing. I can tell you why other things of mine failed, but Ishtar… I understand why it failed. Why it failed so big is difficult to figure out.” - Elaine May in a 1997 talk
https://literary-arts.org/archive/elaine-may-2/
#BWDRQLTMF
https://literary-arts.org/archive/elaine-may-2/
#BWDRQLTMF
“Ishtar is maybe the prime example that I know of in Hollywood of studio suicide.” – Mike Nichols
#IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
#IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
David Putnam hated Warren Beatty and Elaine May's excessive budget so much, he decided to sabotage the film with planted press to, essentially, teach people a lesson.
#IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
#IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
"I kind of like Ishtar, and the seven people who saw it liked it. [...] I wish I could say something astute like 'It was before it’s time,' but no, it’s really just this sloppy comedy that people — or that actually the media — just loathed." – Elaine May
#IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
!["I kind of like Ishtar, and the seven people who saw it liked it. [...] I wish I could say something astute like 'It was before it’s time,' but no, it’s really just this sloppy comedy that people — or that actually the media — just loathed." – Elaine May #IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVTDg6iWsAAuIoT.jpg "\"I kind of like Ishtar, and the seven people who saw it liked it. [...] I wish I could say something astute like 'It was before it’s time,' but no, it’s really just this sloppy comedy that people — or that actually the media — just loathed.\" – Elaine May #IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF")
#IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
“To look at that body of work and a giant of that magnitude and decide that over one movie it should be done? I mean, they certainly let Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman keep making movies. I don’t know why Ishtar was Elaine May’s problem.” – @nlyonne
#IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
#IshtarParty #BWDRQLTMF
“Filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick or James Cameron or David Fincher, each notorious for working in the same obsessive and idiosyncratic ways in which May often does, are frequently admired for such behavior, and have certainly never been blacklisted for it.” #JusticeforElaineMay
