Whenever I see that name I always think of Sabrina Le Beauf. And then I think, “What? What’d she do wrong?” Nothing.
Does anyone want to see Daniel Clowes direct one of LaBeouf’s comics?
Dude should have got an attribution.
Now he gets national press and an apology
… its a win-win.
How does shit like this happen? I just watched the film trailer, and there it is–“Most critics will give any movie three and a half stars if it flatters their self-image. I take it much more seriously.” Straight out of the comic, panel six.
How does shit like this happen? LaBeouf is not some desperate film-school student. He knows how the industry works, he’s well-known and successful enough that he doesn’t need tricks to get his name out, and he seems to be reasonably intelligent (or at least not, say, Kanye West stupid). What sort of fundamental disconnect from reality leads a guy like that to say “there is no way that any one person on Earth will ever both read this comic and see my movie”?
Is it possible this is some kind of accident? Like, he meant it to be a credited adaption, and just…forgot?
An ex of mine works in the hotel industry and has had him as a guest a couple of times. He is a dick. Straight up. The ex wasn’t one to really talk badly about people, either.
–
I’m trying to edit a very small typo and it’s yelling at me that they body is too similar to what I’ve recently posted and yeah, it totally is, because I’m trying to edit what I just posted. 
Someone who is reasonable intelligent and successful can still be a stupid asshole. Probably even more so. I’ve met a lot of people who don’t act like the assholes they really are just because they literally can’t afford it.
LaBeouf has been in the hands of Hollywood since he was a young teen, and consequently he doesn’t live in the same world as other people. I imagine he legitimately thought - not that he could get away with it - but that he wasn’t even doing anything wrong, that no one “important” would notice or care, and that it’s perfectly natural to succeed by making use of someone else’s ideas “better” than they do.
When people become celebrities and actually buy into the insanity and vapidness of the culture of fame and wealth, they lose connection with reality. They’re constantly surrounded by bullshit, their prospects and fortunes inherently tied up in the whims of idiots and nutjobs who are only taken seriously because they pull the right strings and put money in the right pockets. To “succeed” in that world you have to play their game, and the more you do so, the less you remember what it is to be a normal person, to not live in some freakish nightmare of falsity and preening - you start to become crazy yourself.
So yeah, the thought process was probably something along the lines of “Hey, this would make a great short film, I think I’ll make it” and it never occured to him that anyone would care. After all, he’s a film star, and this Clowe guy is just some comic book hack, right? Who’s going to care? The comic book nerds and dweebs?
Which are, amusingly, the same nerds and dweebs that got him his fame and money with Transformers even while going on about how each movie is progressivly shittier.
To be fair, those are mostly disjoint subsets of nerds/dweebs. I watched the first one, but fool me once, etc.
LaBeouf says, “I have been crushed by critics (especially during my Transformers run)…” My first thought was that they must not have crushed hard enough, because you keep making the wretched things.
Shia LaBeouf’s full statement on this is as follows:
“Copying isn’t particularly creative work. Being inspired by someone else’s idea to produce something new and different IS creative work. In my excitement and naiveté as an amateur filmmaker, I got lost in the creative process and neglected to follow proper accreditation. Im embarrassed that I failed to credit @danielclowes for his original graphic novella Justin M. Damiano, which served as my inspiration. I was truly moved by his piece of work & I knew that it would make a poignant & relevant short. I apologize to all who assumed I wrote it. I deeply regret the manner in which these events have unfolded and want @danielclowes to know that I have a great respect for his work.”
“inspiration”, huh? Is that what we’re calling it now? I think it’s an “inspiration” when you’re moved to create your own nebbishy online film reviewer, not when you do a word-for-word, shot-for-shot remake.
It’s pretty clear from the pre-revelations story at Short Of The Week that Le Beouf was talking about the script as being something he’d written, not about the movie as being “inspired” - ie scripted and storyboarded - by Clowes.
Yes, it’s a cowardly attempt at spin. He hasn’t got the guts to come and say he stole the entire thing from concept to script. Other than “inspiration”, key terms abused in his comments include “naiveté” (he means immorality), “creativity” (theft), "neglected " (couldn’t give a shit), “credit” (pay for), “apologise” (I’ve been caught out), “regret” (that I’ve been caught out), “respect” (I am Shia LaBeouf, who the f–k is Daniel Clowes).
Hopefully Clowes will see a nice pay day from this and LaBeouf will fade away into obscurity.
His lawyer sounds remorseful
Well, that’s a new thing. Do you think we can get more lawyers to at least sound remorseful? Baby steps…
Piled on top of that is the fact that screenwriting credits–both for the story and the actual script–are one of the most contentious areas of filmmaking, with elaborate rules for arbitration and some of the people who are most responsible for a script (the so-called “script doctors”, including people such as Carrie Fisher, Aaron Sorkin, Joss Whedon, and Quentin Tarantino, among others) getting no credit at all.
I will happily sound remorseful if you pay me right around $850 an hour. I will even provide you with detailed billing statements indicating just how I was remorseful in 6 minute increments. If you need a lot of expressed remorse, say on the order of 10,000 hours we can even discuss a billing discount.
So it’s affluenza, then?
Fuck that.
from the shortoftheweek.com article: “LaBeouf’s latest short is a film about principles and how you deal with those beliefs when they come under scrutiny”. (waiting for the laughter to die down)
oh my god it’s a pandemic. Call the CDC.
