My strange encounter with a Las Vegas legend
If you're not from Vegas, you probably don't know the name Bob Stupak. If you are, you've heard the name spoken amongst the legends of the town like Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian or Jackie Gaughn – except not with quite as much reverence. Bob very much deserves a place in the pantheon of Sin City notables in that he is not just responsible for the iconic Stratosphere and the (infamous) Vegas World, but he encapsulated the very nature of showmanship and was a notable example of excess and flamboyancy that the city embraced and excelled in.
Bob was a self-made man who first came to prominence in the 80’s with his Vegas World where the Stratosphere now resides. The property was remarkable mainly for its relative success and unusual marketing approach that people my age remember to this day. Vegas World would run advertisements in national publications offering “free” vacations. What it amounted to was, essentially, a visitor could book a room for X dollars and be guaranteed more than X dollars in “free play” at the casino – the pitch being that the vacation could actually wind up being free. This proved a successful model for a property with a less-than-ideal location and bland ambiance overshadowed by the new generation of Strip behemoths changing the gaming landscape around that time.
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It's worth noting that the above-mentioned “deal” was a bit misleading (an understatement). It actually worked something like this – You pay $100 a night for the room and you received a book of coupons for $120 in free play on various games. But here is the rub: Your vouchers might be good for $5 at blackjack between 1pm-2pm, $5 at craps between 2pm-3pm, $5 at slots between 3pm-4pm, etc. So, you can see where this is going. To redeem all your coupons, you essentially couldn't sleep and never leave the Vegas World property. Kind of a scam? Yeah, sure, but it was kind of clever, too.
Bob was always a bit of the used car salesman of casino moguls. Not terribly classy, but enigmatic, memorable and a man of (atypical) vision. When Donald Trump came out with his own board game in the 80’s, Bob Stupak challenged to play a game against him for $1,000,000. Trump didn't accept, but, as with many of Bob's stunts, it got him (and by association his property) a lot of publicity. This the kind of guy Bob is to help set up the back story for my encounter with the man years later.
As I said, everyone in Vegas knows the name Bob Stupak. So, when I got a call from him out of the blue one day, it was a surprise. It seemed he has been interested in a doing a movie for some time and heard that I was a local filmmaker with some talent (I didn't let this go to my head since there are relatively few actual filmmakers in Vegas and a very few that have any degree of talent). He said he wanted to meet to talk about a project. Now, any indy filmmaker is eager to get a call from someone serious about making a movie and if that person happen to be rich...well, that's about the best you can hope for. It's worth noting that about a year earlier, Bob had sold all his stock in the new Stratosphere property right before it opened for around $100m. So, um, yeah, this is the kind of guy who could easily make just about any movie he wanted.
I spent several weeks with Bob discussing projects and talking film and hearing some interesting and legendary Vegas tales from the man himself. I ended up investing a decent amount of time working up an outline for a project that he had a basic premise for and that I flushed out into a full story. This part went on for about three weeks until it got to the point where he was happy with it. At that point, he said what every producer in my position wants to hear - “I love it! Let's make the movie!” And then he said what every producer in my position dreads to hear - “Now, where are we going to get the money?”
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It took me a long moment to assimilate what he was asking. I'd already addressed his questions about budget and told him that the project could be made for as little $3 million based on the parameters we discussed. It never occurred to me that a guy worth over $100,000,000 wouldn't be willing to put up $3m for a project he claimed to be passionate about. In fact, he didn't want to put up any money. His rationale - “Everyone knows filmmaking is a terrible investment and you always lose money. Who can we get to invest?”
Our pending partnership quickly soured, but it seemed Bob had some other “great” ideas for the film. The most notable was that he wanted to start the Academy of Acting in conjunction with our project. He wanted to give out “awards” to every actor who appeared in our film. Uh-huh, yup… Awards from the Academy of Acting, so we could promote the film as “Starring 100 Academy Award Winners!” 100% true! I told you earlier he had a shady side to him...
There was a lesson learned from this experience, especially after looking back on the time I spent discussing all this with Bob. There is a certain perception of glamor that comes with the film business, even on a small scale. In retrospect, Bob took me to several meetings, events and meals where he introduced me as a producer he was a making a movie with. Now, I don't know if he ever even really thought the film would come together, but he sure seemed to take satisfaction in the idea of being a film producer himself. It never occurred to me that a person in his position would posture. And I would have never thought he would bother doing so by parading around with someone as unknown and (relatively) inconsequential as myself. But that was exactly what he was doing. He would have loved to continue wasting more of my time and promoting that illusion that he seemed to have no intention of making a reality despite having the ability to do so with ease.
It's hard as a starving, struggling artist to put people to a decision prematurely for fear of insulting or turning them off. But I absolutely wasted too much time in that endeavor. That's a mistake I'd never make again and hope you, dear reader, can learn from it as well. I’ve actually heard of similar tales from filmmakers who have had their time likewise wasted by men able to easily finance a small film, but who, instead, take the path of pretending to be in the game without actually doing anything. I guess they’re like most people in Hollywood for that matter.
The epilogue to the story is that Bob died about a year later from cancer and, to my knowledge, didn't take any of his money with him.
EPILOGUE: I've just finished a book on independent filmmaking which includes a number of interesting vignettes like the one above. "Film Schooling" will be out later this year. Please follow my Steemit account for updates on the release date!!