Bill Simmons has a really good podcast at Grantland with legendary screenwriter William Goldman. They, of course, discuss the sadness that is the loss of Philip Seymour Hoffman but also cover other less-depressing aspects of Hollywood, including handicapping the upcoming Oscars. Goldman doesn’t tell the story about how Dustin Hoffman fucked up the climax of Marathon Man, but he does recall how Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was lambasted by critics and was expected to be a bomb. That anecdote demonstrates how unsophisticated movie tracking was at that point. There had been research about the marketability of stars for decades already, but tracking didn’t materialize until studios began trying to make tentpole movies. After Jaws, essentially. Advanced ticket sales online have made it much easier as well. Listen here.