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Post by ironhold on Sept 9, 2014 23:53:42 GMT
Well, the summer movie season is almost over for 2014. With that, I'm looking back at some of the year's duds. My standard for calling a film a dud: 1. It must be American-made (as foreign films typically do poorly in American theaters, as they often have trouble getting anyone to screen them in the first place) 2. The production budget must be publicly available via some website like Box Office Mojo. 3. The global take for the film must be less than the production budget, thereby accounting for films that did poorly domestically but fared well overseas. That being said, here are the films that fit the bill: "Hercules Begins" - This film had a production budget of $70m but only took in $61.3m worldwide, leading to a shortfall of $8.7m. I didn't see this particular film, but none of the reviews I've seen for it have been positive. "Veronica Mars" - Rather than merely adapting the television series, this film serves as a belated continuation. To my knowledge, no theater in my area even screened it. It had a $6m budget and total global take of $3.5m, for a $2.5m loss. "Winter's Tale" - I can't find anyone who will admit to seeing this one. Its $60m budget only brought back $30.8m globally, for a loss of $29.2m. "Legends Of Oz" - When I found myself the only one in the theater for the first screening of the day, I honestly thought that the massive rain storm we had had the night before (and resulting debris littering the road) was what kept people away. Instead, this movie seemingly couldn't bring the goods even with its star-packed cast, resulting in a global loss of $58.6m ($70m vs. $11.4m). Anyone actually see any of these films?
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 10, 2014 1:32:34 GMT
One thing to keep in mind about profits from films is that they only show production costs, marketing is not included and depending on the film could be as much again as the production costs.
A brief thought; It might be interesting to look into if the traditional measure of success in Hollywood, or the media at least, is valid anymore? A films success is usually based on box-office takings in the US, but these days overseas sales can be three or four times that seen in the US - indeed a believe more than one film has ended up doing badly at the US box office, but so well overseas it either got or is getting a sequel. Another factor is DVD/Blue-Ray sales, which can often be higher than the box office sales but take much longer to come in.
Could make for an interesting follow on article, for the quiet post-summer period.
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Post by ironhold on Sept 10, 2014 1:41:05 GMT
I actually excluded from my list a number of films (like "Labor Day" and "Need For Speed") whose US screenings did indeed flop but whose total global take pushed them past the break-even point for their production costs. This is because they still managed to at least turn a profit before one considers whatever the promotional costs may have been.
As it is, the issue of "US sales vs. international sales" is already a big topi of discussion among the Transformers fandom right now as this summer's installment in the film franchise made 77% of its sales overseas. It was also the international sales that made the difference between Ender's Game being a flop and breaking even due to its huge budget.
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 10, 2014 1:52:13 GMT
I think concentrating on US sales is a hold over from the industry up to the mid 1990's. There was usually a large gap between when films were released in the US and elsewhere (in the case of the UK the gap could be as long as a year).
Today films tend to be released worldwide within a 24 hour period, so the 'US first' attitude makes little sense. But then this attitude seems to come from the media rather than the industry...the US media admitting that maybe other countries might be more important that itself...the shock, the horror...you must be a communist to even think that....
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Post by ironhold on Sept 10, 2014 2:49:37 GMT
With Ender's Game, international releases were staggered over a several month period, such that while the film debuted in the US in November of last year, it didn't debut in some countries until April of this year. As such, there is still a credible issue with some films having long times to wait for all of their international sales to be counted.
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Post by the light works on Sept 10, 2014 6:11:25 GMT
some of those films, I didn't even know existed.
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Post by mrfatso on Sept 10, 2014 6:13:32 GMT
I would suspect that the Veronica Mars movies real market is on DVD, to be watched by fans of the TV show in their own time rather than a movie, I know someone who has it on their wish list for their birthday, a bit of a crush on Kristin Bell there.
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Sept 10, 2014 13:48:06 GMT
A big factor into profitability of a movie begins during casting. A lot of production companies still think that cramming a poster with recognizable names will demand the attention of the moviegoers. Not so anymore. It's not as much having a lot of big names in a movie as it how well they work together or belong in the movie. (For example, Vin Diesel in "The Pacifier")
"Veronica Mars" may have fallen victim to the success of "Frozen". At the time that "Mars" came out, "Frozen" was still making millions everyday with Kristen Bell as one of the voice stars. And, frankly, moviegoers may have been feeling overdosed on her at the time.
"Legends of Oz" sounded like a good idea, but didn't quite deliver. If you are going to remake or rethink a classic movie, you better make it amazing or it will fail. The last attempt to reenvision the Wizard of Oz (Disney's "Oz: The Great & Powerful") set a very high standard for what moviegoers expected. A cutesy cartoon didn't deliver.
"Winter's Tale" premise of reincarnation was greeted with skepticism and seemed cheesy. Even though the movie brought Russell Crowe & Jennifer Connelly together again (they both starred in "A Beautiful Mind"), this movie was almost destined to fail. On top of that, marketing was scattered and unspecific at times about the plot of the movie.
"Hercules" went down the same way as "Legends of Oz". If you are going to retell a well known story, you better make it amazing. Didn't happen here.
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Post by wvengineer on Sept 10, 2014 14:43:23 GMT
Ender's Game unfortunately, seamed a perfect setup for failure.
The book is controversial enough to start with. The idea of final victory though the total destruction of an enemy's will to fight is going to meet with a lot or resistance in today's world. For better or worse, the last time we saw that in real life was in WWII. Since then, wars are more about politics than victory. It simply won't set well with a large portion of the potential audience.
Next is Orson Scott Card's recent comments on the gay community. For someone who has pushed for acceptance of alternative lifestyles in some of his books in the past, his recent turn of positions seams more like pandering to the religious right wingers. That is going to turn off a very vocal portion of his audience.
Finally, there you go to problem that you are trying to turn a book that is beloved by millions into a movie. People accept that things will have to get cut to make a movie. But in this case, a lot of what people like is the ethical and moral questions that the book raises. That stuff is a lot harder to bring to the screen than action sequences are. Additionally, things like the final reveal of the nature of the war games that was a big shock in the book is diluted by the filmmaker's decision to give hints at it to amp up the tension in the film.
I wonder if part of it may also be Harrison Ford fatigue. He is the perfect example of an action star that is getting washed up in his age. Don't get me wrong, he is a great actor. He does better in action rolls than as a stoic authority figures. But after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Cowboys & Aliens, I just cringe when I see him. He has been making some poor choices of films lately.
In the end, between the antics of Mr. Card, and the film the compromising too much on the aspects that made the source materiel so thought provoking, there wasn't much the film actually had going for it. Which is all the more loss that they couldn't make it work.
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Post by ironhold on Sept 10, 2014 15:56:44 GMT
"Legends of Oz" sounded like a good idea, but didn't quite deliver. If you are going to remake or rethink a classic movie, you better make it amazing or it will fail. The last attempt to reenvision the Wizard of Oz (Disney's "Oz: The Great & Powerful") set a very high standard for what moviegoers expected. A cutesy cartoon didn't deliver. The way I see it, the film could have gotten by on half the star power it had backing it up, something that would have helped its budget considerably.
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Post by the light works on Sept 10, 2014 16:07:43 GMT
"Legends of Oz" sounded like a good idea, but didn't quite deliver. If you are going to remake or rethink a classic movie, you better make it amazing or it will fail. The last attempt to reenvision the Wizard of Oz (Disney's "Oz: The Great & Powerful") set a very high standard for what moviegoers expected. A cutesy cartoon didn't deliver. The way I see it, the film could have gotten by on half the star power it had backing it up, something that would have helped its budget considerably. the same could be said for Eragon - if they hadn't spent whatever they did to have John Malcovich playing Galbatorix - who needn't have even been added at that point - they would have had more money for everything else - and if they had skipped the CGI Saphira growing up montage - they could have done an even better job.
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Post by mrfatso on Sept 10, 2014 21:30:32 GMT
The other thing about the Veronica Mars movie is the way it was released, as a movie in theatres but simultaneously as video on demand, which means the profitability of that movie cannot be judged against just the box office receipts, something that its producers already factored into the model. It also was funded as a crowd sourcing project, some backers would have been looking for a profit, but others were doing it for the love of a TV show that they wanted another slice of.
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Post by tom1b on Sept 11, 2014 16:50:37 GMT
Veronica Mars was a Kickstarter funded movie. The fanboyz funded the movie and the fanboyz went to watch. They are planning a sequel, again funded by Kickstarter. Wish I Was Here was another Kickstarter funded movie. Zach Braff fanboyz paid for a movie. They raised $3.1 million to fund the movie and it made $3.5 million. 10 Biggest Flops of 2014...so farAs of June.
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 14, 2014 9:47:45 GMT
Duds. You know its a box office Dud if it has to go advertising and winning awards at Regional Film Festivals. Life is too short for me to go into details, I was invited to attend one local regional film festival.... I furiously googled to find out more before I had to call back to accept/decline..... Two hours later, I have not ever got that time back, I discovered that the reason I had never heard of any of the films being promoted there was they were not worth the interest. How can I describe it?... You remember the times when you had to go watch YOUR kid do the Christmas show at school, and sit through what seamed like five hours of boredom tedium and drudgery just because you had a child playing third Sheppard from the left, when plainly they are a better actor and should have had at least Head Sheppard billing?... Would you then go and watch the same show in a different school the next night?... even if your kid wasnt in it?.. would you then spend a month doing every kids nativity show you can find in your city?.... [would you get arrested if you tried?..] Well, thats the kind of entertainment level on show at these regional events. Critical head on for Devils Advocate type post.... "Support"?... why?... why should I show support to these events?... they are making films that are not entertaining in any way, should not have ever been made, and are plainly awful. I would rather watch the Big Brother hours of darkness when all are asleep, paint drying is high excitement, I cant go watch Grass grow after this, because the sudden actions will give me a heart attack.... I have found the recipe for induced coma. I know how to put people into actual human hibernation..... And the, I have the escape plan to work out?... To get out past all the nodding donkey heads of those "Arty" types who start with the BS before they even open their moth, they are dressed in a way that ONLY an "Arty" person would dress, a kind of anti-Fashion that the rest of the world knows as "Watch out, this one will bore all four legs of a statue of a donkey".... We are talking the ones who have that rectangular spy glass on a chain round their neck, they think they are a director?... And just what is it with the Beret?... thats shapeless flap of what looks like a cow pat that only looks good on Armed Forces Troupes?... at least they know how to shape it, that one you have looks like it got stuffed with the remains of a dead goose?... If you wore a stripy jumper and had a string of onions around your neck, so be it, you are trying to be French Onion Seller, we know you ride a bike, but at a film festival, it just puts a big sign over your head that says <<{TW@T].... Then comes the "I can see what he was suggesting in the last hour with all the dark out of focus corners, its how futile is our existence without knowledge of our direction, and how that an lead you...." Lead you into despair and suicidal tenancies?... look twit, you have it wrong, I had that within the first 5 mins of the film, its just I couldn't escape.... they locked the doors?... You want me to support the local film community?.. how about you start by picking films people WANT to watch. Oh, those are the ones on at the local IMAX cinema aint they?.. well excuse me whilst I go support THAT community..... by waiting until it comes out on DVD, 'cos £10 for Popcorn for our family is taking the [deleted]. [Film Fest...Anyone get the idea I was coerced into going to one once and am still regretting it?...]
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 14, 2014 9:57:30 GMT
I wrote the above post as a comedy exercise.... Did it work?...
{I am releasing it on film for the next film festival, I cant wait...]
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 14, 2014 9:59:45 GMT
Congratulations on insulting the Hyneman.
The memorial service will be held as soon as we can recover 10% of the body mass, this may take a while.
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Post by the light works on Sept 14, 2014 14:03:43 GMT
however he did catch the essence of the public reaction to that particular community perfectly.
well, except for my preferred two phrase summary:
"It's ART. you're not SUPPOSED to like it."
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 15, 2014 8:25:44 GMT
Congratulations on insulting the Hyneman. The memorial service will be held as soon as we can recover 10% of the body mass, this may take a while. Thats the difference, Hyneman KNOWS how to wear the beret. (He is ex-special forces......isnt he?....) Look at that bunch of posers, they plonk it on the head and thats it. The beret needs shaping, its not supposed to ape a deflated elephant condom?.... this is how its supposed to look..... The Hyneman wearing one..... Just NOT this.... PLONKA
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Sept 15, 2014 12:48:10 GMT
Just NOT this.... PLONKAAre you sure that's a beret on his head? It looks closer to a diaper. Perhaps, the diaper is more fitting form of headwear as a lot of those artsy types have (poo) for brains.
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Sept 15, 2014 12:56:08 GMT
Onto the next box office dud...Opening in December is the remake of "Annie". The problem is that this is a time-honored movie/broadway show that everyone knows the plotline for. The remake appears to be a case of "lets overpay a bunch of actors that had their glory days five years ago (Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Rose Byrne) and completely put the plot on its head".
Original plot: Daddy Warbucks was a multi-millionaire industrial. Annie lived at an orphanage.
New plot: William Stacks is a millionaire political gadfly. Annie lives in an apartment with her foster family.
My prediction is that it will have a big opening weekend, but attendance will quickly dropoff.
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