| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
 Posted - 10/06/2009 : 12:12:52 PM
|
[url]http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-moviebiz6-2009oct06,0,702751.story[/url]
"As the lineup of newly elevated studio executives scramble for solutions, expect an even greater emphasis on so-called "branded entertainment": sequels and movies based on toys, old television shows and other familiar themes. Movies already in development include one based on the View-Master children's toy and an adaptation of the board game Battleship, scheduled for release July 2011, the same month as a third "Transformers" film. There also will likely be far fewer adult dramas and less reliance on movie stars -- many of whom can no longer draw ticket buyers, and are seeing their guaranteed salaries slashed." (emphasis added)
Does this mean my dream for an "Ants in the Pants" movie is closer to fruition? |
|
|
TVsGrady
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
671 Posts |
Posted - 10/06/2009 : 5:28:18 PM
|
Words fail me.
***
"If you really want to irritate a flaming screaming skull, turn him toward something highly unpleasant, like, say, a Rob Schneider movie. He has no eyelids and no way to turn away. It's fun!"-Michael J. Nelson
***
http://tvsgrady.livejournal.com |
 |
|
|
nshumate
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
464 Posts |
Posted - 10/06/2009 : 7:15:04 PM
|
quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhacker
[url]http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-moviebiz6-2009oct06,0,702751.story[/url]
"As the lineup of newly elevated studio executives scramble for solutions, expect an even greater emphasis on so-called "branded entertainment": sequels and movies based on toys, old television shows and other familiar themes. Movies already in development include one based on the View-Master children's toy and an adaptation of the board game Battleship, scheduled for release July 2011, the same month as a third "Transformers" film. There also will likely be far fewer adult dramas and less reliance on movie stars -- many of whom can no longer draw ticket buyers, and are seeing their guaranteed salaries slashed." (emphasis added)
Does this mean my dream for an "Ants in the Pants" movie is closer to fruition?
Aaaagh! Hungry hungry hippos!!!
Nathan Shumate
http://www.coldfusionvideo.com |
|
|
|
Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 10/06/2009 : 8:15:55 PM
|
"Robot Chicken" already did a bit on a Hungry Hungry Hippos movie. "We're hungry... for JUSTICE!" (Followed by scenes of the hippos shooting and EATING criminals).
They also did "Slip and Slide" inspired by (I guess) "Ocean's Eleven".
"Battleship: The Movie". Wouldn't that be "Midway" or some other old war movie?
Hollywood should just shut down production and re-release their library of movies.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
|
|
|
hbrennan
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Philippines
1455 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2009 : 01:55:44 AM
|
Maybe a Rocky prequel with Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots
"...yet it hadn't destroyed his brain."
re: Charles "The Butcher" Benton (1956)
http://www.henrybrennan.com/
|
|
|
|
Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2009 : 05:03:40 AM
|
This link has some more choice quotes.
[url]http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/edd9a0e8-b29e-11de-b7d2-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1[/url]
quote:
Top talent will continue to command a premium price, according to Barry Katz, president of New Wave Entertainment, which represents stars such as Dane Cook. “I can guarantee you that the big stars aren’t going to take a pay cut,” he says. “Studios need them to bring in the audiences.”
Dane who? I had to look him up in IMDB. The guy is B material at best.
Then there is this gem:
quote:
In an industry rife with bloated salaries, talent pay is the most obvious area to cut. Some stars receive astronomical fees for their work and the “20 and 20” pay day – referring to a $20m upfront payment plus 20 per cent of the film’s gross before the studio earns a penny – is not uncommon.
Who pays someone $20 million and then 20% of the gross? I could see one or the other but not both. The funny thing is that they pay these huge amounts and then have to provide all sorts of amenities to the stars on top of it, like private jets, special trailers, etc.
I think studios are going to have to return to having long term contracts with the talent and running a lot of the ancillary services as well. The "bringing together the pieces model" is just too expensive.
I summon Bigger Fish! |
|
|
|
nshumate
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
464 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2009 : 06:15:14 AM
|
quote:
Who pays someone $20 million and then 20% of the gross? I could see one or the other but not both. The funny thing is that they pay these huge amounts and then have to provide all sorts of amenities to the stars on top of it, like private jets, special trailers, etc.
I think studios are going to have to return to having long term contracts with the talent and running a lot of the ancillary services as well. The "bringing together the pieces model" is just too expensive.
Especially since the last couple of years have demonstrated that the
"star system" is dead; they only Hollywood performer left who can consistently pack audiences in simply because his name is attached is Will Smith, and even he's had some stumbles of late.
Meanwhile, let's look at the top ten movies for 2009, shall we?
399,416,040 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
294,258,075 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
289,639,811 Up (2009)
270,237,753 The Hangover (2009)
256,673,273 Star Trek (2009)
198,255,437 Monsters vs Aliens (2009)
193,250,211 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)
179,863,544 X-Men Origins: Wolverine/ (2009)
176,461,908 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009)
160,154,402 The Proposal (2009)
Meanwhile, let's look at the list of top-paid actors in Hollywood for 2008, taken from Forbes magazine:
Will Smith
Johnny Depp
Eddie Murphy
Mike Myers
Leonardo DiCaprio
Smith, Myers and DiCaprio didn't have a movie come out in 2009; the other two are absent from the top ten. All but Depp had a movie come out in 2008; of them, only Smith's Hancock got into the top ten for that year. In other words, there's not a lot of correlation between money spent on performers and box office return.
Smith's last movie, Seven Pounds, grossed $70 million on a $55 million budget. Depp's last movie, Public Enemies, grossed $97 million on a $100 million budget. Eddie Murphy's last, Imagine That, grossed $16 million (!) on a $55 million budget -- in other words, it didn't even earn back his paycheck. Similarly, Mike Myers' last, The Love Guru, grossed $32 million on a $62 million budget. DiCaprio's latest, Revolutionary Road, grossed $22 million on a budget of $35 million.
Somebody tell me again how Hollywood is all about the money. I mean, seriously -- Eddie Murphy? Mike Myers? Is Barney Frank somehow involved in this?
Nathan Shumate
http://www.coldfusionvideo.com |
|
|
|
zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2009 : 1:38:54 PM
|
Ironically, you know the one star who comes off looking good after all this?
Tom Cruise.
Conventional wisdom had written the Cruiser off of late (we certainly have on these boards) but in retrospect this was due probably more to his sofa-hopping antics on Oprah and headline-making Scientology-infused ramblings. But if you go ahead and start crunching the actual box office numbers, a different picture slowly emerges:
If you discount the recent Lions for Lambs debacle, every single movie Cruise has made over the past ten years has grossed a minimum of $200 million worldwide. (Yes, even Valkyrie.) More importantly from the studios' standpoint, every single one of those films has grossed more than twice its original budget, guaranteeing that even the lowliest performers would at least break even financially. Valkyrie, for instance, grossed $200 million worldwide on a $75 million budget. Mission Impossible 3 raked in $397 million on a $150 million budget. Even the much derided Vanilla Sky took in a $200 globally on a $68 million budget.
All totaled, his movies (again, not counting Lions, which wasn't a budget-buster anyhow), have grossed $3 billion dollars against a collective budget of $857 million. (When one considers ancillary revenues from DVD, cable, etc., the take gets even juicier.)
So how can a guy who's made more public relations missteps that Marge Schott and Ted Turner put together be still raking in the box office cash while his Hollywood compatriots are continuously left by the wayside? It's simple. Two words: quality control. Don't giggle. I'm serious. Tom Cruise may not make great movies, IMHO (I'm certainly farthest from being his biggest fan.) But one thing I will say for him: he rarely puts his name on absolute junk. War of the Worlds needed a brain transplant, but at least it's not Battlefield: Earth. The Mission Impossible films may be passable at best, but better to be associated with those TV-to-film adaptations than Land of the Lost. When a star makes an effort to maintain a certain level of quality in his or her films, audiences will take notice, and then that star becomes a brand name.
In short, people haven't been lining up Cruise movies all these years because they think he's cute. They've been lining up because the smart odds say whatever movie he's appearing in isn't going to absolutely suck.
***
Oh, and as a final aside, I noticed that the one star vehicle on Nate's list was The Proposal. Originally that film was offered to Julia Roberts. She turned it down because she refused to take a salary cut. It went to Sandra Bullock by default, who didn't mind the "smaller" payday. As a result, the movie was brought in for a mere $40 million and has grossed (thus far) $290 million worldwide. Maybe there's a lesson there. |
|
|
|
Ken HPoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
1530 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2009 : 3:31:09 PM
|
Yeah, I've made this argument about Cruise myself. Oftentimes when somebody reaches his level of stardom, they make films with lower level and novice directors, so that they will be the top dog on the film set. Say what you will about Cruise (who's VERY active in the production side of his movies), but he's comfortable enough to obviously seek out top, powerful directors: Kubrick, Spielberg, Michael Mann.
Check out Cruise's filmography for the last 20 years, and then Robert DeNiro's or Denzil Washington's, and see who's consistently been in better films. Cruise is worth his salary because he's a star, but also a star who again gets really involved in the nuts and bolts of the films he works on and strives to make them, at the very least, well put together.
Again, though, I'm not sure anybody should be making 20 million a picture upfront. Pay 'em ten, and then they can get more after films reach a set box office target.
Hank Hill, perusing a waiting room magazine: "I'll tell you what, this Goofus fella is a dumbass."
|
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
Forum Locked
Topic Locked