It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
What can I says? A very good weekend for the new specialty releases. Congratulation to SPC, Roadside and IFC.
Nikki Finke’s article makes the failure of “The A-Team” looks like anything but Tom Rothman’s fault. I guess that someone was smart enoughy to know that “The A-Team” would flop badly, tried to jump ship and put the blame on other person. (Of course, it is just my stupid guess.)
How on earth is an about-as-predicted $30 million-ish opening “flop(ping) badly?” It just happens to not be doing as well as the juggernaut that also opened this weekend (which, incidentally, will get some legs help from July 4, probably).
“The A-Team” would has less-than-$30 million opening, which is definitely not good for a film that was cost $110 million to make (and is having a huge marketing campaign in worldwide)
And I doubt that the box office leg of “The A-Team” will be good.
I like Liam Neeson fine but he’s no George Peppard. The loss of Mr. T’s problematic black anger is also a killer, comedy wise.
OK, mc, but there is an enormous difference between a movie performing slightly below projections and one that flops badly. Also, my legs comment was about “Karate,” not “A-Team.”
I’m delighted to see “The A-Team” underperforming. The only moments of pleasure it provided was when I dozed off for about 10 minutes halfway through the movie. Like a (merely) bad Michael Bay flick (yes, there is a distinction between “so-bad-it’s-good-Bay” and “this-just-plain-fucking-sucks-Bay”), it’s an orgy of mindless sound and fury signifying nothing. Except maybe that Bradley Cooper really, really loves himself.
Although I never saw a single episode of the original series, I was actually looking forward to this. “Smokin’ Aces” is a favorite guilty pleasure of mine, and “Narc” is really kind of brilliant.
Sad.
DP: “The A-Team” opened day-and-date in some foreign countries opposite the World Cup. Fox is writing this pic off.
The original TV series came out on DVD this week so you can enjoy the wisdom of John “Hannibal” Smith as it was meant to be seen.
I would be shocked if the Karate Kid held but you never know with these things these days but hopefully Toy Story 3 opens over 100m for the weekend. Pixar needs one of those huge weekends.
“Pixar needs one of those huge weekends.”
How do you figure? Surely Pixar is the safest bet in town, with not a single domestic gross under $200 million in twelve years. Not trashing you, just curious as to your reasoning.
Ah, so Sex and The City 2’s opening is dissapointing but A-Team isn’t “bad”.
What planet is Poland located on?
“How on earth is an about-as-predicted $30 million-ish opening “flop(ping) badly?”
This is just an example of terrible logic, just because something was predicted to underperform doesn’t change the fact that it underperformed.
And I’m sorry but a $28 million opening for A-Team IS dissapointing.
And in fact, this is EXACTLY the kind of “logic” BP tried to pul with their whole “Topkill didn’t work? Relax because we’ve been considering the worst case scenario all along”.
Dr. Wally, this is the last film in a trilogy of films that brought us Pixar. This being the last one. It would just be cool if Pixar had a 100m plus weekend with Toy Story 3. I also think it would be the biggest animated film opening ever and I would just like that to be associated with Toy Story. Again, it’s a personal preference thing.
Pete, I agree with you utterly and completely. A-Team getting it’s butt handed to it by The Karate Kid is not only surprising but it also leads to a very disappointing opening weekend. This opening weekend crapping of the bed I am going to contribute to the horrible A-Team segment on Monday Night Raw. If anyone saw that segment Monday. There would be no way in hell they would want to see this movie.
Shrek 3 opened to 121 million, but no reason TS3 cant top that
Pete Grisham… not sure how you think.
S&TC2… a sequel… expectations set to that… a $30m opening for the first one would not have been a disappointment. After the first one opened to $57m, a $31m opening WAS a disappoinment.
A-Team is based on a 30 year old TV show. No major stars.
Would Fox have been thrilled for it to open to $50m? Of course. Then they’d be talking sequels today. But $30m, with the hope of $100m domestic and $200m international… not a “bad opening,” which, btw, is what I wrote. (I know you hate shit like me asking to be disparaged based on what I write, not on what you think it means.)
None of this, of course, is remotely mind blowing. I can only assume that you are one of those people who think that some sort of trending on what a movie is expected to open to or what you think it should open to supersedes box office history or logic. It’s fine… but it’s not particularly smart.
Curious… is there a movie that’s opened in the 30s this year that you don’t think was a disappointing opening? Only 7 films have opened at $40m or better.
How many more times does hollywood have to be surprised by a strong opening weekend before they begin opening more movies with ethnic leads. Tyler Perry shouldn’t be the only guy in this business.
PS… I know those of you who want to kick A-Team’s number won’t care, but you do all realize that the only person in this film or who made this film for whom this will not be their career best opening in a lead role is Bradley Cooper’s Hangover opening… which you could hardly say was sold on him.
Chucky… Twilight is opening in every major country except Germany during the World Cup. Is it being dumped too?
And marychan… that Finke story has nothing to do with anyone jumping ship… Rothman was being positioned in it because she doesn’t want to stop being fed peanuts by her Fox Nikki-handler and her source doesn’t want Rothman on the warpath. She had no problem attacking Carnahan because, as someone pointed out, he left her agency… you know, the one that’s having her paid by Time-Warner.
The problem with that, tfresca, is that every studio has dipped a toe, multiple times, into that business. No one but Perry is a sure fire winner, the black stars out there are expensive, and DVD for the “urban” market is one of the places that has taken the biggest hit.
Karate Kid is – by design – color blind. It’s a little kid taking on the bullies with the help of an old guy. The travelogue part was an inspired decision, but neither blacks nor asians are opening that movie to these numbers.
Thank you again, David.
On the other hand, “Sex and the City 2” also opens in many countries during World Cup. However, Twilight and “Sex and the City 2” are the films the mainly made for feamle audience (who are not the main audience for World Cup)
After the huge success of “Taken”, people would predict that Liam Neeson’s higher budget PG-13 action film would open much bigger…. Now, I guees Liam Neeson’s career would back in the form of his pre-“Taken” era.
And I think “The A-Team” will be lucky to gross $100 million international; very few of similar television adaptations could gross more than $100 million international.
DP…she’s not one of the leads exactly but Jessica Biel had a better opener with “Chuck and Larry.”
Regardless…why does that matter?
It’s irrelevant. And yes DP this film is being dumped worldwide…Eclipse opens when there are just 8 teams and 7 games remaining (none of which are on Friday or Saturday) as opposed to the next few weeks when there are 32 teams and a triple-header of games every single day.
About half the revenue that could be projected internationally for this film is in countries that are being held until July or later.
And the fact that this is a big opening for everyone involved (an Adam Sandler movie… that’s an argument… really?) only matters in terms of expectations… which is what we are discussing here.
This is not a Tom Cruise movie. It’s not Charlie’s Angels or Star Trek. Do you think that Fox assumed otherwise… that this was Mission:Impossible? Do you think that the success of opening Karate Kid is remotely relevant or worth comparing to the numbers on A-Team?
And more to the bigger point, here we are, calling the shot before there is enough real information to call the shot. When people are wrong – virtually every week – there is no going back to clean up the mess. It’s lazy thinking and reflective of how cheaply information is held these days.
And Marychan… this is why I get aggravated. A-Team will open to more than Taken… but somehow, you’ve got it as a step backwards for Neeson. Taken was an off-season word-of-mouth phenom. Chloe should have made it clear enough that Neeson was not suddenly a box office guy… but basic logic should have also.
Ethan, I knew that I completely and utterly forgot a big animated opening. Thanks for filling in my horrible memory.
Mary Chan, I would agree with you about the A-Team if it were not the A-Team. The show was huge international success so that will hopefully translate to some international cash.
But why is it when Sex and the City sequel opens much more poorly to the first movie they are compared, but when Shrek 4 opens to way less than the others it’s not compared to other Shreks but all other animited movies?
‘Splain, DP!
Chloe or as I like to call it, “The Movie With the Saddest Lesbian Scene In It Ever.”
But Fox clearly spends much more P&A on “The A-Team” than “Taken”. (And “The A-Team” is a much more expensive film than “Taken”)
“The A-Team” and “Chloe” are different matters; “Chloe” is a specialty film that only received limited release, “The A-Team” is a big-budget mainstream film that received major wide release. On the other hand, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” clearly didn’t hurt Brad Pitt’s box office draw for mainstream films; “Me and Orson Welles” would not hurt Zac Efron’s box office draw for mainstream films; and “Chloe” clearly didn’t hurt Amanda Seyfried’s box office draw for mainstream romance films like “Letters to Juliet”.
By the way, the domestic box office result of “Chloe” is clearly not bad; how many critically-reviled specialty films that received the similar release pattern could gross more than $3 million at domestic box office? (And like what Variety indicated, ‘$3 million is the new $10 million’ for 2010 specialty box office.)
“but you do all realize that the only person in this film or who made this film for whom this will not be their career best opening in a lead role is Bradley Cooper’s Hangover opening…”
I’d say Neeson had a lead role in that little space movie he did some time ago.
Granted, he can’t be credited with the opening at all, but it seemed an odd omission.
If it doesn’t make much more than 30 mil, then Neeson even beat it with the Haunting remake.
Perm – The 2nd Shrek film was a phenom… at the time, the 2nd highest grossing domestic film of all time. A freak.
The third film was part of the tri-quel summer, with 3 of the top 5 all-time openings, at the time, happening over a 4 weekend stretch… and of course, Shrek 3 ended up dropping $120m domestic from the 2nd film, in spite of a bigger opening.
So then, the expectations of #4 are up in the air. Openings are not quite as heated as they were for a moment, though big numbers are certainly possible. But it’s the FOURTH in a very special series.
I guess that if Pirates 4 does $700m instead of a billion, people will claim it flopped. Silly.
I did compare Shrek 4 to the rest of the series, but I also cautioned that some perspective with other similar movies was appropriate.
There is only one Sex & The City to compare. It was not comparable with other “rom-com” films. It was easily the biggest opener in that roughly narrowed genre with a fairly small multiple. But the real success, as I noted, was foreign. And if you were paying attention, I said very much the same thing about Shrek that I did about Sex… both will have their success defined by foreign, not domestic.
And we don’t have those numbers yet.
And storymark… Star Wars? Really? That’s a Liam Neeson movie?
And even The Haunting was not “a liam neeson movie.” He’s not a major box office draw. Just isn’t. Nor is Ewan McGregor. Nor is Catherine Zeta-Jones. Nor was Bradley Cooper (or Sandra Bullock) in All About Steve, in the same summer as The Hangover (and The Proposal).
You know… I’m not out here cheerleading for a $30 million opening. It’s okay. It’s not a disaster. But even if it gets to $100m domestic, it needs to do at least that overseas to come close to being in the black.
I picked a good Saturday to skip movies, and see The New Pornographers rip the fucking roof off the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee. Neko and Kath looked great. Dan Bejar, touring for the first time in ages, was an absolute stitch. Saw AC Newman outside the venue and got a wave. He then proceeded to lead the best band on the planet through a flawless set. Opened with Sing Me Spanish Techno, and it took the fuck off.
Karate Kids and A-Teams can pound salt. My beer buzz is gone so time for bed.
Are we just going to act as if Taken is not a Liam Neeson picture? Or does it count as something else?
When I saw that the predictions for The A-Team were mainly in the low-to-mid 30s range, I thought that seemed a little low. A $30-$35 million opening weekend for a big-budget summer movie generally doesn’t seem to be considered good anymore. Wasn’t a $30 million opening for Prince of Persia considered disappointing two weeks ago? Compared to predictions, maybe A-Team isn’t a big disappointment. But when a studio produces a $110 million summer popcorn flick and puts $50 million (or whatever) in P&A behind it, are they really gunning for $30 million? I highly doubt it. That has to be considered disappointing.
In fact, it looks very likely that “The A-Team” won’t even have a $30 million opening. (more like a $25-#29 million opening.)
Correction: In fact, it looks very likely that “The A-Team” won’t even have a $30 million opening. (more like a $25-$29 million opening.)
“And the fact that this is a big opening for everyone involved (an Adam Sandler movie… that’s an argument… really?) only matters in terms of expectations… which is what we are discussing here.”
It isn’t…but if you’re going to use completely irrelevant statistics to make your points, at least make sure they’re factually accurate before doing so. (PS it also looks like Biel’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake opened better).
And uhh…the UK, Japan and Germany make up “half the countries with potential “A-Team” revenue???? Dream on.
I think this has to be a considered a disappointing opening. Its not so much about the stars that are in it, as much as the name recognition of The A Team. They’re part of the pop culture lexicon. This was being positioned as the shoot em up action flick of the summer with Bradley Cooper as the sexy bare chested carrot to bring in that female demographic as well. It underwhelmed.
TV shows don’t always have to rely on one major star to do well, and if you look at some the opening weekends of other tv to movie adaptations, I think based on how they were positioning this movie, they were gunning for more.
Star Trek 09- $75M Opening
Sex and the City 08- $57M Opening
Get Smart 08 – $38M
Charlies Angels 00 – $40M
SWAT 03 – $36M
Starsky & Hutch 04 – $28M
Dukes of Hazard 05 – $30M
Miami Vice 06 – $25M
Bewitched 05 – $20M
Land of the Lost 09 – $18M
LotL and Bewitched were considered flops. Dukes and Starsky and Get Smart were more comedies, Miami Vice was more gritty than the TV series and basically had no similarities to the show whatsoever. SWAT, like A Team, no huge box office draws, good ensemble cast, no money shot of a tank falling out an airplane, got to $36M in 03 dollars. Charlies Angels, which I think is the most direct comparison opened to $40M in 2000, and if memory serves, had worse reviews.
And you get a movie also starring one black kid and an Asian, no real box office clout, another remake, same nostalgic pitch, the family audience available, but so was the action junkie male audience as well, they haven’t had anything remotely hard core action since Iron Man 2. Robin Hood is not a factor anymore, and Prince of Persia did not attract this audience. So where were they?
A Team should have even got the date crowd, as I think this would have been a palatable compromise for the females as well.
A sub $30M opening for The A Team, is a disappointment Dave.
DP, if you’re going to get real technical on what is or isn’t a Laim Neeson picture, then is A-Team REALLY a Liam Neeson picture either? Nope. A Liam Neeson picture is usually an adult drama that he stars in that will make it to 30 million total if they’re lucky. But Neeson has been in a huge number of hits, and he was no small part of the marketing of those Narnia movies. So he deserves some due as well. He’s not the guy who’s necessarily a box office draw, but put him in the right project and people know it will have some class. Well, maybe not Clash of the Titans.
Boxofficeguru has Karate Kid at $56 million and A-Team at $26 million for the weekend. Is someone going to argue with a straight face that $26 million is not disappointing?
Dead-on, Bulldog – SWAT and Charlies Angels are probably the baseline for A Team. SWAT also cost a bit less, while ‘Angels cost about the same – if A Team grossed in the mid to high ’30’s, then it would have met expectations. It underperformed, although I have to say that Karate Kid did probably siphen off some of its grosses – at the urban theater I took my wife to see Just Wright (which was quite charming, by the way), the teenage and 20’s crowd of mixed ethnicity was much more jazzed for Karate Kid. I think with these two opening on the same weekend going after the same ’80’s nostalgiz buzz, looks like A Team got the short end of the stick – most prognisticators out there probably saw the two films combining for about $80 million and that did happen, just that A Team got a much smaller piece of the pie than expected.
Sony and Smith deserve a lot of credit – they are not to be understimated. Seriously, Sony seems to know how to open these seemingly niche films (any coincidence that both SWAT and Charlie were Sony films?) as well as any one, right now – remember, they opened District 9 last year to almost $40 million.
“I can only assume that you are one of those people who think that some sort of trending on what a movie is expected to open to or what you think it should open to supersedes box office history or logic. It’s fine… but it’s not particularly smart.”
David, that not how I think at all. I don’t think of some imaginary number that I think a given movie should meet and don’t automatically brand any movie that fails to do so a dissapoitment. And I do take history and logic into an account, and to a fairly good degree. And call me naive or oldfashioned by another thing I take into account is budget and the implicit expectations that come with it (of course I realize that by today’s standards A-Team’s budget was atually fairly moderate). Stay with me:
Stars or no stars, no matter how old the franchise, at one point in time there had to be someone who thought that, as is, the movie would live to certain expectations. And judging strictly by these expectations themselves and not even the money (I make that distinction because international gross, could, hypothetically put the movie into green) the weekend number uno is “dissapointing”. This is below mid-range summer actionfare. And whether it was during the casting process (no stars) or the greenlighting process (old TV show) someone seems to have made a bad call. Not an outright flop, not terrible, *so far* it’s just dissapointing.
“Curious… is there a movie that’s opened in the 30s this year that you don’t think was a disappointing opening?”
As I tried to explain above, you are asking the wrong question. My mind doesn’t work this way around any magic numbers (and so the answer to that question is, of course, “Yes”).
This, by the way, stands in sharp contrast to your own polemic (e.g. “$100m domestic is a goal to chase”, “SITC 2″ may not make $100 million”, “Eagle Eye” crawls to $100 million, etc – another thing to note is that, more often then not, your predictions are wrong). You are a lot more numbercentric than I am and while there is place for that kind of logic in some cases, by and large you seem to be hung up on certain milestones.
This brings up the real issue I have with your b.o. columns. Your choices of what is or not “bad” seems to be dictated largely by what I can only describe as your own biases. There is no consistency here. And people are picking up on it, too. Nobody on here is buying your defense of A-Team’s opening as being per norm. And even if they were all wrong (even then!), there is no denying that compared to some of the other columns on similar type of summer fare you are letting this one off easy.
This stance affects the analysis you use to support your points too. Let’s come back to this statement, for example:
“A-Team is based on a 30 year old TV show. No major stars.”
This reads more like an excuse then an actual explanation.
P.S. I apologize for all of the missing words and typos above. At one point I have lost a completed version of that post and recreating it from scratch was a real pain.
“And storymark… Star Wars? Really? That’s a Liam Neeson movie?”
“His” movie, of course not, I said as much in my post. But he does have, as per your stipulation, a “lead role”. Just seemed that whole “career best” statement from you was a bit bold, being so obviously not the case.