I Love Guillermo, But…
$150 million movies…
There have been eighty $500m worldwide grossers in movie history.
The ONLY ones that have been R-rated were the Matrix and Terminator franchises and The Passion of The Christ.
Movies like The Hangover, Gladiator, and Saving Private Ryan got close. But none of them were looking at $500m as a break even point either.
And with due respect to Tom Cruise, who is probably undervalued as a star right now, he hasn’t ever hit $500m with an R-rated movie and is now 5 years past his last $100m domestic film.
Guillermo has never had a film gross 1/3 of $500 million worldwide.
You have to make a lot of money for a studio before they disregard the numbers and make this kind of leap into hopefulness. And 9 out of 10 times, the same people who are mourning for Guillermo this week will tell you how stupid the studio was for making the investment in other directors… even some directors that are well respected and liked.
I don’t need to get into how it all fell apart or whether this was really a call that Langley or Fogelson or Meyer was allowed to make on their own (dubious) with new landlords to answer to or whether any elements (like Lovecraft’s name or Jim Cameron as a producer) are relevant to a project’s viability at this level.
GdT had some righteous anger over Biutiful‘s non-reception from the Hollywood distributors and stated repeatedly that a film like that would be all but impossible to make again. Hallelujah! I may thing that opinion may be a bit beyond, but a fight completely worth having.
But I am truly shocked that, gloriously talented and charming and brilliant as Guillermo is, the media has jumped on this $150m bandwagon as thought they were fighting for his right to make an art film and get a studio to release it.
Guillermo is a big boy. He makes his choices. He takes his medicine. And he drew a line in the cement on this film… that he wants it made a certain way. God bless him. He’s smart enough to know he doesn’t want to half-ass it.
But a studio not going forward – especially Universal!!! – with a $150m geek-core thriller is not a sign of the changing realities of studio life… unless that change is SANITY.
State of Play, Land of the Lost, The Wolfman, Green Zone, Scott Pilgrim vs The World
They all had (at some point) directors we should love. Smart guys. Pushing it. Expensive films. Financial red ink. So do they just keep trying until they hit it? Is the price for going deep into their pockets for Battleship or Cowboys & Aliens that they have to do it again for Guillermo? The two directors on those films have much stronger commercial histories than Guillermo, even if neither can touch him as an artist. But $150m is not an aesthetic choice. It’s a bottom line choice.
Fox making this? Are you crazy? That idea of that studio, of all studios, is being asked to make a $150m R-rated movie is like asking Tom Rothman if he’d also like some rectal cancer for lunch. The ONLY way it could ever be possible would be if Cameron leveraged Avatar 2, 3, 4, and 5 to get the movie done. And even then, Fox would be selling off as much of the movie as they could to private equity companies… doesn’t matter if the script was printed on penises and every sexy actress in Hollywood was wiling to suck until the ink disappeared. That is not how that boy’s club rolls.
Rothman has kept his job by not making those movies. He makes boy movies, keeps those budgets tight, and then adds in more mayhem if he doesn’t think they can sell the thing. That’s one reason why so many geek purists hate him. He’s not making this. He’s not making Fight Club again either. (Last time, it helped push his predecessor out of the job.)
But I digress…
So people thought that Inception was going to change everything? Change anything?
Inception is the work of a genius, but it was not made because of Nolan’s genius. It was made because of Nolan’s next film.
This is NOT an insult to Nolan or his film. This is Hollywood. And there’s not a damned thing new about it. As I wrote before, the only “new” thing is that some studios that seemed to enjoy sticking their heads in the mouths of hungry lions are being a little more careful now. And the only reason for that may be that the new bosses will make them do cable box repairs for 3 years instead of paying out their contracts as punishment for making The Next Great Money Loser.
I have to laugh at ANYONE who wants to offer moral indignation at any studio not making a $150m movie. It’s not a good bet, even if the return is sometimes massive. I don’t care if you look back and see Transformers and Avatar or not. It was Don Murphy’s great idea to do Transformers as a feature and a lot of other people who actually had their hand on that wheel and risked those mega-dollars. Glad it worked, financially. And that’s why Battleship is being made.
Cameron has a long track record of big dollar movies. Yet, on Avatar, like Titanic, the big price tag sent Fox running for partners in the funding. This is not a $300m+ movie. But anyone who is casual about $150m for a film is an idiot. A lot of big hit movies in recent years would have execs arguing to the death about whether the price tag was over or under $150m… because over meant that there were no (or few) profits.
Anyway… love The Big G… want him to work with a loaded palette… if he says he needs $150m and an R rating, I believe him… and some day, I hope, for art’s sake, he gets it. If he had done Hobbit, he may have had “them” where he would like “them” to be… begging him and looking past the limits he is imposing. But that, too, was his call and I respect him and whatever choices he makes for himself.
But “how can these heathen refuse to make a $150m R-rated film that we all want to see” is a shocking position for the media to take. Out of touch. And really negating the main arguments you hear, that studios should make less expensive films so they can still include quality “middle” films in their line-ups.
“But we want to see this one!”
Yeah… me too. But as soon as the standard is the movie you think you want to see, you are doing what you claim the studios do… pandering to someone’s perceived tastes. Just because they are your tastes and Guillermo is a golden god doesn’t make the argument any less hypocritical. “Pander to me! Pander to me!”
I don’t know that Universal did the “right” thing here. This film may have been a gold mine. But no one knows. Maybe if it gets picked up at another studio and does hit gold, it will be because it was a better film somewhere else. We would never have known that Slumdog Millionaire could be so commercial, much less a Best Picture winner, were it not for WB dumping it.
But will all respect and love, when you want $150m to make a movie with, you are no longer in a moral or aesthetic discussion. You are in high finance. You are capable of ending or launching major studio careers. You are asking not for 7% of a studio’s trust – one of 14 or 15 films that year – but you are asking for triple the trust that they normally put in any one film. And you are also, by the way, not asking for $150m, but at least $300 million all in with marketing.
Dismay at the loss of something we won’t get to see from an artist we love? Yes. Righteous indignation against a studio or the studio system? LMAO.
It’s LOVECRAFT! The GEEK INTELLGENCIA get their large boy briefs in a knot for some LOVECRAFT and the fact that they are still not getting their LOVECRAFT MOVIE, pisses them off.
I hate when Dave chooses not to spend one sentence describing what the hell he’s talking about before launching into a marathon essay on what he thinks about it.
What exactly is Del Toro not going to direct??
It sucks that they couldn’t make the movie, but with Cameron and Cruise involved and apparently committed I would be more surprised if it didn’t eventually happen.
I’m personally just glad that Guillmero is hopping on to another movie he’s been developing PACIFIC RIM, apparently a mega-budget(PG-13)monster movie. He’s got a lot of other exciting stuff in the works, like the Doug Jones FRANKENSTEIN which could be amazing.
I also don’t think it would be that crazy for Fox to make ATMOM, especially with a somewhat revised budget and pay cuts from the principles. They do occasionally fund big, expensive personal filmmakers like Cameron and Luhrman. The financial upside could be huge. Also, I do think it is important to note that Del Toro says the R rating clause is not for gore or blood but because the tone is supposed to be so intense. He doesn’t want to shoot for a PG-13, fufill the requirements for content, and then still be forced to end up cutting the teeth off the movie. He implies in the Deadline article that it theoretically could be PG-13.
At The Mountains of Madness is the answer to that question but apparently it’s not dead… yet.
What’s weird is that according to GDT, they liked the script and he delivered the budget they had given him. So — assuming that’s true — sounds like Universal got cold feet. I’d like to see if the project can be brought in for something closer to $100m and if that would change the equation a bit; you’d think with Cameron/Cruise/del Toro somebody would be willing to pony up.
If someone else eventually directs, at least it won’t be in GDT’s usual 1.85:1.
Seriously, what kind of VISIONARY DIRECTOR shoots flat EVERY time?
Like I wrote, Telemachos, unlikely that this call was really made by the production team.
And if the budget can so easily be cut by a third (and keep Cruise and not cost another 5% on the back end), it’s a completely different game.
Are we really to believe that the man who made the visually sumptuous and inventive PAN’S LABYRINTH on a budget of $15M can’t find a way to make his dream project for anything less than 10x that figure without compromising his vision? Horseshit. Suck it up and trim the budget, Guillermo. Cut your fee and take back end and get Cruise to do the same. Get on the horn to Ryan Kavanaugh. Or maybe bringing your dream to the screen isn’t really that important to you?
Guillermo Del Toro Presents:
More Shit About Stupid Fucking Ugly Monsters and Insects.
Hey, dude? Try directing a cop movie or romcom or something. ANYTHING but more creepy-crawly underground lair fantastical bullshit with 10-year-old kids entering a WORLD OF WONDER.
I was REALLY looking forward to this. ALIEN gene spliced with APOCALYPSE NOW, at least as I remember the novella. But, sigh, as Foghorn Leghorn once said, “you can argue with me but you can’t argue with figures.”
GDT should make one of those hacky movies about a BOISTEROUS LATINO FAMILY where they have crazy dinners and Abuelita spins fajitas and the sell-out brother dates a white girl.
With Hector Elizondo as the patriarch. And special appearance by Paul Rodriguez.
“But as soon as the standard is the movie you think you want to see, you are doing what you claim the studios do… pandering to someone’s perceived tastes.”
So whose perceived tastes do you make films for?
Lex, throw in a giant cucaracha and I’m sold.
Del Toro did a giant cucaracha movie already, and it’s by far the worst thing he ever did – MIMIC.
Though perhaps if he had played it as comedy…
I know that using established properties as the basis for movies (tv shows, comic books, older movies) is all the rage but is that really based on anything quantifiable that leads to putting people in seats or is it just a way for marketing execs to cover their backs. (“Well, it worked as an anime so…”)
I mean how people literally saw THE LAST AIRBENDER or CLASH OF THE TITANS or TRON: LEGACY or WATCHMEN, because they were die hard fans of the source material. I would argue Del Toro, but especially Cruise and Cameron, are much stronger brands than most of the remakes/adaptations that get made and funded with very large 100 million plus budgets. (I don’t disagree with DP’s article per se. I’m just curious about this…
Film executives (& sometimes, film writers & fans) can be very poor students of cinematic history.
The resumes of Hopper before Easy Rider, Altman before Mash, Coppola before The Godfather, Lucas before American Graffitti, Spielberg before Jaws, Fincher before Seven, Shyamalan before The Sixth Sense, the Wachowskis before The Matrix, Jackson before The Fellowship of the Ring, Snyder before 300, etc. really had nothing to indicate that any of these directors would be capable of creating a film that would be so hugely popular & financially successful.
Yet they all did just that. And all of these projects could have been regarded as “not practical” or “niche” or “not commercial” or “risky” or whatever prior to being made. In fact, many of them WERE definitely regarded that way. People tend to forget that a lot of successes we take for granted today weren’t always welcomed with open arms by the executives of their respective eras.
Yes, this is a business but, sometimes, it’s damn good business to take a chance upon a talented filmmaker with a real passion & vision for a particular story.
It is a shame that it didn’t happen in this case. I truly hope it does eventually happen for GDT & Mountains. But I am amazed at how much casual acceptance, weird rationalizing, & defense of cowardly corporate thinking I am reading online about this story from people one would figure would be railing against decisions like this.
That is my opinion.
chairsmissing FTW.
guillermo has a bit of a potty mouth
It’s not your 150 million that’s being dropped on this project. And none of thenfilms you mentioned cost that figure, except for Lord of the Rings.
You define what’s wrong with the primary argument that this is some shocking moment, chairs missing.
The first Rings wasn’t budgeted at $150m. With the exception of Spielberg and Jaws, none of the films you mention were terribly expensive in their times. Matrix wasn’t cheap, but it also wasn’t in this kind of price range.
It’s easy to claim “cowardly corporate thinking” when it’s not your $150 million, plus the P&A to support it.
You don’t have to look far – 2010 – to see a parade of overpriced films that were either losers, breakeven, or slightly profitable projects. Narnia 3, Robin Hood, The Last Airbender, Tron Legacy, Iron Man 2, Prince of Persia, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Gulliver’s Travels, Green Zone, The Wolfman…
I know… I know… THIS one will be different.
And that’s what every producer of every one of those films said in the meetings.
Snyder has been losing money for WB since 300… a relatively cheap project that took off. I have no idea where Sucker Punch is going, but if it goes down, he’ll have lost as much for the studio as he made for them on 300.
Altman? You’re kidding, right? He made MASH for little money and was coming off of a long TV career and getting a shot was not surprising. He went on to make 4 or 5 more better-than-breakeven movies in a career of more than 25 films. The studio is the only one that got rich on MASH… and only because they made the TV series.
Fincher was one of the top commercial and video directors alive when he did Se7en… and has also not been a cash cow for anyone. The next films will be his first big money makers in a while.
When you start throwing around the idea that $150m for an R-rated fantasy picture with artistic aspirations – why it might be great – is the the same as making The Godfather (massive current best seller… same strategy as Love Story) or Jaws (same), you are just being irrational.
Of course, we all know that most of the great franchises were not welcomed into studios with open arms. Taking chances is critical to making great movies. But as I wrote before, $150 million takes it out of the “let’s take a leap of faith on some great material” realm to a serious cash outlay that can’t be decided on emotionally if anyone expects to keep their job or stay in business.
I’m not sure why that doesn’t compute.
I’ve said it before… Nolan’s $70 million version of Inception might have been even better than the one he made.
You mention Jaws. The big expense was The Shark. But The Shark didn’t work! That is one of the things credited to making the film as great as it was… what you didn’t see!
You and others are responding like a studio was refusing to find The Hurt Locker or that Black Swan had to wait until the day before production started for Searchlight to sign on or that The Wachowskis only got half of $150m to make The Matrix.
All of those happened, of course.
There is a LOT to complain about within the studio system. “Waaaa… they wouldn’t fund a movie I had high hopes for to the tune of $150 million!” is not on that list. And it’s not reasonable to start putting it on that list.
You could tell me that Guillermo wanted to do a film in Spanish and I’d still be a bit pissed if a studio wouldn’t give him $30 million to do it. Pan’s Labyrinth (made for under $20m) did $83m worldwide. There should be no doubt.
$150 million? R? Lovecraft? Can’t rail against deciding not to do that. Can be disappointed, but angry at Universal for not tripling down on Scott Pilgrim? Sorry.
Del Toro is a fun director who gets fanboys hard but he puts out a very niche product. Giving him an R rated 150 million dollar budgeted film would be a mistake.
People talk about Cameron being involved. The last time Cameron teamed up with a popular indie avant-garde director we got Solaris.
I really liked Solaris. But Solaris ate it big time at the box office. Cameron’s involvement would help creatively, it’s not going to bring a dime to the box office bottom line. I’d like to submit my exhibit B, SANCTUM.
i actually just looked at Box Office Mojo and saw Sanctum made 71 million worldwide on a production budget of 30 million. That’s a lot better than i thought. But 23 million domestic sold on JAMES CAMERON PRESENTS isn’t exactly inspiring
This material at 150 million is a risk. Del Toro’s been given decent budgets and big tentpole style films and they end up being praised by the core but generally ignored by the mainstream.
So you got some really cool R rated material, a Director who is irrelevant in the equation of box office clout (face it, he has none)… the only reason i can see it being considered is Tom Cruise, who really needs a hit.
I don’t think this is it.
You’re not wrong to say “it’s not my 150 million” and hope it gets made. But no one else is wrong to say “this movie is a financial risk”
You’re both right.
Cruise could probably solve this whole mess by putting in a call to New BFF David Ellison’s indie-cred sister. Personally, I think Del Toro is perhaps the most over-hyped filmmaker currently working. Visually gifted, yes, but, basically like Tim Burton if Tim Burton had never made a hit.
Anghus – good call on Sanctum and Solaris. It does speak to how short Cameron’s tailcoats have become.
What’s being missed is GDT’s approach to the subject matter. R-rated Blood and gore could be edited if something goes wrong in testing or before the MPAA. R-rated terror and fear could not. The model for Madness should be Spielberg’s War of The Worlds. 130M budget, 500M worldwide gross, PG-13. If he’s looking to make a film scarier and costlier than that, he’s fuckin nuts. Once word got out that it’s not a Cruise adventure film but something more intense than WoTW, people will stay away.
I like GDT, but he stuck his career in neutral, no one else. If he wants to be avant garde, deal with 100M budgets. If he’s got the gluttony bug, which they all eventually do, then accept PG-13. His only other option is to get the rights and find some overseas money, India possibly, that wants to be associated with him, Cameron and Murphy. The money is not in L.A or with the hedge fronts. Tull’s learned not to bankroll these projects.
Otherwise, he needs to drop Pacific Rimjob and whatever else and just got do Haunted Mansion. That’s a win-win which allows him to work on Madness.
…and he’s crazy to stay at Uni. I don’t care how much he wants to remake Frankenstein, they wouldn’t greenlight his version of Creature From BTL and he’s been the only dude in the past fifteen years who’s remake could’ve surpassed the original.
One thing no one’s mentioning is that while the geeks have waited long and patiently for a “proper” Lovecraft adaption, hundreds of films have ripped off the essentials of Lovecraftian horror to one degree or another for ages.
So while a small minority will get a thrill when MovieVoiceOverMan deeply intones “From H.P. Lovecraft, Master of Horror” the majority of people won’t give a shit.
So what do you have instead? Creeepy tentacly (go Cthulhu GO!) things going bump while a increasingly paranoid/ terrified team try to discover/ escape/ destroy their way out. Even with Cruises’ pull and GDT’s brilliant touch it will still seem like “somewhat” familiar territory. Except the snow. Certainly not the “what IS this movie? I GOTTA check THAT OUT!” territory that some would imagine the film may be.
All in all, pretty shaky ground to be throwing $150 mill at. Especially when you have a Thing reboot shot and coming later this year that cost (I’m guessing) about $110 million less, that pushes very similar buttons.
This all coming from someone who loves Lovecraft and would be first in line to see the film. Even when Jimmy’s name got attached, I never thought the movie would get made. But who knows, Watchmen was in “on again, off again” development hell for how long before it got made? Oops…bad example.
Only because Mart-an just brought it up:
That CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON update that Uni’s been stifling for two decades is my most-want-to-see remake/geek thing EVER. Was stoked hearing that Carpenter was gonna do it, then Sommers, Del Toro…
WHY can they not. just. make. that fucking movie???
fwiw, i think comparing for example burton and del toro from a conceptual standpoint – both are artists with distinctive eyes who tend to imprint their movies with their own quirky visual sensibilities – is probably fair, but one thing that sets del toro apart from many other film-makers is that he almost always writes the actual screenplays for his movies, which makes him more entrenched in the vision/process of shaping his movies than burton or many others. burton for example no doubt has input on story and character to a certain degree depending on the production, but he doesn’t actually write his own movies; del toro is, as an accomplished screenwriter, perhaps a more ‘complete’ film-maker than some, but also perhaps riskier because what he brings to the table is a more pervasive individual vision from concept art to screenplay to direction – and i guess whether that is a good thing or a bad thing depends on who you ask.
Let me just throw in: VOLTRON MOVIE!
Showing my ignorance but you just mentioned Summit in an article, could this be their baby? How much of that $200M line of credit could they dip into on one film? What about Lionsgate? They’ve had success distributing R-Rated films. I realize the added scope we’re talking here but relative to scale, could they do for $100M what most studios would require $150 or $200M?
Germany’s been ponying up larger budgeted films, what would it take from a production/creative standpoint to get say $40-$50M over there? If he tried to make it outside of a major, do you think there’d be an added risk of even bringing it in as an R? Not saying they’re really bad but if Jurassic Park or Dark Knight had been rated R, I wouldn’t have walked out wondering why. Others have talked about the sliding scale of ratings on majors vs others. When he says “$150M and an R,” would studios automatically be thinking $180M and an NC-17″?
I like your post, Martin S, (as per usual), the only thing I’d question would be if it was really the gore and intensity that caused War/Worlds to fizzle. That movie had so many things wrong with it, I don’t think Cruise’s normal role or showers of blood would’ve cracked my top ten.
I totally get why Uni or anyone would say no. If it’s really a dream project, I wish he’d find a way to get it done.
Re Fincher: According to Box Office Mojo, BEN BUTTON had a WW gross of $334 million on a budget of $150 mill. Maybe not PARANORMAL numbers but seems like a pretty profitable film to me.
LAGOON POWER. MAKE THE LAGOON.
For real. PLEASE. Sommers or Carpenter would’ve KILLED it.
Cadavra,
Remember that cinemas keep roughly half the revenue and then you have marketing costs etc.
I wonder what Cruise was asking
I would LOVE to someday see a GDT version of At the Mountains of Madness but all the current news about this project (from the skyrocketing budget to the rumored casting of Tom Cruise) looked like a film going off the rails.
I think GDT does his best work when he’s given limitations and I just don’t think this story works as a bloated star-driven CGI-filled tentpole. It’s a tale of creeping dread and nothing kills creeping dread more than glossy CGI effects and a “star” who would constantly take you out of the movie every time he opens his mouth.
This film would be so much better if GDT figured out a way to do it on a 30-40 million budget with ZERO big-name stars in the lead roles.
Too low a budget with too obscure actors on a famous book gives you Atlas Shrugged.
They’re going to have to revisit this in a year. After MI4 Cruise will be back on top and a studio won’t mind the budget or he will be dropping his price across the board and this film will be more affordable. Right now any Tom Cruise movie budgeted at $150 million, rating and subject matter aside, is a large risk.
David, I don’t want to take you on again in a battle of the wits since I don’t like to fight unarmed men. But in your endless desire to fill the world with negativity you leave out facts.
FACT- On the Tuesday before they approved the script.
FACT- The $150m was the number we were asked to hit. We did. On the Tuesday before they said they liked the budget a lot.
FACT- GDT had held to the R Rating since last May. They knew what it was, he never wavered, they cannot feign surprise.
FACT- On the Thursday they called GDT’s agent, not him, and said “We can’t make this now we don’t have the money.”
Now you can say he is crazy, delusional, costing more than Pilgrim (which cost $75m btw and starred nobody)- say whatever you want to. We had every reason to believe we were starting the movie in two weeks because they said we were. We had crews in Toronto for god’s sake. They changed their mind AFTER already saying yes.
For that and that alone they should be chastised. Had they said no way to an R 7 months ago we wouldn’t be where we are.
Triple – appreciated.
Lex – The CFTBL remake is a docu unto itself.
“Hey, the 30th 3D anniversary is coming back. What do we make CFTBL as ET or Jaws 3D?”
“Hey, Carpenter wants to remake CFTBL! Hopefully it will be like Congo and Jurassic Park! Scary Fun!
Hey, Carpenter’s looking to make a bookend to The Thing. The Creature lives in a underwater Mezo sacrificial temple. Uhhhh…
Hey, Ivan Reitman wants to do CFT Black Lagoon with Eddie Murphy. It’s an eco film that forces the Creature into the Projects! It will be like black Ghostbusters!
Hey, Reitman’s take is stereotypical and offensive. Uh-oh!
“Hey, The Mummy did well, so let’s turn CFTBL into Romancing The Creature’s Jewels In The Black Lagoon”.
“Hey, The Mummy 3 and Van Helsing stunk. Stop Sommers before he kills again!”
“Hey, GDT can make Hellboyish monsters that are fun and weird. And he speaks Spanish! Let’s give CFTBL!”
Hey, GDT really wants to play up the Mezo American/Latin/Spanish thing. Uhhhh…”
“Hey, Breck Eisner is doing Sahara. That’s like The Mummy. Give him CFTBL!”
“Hey, Breck Eisner almost destroyed Hollywood! Stop the remake!”
“Hey, Ridley’s son-in-law just got bumped from the Alien reboot. Alien is like CFTBL! Let’s give it to him and hope it’s Alien on the Amazon! Yeah that would make Creature a ripoff of Predator but they ripped CFTBL off first, so now we’re even”.
The latest discussion is most likely – “Hey, that Wolfman really didn’t play, but 3D is hot…”
It appears De Luca’s Dracula: Year Zero with Proyas and Worthington will be next. Worthington as Vlad…
Don – I agree that’s bullshit, especially with offices in place, but didn’t the year-long tectonic activity of GE/NBCU make you question everything they said? Especially a horror film, post-Wolfman? Last May, if I had someone at Uni pat me on the back and say “everything’s fine”, I’d chuckle.
Dday: I haven’t forgotten. DVD, television, non-theatrical, et al, pay for the rest. The rule-of-thumb is that if you gross (not net) around 55% of your production budget in WW theatrical, you will show a profit unless you have given away half the gross to talent. I imagine only Pitt and Fincher fall into that category on BB, so there should still be plenty of dough for everyone.
Don… I don’t disagree with anything you wrote, aside from the unnecessary slaps at me. Nor have I written anything that counters anything you wrote.
I didn’t realize you were 2 weeks out from the start of production. You’re right. Ridiculous.
It’s terrible for Guillermo and you. Certainly choices were made that also affect other choices by each of you in your careers as well.
But the position I am asserting speaks to the overall idea, which I have been reading over and over again this week in the media… that this is some dark turn for the industry because they decided – however they decided – not to make this film… that the Guillermo/Jim/Tom is above being priced out… just as Fox was attacked, initially, for passing on the project late in the game (not this late) with Carrey, Stiller, and Roach.
These are really two separate conversations. One is how Universal fucked you guys by saying “yes” 50 times and then saying, very late in the game, “no.”
The other is the question of whether $150m movies are a good business for studios right now without some very oft-repeated elements of success – as in, would Transformers ever have moved forward at that budget without Bay or one of 3 or 4 other directors? – or is pulling back the reins a form of sanity?
And there is a third question, really… does anyone think the order to pull the plug come from anywhere but Comcast?
But again… I don’t seem to have written what you think I wrote. If the case the media was selling was, “Universal shuts down a big movie at the last minute… is anyone in control over there?,” I would have been writing a different piece. But it’s “How dare they stop art from happening, no matter what the price?” And with all the love I have for Guillermo and the enormous respect I have for Jim… and even a pleasure to see you in the trenches doing what you love no matter how much of a pain in the ass you can be… I just don’t see that issue that way.
Martin- you always have to believe what they say- what other choice do you have?
David- I did read what you wrote. It is a strong and valid point. MY point was that it does not apply in this instance. They didn’t say it was because of the rating. They knew the rating when they took it 9 months ago. They didn’t say it was because of the script. It’s a great script. They didn’t say it was because of the budget. They said it was because they don’t have the money. And it is a bit late in the day to offer that as an explanation, methinks.
Wow. They cried broke with two weeks to go. Yeah that’s a real classy fucking way to do business.
Like chairsmissing pointed out, there’s a lot of “gee, but the corporation has the right” justification going on here. Kind of depressing but this sense of being bullied into submission is a part of the American fabric these days, also represented by He Who Shall Not Be Named’s various apologists here. I’m glad Murphy came on with the actual info.
Maybe the box office lesson of Hellboy II gave Universal the willies. Its second weekend drop is one of the biggest in history (yes, TDK opened, but still).
Or all their money has been soaked up by Battleship.
BATTLESHIP — with aliens.
Here’s a check for 200 million!
i love to bee a movie star to help one and all & may god love one all if you need may phone is 540-312-1427 ask for gary
Yes, Don… very late… and shitty.
You should have been warned, even if it was embarrassing for them to admit there might be a problem.
And if Kabletown was paying the bills 9 months ago or wasn’t signing checks today, it might even be surprising.
Sucks. Big time.
One has to wonder if you will be happy when they are all fired next year.
I called gary. It’s a Virginia number, but luckily my cell plan has unlimited long distance minutes. But even with God’s love guiding him, gary couldn’t help me understand how I was somehow bullied into not being offended by “He Who Shall Not Be Named.” But at least I’m part of the American fabric. Go USA!
David
One is never happy when people lose their jobs.
Christian
The street says you are short by close to $160m.
Asking for a $150mil budget and then saying you can’t afford it is… odd. Did the merger do a serious number on their liquidity? You have to wonder about their ability to fund the rest of their slate, or if Battleship is having some MAJOR overruns.
If the problem is down in financing, then the execs that Don and GDT were dealing with are guilty of just not doing due diligence. Red faces all around, but (hopefully) not a conspiracy – it’ll still make producers wary in the near future though.
I will chime in briefly as an unapologetic Lovecraft nerd who has been dry-humping his Cthulhu plushie in anticipation of this movie. My question is: wasn’t this going to be in 3D? Did that change somewhere before the plug was pulled because I haven’t seen any mentions of it. If the $150 million price tag was ATMOM in 3D then I have to say that even as a defender of 3D….fuck 3D. You don’t need it. 3D would make it LESS frightning. It doesn’t need it. How much does that knock off the price-tag??? A lot I suspect. Again, if they dropped the 3D thing and I am just being ignorant, forgive me. But if GDT insisted on doing it in 3D even when the numbers got so high, then he’s kind of a douche here. It doesn’t need it. And if his dream version of one of my favorite pieces of literature of all-time is 3D or nothing then fuck it. Give it to Stuart Gordan and Charles Band, give them $2 million, and send me a VHS copy when it’s done. That’ll be closer to what it should be.
As for Cruise…weird he’d be interested in a movie about ancient alien gods secretly running the planet. Har har.
Before I get verbally slayed, my above post was with all due respect, Don Murphy. I sorta missed that you chimed in on the discussion. If you come back to this discussion perhaps you can comment on why you guys believed it should be is 3D, and maybe how that effected the cost. If they just “don’t have the money” then that’s another ball of wax I suppose. But if it WASN’T going to be filmed in Real D….would those offices in Tornto GDT mentioned were close to opening be open? Just curious. I’m just a stooge here so forgive me. I suppose after 9 months of story-boarding and prepping for 3D that backing off at this point may not have been an option. Just interested.
love the 30 Rock reference. what a great show. it sucks that the plug got pulled that late in the game. on an infinitely smaller level, i know how that feels, and it sucks to watch something you poured so much time and energy into fall apart because of someone else’s stupidity.
Don – you always have to believe what they say- what other choice do you have?
Kavanaugh?
Clean Steve- the 3D came from Cameron and everybody agreed it was a great idea. It might have saved $20 million but the upside was way more than that. 3D was still in the plan. It had zero to do with why the plug was pulled.
doveryai, no proveryai
This story is crazy and I too am annoyed the film had a green light and then the plug was pulled. Since it’s “crazy M-Fing Lawsuit Week,” I wonder if the other Scientology shoe is about to drop and Universal, backed off because Cruise is about to get hammered? Would make some sense to me…
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