April 26, 2024
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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
Kudos to Universal for marketing the shit out of this movie even though I never had any desire to see it. Interesting observation: they are able to now put up Disney/Pixar numbers with their animated properties yet seem to be spending less than half of what Disney is spending each film…..how is that possible?
Look at their animation and story quality. Illumination has yet to even attempt the levels that Pixar and Disney achieve. A successful business model to be sure but also one that produces rather forgettable movies.
They export a lot of their production to France. Agreed, big tip of the hat to them for this opening, which is in actuality their first non-DESPICABLE ME hit (yes, Lorax made money, but not a lot. HOP was a miss). Blue Sky, which is really more comparable to Illumination, needed years to do break out from ICE AGE with RIO and was never able to replicate that again. Illumination is doubling up with SING in December, which has been barely sold in comparison to this, so it’ll be interesting to see if they can succeed without hitting consumers over the head marketing-wise.
Yay, Mega-Movie #7 of 2016. A mega-movie per month, keeps prognosticators from speculating on a hunch!
Hop wasn’t a miss, and Lorax made a lot of money.
While The Secret Life of Pets is amusing enough but definitely pretty forgettable, I’ve never heard my 8-year-old laugh so hard in his life. He was in hysterics. So was every other kid present. He also absolutely loves Minions and the Despicable Me movies. Illumination sure seems to know how to make 8-year-olds very, very happy. Also, and obviously this is only one kid, but he passed on seeing Zootopia and Finding Dory in theaters but begged to see Pets.
Lorax did $200 plus domestically in March which is pretty impressive but did only about another $100 million more overseas…..still only for $70 million budget.
“Hop wasn’t a miss, and Lorax made a lot of money.”
HOP is an unequivocal cash-grab, dated pop-culture consumarist piece of garbage, and likely lost money for the studio.
Re: Lorax, Studios don’t release marketing budgets, but we always acknowledge Illume spends a lot more on marketing than is normal. Regardless here’s your top March worldwide animated grossers:
1. Zootopia
2. Ice Age 2
3. The Croods
4. How To Train Your Dragon
5. Home
6. Ice Age
7. Monsters v Aliens
8. The Lorax
It made more than Monsters vs. Aliens, which is considered a commercial misfire, and maybe a bit more than “Home,” which is considered a “stopped the bleeding” proposition for DWA, but this is not a “lot” of money for a wide major-studio animated March release. It did fine.
Hop didn’t lose money for Universal, and the Lorax did, in fact, make a lot of money for them. I know you love jumping in immediately to talk finance, profit, etc., but you don’t always know what you’re talking about.
The go-to response of people who have trouble with arithmetic on this blog is to vaguely refer to their conveniently unprovable insider knowledge. Universal likely made up the money Illumination lost on HOP with ancillaries.
Not sure what you’re getting at EtGuild but I can only speak for myself and I’m going on official numbers reported:
Hop cost $63 million to make and made $184 million worldwide.
The Lorax cost $70 million to make and made $349 million worldwide.
Neither of those seem to be actual money losers though Hop is on the borderline if they understated the budget a bit.
Right around the same time (2011-2012) those came out, Disney released Mars Needs Moms which $150 million and made $39 million worldwide……THAT’S a significant money loser and it was released in March as well.
Disney’s having a record-breaking year no one is disputing it….but there’s no need to put them on this elevated plane WAY above the competition, even when it comes to animation when there is no subjective nor objective criteria to really back that up. And when it comes to quality (which is obviously subjective), Pixar has been as hit-or-miss as any other studio the past five years since the Disney acquisition: Cars 2, Brave, Monsters University, Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur, and now Finding Dory.
What I’m not clear on is how now that Disney/Pixar are under the same umbrella with the same leadership and they’re probably cranking 2 to 3 of these films out on a yearly basis – and these are folks who have been doing it for DECADES – is how they are STILL spending much more than all competitors except for Dreamworks, though they’re getting a much better ROI than Dreamworks. It’s just bizarre: The Lego Movie cost a bit over $60 million to make while Wreck-it-Ralph cost three times that….I’m not seeing where the extra money is being spent to be honest.
HOP likely delivered about $90 million back to Universal at the box office, meaning they’re still in the hole for marketing. Kids probably like slacker bunnies enough to make up for this in toys and home market rights, thankfully. Perhaps Tracker Bracker is aware of some tax write-off from Rabbit Planet, or wherever it was made that I’m not. But I never get the need to gesture toward some unknown on an old movie as if it’s some state secret.
So HOP making about three times its production costs back in April 2011 earns a demerit for Illumination yet Mars Needs Moms making less than a third of its large budget is NOT a reflection on Disney?? Mars Needs Moms came out three weeks before HOP….guess they just missed the cut-off. 😉
I have no idea what Uni budgeted on marketing obviously, but it was almost certainly a standard nine-figure spend. “Three times production” is misleading unless you’re talking blockbusters.
Where did I say MARS wasn’t a black eye for Disney and what does that have to do with anything? I call a spade a spade as much as possible, and was always hugely critical of Zemeckis’ ImageMovers Digital venture with Disney. I thank my lucky stars we weren’t subjected to his YELLOW SUBMARINE remake. CHRISTMAS CAROL was straight up terrifying for the kids in my theater. Here’s what I said on this blog back in 2011 when I was EthanG:
“Yeah I’m not sure how the “Mars” opening is anything short of disastrous…the worst since “Nutcracker 3D” last year. Basically reset what had been a good start to the year for Disney.”
http://moviecitynews.com/2011/03/weekend-estimates-by-l-a-klady/#comments
Et, please add in non theatrical (TV/Netflix/etc) revenues. Assuming Hop did bring in $90m in theatrical revenues $60m in production costs +$50m in advertising leaves they are $20m in the hole. $25m in non theatrical puts them into profit, not to mention all FUTURE non-theatrical revenue. 30 years from now TCM will be paying them for rights. 🙂
Was there this much discussion about HOP during its release?
Meanwhile, my suburban arthouse reported that its 3-film split screen – the one with the 9:40 a.m. showing only of DHEEPAN- was its top-grossing screen last week. So DHEEPAN remains this week, still at 9:40 a.m. only. It’s pretty great,as I’m sure the 5 other people at last Saturday morning’s screening would agree.
@Sarcastic, if Universal decided to release my 5th Birthday Party home video into 4,000 theatres, they would probably spend more than $50 million in P&A costs 🙂 But yaaaaas.
I’LL try again to get some discussion going about something other than the top-grossing film of the weekend.
Anyone know what THE INNOCENTS did yesterday? I look for arthouse grosses of films that have expanded to my market, and when they’re not reported, think the reason must be because the numbers are underwhelming. Fair?
Only new indies are reported
Saturday. Expansions on Sunday
If they are significant
Box office MOJO pretty much will report
All indies when actuals are posted on Monday afternoon as long as they are reporting gross
Thanks, Brent. I’ve never picked up on that for some reason. This is helpful.