The Hot Blog Archive for August, 2007
The Video Of Doom?
There is more video at IndianaJones.com… but what really strikes me, with due respect to the power of the internet, in which I obviously believe, is the question of whether the Rings/Kong/Superman on-set online schtick means a damned thing to the movie anymore.
Obviously, there are a lot of big time fans out there who wet their pants every time there is any footage or even a cap nod to their favorites… but they are the most pre-sold of pre-sold audiences.
So riddle me this… is the time and money being spent on these efforts doing anything but setting up expectations that can be shot down with backlash in a few months… only to be lashed back by marketing mega-dollars a month or two later?
International Relations
Interesting to take a look at Variety‘s report on the international box office…
Pirates 3 is now the biggest grosser outside of North America of the trilogy.
Potter 5 now looks like it will be the #3 Potter film worldwide.
The Simpsons has $230 million international, significantly more than at home.
Transformers has done surprisingly well overseas, with $328 million, topping the domestic gross.
Life Free or Die Hard has grossed $204 million overseas, making it the 7th highest grosser of the summer worldwide, leapfrogging Knocked Up and Ratatouille, though The Rat is out in fewer than half their international markets and should jump past DH4 before year end.
Ocean’s 13 is closing in on $300 million worldwide.
One Last Thought On The NL Commotion
Ironically, New Line is a truly old school business. The new model has the dozen-plus privately funded production companies funding the kind of under-$20m budget movies that have been New Line’s signature since the beginning and the distributors, like New Line, simply making money on marketing and distribution.
The greater irony? It is the expenditures on the potentially big movies, Rush Hour 3 and The Golden Compass, that put the company at the most risk.
The rest…
Box Office Hell – Thursday, Aug 9
UPDATED – Friday, 7:36a pdt
The most interesting thing about the Rush Hour series is that it has never been that big overseas. Though it is sold as an action film, it is a comedy of misunderstanding, which requires some language barriers to be overcome. And much as we in America hate to discuss it, Chris Tucker is Black and Black doesn’t sell very well overseas. It also doesn’t help that Jackie Chan is much more overexposed in the rest of the world than he is here in America… and that Tucker has done nothing to make himself more of a world commodity in the years since RH2. All that said, look for the film to do $150m in the rest of the world, meaning that $100 million domestic will put the overly expensive effort into the black… and over that is gravy. (This does not mean that New Line will be happy with less than $200 million or that Russell Schwartz will not somewhat unfairly absorb the heat all the way from Fiji or wherever he is putting his feet up this weekend for that if they don’t.)
And for the record, the Rush Hour 2 opening was $67.4 million on August 3 weekend, 2001.
Stardust is almost fully funded by overseas money and Paramount is treating it like something they found on their shoe, much as they did Perfume. They are spending more on ads, by contractual obligation, but the answer to whether Stardust is a flop or not will be found overseas, not here… a fact about which the folks who made the movie are completely aware. The biggest problem with that, however, is that unlike Perfume, the film is not going out to the world until after the U.S. and it could be tainted as a flop here.
The irony of Daddy Day Care is that this sequel to the much critic-killed comedy is so cheap that they will come close to profit this weekend (calculating in ancillaries) if they open anywhere near these projections.
Transformers will hit $300 million tomorrow on its way to doing 2x the total of its first six days.
Evan Almighty is not going to make it to $100 million… and it looks like Universal is not going to attempt extraordinary measures to get it there.
Sicko is fighting to pass An Inconvenient Truth to be the #4 doc box office film… and will probably just get over the finish line… expect some drama or another to rear up before the month is out.
More From The Road
Just how much does Starbucks make on your grande latte?
A cool spot in South Carolina today.
Sweet relief.
Luke Saves The Day
A nice get by a Hot Blog regular… here is the piece that goes with this cover art…
Oh, It Hurts
This is that brutal time of year when people get really stupid when they feel a need to pump something out into the news cycle… because there just isn’t much legitimate news.
This is when stupid forecast reports from companies who don’t know the film industry from their rectal cavities start blossoming. And truly moronic notions start floating through blogs, sites, and major media outlets. Oh, how proud it makes me to be a journalist some days!
In the naked effort to make something out of nothing, all kinds of hyperbole and spin turns up. For instance, if you are going to make comments on how movies are made, it would be good to have some idea how movies are made. If you are going to make comments on industry trends, it is good to have some point of reference other than what sold and how it sold last year.
Buckle up… a storm o’ excrement is coming.
Two New Lunches With David
Nikki Blonsky and Elijah Kelley from Hairspray sit down for a chat… here
Director/Writer David Stenn, whose Girl 27 is now in theaters, talks about old Hollywood and new Lo-hans… click here
Giant Animals From The 50's Attack Myrtle Beach
A New Low
Is this the single stupidest New York Times story on the film business in history?
“At a time when the likes of Paramount and Warner Brothers are having trouble turning a profit on movies that gross $200 million at the box office…”
Oh… you mean at a time when idiots greenlight movies with budgets over $200 million and also make deals to give away major chucks of the gross? So, the profit participants who are not being paid three or more times the average cost of writing these pictures and who have no budget control should pay for that?
Any asshole – and you would have to be an asshole to make this argument if you knew anything at all about the situation – that would use a phrase like “divine right” about residuals is not worth even a brief passing chat. Residuals ARE a part of the payment system. If product is being sold or broadcast, ther is money coming in for that film and thus, money to share. Studios should pay the stars, producers, and directors a piece of every form of ancillary income, but not the writers or non-backend actors? That is the answer to the financial woes of some pictures?
And as is, the residual system is really screwed up. The battle over credits by writers has a lot to do with residuals as well as added payments… which makes those choices which seem to be arbitrary by WGA arbitration panels a brutality to professional writers.
If studios want to pay significantly more upfront, people will live with that. If they want to make writers and actors real partners with the chance of real money from successful films, people will live with that.
And again, for the record, I think a non-residual system can work. But not as a cost to the writers and actors who are already being squeezed out of the middle class that existed and into only upper, lower and non-working classes. If studios are willing to get serious about risk and reward, there are answers. But what I see is studios trying to get away without paying for the many ancillary uses of films and TV shows, more and more of which are not monetized in traditional ways, but are being used to the benefit of the complex corporations that own the studios.
“A strike, of course, would cripple both sides. So, as the battle over residuals boils over, perhaps writers and producers should heed the advice of someone who is both, Woody Allen: Take the money and run,” the closer of the piece, is spectacularly infuriating. Who the FUCK is Brooks Barnes or the NY Times to patronize either side with shit like that?
Sorry to be so dramatic, but it reminds me of Broadcast News, where the new anchor says (paraphrasing here) at the end of a news alert, “I think we’ll all be okay” and the veteran producer says, “Who cares what he thinks?”
Studios are taking the money and running. There is no question that the writers and actors both have some issues that are overstated. For instance, free internet repeat broadcasting of a network show cannot have a residual structure like a network broadcast. But there are sponsors and there is some financial benefit (if not cash) changing hands. In time, those netcasts may generate more. What is the far answer to that? It is NOT, “take the money and run.”
I really have no problem with any paper examining the notion that residuals are an old, flawed idea. But this simplistic treatment slaps professionals in the face with an arrogance that I find truly rancid. Would anyone dare to be so blithe with the New York Times and its place in the world and be accepted by the paper? Of course not.
The most interesting thing about this dumb piece is that it probably as disliked by the studio-side advocates of dumping residuals as it is by the unions… because it sells the kind of blind ignorance that can actually strengthen the rank and file resolve in two unions that have proven to be far to easily shattered in the past.
Travelling Room
Again, on the move today… here’s some room to roam…
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