Good one, Hollywood: I nearly believed you when you said you lost money on HARRY POTTER 5
Jul 07
Whenever I explain to people that big movie studios (like Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount, etc.) don’t make much annual profit (relatively speaking), I’m usually met with blank stares or open incredulity. “But Tentpole: The Movie: Sequel #3 made $xxx million!” they say; “of course they make billions of dollars every year!”
That’s not actually the case. Why? Because, while Tentpole 4 made $xxx million at the box office, making back triple its budget, Overlooked Indie Drama, Mid-Tier Director’s Passion Project, Small-Time Fantasy Epic For The Kids and Star-Driven Comedy Vehicle failed to make their double-digit budgets back.
Net profit at the end of the year? Out of a $10 billion gross revenue, a studio might expect to see $800 million — before tax and expenses. That’s 8%. And that 8% has to be used next year to fund a whole raft of projects, big and small, in the hopes of increasing the total revenue, and thereby increasing the actual money that flows into the studio’s coffers.
Confusing this issue is Hollywood’s annoying habit of fudging paperwork. A fresh example of this is a leaked document from Warner Bros. indicating that Harry Potter 5 ( … And The Order Of The Phoenix, 2007) actually lost the company $167 million despite a $938 million gross revenue.
As the insiders at Deadline helpfully point out, a vast percentage of the expenses are in interest owed to money-lenders (about $57 million); the report doesn’t specify who the money’s owed to, though: did Warner Bros. borrow it from a bank or just “lend themselves” the money? In the case of the latter, that “interest” is pure profit, but counts as a negative on this balance sheet.
Why bother lying to the world and covering up your profits? To avoid paying royalties and per-dollar contracts based on net profit. If you sign a contract with an actor to pay them 5% of all net profit, the actor’s going to think “Gee whiz, thanks Mister, I’m going to be rich when this movie banks a billion bucks!” Little does she know, the accountants find a way to balance the budget into the negative, by arbitrarily inflating expenditures, to avoid paying the actor a blessed cent (beyond her up-front salary).
Upon reading about this financial tom-foolery, I dug a little bit deeper and found that this kind of thing has been going on for decades. Here are just a few examples poached from Wikipedia:
- Stan Lee, creator of Spider-Man, successfully sued Sony when they refused to pay him any of the first film’s profits, claiming a net loss (budget: $140 million; gross: $821 million).
- Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump, refused to sell the rights to his sequel after Paramount failed to pay him royalties, claiming a net loss (budget: $55 million; gross: $677 million).
- Art Buchwald, whose 1982 script led to the 1988 Eddie Murphy vehicle Coming To America, successfully sued Paramount when he wasn’t paid for his involvement; again, Paramount claimed a net loss (budget: <$35 million; profit: $350 million).
- J Michael Straczynski, creator, producer, and lead writer of TV’s Babylon 5, was massively underpaid according to his contract, despite the show’s greater-than $1 billion worth. Quoth he: “Basically, by the terms of my contract, if a set on a WB movie burns down in Botswana, they can charge it against B5′s profits.” Warner Bros. claims that the B5 property is $80 million in debt.
- Peter Jackson and his studio Wingnut Films, fifteen different actors, and the Tolkien estate have all tried to sue New Line Cinema at one time or another, as New Line failed to honour contracts based on the mammoth Lord Of The Rings franchise, which grossed over $6 billion.
Besides cementing the greedy and detached stereotype attached to Hollywood executives, what does this fraudulent documentation mean at a ground level? It means that filmmakers who choose a percent-per-dollar salary over an up-front sum are being swindled (unless their name is Steven Spielberg), and it means that no-name contributors who have a big effect on a movie are being criminally cheated out of compensation.
This comes hot on the heels of news that the big three Twilight stars (Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner) are being paid $25 million each to appear in the two-part finale, Breaking Dawn, and that Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter himself) is being paid $50 million to appear in his own two-part finale; that’s proof enough that studios have spare cash to throw down in order to secure things they really need — i.e. bankable faces — but are much more thrifty with their behind-the-scenes dealings.
Don’t get me wrong — I love a big spectacle movie like Lord Of The Rings or Star Trek as much as the next fellow, and it’s hard to imagine a cinema experience completely divorced from the Hollywood machine. But sometimes I wish there was a little more justice in the world, you know?
It’s kind of like that cliche guff from Spider-Man: with great power comes great responsibility. Maybe that should be amended to: With great bundles of cash comes the responsibility to pay people what you owe them, you greedy bastards.
HARRY POTTER 7 poster looks like something from a video game; new teaser is full of boring scenes
Jul 03
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows is the big climax of the 7-book cycle. The climax of the climax, as it were, is a large-scale assault on Harry’s school, Hogwarts (er, spoilers). The poster is keen to reveal that to everyone, and also to pay homage to one of best video games of the 90s:
It even looks like it was rendered by the Nintendo 64!
For your trouble I’ll even throw in the Deathly Hallows teaser someone ripped from the new Lego Harry Potter game. It features clips from that extraneous Ministry infiltration scene, footage of that annoying goblin character, and a snippet of that boring graveyard scene. So, not a very good trailer, then, but at least Hermione’s hand has blood on it this time, eh?
I appreciated that this teaser didn’t constantly fade to black and burst my eardrums with epic chanting though, that’s a nice change from the official trailer. Apologies for the hilariously awkward face Daniel Radcliffe is pulling in the Youtube preview image:
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS trailer paradoxically short on plot, long on spoilers
Jun 29
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film trailer open with the climactic finale of the film. Even the most hardened of film cynics would refer to showing the third-act showdown between lifelong arch-enemies in the trailer as ‘slightly spoilerish,’ but I guess Harry Potter gets a free pass because every single person in the entire world has already read the books and knows what’s going to happen anyway.
Other than that, the trailer’s edited fairly well, and I had a generally good time until it reminded me that I was supposed to “Complete The Journey in 3D.” Er, no thanks. Part 1 hits later this year (2010), with Part 2 debuting in a year’s time (Winter 2011).
Call Sheet: Matt Damon, Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges, Bruce Willis, Gweneth Paltrow, Neil Patrick Harris
Jun 28
Call Sheet: A weekly run-down of movie casting news and rumours from around the web.
- Variety reckons Matt Damon is in talks to join Cameron Crowe’s Zoo, based on Benjamin Mee’s bestselling memoir We Bought a Zoo. Damon would play Benjamin Mee, a widowed father who buys a dilapidated zoo in the English countryside. Intense action ensues.
- Moviehole recently talked with Major League writer/director David S Ward who revealed that he hopes Charlie Sheen would return to play Wild Thing in Major League 4.
- “Wild Thing comes out of retirement to work with this 19-year-old player. We’ve actually got three new characters in the new film. And if the new film is popular, they could carry the franchise on.”
- Variety reports that Daniel Radcliffe (erm, Harry Potter) is set to star in a new version of the classic novel All Quiet on the Western Front which is on track to shoot in the spring of 2012. Meanwhile, I wonder who’ll play the new Harry Potter in the bound-to-happen spin-off movies?
- Deadline reveals that City of God director Fernando Meirelles will direct a film called 360, written by Peter Morgan. Will he ever be able to match City of God?
- The Wrap seem to think Mike Nichols is in negotiations to direct Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges as a married couple in Great Hope Springs.
- THR (via Slashfilm) report that Wayne Kramer is looking to direct Pretty Boy Floyd, a film about bank robber Charles Arthur ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd.
- Robin Hare wrote about Michael Fassbender choosing X-Men: First Class over the Spider-Man reboot. Nice to be some.
- THR reports Michael Shannon and Jamie Chung are in talks to join the action-thriller film Premium Rush, being directed by David Koepp. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is already attached.
- According to Slashfilm, M. Night Shyamalan is shopping his next script around Hollywood with Bruce Willis, Gweneth Paltrow and Bradley Cooper rumoured to be attached. There’s hardly anything else about the project available at the moment– not even a logline or a title.
- Slashfilm reports that Imogen Poots has joined Toni Collette and Colin Farrell for the remake of the 1985 vampire film Fright Night. I wonder if this would still be happening without Twilight being so popular?
- Slashfilm reports that Neil Patrick Harris has confirmed he will appear in A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas. I guess fans of the franchise and Neil are excited by this, but it’s hardly surprising.
- 20th Century Fox revealed that John Lithgow has signed on to join Planet of the Apes prequel Rise of the Apes. James Franco is already attached and Don Cheadle is rumoured to be negotiating. Hands-up if you only know Lithgow as the Dad in 3rd Rock From The Sun? Shame on you… go rent Harry And The Hendersons.
- Slashfilm reports that Pierce Brosnan and his son Sean Brosnan are teaming up to co-star in a film called Bonded, which will see them in an “Oliver Twist-esque” thriller based on a story that took place in California in the early ’90s… I guess the Men-Expert ads didn’t pay enough?
- Due to scheduling conflicts Lake Bell had to leave Scream 4 just days before production got under way. I’m not sure that’ll make much of a difference to the film, it’s just a pain in the ass for the production. Here’s a saucy picture of her, anyway:
First HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 teaser hits the web
Jun 08
After six years of the Hogwarts formula, six years of school, bullies, magic, exams and the usual end-of-year biffo with Voldemort, book 7 suddenly changed the formula and Harry went on the lam, gallavanting around the countryside in an effort to avoid detection by Voldemort. This, combined with the goofy ending (which I predicted halfway through book 4), is what made the last Harry Potter book one of the weakest.
This new trailer reflects that, and focuses more on the rugged British countryside, brooding performances, gloomy menace, and Emma Watson in a red dress, rather than the kind-of-dull plot. One thing caught my eye here — the photography seems a lot more clear and traditional; I couldn’t stand Bruno Delbonnel’s photography in Harry Potter 6, it was like watching the movie through a foggy swimming pool.
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 is due in November 2010; Part 2 will hit us in July 2011. Expect them to be in all three dimensions.
OPINIONS COUNT