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.
THE HOBBIT continues to go nowhere: director quits
May 31
The reason why we haven’t posted a single word on The Hobbit (prequels to Peter Jackson’s monster Lord Of The Rings trilogy) is because every irregular sliver of news has been boring, fluffy, or repetitious of previous news that nothing is happening. To summarise the few nuggets of real information so far exposed: Jackson and LOTR team writing; Guillermo del Toro directing; Andy Serkis, Ian McKellen and possibly Viggo Mortensen set to reprise characters from trilogy; progress stymied by studio MGM’s collapse (MGM has / had the rights to LOTR.) Project indefinitely delayed.
Now del Toro has finally thrown in the towel. It seems all that waiting around for nothing to happen has finally gotten to him. He spent 2 years designing and planning this movie, so quitting must be hard, but with no shooting schedule in sight I’d probably be running for the hills as well. Read his full statement at the link. Who will take del Toro’s place? When will The Hobbit finally start shooting? And do we even care any more?
Ridley Scott planning ALIEN prequels … in 3D
Apr 26
This news has been kicking around for a while, so it’s about time we weighed in on it with our take. It seems almost too good to be true, doesn’t it? That Ridley Scott would return to the Alien universe three decades later and shoot a prequel — or two — himself? After 25 years of crappy sequels and woeful crossovers, the guy who kicked the whole franchise off is coming back to reinvent the series himself. That’s remarkably good news.
The “What?” news is that he’s shooting in 3D. I never would’ve imagined Ridley Scott going 3D, but he’s joining the likes of Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Martin Scorsese and choosing the format for his next picture. I’m still sceptical on the whole 3D thing, but I guess I’ll withold final judgment until all these films (Tintin, The Invention Of Hugo Cabret, and the Alien prequels) come out.
In a recent interview with Collider, Ridley Scott discusses the technical differences of shooting in 3D and how they affect the dark, moody style he adopted for the first Alien film. 3D films are digital by necessity, and shooting digital is a very different enterprise to shooting on film, and it’s good to hear Scott calmly chat about how he’s going to set about maintaining his perfectionist vision in these prequels.
Scott has also confirmed that the prequels will set out to explore who / what the “Space Jockey” (the big dead guy in the chair in the first xenomorph flick) is, and will again feature a female protagonist (but not Ripley, obviously). I’m not hugely fond of the first Alien (I think James Cameron’s sequel is where the party’s at, personally), and that Space Jockey thing helped set up the mystery and horror of the film for me, so I’m not sure going back and explaining it is such a good idea — sounds like the reboot of The Thing, now I think about it.
Scott reckons we should keep an eye out for the first Alien prequel in late 2011 / early 2012. I reckon we should keep an eye on Ridley Scott’s sanity. When have you ever known him to shoot a prequel, let alone two in a row, and in a fad format that may well be dead in a few years’ time at that? It’s time to re-evaluate my understanding of Scott as a more classical filmmaker — not necessarily a bad thing. Heck, I don’t even like Alien or Gladiator that much, so it’s not like I’m super disappointed in Scott’s fall to the dark side.
Okay, maybe a little bit disappointed.
PREDATORS sneak peek footage is ambiguous but reassuring
Mar 15
Robert Rodriguez is a name that can pull bucks. Nimrod Antal is not. Some people still think Peter Jackson directed District 9, because his name is the only one they recognise from the poster, but, as with Rodriguez on the Predators reboot, he just served as a producer, a kind of godfather and lightning rod for cash. So having Robert Rodriguez introduce the new sneak peek footage of Predators is a little odd — why isn’t the director allowed to hype us up about his own vision? Regardless of this confusing switcheroo, the recently released sneak peek provides our first glimpse of the reboot, and the important question is: how does it look?
The teaser spends as much time showing behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Rodriguez as it does actual footage from the film. I’m hoping it’s still early days and the film hasn’t been properly processed and graded, because it all looks a little flat and desaturated, but otherwise it looks pretty solid. We get a few glimpses of the cast looking grim and surly (never frightened, of course), a couple of super-fast shots of the Predator/s themselves, and so forth. What we don’t get is any semblence of character or plot. There’s some cliche about “What’s the last thing you remember?” “Falling” and something about the planet being a game reserve, and the humans being the game, but they’re just the kind of macho one-liners you’d throw into a teaser like this. They don’t actually demonstrate characters in any meaningful light, so I guess we’ll have to wait till an actual trailer is released till we get our first insights into the folk chosen to be hunted by the universe’s ultimate hunters.
Rodriguez speaks briefly about the direction the film is taking, claiming that he wants Predators not to feel like the fifth or six film in a franchise, but the first. This is a strange and unique form of reboot we are quickly becoming accustomed to, where everything but a character is removed from a movie to kickstart a new series. If any franchise needs this treatment, though, it’s Predators, so I’m willing to take Rodriguez at his word on this one. Rodriguez also seems keen to please fans of the franchise, but at the same time wants his production to take on a life of its own. I’m not overly fond of fan-service, which is the greatest height of quality the two Alien vs Predator films ever aspired to, so I’m hoping the final cut of Predators leans more towards taking on a life of its own, rather than focusing on appeasing the fickle and nagging fans that crowd the internet like so many buzzing flies on a bloated corpse.
For some reason I was excited to click play on this teaser. Similar to the Apes situation, the only good film in the Predator franchise is the first, and I’m eager to see the last twenty years of sub-par filmmaking get swept under the rug once and for all. The cast of the reboot is solid — Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Danny Trejo (and Topher Grace, but let’s hope he’s the whiney, useless schmuck that dies first, shall we?) — and Robert Rodriguez is known for having the balls and the talent to get his movies made however he wants, and this all bodes well for the Predators reboot. Just as long as nobody mentions a helicopter or drawls “If it bleeds, we can kill it.” There’s some things you just don’t touch, and Arnie is one of them.
Summer review round-up: the good, the bad and the ugly
Mar 01
Way back in the beginning of December, in our first week of existence, I posted a list of the five most anticipated films of the summer. Now that it is officially autumn (even if the weather obstinately refuses to accept this incontravertible truth), it’s the perfect time to look back over the past three months and put the summer releases in perspective. There were a few surprises, some hits and some misses, and more than the usual number of disappointments.
First of all I’ll deal with the aforelinked list. Here movies I was looking forward to the most:
Sherlock Holmes: 83/100
Holmes turned out to be better than expected. Downey, Jr’s ludic performance combined with Guy Ritchie’s gritty direction made for a fun, fresh and interesting reboot of the old super-sleuth franchise.
The Lovely Bones: 18/100
Peter Jackson’s saggy, bloated, boring fantasy was mired in CGI quicksand, lacked any engaging characters, and failed to entertain for its lengthy 150-minute running time. Here’s hoping that Tintin doesn’t also suck.
Shutter Island: 27/100
Martin Scorsese manages to achieve the impossible and make a terrible film out of an interesting premise. The cast is great, the locations are fun, and the direction is snappy and engaging– but the plot is none of these, hamstringing the film beyond any reasonable semblance of entertainment.
Avatar: 48/100
Eye-popping visual effects can’t help a mind-bogglingly asinine story, nor can competent action scenes undo hours of misanthropic preachery. The movie is too long by half, a bit too silly for its own good, and far too blue. Oh, and it failed to sell the premise of 3D, too.
It’s Complicated: 52/100
It’s Complicated was indeed on my list of summer movies, but it was filed under “Top 5 summer movies that will almost certainly suck.” Irony kicked down the door, waltzed into the room and force-fed us all humble pie when the Meryl Streep / Steve Martin / Alec Baldwin rom-com got a better score than nearly all of the movies that were supposed to be good. Oh dear. Sure, 52/100 is nothing to be proud of, but I’d rather watch a mediocre movie than a downright awful one.
The Hurt Locker: 80/100
If The Hurt Locker had had a solid release date at the time of writing, it surely would have made an appearance in the above article. As it stands, Hurt Locker is in my mind the best of the season, by a long way. I only caught it last night, but even on the last day of summer it’s still summer, so it counts. Contrary to Captain Howdy’s review of the flick, I didn’t find the script overly American in its discussion of warfare and the nature of humanity in the (typical of us) throes of violence and destruction; to me it was just a movie that pursues that most noble of enterprises in attempting to grapple that slippery thing somewhere in our skulls that apparently accounts for our bizarre cultural identity and unpredictable and oftentimes silly behaviour. The Hurt Locker was a wrenching, personal discussion of who we are framed with some of the most brutal, white-knuckle rollercoaster action scenes I’ve ever endured in a cinema, and for that it gets top nod from me: I’d give it 93/100, putting it right at the top of the two-dozen-odd movies of the past three months. If The Hurt Locker doesn’t win every single award at the Oscars, I will cry for days.
As you can see, I was wrong on nearly every count. This goes to show just how treacherous and misleading film advertising and critical hype can be, not to mention how terrible my skills at predetermination must be, but bear in mind that The Lovely Bones, Shutter Island, and Avatar should have been good — great directors were in charge of all three, and early trailers were promising – but they faltered on the home stretch and flopped lifeless and dull into cinemas.
Now that we’ve got the article recap out of the way, here’s a rundown of the films of the season, from worst to best (or at least the ones we managed to review):
New Moon: 01/100
Paranormal Activity: 12/100
The Lovely Bones: 18/100
Shutter Island: 27/100
Up In The Air: 28/100
The Wolf Man: 37/100
From Paris With Love: 39/100
Where The Wild Things Are: 46/100
Avatar: 48/100
Julie & Julia: (average)
It’s Complicated: 52/100
Bran Nue Dae: 55/100
2012: 62/100
The Road: 63/100
The Princess And The Frog: 70/100
Zombieland: 78/100
The Hurt Locker: 80/100
Sherlock Holmes: 83/100
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs: 84/100
Of course this list doesn’t include all of the other many, varied reviews we’ve been ransacking our DVD collections to write, or the hefty number of news article’s we’ve produced over the weeks.
So, three months in, how is our driving? We are vaguely aware of a regular audience of sorts that pops up to check out our posts, and we would very much like to hear from you. Do you enjoy current reviews, do you like chuckling at the hilarious witticisms we scribe while revealing new trailers or posters, or do you prefer the random old movies we dredge out to give a reel good inspection? Any and all feedback is appreciated, even if it boils down to “you are an idiot” or “my crippled blind dog with alzheimer’s can write better reviews than you.” As much as we love the sound of our own voices, we love the sound of our own voices yelling back at people in heated argument even better, so let fly your opinions and comments! What were your favourite movies of the past three months, summer or winter, depending on where you live? Were you disappointed by something you were sure would be awesome, or pleasantly surprised by something you thought would be awful? Let us know!
OPINIONS COUNT