Good one, Hollywood: I nearly believed you when you said you lost money on HARRY POTTER 5

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.

TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE review: by the numbers

TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE review: by the numbers

Jul 01

The Twilight Saga is about a young white girl whose affections are torn between an extremely old white man and a relatively youthful tanned fellow. The old dude glistens in the sun and wears make-up that makes him look like Data from Star Trek, while the young guy spends most of his time shirtless (even in the snow!), glowering, flexing his pecs, or being a wolf (for reasons unknown).

Data hates the Wolf-Boy, but, being the comfortably sub-standard person she is, the young white girl leads both of them on in an eternal struggle to keep tween girls reading the books no matter how long or stupid they get. Julia Gillard makes an appearance in the film as well [non-Australians: our new PM has red hair], as the series’ primary antagonist, whose sole purpose in existence is to something something (I didn’t watch the first film) kill the young white girl.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is a vast improvement over the last installment in the series, but that isn’t saying much; as I scientifically proved in my numerals-based review of New Moon, the second Twi-flick is one of those rare abominations of cinema that isn’t even so-bad-it’s-funny. To keep some semblence of continuity, I’ve employed the same technique of criticism here.

Some of these categories are new, and some of them are holdovers from last time, but the idea is the same: every time the movie broke my suspension of disbelief, I ticked a box. At the end of the movie I tallied the ticks in an effort to quantify the film’s worth (or lack thereof). As I said, the results are surprisingly positive, but don’t be fooled — it’s easily the best Twilight movie, but it’s a long way from being “hands the whole time.”

6 – Number of times the soundtrack doesn’t match the emotion of the scene

New director David Slade wisely eschewed the pop-heavy soundtrack style of New Moon and opted for a more symphonic, if hopelessly derivative, film score. This helps the film enormously. What few pop songs he does include, though, sound like mid-album filler from a record that wouldn’t even have been popular in the 80s. Oh, and there’s a Muse song, too; I may have counted that twice.

9 – Number of times Edward says or does something stupid

Last time, Edward crushed a phone with his bare hands, spouted second-hand one-liners and generally acted like a git, scoring himself 16 marks; this time around, Edward significantly improved himself and receives a mere 9 — some of the things he says even make sense this time. But not that hideously creepy proposal scene — I just wanted that to end.

10 – Number of times I laughed out loud during serious scenes

Eclipse, as with the previous Twilight flicks, exhibits the level of subtlety and logic a videogame script would be proud to call its own, and as such, is completely nonsensical and difficult to watch. Some of the scenes, though, are too much to bear. I tried to respect the people in the cinema around me, but sometimes the sheer inanity of it all got the better of me.

11 – Number of times Jacob says or does something stupid

Again, Jacob significantly improved himself from New Moon and scored a paltry half of what he earned last time, but there are still some head-scratchingly awful moments featuring the Wolf-Boy. It doesn’t help that Taylor Lautner’s delivery is about on par with what you’d expect from a 21st century George Lucas film.

12 – Number of times Bella says or does something stupid

Bella earns the big gold star this time around. She doesn’t try to kill herself once, she doesn’t launch into conversations with questions like “HAVE YOU TRIED NOT BEING A FREAK, YOU MONSTER?”, and she stays well away from her Apple Macintosh; dropping all the way down to 12 from 63 — 63 — is a feat worth celebrating. There’s still the small matter of her silly and unnecessary voiceover, and the fact that she tries to force Edward to have sex with her, and the fact that she is completely devoid of life and character, to prove that she, too, still has room for improvement.

15 – Number of times the laws of physics are wantonly ignored

This is a new category this time, and one that pops up early, and frequently thereafter. You know the kind of cartoon physics where someone back-hands another person across the room, or when people are shown to be running at regular speed but the landscape zooms around them like they’re some kind of pouty Superman, or when someone sustains horrific injuries to one side of their body but doesn’t even exhibit a bruise on-screen — Eclipse is full of that crap. I sort of get that Vampires are supposed to be, like, super strong, or something, but even if you could throw a guy across the room, at least make it look like you’re putting some effort into it — otherwise it looks like you just did it with kung-fu wires.

18 – Number of times the dialogue made me cringe

“I could care less” is one of those classic Americanisms that never fails to incite infernal rage in grammar-pedants such as myself. (The correct phrase, of course, is “I could not care less,” indicating that your apathy is total and all-consuming.) I began to wonder, especially in the early scenes of Eclipse, whether the filmmakers didn’t just decide to shoot the first draft and call it a day; a lot of the dialogue could easily have been fixed up with a second pass. Then again, maybe the script is just being faithful to the books. In that case, the books must be awful.

21 – Number of scenes that don’t make sense, lose their way, or are otherwise intolerable

This is the big one, the thing that drags Eclipse down from reasonable okay-ness to mediocre dross. The whole first half of the film is rambling and wishy-washy, and, just like last time, individual scenes often find themselves derailed for the sake of exposition. Some examples of bad scenes:

• The Cullen clan keep tabs on a local upstart Vampire group by watching the evening news. Because the evening news is infallible and extremely thorough, isn’t it?
• We are treated to a few extraneous but not unwelcome flashback scenes during the course of the movie, and one of them ends in implied rape. The atrocious crime is treated so flippantly the character in question might as well have been mugged and robbed — there’s no need to bring such a serious issue into such an incompetent entertainment.
• The movie cuts frequently to a secondary antagonist whose purpose and identity remain frustratingly unclear. Also, I still don’t understand why Julia Gillard wants that silly young white girl dead.
• The film spends an inordinate amount of time rehashing what happened in New Moon. The first few scenes are made up of “Remember we can’t do this because of this,” and “So how do you feel about what happened in the last movie?” character moments, and they drag on well into the second act.
• As in New Moon, there are a few editing non-sequitors on display here, as well. The most notable of these takes place early in the film, where some creepy vampire fellow breaks into Bella’s house and sniffs her sleeping dad. Bella walks into the middle of the scene and — surprise! — dad’s suddenly awake. I know the scene was designed to put me on edge, but it didn’t work. Not even a little bit.
• The worst of these scenes was near the end, and as such qualifies as a spoiler (not that I care, or anything): a little girl vampire is thrown over to the Volturi (the buzzkill jerks from New Moon) and faces an unknown fate. Will they rip her head off, turn her into some kind of Vamp-slave, or what? The scene cuts dramatically to black before the fate is revealed, and that cheapness is both annoying and disorienting.

There are plenty of other examples of scenes just like this — but I’ll let you to discover them for yourself.

86 – Total number of offences

For a film that runs 120 minutes, 86 illusion-shattering moments of ineptitude are enough to break the experience for me. This is far less than last time, but it’s still one big goof every 80 seconds, and that’s a little too frequent for Eclipse to carry itself over that fuzzy line between “absolute trash” and “good enough.” To be fair, though, it does have its moments, which is why I have devised a totally new category especially for this review:

5 – Number of scenes that are actually good

I was as surprised as anyone that Eclipse had any good scenes at all, let alone 5. That’s one every 24 minutes! Faint praise at best, but praise nonetheless. The main thing that elevates Eclipse over the dreary, never-ending New Moon is the biffo. The action scenes at the end almost make sitting through 100 minutes of mopey angst bearable – almost. Watching people’s heads and arms get ripped off is surprisingly cathartic after spending so long treading water, and for that, I congratulate Eclipse.

Other good scenes include a fuzzy but accurate Valedictorian speech given by that annoying girl from Up In The Air, an almost genuinely touching moment between Bella and her mother, and a sincere and — dare I say it — amusing interchange between Edward and Jacob in a tent on some mountain somewhere (or something); best of all, Eclipse (unlike New Moon) actually finishes, coming to a logical and satisfying conclusion.Much as I didn’t mind watching these scenes, though, they still couldn’t erase the dullness of all the others crowded around them.

It remains for me to quickly touch on the technical side of the film. As with New Moon, Eclipse features some half-decent photography absolutely ruined by a shallow grade; the film benefits greatly from its leaner running-time; Slade’s command of narrative logic is less tenuous than Chris Weitz’; and, as always, the performances are perfunctory but utterly un-convincing.

Just like the character named Bella, Eclipse knows it isn’t good enough, knows it isn’t everything it could be. Unfortunately, just like Bella, Eclipse doesn’t care that it isn’t good enough, and wallows comfortably in its own inadequacy.

So, in the end, Eclipse is just more of the same — another Twilight movie. But to be fair, it is the best so far (that is to say, it’s the least bad). If they’re going to keep making these movies — and believe me, they will — then it pleases me to know they’re actually trying to make them better. Maybe by the end of the series they will have learned to put together a genuinely good movie — maybe.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

THE THING prequel gets a release date

THE THING prequel gets a release date

Jun 16

Matthijs van Heijningen’s The Thing prequel has been slapped with a 29 April 2011 US release date. If you already forgot, Iron Man 2 opened in that slot this year and did pretty good business. But Iron Man 2 had Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr., and Scarlet Johanssen’s chest going for it. What does The Thing have going for it? Some Aussie bloke called Joel Edgerton, John McLane’s daughter from Die Hard 4.0 (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and that really hairy guy who used to write all the Klingon episodes of Star Trek (Ronald D Moore). As much as I want this movie to be awesome, forgive me if I’m not salivating in my computer chair just yet.

Antarctica: an extraordinary continent of awesome beauty. It is also home to an isolated outpost where a discovery full of scientific possibility becomes a mission of survival when an alien is unearthed by a crew of international scientists. The shape-shifting creature, accidentally unleashed at this marooned colony, has the ability to turn itself into a perfect replica of any living being. It can look just like you or me, but inside, it remains inhuman. In the thriller The Thing, paranoia spreads like an epidemic among a group of researchers as they’re infected, one by one, by a mystery from another planet.

Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has traveled to the desolate region for the expedition of her lifetime. Joining a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across an extraterrestrial ship buried in the ice, she discovers an organism that seems to have died in the crash eons ago. But it is about to wake up.

When a simple experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate must join the crew’s pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing them off one at a time. And in this vast, intense land, a parasite that can mimic anything it touches will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish.

You will enjoy it: are we financially obliged to enjoy movies regardless of quality?

You will enjoy it: are we financially obliged to enjoy movies regardless of quality?

Jun 02

The average ticket price at the Australian box office is around $15. Seniors get tickets for $10, kids are around $13, students $15, and adults $17; 3D or other deluxe options skew all these prices a few dollars higher, super $10 Tuesdays skew them lower, but it all works out to be around $15 bucks.

If you see a movie once a month, on average, that’s $180 a year on tickets alone; that number doubles if you visit the Candy Bar or bring a stingy date, and happily triples if you’re buying for your kids as well. So sitting down in a darkened room full of strangers has become a financial investment in addition to being a social obligation (as well as a genuinely fun thing to do from time to time). Does forking out that much cash weigh on our expectations and reactions to movies?

Consider your wardrobe. I can just about guarantee that hidden in there somewhere is a shirt that no longer fits or a pair of shoes that gives you blisters. Why don’t you donate it to an op shop or chuck it in the rubbish bin? Because you spent good money on that shirt, dammit, and you’re going to get your money’s worth out of it (somehow).

Studies back this idea up; part of our psychology involves clinging to things we’ve spent time or money on, even if they’re no longer useful. The transaction still needs to be balanced in our heads, or else we’ll realise how much money we’ve wasted and feel silly (and probably a little depressed).

The same thing applies to the movies. You go to the movies, drop your $15 bucks on a ticket to the latest blockbuster, maybe buy some Malteasers or M&Ms (at double the supermarket price, of course), maybe grab a popcorn and Coke, if you’re feeling indulgent (rarely less than $10, even when purchased together), and before you know it you’ve spent over $30 (again, this could easily double if you’re on a date and expected to pay, or if you’re taking your family, etc.).

To justify dropping $30 you subconsciously expect – even demand – a positive movie-going experience. While the film’s rolling, you laugh at the one-liners, you cheer the action scenes, you endure the obligatory romance sequence, and you tell yourself you’re having a good time.

When the lights come up you chuck your half-finished popcorn and Coke in the bin, wander out, confer with your date / mate / movie buddy, and talk about the things you liked. You come to the conclusion that, between the popcorn, peanut M&Ms and pleasant company, it’s been a good night out; you got away from the kids, or you didn’t have to put up with your roommate playing Guitar Hero 5 at top volume in the adjacent room, or you got to spend time out from your strict parents.

Next time you’re at work (or school, or uni, or wherever) and someone asks you about the movie, you say it was “pretty good.” You might throw in a recommendation based on a famous actor, saying “well, you know, Brad Pitt’s Brad Pitt; he’s always good.”

And so your workmates get a positive impression of the flick. And you had a good time, didn’t you? The cinema was clean, the service was friendly, the volume was at just the right level, the popcorn was salted and oiled and the Coke was perfectly carbonated – and the movie was good. Wasn’t it? You spent $30 on it, so it must’ve been good.

How different would the movie-going experience be if money was axed from the equation? Professional film critics not only get to see movies for free, they get paid for their trouble. You’d expect the inverse to be true of critics, then: where you had to pay, and bullied yourself into enjoying the movie regardless, the critics were paid to sit through something against their will, and should have no fun at all. Right?

Not really, no. Film critics often like movies. Sometimes they even love them, and wax lyrical about them for paragraphs and paragraphs with no concern for the reader’s time or patience. Sure, they’re trying to put themselves in your shoes, to gauge whether or not you’d get your money’s worth, but to be fair, they’re being a lot more honest than you could be, because they’re not paying a blessed cent.

Besides acting as some kind of judicial body responsible for defining, criticising and praising the medium of film, critics are there to help you. If three new movies come out in a given week, and you’re not sure which one to see, you could take a wild gamble and pick the one with the best poster, or the one with that actor you really like, or the one that the ticket cashier recommends.

Or you could go and check out what the critics are saying. If two of the new movies are duds and the other is bona-fide blockbuster material, you have a right – and a financial responsibility – to know. Because the price of an adult ticket plus popcorn and Coke is $30, and you want the quality of the film itself to match the quality of the trappings of film – the auditorium, the sound, the picture, the popcorn, and the culture of film itself.

If you spend $30 on, for example, Transformers, and expect a lot of noise, you’ll get your $30 worth. But if you go and see Star Trek instead, and expect a lot of noise, you’ll not only get your $30 worth of that, but you’ll get another $30 worth of genuinely fun characters and expert plotting.

Value is subjective, but worth is a lot easier to define. That’s what critics are for. They take the dollars out of the equation and judge films against themselves and each other and nothing else. And in the end, they’re just trying to make sure your $200 – $400 p.a. investment pays off in escapism and emotional attachment.

Besides, I’ve seen Transformers – and it’s not worth thirty of your hard-earned dollars. It’s more of an “oh, it’s on TV so I’ll watch it till I fall asleep,” movie – that is to say, a movie you didn’t pay for.

MASS EFFECT movie announcement: good news or bad news?

MASS EFFECT movie announcement: good news or bad news?

May 25

Seems like Legendary couldn’t let the recent Heavy Rain movie announcement go unanswered: Mass Effect is now officially on its way to the silver screen. I don’t think I’m exaggerating here when I say Mass Effect was the most important thing I saw, played or did in the last few years: for me it was a nigh life-changing experience, so naturally my knee-jerk response to this news is to cross my arms and frown loudly.

The main problem with adapting Mass Effect to a non-gaming medium is that Mass Effect is one of those quintessentially game-y experiences. Everything from the sex, race and gender of your character through to the friends you make and the teammates you sacrifice are entirely in the hands of the player, and each of the three games (the third is yet to be released) tells a continuous story through which you can carry over your character and story choices. That is to say, there is no canon: no two players’ experience of the plot will be precisely the same, and that’s part of the game’s power.

In order for a film adaptation to work, there are two options: either take the plot straight from the games and lock the characters into one set path; or throw Commander Shepard and the Reapers out the window and come up with a whole new story in the Mass Effect universe. I know I’d prefer the latter, but I know just as well that would never happen.

No matter who they cast in the role of Commander Shepard (the player-controlled protagonist of the Mass Effect trilogy), at least half of the fan base will be outraged. Basic, fundamental things like Shepard’s sex will send the fans into fits of rage — most fans prefer a female Shepard because they reckon her voice-acting’s better than the male counterpart, but the game’s advertising focuses solely on the default “male model” Shepard. Thus, if half of players chose to play as a woman, they’re going to be irritated if a male is cast in the role. (Incidentally, Lost‘s Matthew Fox is a dead ringer for default Shepard.)

Mass Effect has a rich and distinct visual style, blending all of the best of sci-fi into one gorgeous package, from the neon dystopia of Blade Runner through the colourful 90s palette of Babylon 5 to the clunky real-worldiness of Star Wars, and deals with themes that explore both the lighter, Star Trek side of morality as well as the murkier, grittier Battlestar Galactica end of the spectrum. The film adaptation could easily tap all the groundwork laid by game developer Bioware in establishing the look, feel and sound of Mass Effect‘s expansive universe, and that would help their goals immensely.

Also helping the film’s cause is Legendary Pictures’ involvement: they contributed to Warner Bros.-distributed flicks like 300 and The Dark Knight; they’ve also got their fingers in other video game pies, like the developmentally-challenged Gears Of War adaptation as well as Sam Raimi’s World Of Warcraft feature. This bodes well for Mass Effect. Screenwriter Mark Protosevich is in talks to write the script: he wrote the ho-hum I Am Legend and the upcoming Thor, so his talents are relatively untested in my mind.

What bodes even better for Mass Effect is Bioware’s involvement from the outset. Founders (and Doctors) Ray Muzyka and Gred Zeschuck will serve as executive producers on the flick, hopefully keeping the project in line with their “emotional engagement is everything” development mantra; and Mass Effect‘s lead designer (equivalent to a film’s director) Casey Hudson is quoted as saying he always “thought Mass Effect was perfectly suited to be a motion picture,” so maybe it isn’t all doom and gloom for us, the game’s fans.

Still, I can’t help but shake the feeling that a movie adaptation of this game is unnecessary. The first game is the closest thing to interactive storytelling perfection I’ve ever seen, and I wouldn’t want my personal experiences ruined by some screenwriter’s interpretation of events. That said, there’s a rich universe and strong story to tap, so I guess it might not be all bad … but I can’t help but be reminded of Wing Commander, Hitman, Doom, Resident Evil, and Uwe Boll’s litany of film sins whenever I think of game-to-movie adaptaions. I do not want Mass Effect to suffer a similar fate.

This Thursday’s Prince Of Persia has a lot to live up to: if it’s good, my faith in the Mass Effect movie will increase dramatically; if it’s average, or bad, my hopes for any and all video game adaptations will plummet below their already low levels.