The Big Picture: The Numbers

[KazNecro]

I just finished reading an article about Vin Diesel considering working for scale in order to do an R-rated Riddick sequel. Is this the path del Toro and Cameron need to go in order to get 'At the Mountains of Madness' made? If actors and film crew were willing to work for scale, would studios finally reconsider and greenlight projects like this?

Here's the link to the article I mentioned.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110364-Vin-Diesel-Pay-Cut-Could-Kick-Start-R-Rated-Riddick-Sequel

 

[Zukhramm]

I'm surprised to hear Scott Pilgrim did not do well. I know no of now one other than myself who did not love it.

 

[Zetsubou^-^]

aww so no cthulu monsters? i hadn't heard about it, but it is a shame.

its a shame they still base all their judgement on box office, because ticket prices are ridiculous. I guess its still the bulk of income?

i didn't go to see scott pilgrim, but i didn't see anything else then either. the only thing i've paid to go see recently was thor.

 

[Superior Mind]

My God, a Big Picture without a drawn out "Something is Weird".

Good video, I like this stuff far more when you're actually passionate about a topic instead of talking about some niche geek curiosity.

 

[Revolutionary]

Well I saw scott pilgrim at the cinema and didn't see Fas Furious 5 (at all) so props for me!

 

[vortexgods]

The Whisperer in Darkness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ee9K9hXtw&feature=relmfu

Low budget. Black and white.

 

[Hito-Chan]

WHY WOULD YOU TELL US ABOUT THIS AND THEN TELL US IT WASN'T GETTING MADE

JUST SECONDS OF DEL TORO'S SQUISHY SMILEY FACE MAKES MY NERDY HEART PUMP FASTER

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY

 

[Nick_Snyder]

I feel like I died a little on the inside knowing that another The Fast and The Furious might be made.

 

[matt87_50]

wow, best one yet!

Scott pilgrim was the best movie of what ever year it came out in...

but I didn't get it till dvd, I did blind buy it on bluray when it came out. but my problem is I just find it hard to find a friend to go see non mainstream movies with...

I do enjoy watching trashy films too, and don't feel guilty doing so, but from now on, it will never get in the way of me seeing a more 'risky' film.

ever.

it seems sucker punch barely scraped through too... just breaking even.

I can't wait to get it on bluray, to see if I from now on completely ignore what ever the mainstream critics say.

woah!! how the hell did Machete only cost 10mil!! it had EVERYONE in it!! also, it is AWESOME!! I think that is possibly the biggest 'awesome' return on equity of any film ever!

 

[Rabidkitten]

It certainly isn't a post class-ism world.

By the way:
Famous people who are fans of pro wrestling:
Stephen King, Billy Corgan, Daniel Radcliff, Conan O'Brien, Jimmie Carter, Andy Kaufman, FDR, and the Queen.
So how about leaving my favorite sport out of your mindless snobbery, you half baked, Idiocracy fellating, Gerbner worshiping, MEF pushing, Seth McFarlane level, sociology department reject.

It certainly isn't. And it's a pretty racist world too last time I checked.

None the less, nicely written, but I would wager you are a highschool graduate and is either enrolled in college, or have a degree which means your words are as much of an outside perspective as mine.

Note to self: Making a stab at professional wrestling will invoke the wrath of the fanboy.

 

[Ickabod]

One word...

Pirates

Two was terrible, three no idea didn't see, four, Bob said it sucked. But they all made huge huge money. If we as the consumer go and pay for crap, they will serve us crap!

 

[Sylveria]

I said before and I'll say it again; the most damage to Scott Pilgrim was done by fans of Scott Pilgrim. Every self proclaimed "geek/gamer" and their cousin was spouting how it was this masterpiece of cinema from the rooftops (while also saying how the characters were flawed, the first part of the movie was boring, and the main hero had no redeeming qualities.. still not sure how that qualifies as a masterpiece) in the most obnoxious manner possible.

To top it all off I had to listen to those same people give me shit for seeing and getting some pop-corn-fun out of The Expendables. Was it some great cinematic revolution? Hell no and it was cheesy as Kraft factory explosion, but I had some laughs, saw some decent action, got to see some of my old favorite action guys on the big screen again, and got to relax in a comfy chair for a couple hours.

It's sad that that an overproduced movie worshiped by obnoxious "geeks", at least until they find their next obscure piece of hipster media to put on a pedestal so they can pretend they're non-conformists, killed off something that had some actual potential.

Maybe next time there's a movie you think people should see, you should try "Hey I liked this, if you enjoy (this type of stuff) then you'll like this movie also I think," instead of "Hey this movie omgwtfbbqawesome and if you saw (that other movie) you're a fucking sheep retard and don't deserve to watch the omgwtfbbqawesome movie shithead!" And yes, I actually had someone tell me I don't deserve to watch Scott Pilgrim cause I had some fun at The Expendables.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

...Yep.

But is there any hope that Scott's DVD sales will make it profitable, and perhaps restore some of the old?

I guess it does really apply to gaming, too.

Majora's Mask was a much more emtional and symbolically complex and deep game then OoT, to the point where I place it along with SotC, myst, portal, and other games as true works of artistic merit.

Yet nintendo has sticken to the OoT forumula, and THAT game made it into the smistioan art useum, not it's lesser known, less profiatble, but more deserving kin.

 

[Drake_Dercon]

Every single f**king industry that could somehow be construed as art in any respect.

It's like one of those songs that people write about beautiful things falling apart.

Sitting there in the corner because nobody looks or cares, walled in by the disgusting norm.

Also the actual song has something to do with it.

The reality is that artists can't afford to care about profit. When they can, it's fantastic, but it's just to hard to do on a regular basis.

 

[Snooder]

The simple truth that critics need to understand is that sometimes you really DO have to weigh costs.

See, Scott Pilgrim was never going to rake it in at the box office. Sorry, but people keep forgetting that the main reason why 'indie' movies are such hits is mostly because they're cheap, so a mediocre performance still puts in a respectable profit. When you toss blockbuster money at it, it'll STILL have the same box office, but now the profit goes away.

And yeah, spending Avatar levels of money on a Guillermo Del Toro flick would have been a horrible, horrible idea too. Art is nice, but at the end of the day, the people who work for these companies need to eat, and losing your job because some director has a lifelong dream is not the way the world should work. What needs to happen is that the director figures out his likely audience, figures out how much he'll make at the box office from said audience, then makes a movie within that budget. Or, if he MUST make the huge blockbuster, then he figures out how to get an audience large enough to sustain those costs.

I'm not saying people shouldn't take risks. But there are risks, and then there are risks. Hoping that a movie like Thor makes a decent box office is an understandable risk. Thinking that Scott Pilgrim will pull in the same is just self-delusion.

 

[justnotcricket]

The simple truth that critics need to understand is that sometimes you really DO have to weigh costs.

See, Scott Pilgrim was never going to rake it in at the box office. Sorry, but people keep forgetting that the main reason why 'indie' movies are such hits is mostly because they're cheap, so a mediocre performance still puts in a respectable profit. When you toss blockbuster money at it, it'll STILL have the same box office, but now the profit goes away.

And yeah, spending Avatar levels of money on a Guillermo Del Toro flick would have been a horrible, horrible idea too. Art is nice, but at the end of the day, the people who work for these companies need to eat, and losing your job because some director has a lifelong dream is not the way the world should work. What needs to happen is that the director figures out his likely audience, figures out how much he'll make at the box office from said audience, then makes a movie within that budget. Or, if he MUST make the huge blockbuster, then he figures out how to get an audience large enough to sustain those costs.

I'm not saying people shouldn't take risks. But there are risks, and then there are risks. Hoping that a movie like Thor makes a decent box office is an understandable risk. Thinking that Scott Pilgrim will pull in the same is just self-delusion.

I think you make a good point. It is galling when you end up with Fast and The Furious 6 (because, really, almost no series is still any good after even *half* that many installments), but it is also unreasonable (in a charming, idealistic way) to expect that an (indie) film that appeals to a niche market will inspire confidence in a studio that has to think about its bottom line. If studios don't have money, films with any sort of budget demands just don't get made.

It occurred to me that with skills like del Toro's and Cameron's at the helm, would it have resulted in *such* a terrible movie if they had been more flexible about the R rating? It sounds like if they had been able to open it up to a *slightly* wider audience they might have gotten the go-ahead? I mean, I hope that they can get it made exactly as they see fit, with ample support from a studio, but...

Another consideration might be the way in which these things are marketed. Scott Pilgrim's marketing clearly couldn't make it appeal to a larger audience, which begs the question: if it is going to be a hit with the niche market who, say, read the graphic novel or like that sort of concept anyway, why market it to them? I freely admit that I am no marketer, so maybe this isn't possible, but with the way that geek niche consumers are, you don't even have to market it toward them particularly hard and they're already aware of it and talking about it on the internet anyway. Perhaps then you could devote a bit of your time to marketing it toward people who don't instinctively gravitate toward it, and maybe get them into the theatre, expanding both the box office takings and possibly their horizons as well.

 

[MrJoyless]

I dont think its so much that Universal went all nutso over Scott Pilgrim. Everyone i know thought it was an A- B+ movie, hell i even saw it twice to see what i missed. Its that Universal blew 80 million on advertising instead of just keeping the budget a bit lower and cashing in on a strong core following and DVD sales, which ive heard put the movie back into the black.

They instead listened to a bunch of comic con nerds (aka less than 1% of even the nerdiest nerds) to make their "informed" decision on literally dumping more money than 99.999% of people on earth have ever seen into promoting what could only be viewed as a niche movie.

Honestly if anyone with any little shred of common sense was running Universal they would have looked to promote Scott Pilgrim for what it was, a goofy wink to gamers everywhere, not a summer blockbuster action movie like they were trying to say it would be.

 

[Srdjan Tanaskovic]

Wait Wait wait

Hellboy 2 had a budget of 85 million while it had a boxoffice of 160,388,063 dollars

Wolfman had a budget of 150 million and boxoffice of 169,789,765 dollars


that should be enough to cover for the movies? so wahts this about "horrible year" ?

and surely there are other movies they released that critics liked and earned in well on the box office

 

[UNHchabo]

Bob, since you wrote in your column that you read the comments, here goes:

I am interested in "At the Mountains of Madness".

I was not interested in "Scott Pilgrim", so I still haven't seen it. You call it a love-letter to geek culture; it looked to me more like pandering -- the kind of movie that would have had characters shouting "The Cake is a lie!", if Portal had come out before the original source material was written.

Meanwhile, I had fun at The Expendables. Yes, I have enjoyed other action movies more, but this one was fun. It's not an intelligent movie, but sometimes I don't want an intelligent movie.

It's the same kind of feeling as when I feel like playing my fifty thousandth round of Counterstrike on Dust instead of playing through Half-Life 2. Yes, Half-Life 2 is much better written, and much more varied, but it's not something I want to play (even if it's for the tenth time through) if I feel like shutting off my brain.