Another Weekend, Another Tale of Woe for Tentpoles.....

[Landon D. Parks]

The big flops are insured :)

 

they aint really losing money.

 

They are? I had no idea there where insurance companies offering 'film flop' insurance...

 

Now of course what is defined as 'flop' is somewhat open to interpretation. Something may be a box office flop or a flop in America and still turn a profit. For example, Tomorrowland was being touted as a disaster flop, yet by the time you calculate worldwide box office (where it did better), home video, streaming, and any other crap they choose to tie into the film - I highly doubt the loss was that large, if at all.

 

So really, what is a 'flop' anyway?

 

And like has been mentioned, much like a lot of other entertainment formats - Hollywood take the whole 'throw darts and see what sticks' mentality. They know that 80% of their films will not be a success, but they are banking on 20% being gold and off-setting the losses from the others. It's been that way for a while, and the reality is - it seems to work for them pretty well. As someone who works in publishing, I see most publishers doing this as well. They spend about $10,000 on each book + another $10,000 on production. They produce around 5,000 titles a year. They know most will not earn back their advance, let alone their production cost.... But the 100 titles a year that hit the NYT bestseller list will make up for it.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Landon D. Parks

[Max Field]

Wasn't Amazing Spider-man 2 considered a "flop" for turning a 400 million dollar profit?

[Landon D. Parks]

I also believe Peter Jackson had to sue New Line over Lord of Rings. I think the deal was they claimed it wasn't profitable and he wasn't paid back-end. No one is telling me those three films didn't turn a giant profit for the studio.

 

Therein lies much of the problem with Hollywood: no film turns a profit according to their balance sheet.

 

I despise Hollywood and would never beg my way into their ranks. The executive pool is full of cheats and pick-pockets hiding behind giant corporate structures. I'll happily stay on the outside.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Landon D. Parks

[Tyler Purcell]

You may despise hollywood, but unfortunately the only "REAL" money to be had in this industry is through them.

 

If you wanna mess around for fun and make a few grand in the process, it doesn't matter what you do. If you wish to make real money, Hollywood is unfortunately the only way to go for the time being. Most "indy" filmmakers today have regular jobs and rarely make much off their movies. They hope that someday someone will see what they make and allow them to make something bigger. However, at that point, you will be in the hollywood system.

 

It sucks, but it's how things work.

[Guest]

It sucks, but it's how things work.

 

Well....not for me.

 

R,

[Guest]

The big flops are insured :)

 

they aint really losing money.

 

Yeah Landon is quite correct, there is no such thing as, "flop insurance." If there was, Disney would of broken the insurance company long ago. :)

 

R,

[Tyler Purcell]

 

Well....not for me.

 

R,

Do you make a million dollars a year? That's how much my counterparts make on Hollywood movies. Yes a quick mil a year! Can't find that on any Indy movie.

[Stuart Brereton]

Do you make a million dollars a year? That's how much my counterparts make on Hollywood movies. Yes a quick mil a year! Can't find that on any Indy movie.

Your counterparts? In what role?

[Guest]

Do you make a million dollars a year? That's how much my counterparts make on Hollywood movies. Yes a quick mil a year! Can't find that on any Indy movie.

 

Well I make a lot more than you! And I don't have a "regular" job outside of film.

 

And who consistently makes 1 mil a year in film? The top .001% that's it.

 

R,

[Justin Hayward]

 

Well....not for me.

 

R,

 

Me either. I just made more in less than two months than what I normally make in a year by only directing a couple commercials, and I live in Chicago.

[Landon D. Parks]

You may despise hollywood, but unfortunately the only "REAL" money to be had in this industry is through them.

 

Not true. Yeah, you're not going to be banking $5 million in pay from Disney... But to say there is no money is just not correct. You don't need to work within the studio system to make a nice living.

 

I remember a lot of published authors telling me the only way to make it as an author was to publish with the big 5 publishers... Well, I self-published and eventually started my own press. It's small, but it makes me a 6-figure income a year. Meanwhile, these 'published authors' are raking in $10,000 advances every year from the big 5. Jokes on them. No different in the indie film world. You simply need to pave your own road to success, and you need to be a business person.

 

Indie filmmakers who are so in love with film that they neglect the business end will never make it without Hollywood executives to back them up. You need to take both ends - creative and business - and embrace them fully. You need to be savvy at getting money.

 

Of course, you can always produce outside the industry and then sell it later - and still bank the $5 million from Disney...

Edited July 7, 2016 by Landon D. Parks

[Tyler Purcell]

Well I make a lot more than you! And I don't have a "regular" job outside of film.

Yea, I mean most people make more money then I do, so that's not saying much! LOL :P

 

You are, once again, an anomaly. I can't think of anyone whose had the success you've had, in your situation. It's great you can do it, but it's so far from the norm, you could literally be one of 5 people doing it. So if you wish to talk about myopic scales, your situation is .0001%.

 

And who consistently makes 1 mil a year in film? The top .001% that's it.

I'd bundle film and TV together today... but yes I know a lot of people who are scratching at the million per year number working on "productions" of various kinds, in different positions. Everything from union truck drivers who double dip and work in the grip union at the same time, making close to 10k a week... to editors making $250k per show and doing 2 - 4 per year. Heck, even DIT's on big shows are making $5k a week + rental fee's.

 

This kind of work is MUCH rarer outside of the hollywood system. Not saying it's impossible, I know plenty of people who work at production companies around the US who do commercial work of some kinda, who rake in some pretty decent bux. However, it's a myopic number compared to those raking it in here in hollywood.

 

In this thread we were talking about waste, this is just a great example of such and the wages for these "top" people, just keep going up and up! It's kinda disgusting when you think about the disparity of wages for the same position between Indy and Studio films.

[Guest]

Well yeah, there are 1st ACs here in Toronto making 100K a year. And "truck drivers" making 75K, "when" it's very busy. These are all, "highly paid" film people servicing the Hollywood shows, sure.

 

But 1M a year? Every year? That group is very very small, which is where I arbitrarily pull the .001% from.

 

BTW, based on your own model, a union truck driver making 10K a week does not get close to 1M a year. Let's do the math, $10, 000.00 X 52 weeks = $520, 000.00.

 

There are no union truck drivers in LA making $520, 000.00 a year, come on Tyler.

 

R,

 

PS: I will however not be surprised when you tell me said union truck driver in LA has an agent, publicist, lawyer, and stylist, that I will believe.

[Tyler Purcell]

Indie filmmakers who are so in love with film that they neglect the business end will never make it without Hollywood executives to back them up. You need to take both ends - creative and business - and embrace them fully. You need to be savvy at getting money.

Because most Indy filmmakers, make poop without even contemplating what they're doing to do with it. I get so frustrated when I see it happening or I work on projects like that. I know for fact, they will never go anywhere. Not because they're broke, but because they simply don't understand the concept of demand and supply. They just think "hey lets make something" and they never think of the consequences of their actions.

 

As I preach so much on here and in my classes, you must understand your audience, genre and how you're going to make money from your "product" before you even contemplate making it. To me, that's most people don't understand and why so many talented people wind up giving up before they make it.

[David Mullen ASC]

It's depressing for me to hear people suggest that wages are too high for the average mid-level worker in an industry, any industry... yes, that's what the world needs, for wages to be driven down so there are fewer people in the middle. The rich have us fighting among ourselves over a smaller and smaller slice of the pie. We complain about how much a guy driving a truck makes and ignore that the execs running the corporation that hired the driver are making 50X that salary.

[Tyler Purcell]

And today a lot of that money leaves the country, thanks to the US government allowing the kind of multinational ownership of almost every major industry, including entertainment.

 

The days of the big fat white execs making mega bux, are actually starting to slip away. They're all indebted to other's today.

[Satsuki Murashige]

It's depressing for me to hear people suggest that wages are too high for the average mid-level worker in an industry, any industry... yes, that's what the world needs, for wages to be driven down so there are fewer people in the middle. The rich have us fighting among ourselves over a smaller and smaller slice of the pie. We complain about how much a guy driving a truck makes and ignore that the execs running the corporation that hired the driver are making 50X that salary.

Indeed. We will all starve as we claw at each other's throats for just a little more pie.

 

If you can offer skilled labor to a profitable marketplace then you're supposed to be able to make enough income to feed and clothe yourself, buy a house, get married, send your kids to college, save for retirement, and so on. That's what we used to call the middle-class lifestyle. Obviously as wages have stagnated over the last several generations and a massive amount of our collective wealth has been redistributed to the top 0.1%, this dream has slipped out of reach for most of us. Understandably, those few who still have a tenuous grasp on the dream fear to lose it, and those many who have been left behind are angry and looking for someone to blame.

 

But there's no one to blame down here in the trenches. It's wrong to blame the guy who breaks his back picking your strawberries for closing the steel mill where you used to work. But what the heck, let's ship him back to Guatemala and build a wall to keep him out if he wants to come back, right?

 

It's wrong to blame the woman halfway across the world who has the crappy job of assembling your phone in a sweatshop for the fact that our big bankers decided it was easier to sell billions in bad loans to each other for short-term gain and in so doing, set the world's financial system on fire. Instead, might they have helped people who didn't understand the system refinance and stay in their homes? Naw, not enough profit in that.

 

Lastly, it's wrong to blame the Local 80 grip who carries heavy poop around for 14 hours a day and keeps you safe on set for having a nice car and making too much money. We should all be entitled to make that kind of money if we're willing to spend years learning the trade and to work that hard.

 

Instead, focus your ire where it actually belongs - at the system which exalts quarterly profits and numbers in little columns before people. Numbers don't care what's right and what's wrong. That's the problem. Just sayin'.

[Keith Walters]

In the case of "John Carter", if I remember the book correctly, Disney went through a major shake-up in their marketing division so there was a period of months leading up to the release where they were switching the head of marketing and had no plan that they could agree on regarding the marketing of the movie, and I think it was the outgoing exec who had pulled all references to Mars from the movie and marketing out of a belief that "Mars" was marketing death for a movie after the failure of "Mission to Mars" and "Red Planet". I also recall that the person being replaced had no film marketing background and had been attempting new forms of marketing that were a bit hit and miss (it's the corporate issue of realizing that the internet has created new ways in which to market any product but no one really understands the new market, so they hire an outsider to rethink how the company does business, which sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. Probably this person they hired and fired was just ahead of the curve, I don't know.)

Don't forget here was also the diabolical "Mars Needs Moms" in the mix. :rolleyes:

The irony is that John Carter (of Mars) used an incredibly risky production approach, in an industry notorious and despised for taking "safe" approaches:

They made the movie more or less the way you would imagine it would have been made, if modern movie production technology (but nothing else) had been available in 1911 -1912, when "John Carter of Mars" was actually written.

 

Consider: In 1912 there had not been any world wars, radio and other communications technologies as we know them did not exist, and in particular, airplanes as we know them did not appear until halfway through WW1. The only aircraft at the time were basically box kites with lawnmower engines attached to them.

 

And that's what you saw in the earliest illustrations in the books, and that's what the Martian aircraft in the movie were clearly based on.

The end result was a refreshingly different movie, completely destroyed by a sad mish-mash marketing approach by people who clearly did not "get it".

 

As others have pointed out, many of the popular Sci Fi movies of the late 20th century have ideas pinched directly from the John Carter books.

What's ironic is that Burroughs clearly pinched many of his ideas for "Barsoom" for an almost-forgotten novel called "Lt Gullivar Jones - His Vacation" written in 1905 by Edwin Lester Arnold. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Lester_Arnold

[Jay Young]

I would like to yell about Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trillogy, one of the best science fiction / alternate dimension / pseudo time travel / fantastic beats books in ever, in my opinion.

 

Everyone knows The Golden Compass, but does every one know what happened to "Lyra Belacqua" after that book? Or about the boy she met who had his own adventure.

Or.. how exactly does one depict a knife that can cut holes into other parallel universes being used to escape Dante's Inferno?

 

And when the author of a book is even asked to provide insight into the production, surely something good will come out of it??

 

Well, I'll just put on my fully voiced audio book... the other two films will never get made.

 

New Line Cinema decided to cut a lot of footage, re-edit the ending, downplay anti-religious elements in fear of retribution from religious establishments in the US. All these things happened anyway; with the RC Catholics and the Southern Baptists calling for a boycott of the film... Other than that however, I think even Pullman was disappointing with the direction the studio decided to go.

 

It's also a shame studios buy the rights to the whole thing, and just sit on so much excellent material. But the RC Catholics blasted New Line and scared them off.

 

Also, it "did not perform as expected" - Well they made a $180 million dollar film, and gained the 300 million, but sold off the international rights to pay for the 180 million in the first place.

Again, did it really take 180 million to make this film?

[Landon D. Parks]

Don't even get me started on The Golden Compass. Pullman weaved together one of the best book trilogies in history. Hollywood got it and basically caved to the pressure from the church, and you end up with The Golden Compass. In all honesty though, The Golden Compass really wasn't that bad. Of course, an overtly-Christian nation shunned the movie for it's obvious nit-picks at the churches, and boom - failure. In many ways, The Golden Compass was doomed to fail as a movie long before it was made. Of course, I think pressure from the catholic church also had a large play in their decision not to make the second and third books.

 

It wasn't just about it's lack of profit... The studio was scared - bottom line.

 

To me, this is one of the things I hate most about Hollywood, and why I now refuse to see any 'first book movies' until I see they are going to make them all. Nothing sucks more than making 1 of 3 movies and then stopping. Yeah, as a reader of the book I know what happens anyway, but it's still disheartening to me.

 

About a year ago my literary agent wanted me to sell the movie rights to my Oz Saga book series. Supposedly, they got an offer from one of the Hollywood up-and-coming big-wig producers. Of course, being that I'm in the industry to some degree, I turned it down quick as snot. It wasn't hard to turn down, either. The only way I'd ever trust my books being made into movies is if I'm the one doing the making, and I can ensure that all the movies would be made regardless of box office outcome. And I'd certainly never trust anyone from the Hollywood-producer pool to helm it.

 

I just really have a deep distrust and dislike for Hollywood. Sue me.

 

PS) They did the same thing my next favorite book series: Lemony Snicket. They stuff 3 books into one movie, and then refuse to make the rest. Utter Hollywood money-grabbing bull crap.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Landon D. Parks

[John E Clark]

I would like to yell about Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trillogy, one of the best science fiction / alternate dimension / pseudo time travel / fantastic beats books in ever, in my opinion.

 

It's also a shame studios buy the rights to the whole thing, and just sit on so much excellent material. But the RC Catholics blasted New Line and scared them off.

 

Also, it "did not perform as expected" - Well they made a $180 million dollar film, and gained the 300 million, but sold off the international rights to pay for the 180 million in the first place.

Again, did it really take 180 million to make this film?

 

I was very disappointed that "The Golden Compass"(2007) and "City of Ember"(2008) failed to get further installments.

 

I would have preferred those sequels to say... yet another Indy installment... or parish the thought... Star Wars...

 

They were 'little' films that could have been done 'cheaply'.

 

Re: Religious outrage...

 

It is ironic that Scorsese got "The Last Temptation of Christ"(1988) amid loud outcry from the religiously inclined... then again with an R rating, the church folk could be somewhat assured that 'children' would not be subjected to so called anti-religious propaganda.

 

But then "The Da Vinci Code"(2006) got made with near hysteria in certain religious circles, and another adaptation as well... and isn't there a third adaptation in the making for yet another book of Dan Brown's?

Edited July 7, 2016 by John E Clark

[Jay Young]

Don't even get me started on The Golden Compass. Pullman weaved together one of the best book trilogies in history.

 

 

I'm just glad he's still writing, AND with the final "Dust" books due to come out either late this year, or next.

[Guest]

It's depressing for me to hear people suggest that wages are too high for the average mid-level worker in an industry, any industry... yes, that's what the world needs, for wages to be driven down so there are fewer people in the middle. The rich have us fighting among ourselves over a smaller and smaller slice of the pie. We complain about how much a guy driving a truck makes and ignore that the execs running the corporation that hired the driver are making 50X that salary.

 

Well we can't pay a grip a million dollars per film just because some actors are getting that amount. At some point we need to realize that a "burger flipper" is not going to earn the same as a heart surgeon.

 

I'm sure as hell not going to put in two years on a movie to earn the same as a gaffer or DOP that is putting in 6 weeks. Each project for me is a two year commitment from start to finish. The rest of crew goes into the next job as soon as I say, that's a wrap.

 

R,

[Landon D. Parks]

 

I'm just glad he's still writing, AND with the final "Dust" books due to come out either late this year, or next.

 

There's more after The Amber Spyglass? I assumed that was the final book in that series.

[Jay Young]

 

There's more after The Amber Spyglass? I assumed that was the final book in that series.

 

 

Technically....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Dust

 

More Hobbit to LOTR.