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The Universal Studios Big Budget Flop Fest


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Yes I came up with "Flop Fest" all on my own ?

Wow, how did Universal manage two giant flops in just two months?

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/01/what-went-wrong-with-cats-dolittle-box-office-1202204638/

I have to laugh, these are the same executives who would sit with me and say....sorry Richard your ideas will not be successful in the market place.  And at this point considering their track record for producing massive flops, I guess I have to believe them, they are clearly the experts!!

Of course this situation leads to a wider discussion....the financial viability of these massive budget movies, and the Chinese investors that lose all their money.

R,

 

 

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I'm guessing that studio overhead is so large that it makes no sense for them to release any product that doesn't have a chance to sell $100m +, no matter how likely it is to make a profit.  So, some large flops are to be expected with this business model as long as the hits are big enough in the long run.

Profitable small pictures don't really fit this model, so I'm not surprised that they might not be interested in most indie films.

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I suspect the business model works more like this.....raise 1 billion via investments from fund managers and the Chinese.  Then pay the studio and the executives incredible fees, make the movies, 7-8.  They won't really care what the results are they already made their money, as it wasn't their money to begin with.

From the creative side, it's clear audiences no longer care about movie stars or IP.  Neither is a guarantee of anything except needing a much larger budget.

R,

 

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10 minutes ago, Richard Boddington said:

I suspect the business model works more like this.....raise 1 billion via investments from fund managers and the Chinese.  Then pay the studio and the executives incredible fees, make the movies, 7-8.  They won't really care what the results are they already made their money, as it wasn't their money to begin with.

Pretty much

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What I don't quite get is that they'll push for this blockbuster-based business model on one hand, let it fail, and then complain that they're risking failure on the other hand.

I think the reality is that many of these films are a lot more profitable than is being let on, and those profits are being disguised for tax purposes. They're certainly being disguised for the purposes of not paying anyone any royalties. 

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These films aren't designed for the box office. They're designed as an all encompassing entertainment IP: toys, merchandise, video games, etc. Sure some are box office flops, but the IP will carry on.*

*I'm still perplexed as to why Cats got green lit, though.

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I think the move to $100million+ fare also plays into the cinema of attractions. People will come to a cinema to see specticle, robots, superheros... These large canvas films have a slight in build protection from piracy, in that you'd want to see star wars on a big screen rather then downloading. I guess they crunched the numbers and found the $100million + works often enough. 

Maybe CAT's will break even after 30 years of midnight double-bill screenings with "The Room" 

 

 

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35 minutes ago, Phil Connolly said:

Maybe CAT's will break even after 30 years of midnight double-bill screenings with "The Room" 

HA!
Funny thing is, The Room has a much higher cost to profit ratio than any studio movie ever made.  And yet Tommy Wiseau is said to have made the worst film in history.  I dunno, kinda shows you how much the studio executives really know.

R,

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Big Shark looks awesome.  Can't wait.

Tentpoles are sometimes victims of the track record of those involved.  In the case of Dolittle you have Stephen Gaghan?  RDJ?  They are two of the highest paid Hollywood superstars.  It's likely that nobody involved at the studio or on set is questioning either of their efforts or being critical of their work. 

This is why a lot of big films fail.  Everyone involved assumes the script is awesome from the start because the writer has hit it out of the park so many times before.  The reality is that prior success and track record helps but every script and every movie is totally different and still requires scrutiny of everything and everyone involved.  No matter who writes it directs it or stars in it.  Everyone has had misses. Clint Eastwood, Spielberg, Spike Lee.  You can't assume it's going to be great because of the writer, the director or the star.  

Edited by Michael LaVoie
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On 1/23/2020 at 1:44 PM, Richard Boddington said:

HA!
Funny thing is, The Room has a much higher cost to profit ratio than any studio movie ever made.  And yet Tommy Wiseau is said to have made the worst film in history.  I dunno, kinda shows you how much the studio executives really know.

R,

Totally confused by what you are saying here.  There is no theatrical profit at all to the Room.

All movies are a gamble, some pay off, some don't.

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Surely its a better business bet to make alot of small-mid budget films  , spread the risk, throw it at the wall and see what sticks .. there will be at least a few that make a ton of money on a very small out lay.. why put all the eggs in one basket ..especially as history shows the biggest ever money making films were turned down many times for years by  studio executives.. they have no clue what will work or not..  well maybe nobody does .. hence make alot of them cheaper .. genius yes I know.. 

Edited by Robin R Probyn
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Everyone should KNOW though that Gaghan was **(obscenity removed)**ed by Universal. 

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/universal-tries-to-escape-disaster-by-patching-up-dolittle-11579195165

 

"The studio’s decision to tinker with a nearly finished film delayed its release by nine months as it commissioned script rewrites and hired two new directors to help with about three weeks of additional photography, according to people familiar with the production. The goal of these measures, these people said, was to craft a sillier movie more likely to appeal to younger moviegoers and overseas audiences."

 

"After test-screening Mr. Gaghan’s initial version of the movie, Universal worried it wasn’t lighthearted enough to connect with children and families around the globe, according to people familiar with the production. The studio decided the movie needed more computer-generated animals and more laughs, the people said, and called in filmmakers and screenwriters with more experience in the genre. They said these included directors Chris McKay of “The Lego Batman Movie” and Jonathan Liebesman of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”"

 

That's all you need to know, Gaghan has always had issues working with studios and here's another example of a director being railroaded and crushed by the studio system. Dropping 175M on a Dolittle film is incredibly misguided in the first place.

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2 hours ago, Robin R Probyn said:

Surely its a better business bet to make alot of small-mid budget films  , spread the risk, throw it at the wall and see what sticks 

Yes, it pretty clearly is, on more or less every level. I use this often as an example of the way people do not always, or even often, behave rationally, even when they're supposed to be captains of industry wielding huge budgets.

P

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14 hours ago, Tim Smyth said:

Totally confused by what you are saying here.  There is no theatrical profit at all to the Room.

I'm going to disagree with you here....the movie ran in a single theatre in LA for over a year, and was packed most nights.  The film also plays all over the world to packed houses, and is a clear "cult classic" that attracts an audience.  It may not have made its money in the first month..but it's still going strong!

http://www.theroommovie.com/screeningspop.html

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You can't watch this video without laughing, especially since it was so obvious from the script stage, the movie would be a total disaster:
 

 

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51 minutes ago, Richard Boddington said:

I'm going to disagree with you here....the movie ran in a single theatre in LA for over a year, and was packed most nights.  The film also plays all over the world to packed houses, and is a clear "cult classic" that attracts an audience.  It may not have made its money in the first month..but it's still going strong!

http://www.theroommovie.com/screeningspop.html

And I will disagree with you, as far as I know the film has yet to break even. It may be close, but no cigar yet.

I am happy that folks are seeing his film, even if they're going to see how bad it actually is, like Birdemic.

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9 hours ago, Manu Delpech said:

Everyone should KNOW though that Gaghan was **(obscenity removed)**ed by Universal. 

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/universal-tries-to-escape-disaster-by-patching-up-dolittle-11579195165

 

"The studio’s decision to tinker with a nearly finished film delayed its release by nine months as it commissioned script rewrites and hired two new directors to help with about three weeks of additional photography, according to people familiar with the production. The goal of these measures, these people said, was to craft a sillier movie more likely to appeal to younger moviegoers and overseas audiences."

 

"After test-screening Mr. Gaghan’s initial version of the movie, Universal worried it wasn’t lighthearted enough to connect with children and families around the globe, according to people familiar with the production. The studio decided the movie needed more computer-generated animals and more laughs, the people said, and called in filmmakers and screenwriters with more experience in the genre. They said these included directors Chris McKay of “The Lego Batman Movie” and Jonathan Liebesman of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”"

 

That's all you need to know, Gaghan has always had issues working with studios and here's another example of a director being railroaded and crushed by the studio system. Dropping 175M on a Dolittle film is incredibly misguided in the first place.

Sounds like justice was served.   I love stories of executives tampering with creatives and paying a hefty price.  Happened on Something Wicked This Way Comes.  Disney really messed with the film and despite their best efforts, it's still shockingly dark and disturbing.  Enough that they refused to market it when it was released.  Now it's a cult classic.  Dated but worth a viewing. Some good scenes that you can't imagine being shot today.

Donnie Darko is a more recent example of a studio giving up immediately on a movie they didn't understand and not pushing it out.  But it was so good that word of mouth alone brings it back to theaters for midnight screenings regularly.  Sometimes you can think you have a bomb when you have a hit.  And vice versa.

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, Tim Smyth said:

And I will disagree with you, as far as I know the film has yet to break even. It may be close, but no cigar yet.

You have all the box office data?

Why do I get into these discussions with people on the internet is the larger question????????

R,

 

 

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21 minutes ago, Richard Boddington said:

You have all the box office data?

Why do I get into these discussions with people on the internet is the larger question????????

R,

 

 

? 

"Cats " is a weird movie to lump into an obvious flop, because the filmmakers made such bold choices and took such outrageous risks with millions of dollars.  It's the kind of movie that would take a filmmaker this strong to make something this terrible.  That's something nobody can predict.  But to quote the late, great, William Golden on why a movie is a success or a flop, “Nobody knows anything...... Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one.”

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Obviously an investor or shareholder would disagree with me, but I've always been fascinated when studios have given a lot of money to someone to create what turns out to be an eccentric, low-commercial, personal "art" film -- examples would be "Greed", "2001", "Apocalypse Now", "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen", "Dune", "Heaven's Gate".  Successful or not, artistically or commercially, it's interesting to see that much money applied to the creation of something odd and idiosyncratic rather than crowd-pleasing. And I don't put "Cats" and "Doolittle" in this category...  One could make a good, charming "Doctor Doolittle" movie, more in the mode of "Babe". Don't know about "Cats", it's probably just not something that should be moved from stage to screen.

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4 hours ago, Richard Boddington said:

All I can say to the DR. Doolittle team is, next time......use real animals! ?

R,

 

I haven't seen it .... but I will say this. I've never, not once, ever, seen a CGI movie with fake CGI animals in it that impressed me (the closest that managed to be okay, in my opinion, was The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe - with the character of Aslan). CGI artists in every single case I've seen do a terrible job with animals. Straight up cartoons, as in Disney cartoons (for instance the original Lion King) do much, much better because they're not trying to depict reality. I grew up around animals. CGI you can tell they don't 'get' animals. They haven't really a clue. I will not go and see another movie with CGI animals in it. Ever. Just totally over most CGI.

It was once an adage of stage veterans: never appear with animals, because they will upstage you. Steal the show. Because they have natural entertainment value. Don't CGI 'em.

Edited by Jon O'Brien
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