Originally posted by: mordantmonkey
Originally posted by: Kenazo
I guess they figure if they lose $20million/movie on average, you have to put out 5x as many movies to make money....
your horrible logic made me laugh.
0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
- 64,795
- 84
- 91
he did
in the first sentence. but still, what he says is true. the industry always whines about its financial health when its never been justified by the real numbers. yet many lazy journalists fill pages by parroting industry press releases all the time. heck just last week my local mercury news had a front page thing on it. i was a bit disgusted.Not just cellphones and crying babies, but retarded fvcking adults who shouldn't let themselves go out in public.
oogabooga
Diamond Member
- Jan 14, 2003
- 7,806
- 3
- 81
my problem is that a lot of the stuff we are seeing isn't original (i guess many can argue that stuff never is but i dont mean to that extent).
Batman begins was relatively original : but it's still well endowed in it's franchise.
Movies seems to about three different things
1) Big Action
2) Boobies
3) Pisspoor comedy.
And now they are tieing these three into remakes and prequels. I know i wanted the sequel trend to end, but this is just plain ridiculous.
I have found that watching a lot more independent smaller films have made life more bearable. The big movies for me last year wern't spiderman 2 ( though i did like it ), schreck 2, and passion. I enjoyed Eternal Sunshine, I <3 Huckabees, etcetc.
Batman begins was relatively original : but it's still well endowed in it's franchise.
Movies seems to about three different things
1) Big Action
2) Boobies
3) Pisspoor comedy.
And now they are tieing these three into remakes and prequels. I know i wanted the sequel trend to end, but this is just plain ridiculous.
I have found that watching a lot more independent smaller films have made life more bearable. The big movies for me last year wern't spiderman 2 ( though i did like it ), schreck 2, and passion. I enjoyed Eternal Sunshine, I <3 Huckabees, etcetc.
indeed.
if there were enough movies worth seeing, I'd be at the theater every weekend instead of once every 2-3 months.
if there were enough movies worth seeing, I'd be at the theater every weekend instead of once every 2-3 months.
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
- 80,287
- 17,082
- 136
I'd like to reaffirm some of the previous posts:
My biggest problem is the price.
Why should I pay 20 bucks or more for a ticket to a place that charges 3 times what the candy and soda is worth, just to hear babies cry and cell phones ring?!?
I saw in Taiwan they were starting to put shielding up in the theaters, to keep cell signals out. Thats a step in the right direction.
My biggest problem is the price.
Why should I pay 20 bucks or more for a ticket to a place that charges 3 times what the candy and soda is worth, just to hear babies cry and cell phones ring?!?
I saw in Taiwan they were starting to put shielding up in the theaters, to keep cell signals out. Thats a step in the right direction.
K1052
Elite Member
- Aug 21, 2003
- 53,466
- 47,928
- 136
Write to the film companies as the bulk of the ticket revenue goes to them, that is why concession prices are high.
Why do people think they are after DVD sales like a dog in heat? Becuase it is maximum profit for minimum effort. The profit margins are thin or non-existant for retail stores but they do it because it has been shown that when a person comes in to buy a DVD they buy a few other things as well.
lokiju
Lifer
- May 29, 2003
- 18,526
- 5
- 0
My biggest gripe is the way the crowds act and around me its completely hit or miss, last weekend I saw Batman Begins and there wasn't a peep out of anyone what-so-ever (sold out theater) then there are other times when its just people yelling and screaming back and forth the whole damn time. I didn't pay $9 to see a movie just to have some group of dipsh!ts talking the whole damn time!
I think there should be more movie theaters that are 21 and older, there is one thats a 30 min drive for me so thats not always an option, but if there were more around I'd go to them every single time.
I think there should be more movie theaters that are 21 and older, there is one thats a 30 min drive for me so thats not always an option, but if there were more around I'd go to them every single time.
GagHalfrunt
Lifer
- Apr 19, 2001
- 25,284
- 1,998
- 126
Well, it depends on which girls. Glenn Close and Kathy Bates won't generate much buzz. An Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron scene should be good for a couple of hundred million in ticket sales.
I think it's a combination of high ticket prices and crappy movies that is the real problem. If movies were only $5 or $6 a ticket instead of $9, I'd be more willing to go to a theater and see a movie that I'm mildly interested in instead of saying "I'll just wait for it to come out on DVD" or "I'll just wait until it's on HBO". For example, when I, Robot came out, I thought it looked like it would be an ok movie, but I didn't bother seeing it in the theaters. I felt like it wouldn't be worth the $9 to see it in the theaters when I thought it would only be "ok". If I really got the urge to watch it, I could just rent it or borrow it from a friend when it came out on DVD. If movies were around $5 or $6, I probably would have just gone to the theater to see I, Robot.
Instead of wasting their money and resources on the whole piracy thing, the MPAA (and RIAA too for that matter) should stop being so damn greedy, lower their prices for movie tickets (CDs), and embrace the new medium instead of trying to hunt down and prosecute people for piracy. I'd be willing to bet that if they did these things, they'd find that they'd make more money and the whole piracy thing would be less of a problem. Just my $.02
-Tom
Instead of wasting their money and resources on the whole piracy thing, the MPAA (and RIAA too for that matter) should stop being so damn greedy, lower their prices for movie tickets (CDs), and embrace the new medium instead of trying to hunt down and prosecute people for piracy. I'd be willing to bet that if they did these things, they'd find that they'd make more money and the whole piracy thing would be less of a problem. Just my $.02
-Tom
0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
- 64,795
- 84
- 91
more goodness June 22, 2005
THE SLUMP ISN'T REAL, BUT CHANGE IS...
(Part 2)
As I was saying?.
Batman's landmark position in both video sell-thru and the shortened video release window led to another deal that changed the video rental business. Instead of a split price point for rental and sell-thru, a rental "rental" was created and the major rental storefronts were flooded with copies of every new release to deal with the "opening weekend" demand. This was followed a few week later by a furious sell-off of the used tapes at deep, deep discounts ($9.95 to as low as $2).
Meanwhile, domestic theatrical was being transformed by bankruptcies and mergers. Some competitive overbuilds were eliminated. Some dirty, beat up theaters - some movie palaces that could have been revived by a more caring system - used the bankruptcies to dump long leases and to reconfigure into the bigger, better stadium-seating multiplex world in which we now live.
The kick-off of the new era was Spider-Man, with the first $100 million opening weekend, generated by a record number of actual screens, as multiplexes expanded the number of screens within their houses (counted only once in what is still poorly tagged "screen count") to fit overwhelming first weekend demand. The "screen count" was 3615, but the print count was almost double that and the number of screens that actually showed the film was probably almost double that number in that first weekend.
As DVD continued to emerge, Blockbuster wanted there to be a similar deal to their video deal. They wanted it to remain a rental business and fought the notion of DVD sell-thru aggressively? after all, it would surely lead to their demise if it caught on. (The impact of another threat, the NetFlix business model, wasn't yet apparent.) But the studios were to smart for all that. The flood of slightly used tapes in the marketplace had dug deeply into retail video sell-thru. They weren't going to make that mistake again.
The DVD business was building, but it took a superhero, once again, to push the envelope and to define the culture of DVD. This time, it was Spider-Man? with more than a little bit of help from some hobbits.
In the fall of 2002, Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Rings and Spider-Man both swung into DVD before Thanksgiving. The year before, Shrek was out and, if you had children in your house, you might have already bought a DVD for Big Green and Monsters, Inc, etc. But here were two films that the teenage set HAD to have and they HAD to have the DVD because of all the supercool (read that with a French accent) additional materials, especially in the Rings discs.
As best as I can tell, that was the first year that a studio grossed more on DVD than on their domestic theatrical. Home Entertainment was no longer "just an ancillary."
The economics were simple. A normal DVD sale (Rings packages were an even bigger cash cow) generated $8 - $12 in profit for the studios (before taking out participants' shares). A video in the rental-to-sell-off market generated maybe half that much. With a market full of people who were willing to spend twice or three times the cost of a rental to own the DVD, studios could sell almost as many units as they were flooding the rental market with, almost doubling their income. In addition, there was still a rental market generating dollars. Win, win, win? cash, cash, cash.
Over at the movie theaters, things were going great guns. Spider-Man had broken through as the first $400 million domestic film since Titanic. The Lord of The Rings movies were doing landmark business. Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean were on the way.
Ah, those happy moments.
But trouble was on the way. They say that nature abhors a vacuum. Well, Hollywood abhors a cash vacuum. And with the new expanding revenues, thanks to DVD sell-thru, the extra money got spent in a hurry. Budgets expanded, top salaries grew, back-end percentages became bigger and more standard.
Charlie's Angels had been modestly profitable, thanks to DVD. But the sequel was greenlit at nearly the cost (including overruns) on the first movie. How could it miss?
Hulk lumbered into the marketplace at a cost of about $150 million.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was over the $200 million mark.
Both Matrix sequels were well over $200 million apiece.
And a summer after Men In Black II went into theaters almost unable to make a profit due to the massive percentages being eaten by the talent team surrounding it, along came Bad Boys II, which was looking at about $350 million worldwide theatrical as a breakeven point, taking all ancillaries, including DVD, into consideration.
And as all of those costs increased, risk increased? and marketing costs accelerated to ever more dizzying heights. Even minor titles, meant to hit and run, started to spend big bucks in TV advertising in order to get any traction at all. And not only were movies that were, say, opening in May, throwing tens of millions into television's sweeps month, but June, July and even August movies started throwing money around in May since it was the last great opportunity to get big television audiences so awareness could be built.
In the summer of 2004, the summer of 2003 had a clear impact. The spending frenzy slowed a little. There were still a few $200 million-plus titles and a few $150 million-plus titles without major stars in them. But the machinery was working pretty well. Warner Bros.' amazing international run continued with Troy, Fox figured out how to work around the media and to go right to its audience with The Day After Tomorrow? even big films that were considered disappointments (Van Helsing, I, Robot) did over $120 million domestic and over $300 million worldwide.
The year was so good that even without a Rings movie or a Potter in the fall, Meet The Fockers' breathtaking $280 million domestic and over $500 million worldwide didn't get a whole lot of attention.
The media abhors a vacuum too.
Welcome to 2005.
Statistics are quite malleable. For instance, in the first four months of the year, there were more $50 million grosser released this year (19) than last year (17). Last year, there were only two $100 million releases in the first four months? three this year. But the $420 million from those three films this year were $70 million behind the two films of last year.
It struck me that Lord of The Rings: Return of The King must have dumped more money into early 2004 than Fockers dumped into 2005? but I was wrong. Fockers actually drew $8 million more in the year after opening ($146 million vs $138 million), so I can't manipulate that stat.
In any case, this year's Troy was Kingdom of Heaven? and the difference between the two was $86 million. This year's Shrek 2 is Madagascar? and the difference will be over $250 million.
Between the $100 million grosser of the first four months of each year and these two analogous titles, we have more than made up the "slump" at the box office? with just six movies. Flip those six titles, out of fifty-eight 1000 screen-plus titles released so far this year and there is not only a slump, there is a fairly strong improvement.
But the idea that DVD was killing theatrical sparked the imagination of both writers and audience members. Critics, ever anxious to find an excuse to write about how terrible movies are nowadays, took it on? the studios are killing theatrical by making everything too safe. People who go to the movies finally had a good reason to rant about the ticket prices and the pre-show commercials, which have become pretty unavoidable in the last two years.
In a triumph of insanity, the very reputable Marketplace on NPR, headlined the Loew's/AMC merger as having resulted from the slump at the box office. There was no mention of the bankruptcies of just a few years ago, or the effect of AMC being the first multiplex leader and now having to retool so many of their venues, or the general weakness of the Loew's chain in spite of excellent locations? now, everything is about "The Slump."
Today's "further discussion" went long and so, this is now becoming a three-parter, because The Future still hasn't been discussed. And it requires a lot of discussion. I'll set is up before I go today?.
Domestic Theatrical
International Theatrical
DVD Sell-Thru
DVD Rental
Video
PPV/VOD
Ancillaries
These are the seven areas of income production for a movie. There are other economies inside studios, especially those that own TV and cable networks, but let's leave those aside.
Video is close to going away completely, but its been absorbed by DVD, so the loss is not so painful.
Ancillaries are dumped in that category because they are a small percentage of income and tend to ride with the waves of the moment.
And then there were five?
There is certainly give and take between these five areas of revenue creation. But what has fueled the industry as it stands today is that the four fairly mature areas (PPV/VOD is not close to maturity yet) have maintained themselves and that theatrical has even grown as DVD has boomed.
But what people are humming about with all this "slump" stuff is the destruction of one or more of those four financial pillars. And what they don't seem to get is that unlike the DVD expansion, which has been wonderful for the business, the income made in the digital universe, including DVD, can not make up, financially, for the loss of a theatrical base. Moreover, if the theatrical base were to be degraded, the income levels from DVD and the other digital delivery methods would also, inevitably, be reduced. So not only would there be less income from theatrical, but the Home Entertainment revenues would be reduced. So in a business where the margins are already very low, this movement could be apocalyptic. That is, unless you want movies to become television, both literally and figuratively.
And on that happy note, more tomorrow?
PART ONE: The Video... Yesterday
PART THREE: The Future... Tomorrowhttp://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/index.html
THE SLUMP ISN'T REAL, BUT CHANGE IS...
(Part 2)
As I was saying?.
Batman's landmark position in both video sell-thru and the shortened video release window led to another deal that changed the video rental business. Instead of a split price point for rental and sell-thru, a rental "rental" was created and the major rental storefronts were flooded with copies of every new release to deal with the "opening weekend" demand. This was followed a few week later by a furious sell-off of the used tapes at deep, deep discounts ($9.95 to as low as $2).
Meanwhile, domestic theatrical was being transformed by bankruptcies and mergers. Some competitive overbuilds were eliminated. Some dirty, beat up theaters - some movie palaces that could have been revived by a more caring system - used the bankruptcies to dump long leases and to reconfigure into the bigger, better stadium-seating multiplex world in which we now live.
The kick-off of the new era was Spider-Man, with the first $100 million opening weekend, generated by a record number of actual screens, as multiplexes expanded the number of screens within their houses (counted only once in what is still poorly tagged "screen count") to fit overwhelming first weekend demand. The "screen count" was 3615, but the print count was almost double that and the number of screens that actually showed the film was probably almost double that number in that first weekend.
As DVD continued to emerge, Blockbuster wanted there to be a similar deal to their video deal. They wanted it to remain a rental business and fought the notion of DVD sell-thru aggressively? after all, it would surely lead to their demise if it caught on. (The impact of another threat, the NetFlix business model, wasn't yet apparent.) But the studios were to smart for all that. The flood of slightly used tapes in the marketplace had dug deeply into retail video sell-thru. They weren't going to make that mistake again.
The DVD business was building, but it took a superhero, once again, to push the envelope and to define the culture of DVD. This time, it was Spider-Man? with more than a little bit of help from some hobbits.
In the fall of 2002, Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Rings and Spider-Man both swung into DVD before Thanksgiving. The year before, Shrek was out and, if you had children in your house, you might have already bought a DVD for Big Green and Monsters, Inc, etc. But here were two films that the teenage set HAD to have and they HAD to have the DVD because of all the supercool (read that with a French accent) additional materials, especially in the Rings discs.
As best as I can tell, that was the first year that a studio grossed more on DVD than on their domestic theatrical. Home Entertainment was no longer "just an ancillary."
The economics were simple. A normal DVD sale (Rings packages were an even bigger cash cow) generated $8 - $12 in profit for the studios (before taking out participants' shares). A video in the rental-to-sell-off market generated maybe half that much. With a market full of people who were willing to spend twice or three times the cost of a rental to own the DVD, studios could sell almost as many units as they were flooding the rental market with, almost doubling their income. In addition, there was still a rental market generating dollars. Win, win, win? cash, cash, cash.
Over at the movie theaters, things were going great guns. Spider-Man had broken through as the first $400 million domestic film since Titanic. The Lord of The Rings movies were doing landmark business. Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean were on the way.
Ah, those happy moments.
But trouble was on the way. They say that nature abhors a vacuum. Well, Hollywood abhors a cash vacuum. And with the new expanding revenues, thanks to DVD sell-thru, the extra money got spent in a hurry. Budgets expanded, top salaries grew, back-end percentages became bigger and more standard.
Charlie's Angels had been modestly profitable, thanks to DVD. But the sequel was greenlit at nearly the cost (including overruns) on the first movie. How could it miss?
Hulk lumbered into the marketplace at a cost of about $150 million.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was over the $200 million mark.
Both Matrix sequels were well over $200 million apiece.
And a summer after Men In Black II went into theaters almost unable to make a profit due to the massive percentages being eaten by the talent team surrounding it, along came Bad Boys II, which was looking at about $350 million worldwide theatrical as a breakeven point, taking all ancillaries, including DVD, into consideration.
And as all of those costs increased, risk increased? and marketing costs accelerated to ever more dizzying heights. Even minor titles, meant to hit and run, started to spend big bucks in TV advertising in order to get any traction at all. And not only were movies that were, say, opening in May, throwing tens of millions into television's sweeps month, but June, July and even August movies started throwing money around in May since it was the last great opportunity to get big television audiences so awareness could be built.
In the summer of 2004, the summer of 2003 had a clear impact. The spending frenzy slowed a little. There were still a few $200 million-plus titles and a few $150 million-plus titles without major stars in them. But the machinery was working pretty well. Warner Bros.' amazing international run continued with Troy, Fox figured out how to work around the media and to go right to its audience with The Day After Tomorrow? even big films that were considered disappointments (Van Helsing, I, Robot) did over $120 million domestic and over $300 million worldwide.
The year was so good that even without a Rings movie or a Potter in the fall, Meet The Fockers' breathtaking $280 million domestic and over $500 million worldwide didn't get a whole lot of attention.
The media abhors a vacuum too.
Welcome to 2005.
Statistics are quite malleable. For instance, in the first four months of the year, there were more $50 million grosser released this year (19) than last year (17). Last year, there were only two $100 million releases in the first four months? three this year. But the $420 million from those three films this year were $70 million behind the two films of last year.
It struck me that Lord of The Rings: Return of The King must have dumped more money into early 2004 than Fockers dumped into 2005? but I was wrong. Fockers actually drew $8 million more in the year after opening ($146 million vs $138 million), so I can't manipulate that stat.
In any case, this year's Troy was Kingdom of Heaven? and the difference between the two was $86 million. This year's Shrek 2 is Madagascar? and the difference will be over $250 million.
Between the $100 million grosser of the first four months of each year and these two analogous titles, we have more than made up the "slump" at the box office? with just six movies. Flip those six titles, out of fifty-eight 1000 screen-plus titles released so far this year and there is not only a slump, there is a fairly strong improvement.
But the idea that DVD was killing theatrical sparked the imagination of both writers and audience members. Critics, ever anxious to find an excuse to write about how terrible movies are nowadays, took it on? the studios are killing theatrical by making everything too safe. People who go to the movies finally had a good reason to rant about the ticket prices and the pre-show commercials, which have become pretty unavoidable in the last two years.
In a triumph of insanity, the very reputable Marketplace on NPR, headlined the Loew's/AMC merger as having resulted from the slump at the box office. There was no mention of the bankruptcies of just a few years ago, or the effect of AMC being the first multiplex leader and now having to retool so many of their venues, or the general weakness of the Loew's chain in spite of excellent locations? now, everything is about "The Slump."
Today's "further discussion" went long and so, this is now becoming a three-parter, because The Future still hasn't been discussed. And it requires a lot of discussion. I'll set is up before I go today?.
Domestic Theatrical
International Theatrical
DVD Sell-Thru
DVD Rental
Video
PPV/VOD
Ancillaries
These are the seven areas of income production for a movie. There are other economies inside studios, especially those that own TV and cable networks, but let's leave those aside.
Video is close to going away completely, but its been absorbed by DVD, so the loss is not so painful.
Ancillaries are dumped in that category because they are a small percentage of income and tend to ride with the waves of the moment.
And then there were five?
There is certainly give and take between these five areas of revenue creation. But what has fueled the industry as it stands today is that the four fairly mature areas (PPV/VOD is not close to maturity yet) have maintained themselves and that theatrical has even grown as DVD has boomed.
But what people are humming about with all this "slump" stuff is the destruction of one or more of those four financial pillars. And what they don't seem to get is that unlike the DVD expansion, which has been wonderful for the business, the income made in the digital universe, including DVD, can not make up, financially, for the loss of a theatrical base. Moreover, if the theatrical base were to be degraded, the income levels from DVD and the other digital delivery methods would also, inevitably, be reduced. So not only would there be less income from theatrical, but the Home Entertainment revenues would be reduced. So in a business where the margins are already very low, this movement could be apocalyptic. That is, unless you want movies to become television, both literally and figuratively.
And on that happy note, more tomorrow?
PART ONE: The Video... Yesterday
PART THREE: The Future... Tomorrowhttp://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/index.html
went to see batman begins today. Had some free passes so I cruise up there for my tickets and the girl says "thats 5 dollars" I'm thinking wait a minute I have free passes, oh but wait batman begins is a special movie and I have to upgrade my free passes in order to qualify for batman. WTF is going on here.
Make more movies like "Primer" where I can't actually do some thinking during the movie and there is some plot and creativity. I saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith and my boss asked me the next day what it was about and I really had to struggle to figure out the plot because it was so basic.
Make more movies like "Primer" where I can't actually do some thinking during the movie and there is some plot and creativity. I saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith and my boss asked me the next day what it was about and I really had to struggle to figure out the plot because it was so basic.
True. If movies were really crappy, no one would pirate them. Afterall, have you ever heard of anyone stealing crap from a public restroom?
No, today's movies are still pretty good. I'm still enjoying them. I enjoyed Kung Fu Hustle, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, and Batman Begins so far. If I wasn't so busy and tired lately, I would have watched more. I'm looking forward to seeing Fantastic 4 soon.
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