Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2014

Sorry, I meant to write Lone Ranger and RIPD.

Pacific Rim is more part of that earlier discussion (from this thread?) about movies whose grosses would be perfectly fine if they hadn't cost so much money.

It's in my head as a flop though because (as mentioned in the last post) it was a dumb movie not worth Del Toro's time. The script was like a Saturday morning cartoon.

 

Godzilla's looking more monstrous every day. I'm thinking this could be one of those once every 15-20 year spectacles that transcends the four quadrants.

 

What are the "four quadrants"?

 

Very true. You look at something like R.I.P.D. and wonder "why did this thing cost $130M?" It's a strange world in Hollywood where the middle ground of movies that cost between $20M and $60M is just about gone; you're either making a tiny indie film, or you're making a huge blockbuster. Not much inbetween.

 

I'm sad to say, all those films definitely fall into that category.

That's a great question. Read these links:

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchwald_v._Paramount

http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/stu...ause-of-warner-bros-phony-baloney-accounting/

The latter is a very interesting story on how a movie that cost $150M but made $938M has still not technically broken even. There's a long book on the Art Buchwald Coming to America lawsuit that explains that there are gross profits, studio profits, and net profits, and they're all calculated differently. As Buchwald said after his lawsuit, "there's a tennis court on the Paramount lot, but nobody can play... because there's no Net." Sadly true.

There's even a point where no matter how much money a movie grosses, there's so many accounting charges being made against the film, it'll never fulfill the definition of "profit" that's in the contract. It's very rare that any actor or director gets a percentage of the gross receipts from dollar one, especially nowadays. Famously, Sumner Redstone fired Tom Cruise when he discovered that Cruise actually wound up making as much or more on Mission:Impossible III than Paramount did. Eventually, they smoothed it over, but it just shows how screwed up the whole profit/loss situation is with the movie business.

 

Makes you wonder how they managed to make Ghostbusters 30 years ago. Bigger stars, all practical effects. Cost 30 million and for the most part looks better.

 

Murray was the only "bankable star" in "Ghostbusters" at the time - and he hadn't starred in a hit for 3 years at that point. Ramis and Moranis were largely unknown to people, Weaver was just the chick from "Alien", and Aykroyd hadn't gotten much going in movies.

I think the cast came cheap and the majority of the budget went elsewhere...

 

bloated salaries?

 

With inflation, how much would 30 million be today?

 

Around 70. Plus CGI should be cheaper then the insane amount of practical effects on Ghostbusters.

 

As compared to the two stellar superstars in RIPD?

 

I didn't make any comment on "RIPD" at all. I simply stated that "Ghostbusters" didn't have actors who were big box office draws at that time and I doubt their salaries amounted to much. Murray and Aykroyd were the only two who had any real "marquee value" at all, and only Murray had proven himself as a draw at all...

 

Men, women, those under 25, those over 25

Those were the classic quadrants, though Hollywood's demographic marketing has gotten much more sophisticated and things are really analyzed by more granular niches these days. The press keeps repeating four quadrants to make themselves sound like they are insiders or something.

 

Thanks, I wasn't familiar with that particular term.

 

Yep. They're all crap. The Redbox only had Wolverine, Riddick, and Elysium. They're all so bad that I'm cutting my losses, forgetting about the other ones I was planning to see this weekend, and going back to watching assorted TV series on Netflix. I'll pass on Thor, Bad Grandpa, and The Counselor until I come across them on Netflix someday. I thought I was up for a weekend of junk movies, but I'm not enjoying them.

Thanks. I read the links. Very informative! Bottom line seems to be "As much accounting BS as is allowed by law." And do whatever can be done to screw people out of their compensation. Pretty disgraceful behavior described in some of those links.

I had no idea the marketing costs and distribution fees were so high.

 

As part of their contract for Insidious: Chapter 2 lead actors Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne each took a portion of the gross profits (the budget of the film was only $5 million so I'm assuming they both worked for scale) and as a result they both received over $7 million.

 

Very true. What I've discussed with Oatsdad before is that the studio considers about 2X or maybe 2.5X to be a breakeven point for the studio -- which they don't necessarily call "profitable," but they'll admit (under protest) that they didn't lose any money on it. The trick is, the studios don't want to make breakeven films... they want to make films that make huge profits. What's puzzling is how a Harry Potter movie can make over $900 million -- six times its budget -- but the P&L sheet says it hasn't yet "made a profit."

The real problem today is in advertising (sometimes called P&A for "prints and advertising," even though there's technically almost no more prints now). A blockbuster costs a minimum of $40M or $50M to release, and that's in addition to all the product tie-ins and publicity tours they run in order to whip up public interest. Huge films like the various superhero movies can easily double or triple that amount. If the studio pays $200M to make a Spiderman movie, then spends another $100M to advertise it, and the production is being charged interest the entire time, you can see how it might be possible for it to make $700M-$800M and not quite break even. And there are always people at the top of the food chain who get their dollars right from day one.

 

This site calculates it to be $67, 540, 712.

Its box office was approximately $300,000,000 or $675, 407, 122 in today's US dollars.

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

 

A movie that appeals to four fundamental demographics: young, old, male and female. Everyone except your goldfish.

 

You replied to my comparative statement claiming it was wrong.

I never said Ghostbusters had huge expensive stars in it. I said the stars in it where bigger at the time then the two stars in RIPD.

 

You did this in the context of wondering how they could make "Ghostbusters" for only $30 million...

 

I would add that $30 million was a lot of money in 1984, when Ghostbusters was made. By comparison, Raiders of the Lost Ark cost $18 million, and Return of the Jedi cost $32 million. So Ghostbusters was a huge, huge expensive movie for that time, and also a big gamble for Columbia Pictures. I saw it almost a month before it was released and was totally blown away, since I had never seen a trailer and had no idea what to expect; it's still one of my favorite movies, just a perfect blend of outright horror, comedy, and satire. Bill Murray's ad-libs are worth the price of admission alone.

 

Continuing it's massive run, Frozen sells 3.2 million Blu/DVD's in first day of release!!!!!

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/frozen-sells-32-million-blu-689770

 

Never underestimate the purchasing power of little kids whining until their parents give in and buy them something just to get them to shut the hell up.

 

Divergent opens with a solid $56mil. It should be solidly profitable for the studio.