Am I right? When hey tried to appease us "Serenity" comes to mind "X-Files: I Want To Believe" it only ended in dismal box office failure. ts no wonder stuff like "Beverly Hill Chihuahua" and "Eagle Eye" can easily top the BO. Even if word of mouth is bad it really doesn't matter movies make more profit overseas where no one really tends to care about critics. So yea lets make more bad movies fuck it I'll watch it eventually. Hey last week I saw the Martin Lawrence gem "Rebound" on HBO. I didn't turn it off.
EdTheRipper
10-05-08, 05:46 PM
You're just figuring this out now?
BravesMG
10-05-08, 05:50 PM
This doesn't make any sense. Who are you defining as "we"? If "we" is the tiny internet bitching audience, well, of course they don't care. You're using an emotional term to define a business model, they don't "care" and neither should you. Just go see stuff that looks good to you.
The stuff that makes money is what they will produce. It's not rocket science here.
The Cow
10-05-08, 06:11 PM
Maybe you should move to Canada.
I think they write coherently up there though. You may need to brush up.
PopcornTreeCt
10-05-08, 06:28 PM
How about the movie going public doesn't care what we think? Fox gave you an X-Files sequel. You got Serenity. The studios seem to be more intune to what we want rather than Joe Six Pack.
Jason
10-05-08, 06:30 PM
Hollywood absolutely cares what the public thinks. The problem is, you don't agree with the public.
Brain Stew
10-05-08, 06:42 PM
What do you want? Serentity didn't make money. It's a business not a charity.
As for the X-Files, Chris Carter, the show's creator made this one. He owns all the blame for this awful movie, not the studio heads.
RichC2
10-05-08, 07:37 PM
Am I right? When hey tried to appease us "Serenity" comes to mind "X-Files: I Want To Believe" it only ended in dismal box office failure. ts no wonder stuff like "Beverly Hill Chihuahua" and "Eagle Eye" can easily top the BO. Even if word of mouth is bad it really doesn't matter movies make more profit overseas where no one really tends to care about critics. So yea lets make more bad movies fuck it I'll watch it eventually. Hey last week I saw the Martin Lawrence gem "Rebound" on HBO. I didn't turn it off.
What does this have to do with studios caring what we think?
Glossy movies generally make money, good glossy movies generally do very well (The Dark Knight (Highest grossing and critically, the 2nd highest rated wide release of '08 (behind Wall-E, another $200m grosser)), bad glossy movies generally do okay (Eagle Eye, Mummy 3). Overseas vary.
A movie based on a cult TV series that averaged 4m viewers a week not doing well isn't exactly a surprise (Serenity) nor is a low budget one based on an aged series (X-files 2). Beverly Hills Chihuahua had it in a bag, talking animals sell especially when its advertised ad nauseum on the kiddie channels, they knew their audience and they struck it out of the park with them.
Sierra Disc
10-05-08, 08:54 PM
Movies + audiences = money, all the studios need to care about really.
Your post pretty much makes no sense whatsoever -- shouldn't it be "movies I don't like make money, why is this?"
animatedude
10-05-08, 09:00 PM
"Serenity" comes to mind? gimme a fuckin' break.that movie is overrated rubbish and u know it.thanks.
Tarantino
10-05-08, 10:46 PM
blah, blah, blah
What the hell are you talking about?
= J
Jericho
10-05-08, 11:19 PM
Am I right? When hey tried to appease us "Serenity" comes to mind "X-Files: I Want To Believe" it only ended in dismal box office failure. ts no wonder stuff like "Beverly Hill Chihuahua" and "Eagle Eye" can easily top the BO. Even if word of mouth is bad it really doesn't matter movies make more profit overseas where no one really tends to care about critics. So yea lets make more bad movies fuck it I'll watch it eventually. Hey last week I saw the Martin Lawrence gem "Rebound" on HBO. I didn't turn it off.
But they DID make Serenity and X-Files 2. If they didn't care, they wouldn't bother making these movies at all.
d2cheer
10-06-08, 01:40 PM
Am I right? When hey tried to appease us "Serenity" comes to mind "X-Files: I Want To Believe" it only ended in dismal box office failure. ts no wonder stuff like "Beverly Hill Chihuahua" and "Eagle Eye" can easily top the BO. Even if word of mouth is bad it really doesn't matter movies make more profit overseas where no one really tends to care about critics. So yea lets make more bad movies fuck it I'll watch it eventually. Hey last week I saw the Martin Lawrence gem "Rebound" on HBO. I didn't turn it off.
Maybe you should start reading a books?
Brian Shannon
10-06-08, 01:47 PM
PT Barnum was way ahead of you
milo bloom
10-06-08, 03:05 PM
Even after all this time, I'm still confused about Serenity doing so poorly at the box office. The movie was greenlit based on internet sales of the TV series DVDs, the movie DVD itself sold so well it was re-released as a special edition, and now they're doing new special features for the BluRay release of the TV show.
*Somebody* is buying this stuff. Paying real American dollars for these DVDs. It simply does not make sense to me. The only thing that makes sense to me gets into conspiracy theory territory, so I'll spoilerize so you don't have to read it if you don't want to.
Remember when The Phantom Menace came out and Lucasfilm Fox demanded a higher than usual upfront take of the first week's box office? Something like 90%? I recall seeing internet posts from more than one person about how they had been given a ticket stub at the box office with a different movie's name on it, one that had been out a few weeks already, almost like the theater chains were trying to skew the take in their favor? I wonder if the studio was foreseeing a bigger take for Serenity based on all the buzz, and asked for a higher than normal upfront take, and the theaters did the ticket switching again and thus contributed to the lower than expected box office.
I know, crazy, but it also seems crazy to me how poorly it did at the box office.
Then again, the trailers didn't seem to do a good job selling it either. I also recall several people saying they thought the trailers were horrible, but once on DVD, they rented it and loved it.
And for the people about to complain about the "I heard from so-and-so effect", here's an example: my brother. Mid 20's, never heard of it until the movie came on one of the cable movie channels a while back, and he happened upon it and loved the heck out of it.
But as for the topic at hand: we're a minority. Most of the movie going public likes explosions and snappy one-liners and not having to think too hard. Oh, and of course, happy endings.
fumanstan
10-06-08, 03:15 PM
I don't think it's that much to be confused about. A million or two fanboys/girls buying the DVDs on release week looks big, but a million or two fanboys/girls paying 10 bucks for a single ticket at the movies doesn't translate to a lot of dough. Seems to make sense to me.
milo bloom
10-06-08, 03:26 PM
Ehh, maybe, still doesn't sit right with me. The only other thing is too many people decided to wait for the DVD, and that did sell pretty well.
Groucho
10-06-08, 03:40 PM
One thing about the DVD sales for Serenity is that fans were buying multiple copies to create an artificial demand in order to goad Fox into producing a sequel. There's even a thread about it here somewhere, demanding an explanation from those who dared to buy one or less copies. :lol:
RichC2
10-06-08, 03:51 PM
stuff
Unestablished Sci-fi is a difficult sell. Even if the DVDs were million sellers, a million tickets isn't going to make for a successful movie. Serenity, on the big screen, looked and felt like the TV show which I'm sure didn't help (It literally looked like a TV episode blown up onto the big screen and not a theatrical feature). I'm one of those that saw the movie in theaters and just did not like it, it felt cheap and cheesy, the forced dialog didn't work for me, and the plot was incredibly generic/recycled and predictable. Why am I mentioning that? Because save for the 'cheap' part, that completely describes the Star Wars prequels as well and we all know how well those did (sickening isn't it?)
Edit:
I don't think it's that much to be confused about. A million or two fanboys/girls buying the DVDs on release week looks big, but a million or two fanboys/girls paying 10 bucks for a single ticket at the movies doesn't translate to a lot of dough. Seems to make sense to me.
Oh, you beat me to it. Somehow missed that.
Anyway, studios do care what we think because we're the ones that will pay to see their movies and buy their products. "We" just happens to cover a lot of people with a lot of varying taste. I mean, why else would they have test screenings? They want their movies liked by the widest audience possible.
spainlinx0
10-06-08, 03:58 PM
I had never met in person anyone who watched Firefly before the movie was released. Since then, I have met just one. Just because it is overrepresented here doesn't mean it's this huge with the general public.
RichC2
10-06-08, 04:00 PM
Yeah, internet hype has in general proven to be a pretty big bust.
Drexl
10-06-08, 04:10 PM
Yeah, internet hype has in general proven to be a pretty big bust.
Snakes on a Plane, man.
It's also possible that Serenity could have caught on later, the way that some movies like The Shawshank Redemption, Donnie Darko, and Office Space did. Then again, I'm not really a fan so I don't know what the following is like.
The Bus
10-06-08, 04:12 PM
*Somebody* is buying this stuff. Paying real American dollars for these DVDs. It simply does not make sense to me.
A Serenity sequel would cost another $40-60MM.
I don't think Serenity has sold $40MM in DVDs.
I can't make it any clearer than that.
wm lopez
10-06-08, 06:23 PM
Movies + audiences = money, all the studios need to care about really.
Your post pretty much makes no sense whatsoever -- shouldn't it be "movies I don't like make money, why is this?"
Why does Hollywood continue to make all those anti-Iraq war movies even though all of them bomb?
Nick Martin
10-06-08, 06:36 PM
Maybe you should move to Canada.
I think they write coherently up there though. You may need to brush up.
Generally we add useless "u's" to certain words (color becomes colour, neighbor becomes neighbour, honor becomes....you get it) but yeah he'd definitely need to brush up. :)
Snakes On A Plane was awesome. Sucks that the internet's tubes got jammed up and the movie failed as a result but whatever, it delivered exactly what it promised: Snakes on a plane, Sam Jackson saying muthafucka, snake on a trouser snake, snake on a nipple, snake in an old fat lady's nether regions....damn, where's the Blu-ray for this? I'd get immediately if it was available.
Sierra Disc
10-06-08, 07:15 PM
Why does Hollywood continue to make all those anti-Iraq war movies even though all of them bomb?
Because liberals are evil?
PopcornTreeCt
10-06-08, 07:51 PM
Hollywood doesn't continue to make anti-Iraq War movies. It would be nice to have an Iraq War movie version of Platoon or Apocalypse Now. But no such luck yet.
spainlinx0
10-07-08, 10:31 AM
If you want a good Iraq viewing, check out Generation Kill.
troystiffler
10-07-08, 11:54 PM
Big Oil doesn't care about what we think. Studios really do care about what we think. If they didn't care what we think, they wouldn't have money to make more movies. Normal folks don't just go to shitty-looking movies (look at Richeous Kill). They go to movies that they want to see.
In your opinion, is the "we" actually "film buffs". To me, the "we" would be "moviegoers". People seem to forget that most people just want some entertaining stuff to see with friends and kids. Movies that blur that emotionally-moving-art/entertainment line are always the best (and seem to be the most bankable). I guess that you could complain that "the general moviegoing public doesn't require art as entertainment".
Look at test screening and reshoots and stuff. Studios spend millions reshooting and stuff is some teenage kid at a test-screening didn't like how the movie ended, or how a scene 'felt'. In my opinion, this is where the studios really fuck up. But, hey, they're the ones risking all the money in the bank for these gigantic productions. One big bomb can leave a studio in debt. A few can kill it.
You got to understand it's about money. Ideas are brought to the table and the solid ideas are financed. If you (yea, YOU) had a really good idea, begged independent investors, and got something off the ground by yourself, studios WOULD pay attention. But the problem is that you probably don't. And you probably won't.
A certain elitism is built into critics. Like this inside passion that they could make something better. Or maybe it's because they spend too much private time with the greats. An anger - like the producers of Beverly Hills Chihuahua OWE us if we don't enjoy the movie.
When was the last time you went to a movie, after seeing trailers, and reading positive reviews, that felt like a big letdown? I can't say that any studio habitually misguides us. They might release junk-food entertainment. But they dont' hide it. We're rarely misguided by the trailer. And we're rarely misguided by critics. Between the two, it's like sex with a condom and birth control; if you have both, there's little possibility that it's not going to turn out like you thought it would. Nobody is forcing you to see this forgettable, zippy Hollywood fluff. I bet that 90% of the people, who do or do not read reviews, are going to like Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Why? Because they saw the trailer and then they went to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua.
You always need one or the other - good-looking movies/trailers or good reviews. When you take away one or the other, the movie usually doesn't bank well. When you have both, the movie is usually very profitable.
Then, you have to understand that most productions kick off strong (the exception is big directors who can effortlessly get films financed by friends). Then the reality of a shoot set in. Productions get stuck with uninterested actors, touchy directors, panicky financers, hasty producers and problematic crews. A strong pre-production can only carry so far.
And, to finish, a borderline high-art Batman movie got like a 200mil budget recently. Don't tell me the studios don't care.
droidguy1119
10-08-08, 01:03 AM
A Serenity sequel would cost another $40-60MM.
I don't think Serenity has sold $40MM in DVDs.
I can't make it any clearer than that.They released a second DVD of Serenity because it was one of the studio's highest sellers. I'm not saying I think there will be any sequels, but I imagine that particular DVD has raked in a lot more cash than you imagine. I just think studios aren't paying attention. I remember when EW inducted "Office Space" into their cult-movie hall-of-fame, they had an interview with a guy at Fox Home Video who had to recheck his statistics three times when they asked him how much the DVD sold.
I think if the internet was better at really getting together and making their voice heard, things would be different. You can't win 'em all, but, for instance, I think there were enough people who were disappointed that the last Die Hard movie was rated PG-13 that had there been a truly collective, single outpouring of opinion over it, Fox might have changed their mind. Maybe. But as many have said, if the bottom line is healthy, they're not going to give a shit either way. Certainly LFoDH made enough money that even if we could have changed their minds, they don't and won't regret having made the movie a PG-13.
And as for the Snakes on a Plane example, I think that movie failed because by the time it came out, the hype was over. Had New Line done the wise thing (perhaps it was not possible, but nonetheless) and moved the movie two months forward, I think it would have made a lot more than it did. But I know my friends and I, who were all greatly amused by it when it was an internet sensation, were tired of waiting by the time the movie finally opened.
Buy: