Jackskeleton

Square/Enix had to sell a part of itself to sony because of Final Fantasy. It was indeed a sad day for gamers of the world.

Inverse

"they're generally quite profitable."

Notice I specifically said "low grossing," not "unprofitable." But things like House of the Dead and Resident Evil are only profitable because they're low-budget (Resident Evil only grossed $40 mill in the US.) And I'm guessing a Doom movie, if it ever happens, will end up in the House of the Dead/Resident Evil range both in budget and in quality. Which means I won't be getting very excited about it. Why watch a bad movie of Doom when you can play a good game instead?

(And yeah, FF was a financial disaster: BOM lists worldwide grosses of $85 mill against a budget of $137 mill, not incliuding marketing. No way DVD sales can make up that gap.)

DonnachaOne

I checked the BoxOfficeMojo numbers, Inverse. That's what prompted me to post my reply to your post in teh first place.

BOM doesn't take DVD sales into account.

I was under the impression that Square had financed the film and Sony had distributed it. Correct? Sony hadn't paid for the film's making, only the distribution. Correct?

Jackskeleton

That's my understanding about it.

DonnachaOne

So it stands to reason that Sony could have made a profit on their investment?

Inverse

"BOM doesn't take DVD sales into account."

Right, but there's no way DVD sales for a movie that flopped both in the US and Japan could make up a $52 million gap between budget and worldwide revenues, PLUS $30 million in US marketing, PLUS Lord-knows-how-much in international marketing. The DVD would have to sell multiple millions of copies at full price, but as I recall it did nothing on the charts and hit the discount bins within six months. But hey, dig up some actual numbers on the number of copies sold and the price points and prove me wrong.

"I was under the impression that Square had financed the film and Sony had distributed it. Correct? Sony hadn't paid for the film's making, only the distribution. Correct?"

I have no clue. It's not terribly relevant, though, partly because Sony and Square are in bed together anyway (Sony snagged a 19% interest in Square that very same year), partly because the question at hand isn't whether company A made money while company B lost it, but whether the project as a whole made a profit. Pretty clearly it didn't, which is why Square is out of the movie business and absolutely no one is willing to put up any money for a big-budget FF sequel.

It's like Battlefield Earth. When it came out and was a massive flop, the producer bragged that he didn't lose a dime, because he had already passed on the financial risk to overseas distributors/investors. He also bragged that a sequel was already in production.

Now of course the producer can crow all he wants to about how HE made money, but that did nothing to disguise the fact that the project as a whole was a flop. So the overseas distributors who had borne the losses refused to fund BE2, and the sequel never happened.

Same deal with Godzilla and Hulk. The studios can rightly say that when DVD sales and merchandising fees are taken into account they made a profit ... but that doesn't mean others weren't left with big losses, namely the merchandisers. The studios would happily make sequels to those movies if they could shift the financial risk to the merchandisers like they did before. But the merchandisers will never go for it, having been burned before. So no Godzilla 2, and Hulk 2 looks reeaaaalllly iffy (no script, no director, no star at the moment.)

jaeufraser

It is possible, but in a day and age where P&A can cost 30-50 million dolalrs, I seriously doubt it. Not to mention, since Square fronted the massive budget, Sony is only going to take a small percentage of the revenue anyway, or paid an upfront fee to release the film. Nonetheless, with only 30 million in US revenue, and 85 worldwide, there's just not enough to justify everyone's expenses. Even if Sony got all the theatrical revenue, let's say half that 85 million, it'd barely be enough to cover P&A.

And I want Doom to be made...but it's that insane idea that it has the ability to be good. Which...it won't. But if they let ME make it it'd be awesome!

Kumar J

Square had to close their office in Hawaii after that movie, a big lost.I live very near to thier office here in Tokyo.They seem very quiet after that movie.

fumanstan

Well in all fairness, didn't home video sales of Atlantis pass its box office take, making 90+ million dollars or so? Granted, that's a Disney movie with probably a lot more curiosity from those that skipped it in theaters, but 50 million in DVD sales certainly wouldn't be out of the question.

Mike2004

I always thought Michael Biehn who played Hicks in Aliens would be perfect for the Doom movie. It would also be cool if they got Arnold Schwarzenegger to play the doom guy. I don't see that happening though since Arnold is in politics now.


-Mike

mikehunt

well seeing that by the time doom3 actually comes out arnold's term will be over he could do the movie

Inverse

Re: Atlantis vs. FF. Atlantis grossed as much in the US as FF did *worldwide*. So we're talking a whole different order of floppage here. Plus FF didn't have the whole "parents buy it for their kids sight unseen" angle to it that Disney DVDs have.

fumanstan

Which has nothing to do with the point that Final Fantasy could have made back the deficit on DVD sales. We're not comparing magnitude of flopage, nor am i saying that Final Fantasy even needed to equal the amount of sales that Atlantis took in (and i pointed out the Disney factor). Like i said, the possibility of Final Fantasy recouping much, if not all, of its losses isn't out of the question.

jaeufraser

Well, yeah it's not out of the question. But neither is Pluto Nash recouping its money through DVD sales either. Truthfully though, all indications point to Final Fantasy being an out and out bomb. Theatrically it definately was a failure, and there's no indication DVD sales were robust enough to make up for that. Seriously, Final Fantasy needed to make 300-400 million overall from everything to even think about breaking even. so we're talking some pretty huge DVD sales to make up for that, and since I don't recall it ever really topping the charts...you know.

PopcornTreeCt

DonnachaOne

Not really. Terrell's post was his informed opinion of the Rock's acting prowess (even if it's a misinformed one), which is relevant to the thread.

AGuyNamedMike

I think Dwayne is quite talented (certainly equal to if not better than most other freshman/sophomore action stars), and has the ability to shine through horrible scripts and direction. He was subtly funny in Scorpion King, a bit better in Rundown (one of the most underrated action/comedies I've seen in years), and frikkin' hilarious on SNL. His physicality is imposing without being ridiculous and he actually possesses a sense of humor that comes across on screen without being just silly. It will be interesting to see how he would be in a dark, serious project like Doom.

Iron Chef

I hope that Dwayne sticks to action movies and doesn't try to become a serious actor anytime soon.

dom56

I'm waiting for Half-Life on the the big screen with Charlie Sheen as Gordon Freeman.

Brain Stew

DonnachaOne

I'd like to see him do comedy. His SNL stint was brilliant.

Dammit

The game went gold a few days ago and will be on shelves the first week of August. The wait is over.

Edit: www.doom3.com is live now as well.