Hollywood Babble On & On #852: China Opens The Gate Just A Crack...

The movie studios and the White House are giving themselves some hearty pats on the back because they just finagled a new deal for releasing Hollywood movies in the Peoples Republic Of China.

The new deal keeps the quota of 20 Hollywood movies being released in China per year, but exempts up to 14 "premium format" films like Imax and 3D from that quota.  It also bumps up the piece of the action the studios get from the Chinese box office from 13% to 25%.

It all sounds like it's going to be all sugar and unicorns, right?

Well, maybe not.

Let's look at the Pros and Cons.

PROS.

MONEY: China is a massive movie market, and has been the Holy Grail of money for the big studios for decades. It has a growing economy, and over a billion people who belong to a movie-loving culture that goes to theaters in numbers and frequency not seen in North America since the 1930s. There is a lot of money to be made in China.

CONS.

POPULATION: China's population is aging, has a terrible shortage of women, and its new-found wealth is leaving large swaths of its massive population behind in an almost semi-medieval limbo. This means that China could face massive social and economic upheaval, and a lot sooner than you would think. 

GOVERNMENT: China's market, though more open than it was in the past, is still nowhere near being a truly free market. To participate you need the blessings of the ruling elite in the Chinese Communist Party.

ECONOMIC: The need for the blessings of the political elite breeds corruption like plague bacilli in a rat's gullet. Corruption makes business even harder and more costly to do, until it reaches a saturation point where it stops being worth the effort to even try.

CREATIVE: Then there are the creative aspects of this new market paradigm, in both quality, and the censorship of Hollywood movies.

1. QUALITY:  The exemption is specifically for Imax and 3D movies. That means the studios are going to start scrambling for those spots with even more shitty 3D movies. 

Why do I say "shitty" because the studios fear, probably irrationally, that things like story, characters, and dialogue, won't fly in foreign markets, and with one of the biggest foreign language markets opening slightly they're going to go for even more special effects, explosions, and empty posturing in the vain hope that what doesn't fly as well over here will make money in China.

2. CENSORSHIP: Then there's the unseemly issue of censorship. The government of China is notoriously touchy about its image and will censor or actively ban anything that it may interpret as making it lose face.

But that's not the insidious part. No, the really insidious part is the self-censorship the studios will do to filmmakers in the name of keeping their spot in the precious quota. You can forget anyone doing anything about the situation in Tibet in the foreseeable future, or human rights that don't somehow put the blame all on the CIA. It could even go as far as dropping scripts that involve the overthrowing of fictional dictators, because they fear it might hurt the feelings of real dictators.

So while they are some short terms gains to be made from this deal, ultimately, those gains could easily turn into an...

Who Does What?: The Distributor/The Exhibitor

Two of the most important entities in the movie business are the distributor and the exhibitor.

As I always say, any idiot can make a movie, but what's a movie worth if no one can see it?  To get a movie seen you need a distributor and an exhibitor.  These two entities have a strange form of symbiosis.  They need each other, but they are often in conflict, which I will try to explain here.

DISTRIBUTOR: It is the job of the distributor to take your film and put it in theaters.  A little trick of Hollywood is that the major studios are, in fact, two technically separate entities.

One wing handles production of films. Once the film is finished it then goes to a independently incorporated company that handles distribution. Now most of the time they have the same name with maybe a little variation, except for Disney, where the distribution of movies used to be handled by their Buena Vista Distribution company until they retired the brand 2007 and renamed it The Walt Disney Motion Picture Company.

Now this is so the distribution company part of the studio can charge the production company part of the studio a fee for the privilege of releasing their movies. This amount can be whatever they damn well feel like, and usually is more than enough to ensure that nothing gets anywhere near a net profit.

Okay, I just explained how the distributor is used to screw up Hollywood's finances, let me explain what they do.

It's the job of the distributor to handle the release of movies. They book screen time with the exhibitors, they then have to pay for all the marketing and the advertising. 

This means TV/radio ads, billboards, web ads, and even newspaper and magazine spreads.  Then there are the costs of transporting and housing celebrities for overseas premieres and publicity events.

It's expensive, and time consuming, and a distributor really has to know what they're doing to avoid just wasting money and time.

Once the movie is screened, the distributor then has to collect the money from the exhibitors.  This money is called the "rental" and is technically the fee the exhibitor has to pay to rent the movie for the screening. The actual amount can vary widely, depending on the agreement between the distributor and exhibitor.  The rental can be anywhere between 40% to 50% of the ticket price.

EXHIBITOR:  "Exhibitor" is basically a fancy two dollar word for theater owner.

Before 1947 the studios owned the theaters that showed their movies. However, that changed when the federal government decided that studios owning theaters was a monopoly and had the court order them to break up.

Now there's a case to be made that the court was wrong, and vertical integration is the way to go, but that's a topic for another day.

 

Since the 1947 the studios have had to deal with a new partner, the exhibitor. This partnership is often strained due to frequent conflicts.

Distributors want nothing but the best when it comes to exhibiting their movies. They want the best quality projection, the loudest and clearest sound, and even the comfiest seats. However, these things cost the exhibitors money, and since they depend on box office to cover their overhead or "nut" and sales of popcorn and soda for their profit margin, they don't want to pay for them.

Exhibitors say that if the distributors want everything upgraded then they should be able to raise the ticket price to pay for it.  Distributors don't want ticket prices raised if they're not getting the money, because, well, they're not getting the money, and if the price goes too high, there will be fewer bums in seats.

Another stress in the relationship comes from the whole booking process.  In the old days the studios used to engage in what was known as "block booking." If your theater chain wanted the sure fire hit with Cary Grant, you had open up some screens for the less sure-fire movie starring some chick the studio head is scoring with.

However things have changed. There is now no longer such a thing as a guaranteed hit. Big, heavily promoted films with top stars can sink like stones, while small, poorly promoted little movies with no stars can soar like rockets to blockbuster sales.

Neither side knows what's going to sell and what doesn't. They try to hedge their bets, but the old paradigms they used to rely on so much, are crumbling. Both sides are looking out for their own best interests, and while they should be copacetic, in the confusing and convoluted world of movies, they are often in conflict.

Sorry...

No post today. Been a really busy, bordering on crappy day, despite the up-tick in the weather from Witch's Teat to Well Digger's Bum.

So here's the openings of all 22 James Bond movies all at once.  It's sort of hypnotic to watch.

Hollywood Babble On & On #851: Is This Even Possible?

I guess the Mayans were right after all.

The world must be coming to an end because there are signs and portents in the winds.  Strange events and mysterious happenings are occurring all over the world. 

Hollywood's equivalent of the two headed goat is a report that Michael Bay, the master blaster of overwrought bombast, is directing a new crime movie for Paramount called Pain & Gain for only $25 million.

That's not Bay's salary, that's supposed to be the entire budget for the movie, which is slated to star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Mark Wahlberg. It's based on an article that chronicled the true story of a group of bodybuilders who went on a violent crime spree in Miami.

Now I just have to ask this question:

IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE?

Now I have mixed feelings toward Michael Bay.  As a filmmaker he's not so much a storyteller than a composer of images for ad campaigns. His movies make my eyes bleed.  

 

However, I do respect Bay's status as the bug up Hollywood's ass.

He not only doesn't hold to the fashionable cultural and political shibboleths and prejudices of his show-biz colleagues, he actively opposes them in his films. 

His movies may insult your intelligence, but they're not going to insult you, or your beliefs, just so he could get invited to party with the cool kids.

The one thing I can't wrap my head around is him doing a movie, any movie for somewhere between 1/5 to 1/8 of what he normally works with.

I applaud him for wanting to try, and for him and his stars being willing to pass on their usual up front money for a piece of the back end.

How Hollywood normally treats money.

I just don't know if they can pull it off.  If you do too many films for serious mega-money, you can lose the ability to operate for amounts that are normally spent on a trailer capable of sheltering Will Smith's entourage.

Which is why I think every filmmaker, especially the ones known for making big blockbusters, should take a break. Not time off, but a break from the overflowing teat of other people's money, and make a film for a what would be considered a small budget by Hollywood standards.

It's a win-win for all involved. The producers get a film by a director with a track record at a low cost. The filmmaker gets to exercise creative muscles that can often become flabby when they have the option of just throwing money at the situation.

When those muscles get toned, they tend to get used on larger projects as well. This means the potential for saving money on the bigger projects.

So I wish Michael Bay luck with this, but I see the specter of massive budget overruns hanging over this project.

Discount Bin Film Club: The Godfather Part 3.

I first saw The Godfather Part 3 in the early 1990s.  I had missed its theatrical run since I lived in a town without a theater, but since I was a huge fan of the first two movies, and even liked the "novel for television" edit when I was a kid, I rented it the moment it first showed up at the old VHS rental shop.

That was also the last time I saw The Godfather Part 3, until this week.

Now that's saying something for someone who has been a big fan of the Godfather saga since I was a little kid and my parents let me watch it on TV during a moment of questionable parental judgement. When the first two movies were running in a theater during my time in Toronto, I went and caught both shows. When it came to be Part 3's turn, I stayed home.

Why?

Because ever since I first saw it, I had this nagging sense of disappointment over the film.

Then I got a gift card last Xmas, and in January I took that card to my local retailer, and got two things, a box set of Community Season 1, that ironically, didn't contain any DVDs, and the Coppola Restoration of the Godfather Trilogy.

I watched the first two, and decided that I should grit my teeth, and watch Part 3, to see if my nagging sense of disappointment was right.

It was.

But this time I realized what caused my sense of disappointment.

"The sin is that the movie is incomplete."

The movie was unfinished on every level.

The screenplay just reeks of a first draft, with little or no polishing. Important plot points and characters are just glossed over, while trivialities are dwelt upon to an unseemly length.  

The dialogue also seems strictly first draft, with dialogue put in it because at some point the writers (Puzo and Coppola) thought that they were the sort of things that should be in a Godfather movie without any of the sort of deep analysis needed to see if they really did belong in a Godfather movie.

Now it was popular at the time to put the blame on Sophia Coppola for her wooden performance as Mary Corleone.  While her "Valley Girl" accent stuck out like a sore thumb, she is also a victim of the film's incomplete nature. She was a last minute replacement for Winona Ryder, who had collapsed from exhaustion on the first day of filming, and her lack of preparation shows.  Now while the first two movies had so much story going on, there was room to edit around any shortcomings, the bare bones nature of Part 3, meant that there was no cover for Sophia, and her shortcomings as an actress. It was probably ego on Coppola's part that he thought she could do it with so little because he was the man who made the first two Godfathers, and who had the right to question his decisions. 

Then there's the whole "incesty" romance between Mary Corleone and her cousin Vincent.... that needed a rewrite. Ewww....

Now let's look at how the film itself is constructed, and how that just reeks "first draft." Look at this clip of one of Part 3's major action scenes.  If you haven't seen it, Michael Corleone's announcing his retirement to the Mafia's commission, and his refusal to share his largesse with small time thug Joey Zaza (Joe Mantegna) has cause Zaza to storm out in a huff, followed by Don Altobello (Eli Wallach) who pleads with Joey to come back.  The meeting goes on without them, and things take a turn...

Now this is supposed to be the film's centerpiece action moment, its equivalent to the assassination of Sonny at the tollbooth in Part 1, but it's a complete failure in my opinion.

Why?

Because like the script they have the core of a good idea, but no polish, no follow through.  First, there's no research into what sort of weapon would create the effect they wanted. Inside the room's being torn apart as if by a heavy machine gun, but all we're shown is an Uzi sub-machine gun, which though a deadly weapon, doesn't strike the audience as capable of dropping 100+ bullets down range like that.

Then there's the movement within the scene.  It is slow, both on camera, and in the editing.  We're supposed to be shocked with the speed and horror, yet everything is ponderous and lingering.

What's with that guy and his lucky coat?  Okay, it's his lucky coat, and he doesn't want to leave without it, so why is he just lingering there hugging it? It can't be stuck on the hook for the love of all that's cinematic, that would be stupid.  So is standing there hugging a coat while bullets fly all around you until you're killed.

The first two Godfather movies featured violence / action scenes that matched in style the nature of the act of violence being performed.  Sudden ambushes come out of nowhere, targeted assassinations carefully stalk their prey, then strike with brutal efficiency, anarchic shootouts are pure chaos, but you still know what's going on.

The helicopter attack scene in Part 3 matches not the nature of the attack, but the nature of the film itself. Overwrought, under-thought, sloppily constructed, and ultimately disappointing.

To sum it up, a first draft.

Hollywood Babble On & On #850: Dear George.

AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE LUCAS.

Dear George Lucas.

Furious D here, just dropping in because I read some comments you made recently about the whole "Han Shot Greedo First" controversy.  Here's the kicker that got me started...

The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn't. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.

Seriously George, you think the audience misunderstood this scene?

It looks like a pretty straightforward scene to me.  Greedo, a professional thug, threatens Han, Han shoots Greedo before Greedo can shoot him.

I remember it clearly because it was the first movie I remember seeing in a movie theater. I didn't "want" Han Solo to be a cold blooded killer, but even then, in my half-formed, still slightly gooey child's mind, I knew that Han had to kill Greedo in cold blood.

And not just because Greedo was threatening Han with a blaster.

The central reason that Han had to shoot first is that it is fundamentally essential to the narrative of the whole Star Wars saga.

"Oh no! George is at it again!"

Remember, Han is the first major character that Luke meets that isn't a relative, or a Tatooine local. He's the "gateway character" who ushers Luke from his isolated life on the farm to the greater Galaxy.

Han also illustrates that this Galaxy is a dark and dangerous place, where it's often kill or be killed, because while the Empire is oppressive, it's essentially decadent.  Not decadent in the meaning of wild orgies and other sexual shenanigans, but decadent in the meaning that the moral and ethical norms of a decent civilization are in a profound state of decay.

It also adds weight to Han's ultimate redemption during the final battle with the Death Star.  He has his reward for rescuing Leia and bringing her back to the Rebel Alliance, he can pay his debts and resume his normal life as a low rent smuggler.

Now the Han that shot first at the beginning of the movie, would have gone home with the money.  But that Han is gone by this scene. He is changed profoundly by his adventures with Luke and Obi Wan. Because of that change, that sign that heroism really is an option now, he turns his ship around and joins Luke in a desperate suicide mission against the planet smashing Death Star.

Do you see my point George?

Now you have every right to fiddle with your creation. You own it, you can make the whole franchise your bitch, which you appear to do on a regular basis.  But the overweening arrogance of refusing to release the original versions, and now denying the memories of millions of fans to justify your questionable choices, can only mean one thing.

You are so full of shit you don't even know up from down anymore.

I can only assume that you're surrounded by legions of sycophants who tell you that you're every cranial fart is some tremendous act of genius, and that you don't have anyone near you brave enough to talk reality.

Because if you did have someone like that near you, they would have told you that such a statement makes you sound like an arrogant, ultra-narcissistic douche who lives in a semi-dream-world.

Of course this is all just yelling in the wilderness. You probably don't take criticism seriously because you're still making mega-millions off your creation, and assume the dollars coming in must mean you're right.

But how will history judge you George? As a visionary?  Or just a neurotic who scored big on one good idea and spent the rest of his life trying to milk as much money as he could by draining said idea of all of its originality and creativity, ultimately becoming synonymous with the Hollywood ethic he once claimed to be rebelling against.  The ethic that story was secondary to flashy visuals, and creativity and emotional impact secondary to the cash that could be made.

Is that how you want to be judged?

-Sincerely

Furious D.

Hollywood Babble On & On #849: Three Random Drips From My Brain Pan

DRIP #1: IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY LAWSUIT....

Okay, take a second and read this...

Click pic for full size.

When I first read it I thought it was a rather florid pitch for a new thriller starring Marky Mark, or the beginning of someone's novel, and that the next paragraph was going to be all about a "dame with epic length legs wrapped in a haiku length skirt."

But no, it's not any of that, it's the opening statement in yet another movie related lawsuit, this time between Aramid Entertainment, Relativity Media, and other defendants.

What's the fundamental truth of this story?

That nothing about it matters.

That's right, the purple prose of the plaintiff's lawyer doesn't matter.

The amount being sued for doesn't matter.

The guilt or innocence of the parties involve definitely doesn't matter.

What does matter is that this is just another lawsuit proving my point that the movie business, both studio and indie, is such an organizational and financial pig's breakfast the only true winners in the movie business are the lawyers.

DRIP #2:  PARADISE LOST IS LOST

Legendary Pictures has scrapped plans for a big budget movie version of John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, starring Bradley Cooper as the fallen angel Lucifer.

Apparently the reason was because they couldn't get the budget below $120 million no matter how hard they tried.

Now I have to ask: What the hell is wrong with Hollywood? 

Seriously, when I was kid, and that wasn't that long ago, film-making was a much more arduous, and time consuming process, requiring renting hyper-expensive equipment, and large crews of talented, highly paid specialists. You could only shoot in specific areas, just loading film into the camera took time, steady hands, and and special effects required complex and time consuming optical processes to pull off.

Then a mega-budget epic cost $40 million.

That's not even going to pay for a romantic comedy with more than one star these days. And this is during a time when one can buy cameras, lights, and other equipment for less than the cost of a week's camera rental in the old days.  Loading a digital video camera now takes seconds, and special effects can be done on inexpensive computers in days or weeks, rather than months.

It's not inflation, because the rest of the economy hasn't faced the inflation that Hollywood faces.  It can only be Hollywood's own shoddy and often shady business practices that have caused this insane inflation.

Do you see a theme forming here?

DRIP #3: NOW A PALATE CLEANSER

Now something a little more cheerful, with The Artist's Jean Dujardin...

Jean Dujardin's Villain Auditions from Jean Dujardin     

Hollywood Babble On & On #848: Politics Or Personality??

A group that gives out awards to films that they believe promote conservative and/or family values released a study that says thematically "conservative" films make more money than thematically "liberal" movies. The overall gist was that films with stories that have a positive take on heroism, family, belief, and country tend to make more money than films that don't.

That's pretty believable, and for it to be believable doesn't require that the audience has to skew particularly conservative. Yes, the majority of Americans do tend to skew slightly to the right of center, but even if the division was exactly 50/50 between ardent liberals and devout conservatives, the result would probably be the same.

Why?

This picture has nothing to do with this post.

It have very little to do with politics, and almost everything to do with feelings.

You could make a movie with a tremendous production budget, the biggest stars in the planet, and a P&A budget that could buy a European nation, but let it be known that it is a highly partisan film with a liberal slant, and you would lose a fortune. In fact, you would be better off putting the money in a big pile in the middle of the studio and setting it on fire, because at least then you can claim that the money is keeping you warm.

This is because such a film would be considered insulting and/or boring by both sides of the audience regardless of their politics.

This is because no one outside of Hollywood honestly believes that Hollywood is capable of handling political or controversial subject matter with any sort of deftness, skill, or anything that remotely resembles even handedness. The audience sees something with a political theme, and they just assume it's going to be a shrill ham-fisted diatribe based on whatever stance will get the film's makers invited to the fashionable parties.

Conservative ticket buyers assume they will be insulted for their religion, lifestyle, and voting habits, and they won't spend their money on being insulted by anyone other than Don Rickles.

This picture also has nothing to with this post

But what about the liberals?

Liberals have their own reasons, but its roots lie in the simple fact that, like their conservative cousins, they also know deep in their bleeding hearts that Hollywood is really ham-fisted when it comes to handling political issues and themes. 

Most liberals don't really believe that people who vote differently from them are truly evil, but Hollywood does, and don't care for being told that their friends, family, and neighbors are the spawn of Satan.

Even liberals that share Hollywood's Manichean sentiments don't buy tickets in the numbers you would expect.  That's because they see such a film, and assume it's going to be a lecture, and even if they agree with the lecture's sentiment, they're going to avoid it, because they assume it would be boring as hell.

So why do "conservative" themed movies make more money?

Another irrelevant picture.

Think about what makes a film "conservative" by the criteria presented by the group. They must have positive views of heroism, family, nation and values. These things don't require tearing down members of the audience for their beliefs, but building up the characters on screen to fulfill the requirements of the story, which is a completely different dynamic.

Now that's not saying that being politically conservative in attitude means that box office success is guaranteed. The attempt at making an overtly political comedy An American Carol, failed at the box office because it made the same mistakes made by overtly liberal movies. It came across as being ham-fisted shrill, strident, and struck people of all political stripes as being either insulting or boring.

Even discussing partisan political film-making is so at risk of being ham-fisted, insulting and boring that any blogger doing it would be tempted to pepper the post with pictures of attractive women to keep his predominantly male readership interested. Not that I would ever do anything like that, I'm too classy.

Hollywood Babble On & On #847: MGM = Me Got Money, Now What?

Just when you thought it was dead, the lion roars again... sort of.

MGM has officially retired its once crushing debt, pulling it off years ahead of schedule, and has a bouncing baby $500 million credit line to make new movies and TV shows.

Bully for them.  Sure it's not the sort of full throated roar they would have let out when they were the biggest studio in the world, and boasted of having "more stars than in heaven," but it's not the weak whimper the company's been known for for the past 25-30 years.

Now while $500 million to make movies and TV shows is nice, I wish I had that, it's not the glorious situation you might at first think it is.

Remember, this is not $500 million in cash, free and clear, it's a credit facility, which means that they are deemed a safe bet to borrow money to make movies and TV shows. 

MGM is expected to pay that money back.

Then there's the amount.

Most of the major studios spend that much on 2 or 3 summer blockbuster movies. That's not a strategy that MGM can follow.

Yes, they have the Bond movies, which are pretty big budget, but they more or less share those with Sony, so they really don't count in this discussion.  

What MGM has to do is operate like a street corner fruit stand.

VARIETY: A successful fruit stand has to have a wide variety of fruits and vegetables in stock. In MGM's case this means making films in a wide range of different genres, and styles. The key is to always have something that somebody wants on hand so that if you've got some rotten bananas, you can get them off the shelf and replaced quickly.  Now this could be also achieved by forming partnerships with independent producers, but since MGM gave up its distribution that might not be as easy as it might be if it was a distributor.  Now giving up distribution was probably essential to retiring the debt ahead of schedule, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

FRESHNESS AND PRICE: A corner fruit stand that can't offer fresh produce at a competitive price isn't going to be in business for very long.  For MGM that means being a lean and mean production machine.  They can't afford to spend years and millions of dollars on just developing a script. They need to get from the page to the screen faster and cheaper than everyone else. No wasting money on executives, and executive perks.  If it doesn't directly involve putting something of value on the screen, then don't spend it.

That means individual films have to have comparably lean budgets, I'm talking about $10-$50 million a piece. New technology means that you don't have to spend the GDP of a European country to create a professional looking film.  MGM can't afford it.  So they shouldn't even try outside the Bond movies, and even then, they should try to keep them as efficient as possible.

PAY YOUR BILLS:   A tip of my sombrero to regular reader Blast Hardcheese, possibly a pseudonym, who reminded me to harp on one of my regular gripes about Hollywood.


A fruit stand that doesn't pay its suppliers what they're owed, isn't going to stay in business very long. Either those suppliers cut them off completely for being deadbeats, or they make the stand pay more up front than their competitors.  Likewise with Hollywood, where shady accounting creates the self-fulfilling idiocy of Hollywood. They use accounting tricks to screw contributors out of their shares of the profits in the name of saving money, but in the end those contributors use whatever clout they get to demand more money up front. Hence the costs of everything skyrockets to levels not seen outside of Weimar Germany, and profit margins shrink and ultimately vanish.

If MGM is going to keep its costs down, it will also need to keep its accounting shenanigans down too.  If they get a reputation of being a square dealer, then they might be able to attract big names without having to shell out the big up-front fees, or profit killing dollar-one deals.

Anyway, that's what I think.

What the....?

Sorry for no business related rant today. The news is a little slow, I spent pretty much all of last night listening to half my pipes rattle and clank because they're frozen, and most of today trying to thaw them out.

In place of the usual ranting and raving that you all crave like the salivating dogs that you are.  Here's a teaser trailer that didn't play at the Super Bowl last night.  It's for the next Muppet movie. (h/t Topless Robot)