You Asked For It!

I asked for your questions, and boy did you give me some real noodle-scratchers to fake answer. So let's get started:

@MediaWarrior asked via Twitter... Got a question was the studio trying to sabotage the Miley Cyrus film LOL?

For those who aren't familiar with the story LOL is a remake of the 2008 French coming of age comedy movie, and starred former Disney starlet Miley Cyrus and Demi Moore. It was released in only 105 screens against Marvel's The Avengers and had a total box office somewhere around $67,000.  

I don't think Lionsgate was actively trying to "sabotage" the release of LOL, while they're the biggest independent studio out there, they're not big enough to just piss away $11+ million for sake of sabotaging a movie for motives beyond comprehension.

A quick look at the film's production history does tell me a story. The film itself was shot in 2010, and post-production was completed early in 2011. It then sat on a shelf for over a year only to get a contractually obligated theatrical release up against the biggest box office event of the year.

The story it tells me is that at some point during post-production the people running Lionsgate looked at the film and said: "Oh hell, this movie is either completely abysmal, or totally unsellable." Now you're not going to get a company to admit that they made a bad movie, or that they're unable to sell a movie, that's a sign of weakness.

Now the usual tactic is to just dump it out on DVD, but Lionsgate was contractually obligated to theatrically release the movie. Rather than burning calories and money trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, they did the bare minimum they were legally required to do, and they did it at the one time of the year that there's a good chance that the majority of movie-goers wouldn't even notice its release.

So it's not sabotage, just ass covering.

NEXT QUESTION:

Soonertroll asked... What are the unrealistic chances of Disney & Fox doing an Avengers Vs X-Men movie? Could something like that be made for less then $500 million?

The chances of that happening are extremely unrealistic. Fox has the rights to the X-Men franchise as long as they keep pumping out X-Men movies thanks to the fine print in their contract with Marvel. Now after the creative abortion that was X-Men: The Last Stand some thought the series was done and dusted, but the retro-styled First Class revitalized the franchise, and I don't see Fox giving any part of that up as long as it remains profitable.

Disney already has to share a piece of The Avengers with Paramount as part of the buyout of their deal with Marvel, and I don't see them as willing to share even more of the golden goose with another rival.

I don't even want to think about the budget, which would outstrip NASA for sheer scale.

NEXT QUESTION:

Helen asked... Why are critics obsessed with Michael Bay? I get that they don't like his movies but it's gone way beyond that. For example, just a few days ago I came across a derogatory reference to Bay in a review of a 1940s French drama, of all things.

The answer is simple and it's rebellion.

But not just any kind of rebellion, and it's not who think it is that is doing the rebelling.

Yeah, the answer's simple, but the explanation of the answer is really complicated.

Anyway, there are two kinds of rebellion in Hollywood, there's the rebellion that Hollywood accepts, and the kind that Hollywood abhors.

Rebellion That Hollywood Accepts: Tattoos, bad fashion choices, drug/alcohol addictions, and possessing a condescending-to-insulting view of the American audience, their intelligence, and their religious and political beliefs. All while paying proper obeisance to the prevalent attitudes that Hollywood holds dear to its own flinty heart. That means that you can piss on the beliefs and feelings of audience all you want, but you must kiss the ass of your peers, and those who share the same beliefs of your peers without question.

Rebellion That Hollywood Abhors: Illustrating the hypocrisy inherent in Hollywood while refusing to play along with the industry's personal shibboleths and sometimes actively mocking them.

That's Michael Bay.

Hollywood likes to claim that it's an art created by a blessed and talented elite that cares more for art and society over crass commerce. Bay loudly declares by his very existence that Hollywood is a big business that's not much different than running carnival rides, and his films show it. They may insult your intelligence with their silly plots and overwrought dialogue but they won't declare that you are evil just because you pray and vote differently from his Hollywood peers. 

Normally, this sort of behavior would result in him being subtly blacklisted out of the industry. However his movies make shit-loads of money, and despite its claims of being above the rule of dirty lucre, they need cash-cows like Bay to help pay for the generally money losing film and TV projects of Hollywood's obedient pets like George Clooney.

This means Bay is untouchable. They can't stop him from making money movies, he knows it, and flaunts it in their faces. So the only way they can fight back against him is to slag him as the embodiment of everything wrong with Hollywood, when in fact he's merely a reflection of a truly dysfunctional system.

This attitude as seeped into the minds of critics, who see themselves as the gatekeepers of culture, and use him as a convenient bogeyman.

NEXT QUESTION:

Dirty Dingus McGee Asked... Will the massive success of the Avengers after its 4 movie build up change the way film companies try to advertise their product? Given the overall success of Marvels movie brand as a whole what are the chances of more groups of movies set in a shared universe without being sequels/prequels to each other?

That's a tricky question.  You see the success of The Avengers, and the Marvel movie universe as a whole, falls upon two very important factors.

1. A preexisting fictional universe that's already embedded in the zeitgeist. Something to show the executives that there is something that exists, has a track record, and an audience to make the risk worth taking.

2. More important is having a strong figure at the top with the vision and testicular fortitude to conceive the overall plan and the administrative skill to coordinate it all into a coherent whole.  Especially making sure to sign all the actors to a potential Avengers movie right from the start, to avoid being held over a barrel financially.

Marvel has that in the form of their top movie guy Kevin Feige. He did a bang up job putting together the movies leading up to The Avengers and it's obvious that the Disney/Marvel leadership trusts him, and hopefully will keep trusting him at the helm.

Now there is another organization that could put together such a sweeping mega-project, but it lacks that key ingredient I call the Feige-Factor.

That company is DC Comics.

It has a large coherent universe stocked with characters capable of carrying feature films and TV projects, but it lacks a strong head to put it all together.

Remember, Marvel and DC are structured very differently. Marvel was a more-or-less independent company right up until its recent takeover by Disney. DC has been a subsidiary of Time-Warner since the 1970s.

When Disney bought Marvel its movie business was already well established and Feige had a track record of success. It was simply cheaper and easier for Disney to leave him more or less alone to avoid rocking a boat loaded with cash.

If you're in charge of DC Comics movies then you come in as just another cog in an already massive machine. It doesn't matter how visionary and skilled you are, you will never have the power needed to see your vision come to fruition without having the weight of the entire Time-Warner bureaucracy crushing you and your plans.

It doesn't matter how the way Marvel runs their movie properties succeeds, I doubt the Time-Warner corporate group-think will ever let anyone have the scale of clout that Feige has over at Marvel. Nolan has some measure of clout over Batman, and possibly over Superman, but the corporation won't relax their grip on the rest to allow for a Justice League movie, even if it breeds nothing but disaster. Do I have to mention Green Lantern?

NEXT QUESTION:

ILDC asked... Why does Universal want to make a sequel to the 2010 semi-indie-hit Kick-Ass? Is it because The Hunger Games just proved that there's a mainstream audience for kids murdering? And maybe also dropping C-bombs?

I doubt they see Kick-Ass 2 as a potential $500+ million blockbuster rip-off of The Hunger Games, but they do see a film that was an R-Rated movie made for less than $30 million make a little shy than $100 million worldwide at the box office, and have a healthy afterlife on home video and comics.

Universal will probably try to make it into the more marketable PG-13, which would offend the core fans, and doom the sequel to failure, but it's not like logic's ever guided their decision making.

I hope I answered your questions, and feel free to ask me more.

Hollywood Babble On & On #898: You Gotta Pay Me To Hype Me!

A lot of people wonder why English speaking Canada's feature film industry is more or less moribund. French language cinema is vital, and competes quite well against the big Hollywood fare within Quebec and other Francophone territories. Quebec cinema even wins awards and scores remake deals from Hollywood.

English Canadian feature films either wither away forgotten, or if it's "successful" end up replaying on a loop late at night on a backwater Canadian cable channel until the tape wears out. English Canadian audiences look at a film that they suspect is Canadian made, and they will stay home, expecting it to be boring, pretentious, and cheaply made with flat cinematography and limp sound.

Not all English Canadian movies are like that, some strive to connect with the audience, but the compact of trust between producer and audience is broken, and will most likely never be repaired as long as they have the sort of mindset that thinks this stunt is somehow clever.

If you're too lazy to click the link, Alliance Films, the country's biggest film distributor, distributes a lot of American movies within, most of them from independent companies like CBS Films, Focus Features, The Weinstein Company and others. 

They're at Cannes to promote their upcoming slate of releases, but if you are a Canadian journalist and want to interview American stars like Brad Pitt about his movie Killing Them Softly, or Kristen Stewart about On The Road, you will have to pay cash on the barrel-head.

Now they can do junket interviews with the stars of their Canadian movies for free, but that's not the point. There aren't that many media outlets in Canada that would bother wasting their precious air time talking about a movie that probably wouldn't be seen outside of the Toronto-Vancouver-Montreal axis, and if you're going to make them pay to talk to the American stars that might actually attract eyeballs, they're not going to waste any time at all.

Sure, Alliance is promising to let the Canadian media talk to the stars when the junket circuit goes to North America, but that doesn't matter, the die has been cast. The Canadian media is going to casually boycott Alliance's releases for a while, and there isn't going to be a damn thing Alliance can do to stop them. Remember, ignoring Alliance's movies is free, a prospect that's even more tempting when they pull a stunt like charging media outlets for the privilege of hyping their product.

Then there are the optics of the whole thing. When you're a movie distributor you have to project an image of being smart, smooth and in control, not like a hare-brained penny-pinching miser who thinks demanding that media outlets pay to hype them is a good idea.

Stupid, stupid move.

Hollywood Babble On & On #897: Let's Help Universal

In the past I've offered my advice to MGM about remakes they can do that wouldn't offend movie fans and curse the movies to failure and ignominy. Today I decided that I should offer the resources of my infinite egocentric narcissism wisdom to Universal Pictures, which really needs my help.

Let's look at their plan to remake The Rockford Files with Vince Vaughn in the title role of Files. I've already explained why it is doomed to fail, so let's come up with a pitch in a similar vein that could succeed.

THE PITCH:  Vince Vaughn is a former Chicago cop whose once high flying police career was sidelined when he was framed for murder and spent five years in prison. He was eventually cleared by DNA evidence and released. Once free took his settlement money to the sunny shores of southern California. But the money didn't last long, and now he's stuck owning a little storefront building in Venice Beach, renting out half the store to a surf shop, and using the other half as his office where he works as a P.I. to make ends meet.

Most of his cases are small time, but he gets a chance for the big time when the boss of Hollywood's top PI firm offers him a gig filling in for a guy on a big divorce case involving a sexy starlet.  Naturally, it's all a big fat set-up that leads to murder, blackmail, sex, violence, a nice car chase or two, and our lead dropping all sorts of snappy quips. Put all that together and you've got a mystery/comedy that can be done for relatively small money that doesn't have the baggage of a character that's built around another actor, that's beloved by fans, and forgotten by non-fans.  If it's a hit, he can then do sequels well into his old age, and the films themselves can replay on TV into infinity.

Now let's look at Universals plan to reboot the reboot & rip-off of horror turned action/adventure franchises The Mummy and Van Helsing, which I vigorously poo-pooed in an earlier post.

THE PITCH: Try making something scary.

Universal made its bones in the golden age of movies by making horror movies that are still fondly remembered today.  

The secret of good horror movies is the fact that you don't need big budgets, you don't need big stars, and you don't need to throw in legions of elaborately rendered CGI monsters. 

Do a scary movie featuring a mummy rising from the tomb and terrorizing people. Set it on a college campus and you can have some sexy coeds running around. It's not rocket science, it's movie-making.

If you have any other ideas for ways Universal can get itself out of its own pit of creative stagnation leave them in the comments so I can steal them and sell them for millions. BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!!

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BTW- If you have a question about pop culture and the business behind it, CLICK HERE and leave them in the comments. Ask me anything about anything and I will either answer it correctly, or fake my way through it.

ASK ME ANYTHING!

That's right, another open thread dedicated to you asking me questions. I will unravel the mysteries of pop culture and the business behind it, or at least fake my way through it.

So go to the comments and ASK ME ANYTHING!

Hollywood Babble On & On #896: The Adaptation Corporation

Recently I wrote about how bestselling crime writer Walter Mosley has added the title of producer to his resume in order to maintain more control over screen adaptations of his work and ensure they don't get lost in "development hell." In another literary development author Elmore Leonard, buoyed by the critical/commercial success of the series Justified, based on his short story "Fire In The Hole" has signed on with United Talent Agency to represent his works in the film and video realms, the first time he's actually had a Hollywood agent in his 60+ year professional career.

Now there was something telling in the Elmore Leonard story, it was that despite success as a screenwriter, and a naturally cinematic style he had dropped out of writing for the movies because he got sick and tired of having to please studio executives who knew next to nothing about storytelling.

Which got me thinking.

One of the biggest problems with making movies is the development process. It's slow, it's inefficient, and it's expensive as hell.  When it comes to adapting popular novels to the screen everything becomes exponentially worse.

The author hard at work at his latest masterpiece.

The big problem with Hollywood is that the people running it have forgotten the fundamental reason for the existence of their business. They think it's all about selling "brands" and "images" and "lifestyles" but that's essentially Ivy league business school baffle-gab.

Hollywood exists to tell stories.

Stories is what made Hollywood the premiere entertainment center of the Western World. People like to see stories acted before their eyes with excitement and passion. People need stories.  What's the first thing a child asks for that doesn't involve food or a clean diaper? They say: "Tell me a story."

It's hardwired into our brains, stories help us understand the world, morality, and other people.

But Hollywood seems to have forgotten that, wasting millions on the snake oil panaceas of special effects and passing fads.

Why is The Avengers such a monster hit?

Because it's an exciting story with interesting characters that is well told. It gives the audience excitement, fantasy, and the sort of fundamental good versus evil story they really want.

Of course Hollywood only sees the surface, and thinks the answer will be more superheroes and more special effects.  But there's a way around it.

One way is for authors of popular books to take a more active role in the adaptation of their works to the screen.

You see Hollywood's executive class counts on two things to help them maintain control of the adaptation of books into movies.

1. Money.

2. Complication & Confusion.

The executive hope that throwing relatively large amounts of money at a writer will salve any doubts, and that if the process is complicated and confusing enough the writer of the original material will just give up trying to preserve the integrity of their "baby" and go away.

Face it, most writers are not business people, and most are not lawyers. They look at the hassle, and the confusion, figure it's just easier to cash the check and go write something else. 

It's time for writers to do something about that.

I think Mosley is on the right track, however, a lot of writers don't have the expertise, time, connections, and resources that Mosley has.

Which is why I think some sort of cooperative effort is needed. Not a union, writers don't need activists, they need something a corporation can respect, another corporation.

Agents and managers have their place in the industry, and it's an essential role. However, their part usually ends once the sale is made. If the studio turns your epic retelling of the saga of King Arthur into a all rap musical set in Fort Lauderdale during spring break and starring Justin Bieber they really can't afford to care. They have other clients, relationships with studios, and their own overheads to worry about. They need to make the deal for their clients, collect their commissions and move on to the next deal to stay afloat.

Which is why I'm thinking writers need to band together and form some sort of production company, and "Adaptation Corporation," that will handle the development and adaptation process efficiently, and inexpensively, with the best interests of the author and the work at heart. 

Something that can go to a studio or TV channel and say: "If you want to make something from this best-seller, then here is a package of a script, star, director for you to accept as a fait accompli, all you have to do is make and market the completed product."

Now this could be a tempting prospect for studios to save money on one the worst stages of putting together a movie. 

However it might be also be an impossible dream.

You see the development process is as bad as it is because it's prime property for the executives, producers, and stars with clout to engage in territorial pissing contests. To get them to give up something they consider so important you would need something on a Hunger Games / Harry Potter scale to possibly tempt them into going along, and even then they may pass because they can't stand giving up that kind of power.

Hollywood Babble On & On #895: Wanna Buy Miramax?

Billionaire construction tycoon Ron Tutor has decided that he's had enough of playing mini-movie mogul who does everything he can to avoid actually making movies as much as possible, and announced that he's hoping to sell his stake in Miramax within the next week or so.

If you don't know your history, Miramax was the indie film powerhouse founded by brothers Harvey & Bob Weinstein in 1979.  It became an indie film powerhouse in the early 1990s, attracting the attention of the Disney empire which bought it in 1993.  However, the business practices and personalities of the Weinstein Brothers chafed with the more staid Disney management culture.  

Things came to a head in 2005 when the Weinsteins were forced out of the company they founded.  After that Miramax became just another division of Disney distributing art house films in ever dwindling numbers until 2010 when they sold it a partnership between Vegas builder Ron Tutor and investment fund Colony Capital.

Since then the number of productions dwindled even more to a token trickle, since the business plan of the new owners was to turn the company into a library management firm as opposed to a traditional movie company. They made some big deals licensing Miramax movies in various mediums, and even made a deal to add management of the rights to the Samuel Goldwyn film library to their stable.

Now this is the part where, if you listen carefully, you can hear me kick my own ass for being stupid.

You see, I should have seen this coming the moment they announced the Samuel Goldwyn deal, because that was the moment the whole Miramax as library business plan hit about as much value as it is ever going to get.

As I've been saying all along the key to running a successful film library is maintaining a steady stream of fresh product. A library that isn't growing will inevitably become dead weight. Even classics fall out of fashion for periods of time as the media outlets that require content look at everything you have and say "What else have you got?"

The Goldwyn library was the last major collection of cinematic assets that aren't already under the control of someone else. That's it, there is no more to be had.

Tutor isn't a dummy, he saw that too, knows that they've done the 3 things needed to be done to increase the value of Miramax while avoiding making new films as much as possible:

1. Deals were made to profit from the existing library.

2. They added all they could to the library by assuming management of the Goldwyn movies.

3. They got David Bergstein to fuck off. (Though it would have been better not letting him have anything at all to do with the deal in the first place)

There's nothing else they could do outside of making lots of new movies, and Tutor apparently has no interest in doing that because it takes time, serious calorie burning, and a hell of a lot of risk.

It's the smart move for him to sell out now, and I really should have seen it coming.

Hollywood Babble On & On #894: Mosley Make Movies.

Novelist Walter Mosley, most famous for his hard-boiled crime novels, has formed his own production company, called B.O.B. (Best Of Brooklyn) to handle adaptations of his books for the big and small screen.

Personally, I can see why he's doing it, and how it's probably a good idea for him, his books, and his career.  He's written over three dozen novels and short stories, mostly in the crime/mystery genres, but he's also dabbled in science-fiction and other genres. Several of his works have been adapted for the screen, most famously 1995's The Devil In A Blue Dress starring Denzel Washington, so he knows the perils, pitfalls, and just plain perfidy of trying to get a book made into a movie.

Unless your book is part of a fast moving best selling phenomenon like Harry Potter or Twilight, where moving quickly is essential to cash in on the fad a studio or production company could spend years, literally years, simply deciding whether or not they want to make the movie in the first place.

And even if they do decide to make your book into a movie, after that comes the possibility of even more years pissed away, watching your literary creation being torn apart to appease the whims of producers, directors, and movie stars.

That's not all. Studios prefer to develop best-selling novels into feature films. However, if they don't fit into the traditional Hollywood summer blockbuster mold, the project runs the risk of developing a form of creative paralysis.

Also, some books don't really fit into the feature film mold because of their sheer narrative girth.  They might be better off as a TV mini-series, but usually get mashed and bashed severely to fit into a two-hour running time.

By forming his own production company Mosley is giving himself much more control of the adaptation process. He can actively seek out collaborators that understand and appreciate his work, connect works with the right medium be it the big screen, or television, and have more say over the fate of the money that's due him.

So I say good luck to him.  Hopefully he'll create a new and successful model for authors to follow in their dealings with Hollywood.

Hollywood Babble On & On #893: SNARK ATTACK!

What a week. Yesterday I was blog-blocked, and today my computer had to be fixed, so I'm running way behind, so instead of my usual in depth analysis I'm just going to snark at random little stories...

Former Disney chieftain Michael Eisner is looking for $800 million to finance the start of a new TV and film production company.  He's promising to exactly what he did when he was in charge at Disney.  He's going to have a great start from the hard work and good ideas of the people below him, then he's going to drive them all away, make increasingly poor decisions, and eventually be ousted by his own investors.

Michael Bay has sold a pitch for a new TV series about pirates that will be a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.

Personally I'm a little leery about shows that are "prequels" to preexisting and well known material, I mean, you already know how it's going to end.

Oh well, at least some shit's gonna blow up real good!

Discovery Communications has agreed to buy internet video provider Revision 3.  I don't know much about the new media landscape, but this is bound to be a better investment than the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Hollywood Babble On & On #892: Universal Flogs Undead Horses

Universal Pictures, which is currently celebrating its 100th birthday, has hired franchise reboot gurus Alex Kurzman and Roberto Orci to a big deal to reboot the Van Helsing and Mummy franchises.

Yep, Universal Pictures wants to remake a remake from 1999 (The Mummy) as well as remake a complete creative abomination from 2004 (Van Helsing).

Let's look at the PROS & CONS! 

PROS:

1.  MONEY:  Both the Mummy franchise and Van Helsing made a lot of money, especially in the precious overseas markets.  The 3 Mummy movies made over $400 million each, while Van Helsing made about $300 million internationally.

It's obvious that people will pay to see these types of movies.

2.  MONEY MEN:  Kurzman and Orci write movies that make a lot of money.  A look at their recent resume shows a string of big money blockbusters.

CONS:

1. THE MESSAGE: Not any message inherent in the themes of the movies themselves, but the message that Universal is sending to the world about itself.

They essentially are telling the world that the management of the studio is scared and indecisive.  They don't want the risk of doing anything remotely original because they are incapable of judging the quality of something that doesn't already have a franchise behind it.

That's not a good message for any studio to give.

2. NOVELTY: When the films first came out there was a certain novelty to them.  Universal had taken venerable horror franchises mashed them up with Indiana Jones movies tossed in loads of CGI and watched the money flow in.

However, now the novelty is gone.

When people see these new movies coming out they're going to think that Universal is just giving them something they've already seen with different actors.

3. MONEY: The films were incredibly expensive, costing well over $120-$160 million a piece. Take for example Van Helsing; it made $300 million at the box office internationally, but when you take into account the costs of prints and advertising, and theaters taking their cut, which is bigger overseas it might have broken even, but that's an extreme long shot.

Those costs: production, P&A, and overseas house nuts have all gone up in the intervening years.  If they repeat the trend of doing everything bigger, louder, and more expensive, they might just price these franchises out of profitability.

4. MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: The money Universal is spending on these new movies could have been spent on doing something different.  They could have even done mummy or Van Helsing related movies, just do scary ones at a much smaller cost.

But that would take imagination and intestinal fortitude.

For Universal, better to toss money at some other guys so then if they tank you can put the blame all on them.

Trailer Trashing: The Dark Knight Rises

Here's the trailer for the conclusion of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy The Dark Knight Rises.  Watch it, then let me tell you what I think...

The first thing I noticed was the quiet.

Where most superhero movies try to hammer you with the deafening roar of loud explosions and bombastic music this trailer goes in the opposite direction.  The music is subtle, there are no sound effects like gunshots and explosions, and the only other sound comes from snippets of dialogue.

The dialogue itself is ominous and foreboding.  It tells of a great disaster, on befitting the conclusion of this saga.  Accompanied by images of destruction, chaos, and despair, lightly salted with flickers of potential hope, as Gotham is literally torn apart by the forces of villainy with the music growing, not in volume, but in intensity as clips come in showing the good guys starting to fight back.

Whoever put together this trailer knew what they were doing. It captures Nolan's treatment, nay reinvention, of the superhero genre perfectly.  Nolan redefined the origin story in Batman Begins, turned The Dark Knight into a massive crime epic that just happened to involve men in costumes.

This trailer gives the viewer the message that the transformation Nolan started is coming to an extremely dramatic conclusion.

It does everything a trailer should do.