The Lone Ranger, Star Wars and An Open Letter to Disney

Like the vast majority of North Americans, I didn't go to see The Lone Ranger last weekend.

That's the Johnny Depp/Gore Verbinski/Jerry Bruckheimer/Dinsey venture that grossed an embarrassing $25 million dollars at the domestic box office against a $250 million budget plus probably another $100-$150 million in advertising on the biggest box office weekend of the year. Ouch

 

Even more embarrassing is that it was beat out by yellow things in overalls that have around the same mental capacity as my betta fish Marcello who eats four pieces of food a day and goes into fight mode every time I walk by him. Double ouch.

Depp, Verbinski and Bruckheimer will, of course, bounce back. Star  Armie Hammer however, is probably just about fucked.

Instead I watched The Empire Strikes Back, which, shame on me, I had never seen before in it's entirety. In case the geeks are wondering, it was the letterboxed original theatrical cut of the film that comes as a bonus feature with purchase of any modern version that has been skull fucked to death by this man:

Something cosmic is going on here says Kevin Bacon:

1) George Lucas makes Star Wars, killing the auteur driven film movement of the 70s, ushering in (alongside Jaws) the new era of the Hollywood blockbuster.

2) In the summer of 2012, Disney's big live action tentpole John Carter didn't even manage to gross $100 million domestic against a $250 million budget plus overhead.

3) In an act that should probably signal the need for some Anti-Trust Law reviews, Disney buys Lucasfilm Ltd in 2013 for four billion and change. They also purchase Marvel, ushering in their new business model of expensive franchise movies designed to rake in the cash. A powerful message to Hollywood is sent by the Mouse House:

4) Disney announces that they will be making a brand new Star Wars trilogy alongside two more stand alone features.

5) The Lone Ranger is destroyed Memorial Day weekend 2013 at the box office.

6) My contribution to it bombing: I stayed home to watch The Empire Strikes Back instead.

This calls for some action.

Dear Disney,

Love what you're doing with the place. Buying up both Marvel and Lucasfilm. You now own the market share of comic book flicks, toys, t-shirts, DVDs, posters, and whatever other useless shit that will populate basements, attics and summer yard sales in ten years? You also have ever geek on the continent by the short and curlies. Brilliant. Let Spielberg rewrite American history, you've going to pick the pocket of the nation at least, if I had to take a wild guess, seven separate times in probably as many years. And this doesn't even include what you'll make off Pixar!

You're current strategy of expensive franchise films with a guaranteed built in box office is genius. It worked for Star Wars after all.

But come on, footing a $250 million bill in hopes of launching a franchise based a a Western character that used to be on the radio?

Especially after the same fucking thing happened last year.

Let's throw some numbers around shall we? Star Wars, a film based on an original concept, cost $11 million is 1979. It grossed $461 million. The Empire Strikes Back, the sequel, cost somewhere between $25 and $35 million in 1980. It grossed around the same. Star Wars grossed $775 worldwide (a billion and a quarter with inflation). Assuming, just for laughs, that Star Wars doubled it's budget in advertising, pushing the break even point up to $25 million, the profit is still over a billion with inflation.

No wonder George Lucas now has so many chins

He's eating fucking well.

Fast forward to 2013. With a budget of $250 million, a movie in this day and age needs to gross over half a billion just to hit the break even point before profit starts. Out of the 50 highest grossing American films of all time, forty three of them have been from the past 15 years, with the 50th grossing almost $750 million. Of those forty three, Inception, Finding Nemo and 2012 were not adaptations or sequels. In other words, not many films achieve these numbers, let alone ones that don't have test driven content propelling them.

Maybe The Lone Ranger needed a talking fish?

Moral of the story: Tighten the fucking purse strings.

Your friend and pal,
The Taxi Driver

Today In News I Don't Know How to Feel About:

I woke up this morning with the inexplicable feeling of getting fucked in the ass by a mouse. It was non too surprising then to bring up the trusty Hollywood Reporter who reported that Disney CEO Bob Iger has announced that they have tapped both Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg to work on stand-alone films in addition to the newly planned trilogy of sequels to one of filmdoms most beloved Kurosawa rip offs, Star Wars.

Wait, what?

So let me get this straight. Within a 6 year period, starting in 2015, the world will not be getting three new Star Wars films, but actually five from the Mouse House? The two in question will apparently stand outside of the new trilogy and revolve around lesser known characters from the Star Wars universe, one of which I hope will be this girl:

Back on track...

Editorial rant on market over saturation aside, the choice to have Kasdan's name associated with a new Star Wars film is intriguing. His first screenplay credit after all was on a little film you may have heard of called The Empire Strikes Back, which he then followed up with Raiders of the Lost Ark. He also took a writing credit on Return of the Jedi, making him associated with 2/3s of the original trilogy. This guy is no slouch, although yes, I do recognize that he's been in a bit of a decade long cinematic limbo.

Kinberg's name does not inspire similar enthusiasm. His credits include xXx 2, X-Men 3, Jumper, Mr & Mrs. Smith and This Means War. Maybe in his Star Wars film Boba Fett will get caught up in an intergalactic romantic triangle with a fellow bounty hunter? Did I mention this girl?

Right, back on track...

Although there aren't many more details on the subject, it seems there's an interesting dichotomy going on here. On one hand is Kasdan, a man of a bygone era of Hollywood entertainment and one of, at the time anyway, Hollywood's best screenwriters and Kinberg a man who once wrote one of the most poetic lines in Samuel L. Jackson's career: "I HATE JUMPERS!"

You and me both Sam.

So the question begs to be asked: how do you feel about this Star Wars fans? Do you consider these to be promising new developments or is this simply the beginning stages of the Star Wars Saga's continued Dark Ages? They can't be worse than the Clone Wars movie...can they?    

Alice in Wonderland Controversy Still Going Strong

I think this whole story revolving around Tim Burton's Alice and Wonderland being given a truncated theatrical release in order to get it onto DVD quicker is fascinating, which means I'll post about it every time there is some new revelation which thickens the plot. Consider the plot thickened. Hollywood Reporter is saying today that Odeon in the U.K., who are responsible for over 100 theaters, have boycotted Alice in Wonderland and will not be playing it in the U.K., Ireland and Italy (it will however play in Spain, Germany, Austria and Portugal, where it is scheduled for the regular 18 week run). The reason for the boycott is because Odeon is saying that it has put considerable time and money into upgrading its facilities to accommodate 3D films and will therefore give precedence to those that plan on staying for a full run, probably because it is assumed that they will generate more revenue for the theaters. Poor Alice in Wonderland. Even if the movie is no good, here it is sandwiched between it's distributor who is basically saying "It will make more money on home video so let's get it there as quick as possible," and the exhibitor saying, "We don't need it, we have more important films to show." All this because it was chosen to be the guinea pig in a strange and, what is looking to be, unsuccessful experiment. Personally, I say good for the theaters. As someone who values the theatrical experience above all else, the idea that studios want to get movies through the exhibition process and straight into consumer hands as fast as possible is disturbing. Back when DVD sales started rising and box office receipts started dwindling, some pundits started saying that exhibition had simply become a preview for the DVD. Disney is bringing this statement one step closer to reality with this move. I remember the controversy over Steven Soderberg's Bubble some years back which was released to theater, DVD and on-demand all within the span on several weeks. Theaters cried it would be the death of them and they may have been on to something had Bubble not been a small film that applied only to a specific niche market. However, Alice in Wonderland is supposed to be a big tentpole picture. It has a big name director, big stars, and comes from a classic story. To think that a movie like this will find more business on DVD than in theaters implies a sad fate for exhibition. Instead of cutting the theatrical run, why doesn't Disney roll out Alice in the classic mode: open it in select cities, see what the reaction is and then decide how long to play it for? Or else, let it play in 3D for the full 18 weeks while taking it off regular screens after 12 and prepping the DVD? That way it can still play, theaters aren't sore about spending money to play 3D movies for shortened periods and the DVD can be in people's hands in a shorter time, while in the meantime those who still want to see it in 3D can. The reaction from Odeon though also brings to light another fear I've had in recent years: there's just too many movies being made. George Lucas once said that multiplexes were great ideas because it would offer people the opportunity to see smaller films in big theaters alongside the big event pictures. Although I appreciate his optimism, and in some cases he has been right, in most cases the opposite has happened. Studios are scrambling to make more movies to ensure that every screen is filled with their product. Instead of one or two quality products from each studio, we now get mass amounts of prepackaged garbage every week. prepackaged garbage has always been part of the movie going reality, but there's more of it now than ever as studios try to make as much money with as many films in as short a time as possible. That a theater feels it doesn't need a big film like Alice in Wonderland in order to do good business means that studios, by mass producing movies, are, year after year, lowering the value of their own product, even the blockbusters. This is unfortunate because it means that it's now easier than ever for good films to get lost in the shuffle. That seemed to have happened to Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant film with Nicholas Cage, which garnered excellent reviews but did next to no business. That's just one example. So I'm glad to hear that theaters are taking a stand and telling the studios that if they don't want to play ball, they'll play with someone else. What is unfortunate is that all of this comes at the expense of a film that might be good or bad, I don't know, but deserves just as fair a shot at success as any other. Could Alice in Wonderland fall victim to all this silly deal making? It'll be interesting to see whether studios or exhibitors will be making the next move. To read my other posts on this matter click here and here.

Shorter Theatrical Runs at Warners Too

A couple days ago I posted about how Disney is trying out some experimental ways in which to release their films, the first of which will be to truncate the theatrical run of Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland, which would mean taking the movie out of theaters roughly a month early in order to get it onto DVD and ondemand even faster. The question that plagued my mind about this is whether or not such a maneuver signals the beginning of the end for seeing movies theatrically, or just a nice roundabout way of saying that Alice in Wonderland is no good? Now Hollywood Reporter is saying that Warner Bros. is also going to adopt the shortened theatrical run method too. Here's the scoop: Warner's is planning on doing the same thing to their fall movie Guardians of Ga'hoole (Zac Snyder's new animated film). The plan is to chop about a month off the initial run in order to have the product prepped for DVD and Blu-ray for Christmas. Similarly Disney is saying the reason for shortening Alice's run is so that it can be out on home video for summer. What's also been revealed is that that studios have assured exhibitors that they will sweeten the deal by offering concessions on movies with shortened runs. The studios have also promised that it will only do this to two movies a year: one in the spring and one in the fall. Of course, the exhibitors need to agree to take these movies out of theaters a month earlier than usual but really, what choice do they have? If they don't play ball with the studios, the studios won't schedule big movies for May and September, ultimately hurting theaters more than to just let the movies go early. Something about these developments fascinates me. What does it imply about the future of exhibition; the future of distribution; the future of home video; the future of the film industry in general? Will two movies a year do anything to help out stuggling studios, especially when they are movies that will probably make big money no matter how fast they get to DVD? I guess all we can do is wait and see whether or not all the majors will adopt this system or whether or not it will reveal itself as a failed transgression and be quickly forgotten.

Something`s Fishy in Wonderland

New Tim Burton films don't excite me. He's done some good work but, to be honest, I don`t think the man is a very good filmmaker. He`s an excellent decorator but a second rate storyteller, which means his films always end up feeling like hollow exercises in special effects and set design while the emotional crux of the stories take the back seat. His approach to macabre subject matter doesn't much interest me either. I get that he is making films about outsiders cast away from society, but his satiric vision of the everyday life which he juxtaposes his characters against is, in and of itself, so over-the-top that he's not so much making a statement as making a misguided spectacle. It should be no surprise then that, whether it's good or not, I'm not really excited about Burton's upcoming live-action-with-animation take of Alice in Wonderland, which is set for release on March 5th in both 2D and 3D formats. What does interest me though is that Hollywood Reporter is saying that Disney is planning on taking an experimental approach to releasing the movie. Apparently Disney has been toying with different ideas on how to release movies and now it is time to put one into practice. So the idea is that Disney is approaching exhibitors about shortening Alice's run from roughly 16 weeks in first run theaters to around 13 or under. The reason for this is because Disney feels the film will be a big hit on DVD and ondemand services, so the quicker they can get it there the better. What's unclear at this moment is, if studio's plan on adopting this method of distribution, how they plan on compensating theaters for shortening the runs of big films like Alice in Wonderland in order to push them onto DVD quicker. For theaters, shortened runs means less actual return from the studio on the film's actual business and less physical traffic through the theater as people may be encouraged to simply wait for the DVD, which translates into less traffic to the theater's concession stands; the place where most of an operation's profits come from. Disney CEO Bob Iger has said that truncated runs could be a way to maximize the Disney's bottom line, but I don't quite buy it. Is this simply a sign that Disney has lost faith in Burton's project and doesn't believe it will perform much beyond the opening weekend? I can't imagine the studio pulling something like this with one of their big projects like a Pixar or Pirates of the Caribbean film. Or is this one last desperate attempt by studios in hard times to keep people going out to the movies before everything except tentpole pictures and arthouse fare go more or less straight to video and ondemand? It will be interesting to see how Burton, who began his career as an animator at Disney, will respond to his movie being the lab rat in such an experiment.