"What constitutes a failure?" Topic

I was reading this : 35 Great Films that bombed at the box office link

And, yes, obviously, the measure of failure is not turning a profit. I get that.

But: then I got to The Lone Ranger. Now, I know that was a historic failure at the box office. However, it took $260 USDMillion world wide. Big Flop, because it took $250 USDMillion to make, and $150 USDmillion on advertising.

But – $260 USDMillion : at let's say $15 USD a ticket then 1.7Million people saw it. Is that really an unpopular film? If they just hadn't paid the stars so much it might even have made a profit. So, was it the film that failed or the accounting?

Well there are some real stinkers on that list.

Like Ishtar

Some of those movies are now Cult Favorites.

As for The Lone Ranger it could have been decent but they (I.E. Hollywood writers) decided to go for the Anal humor and had Johnny Depp as Tonto.

Oh and spending $150 USDM on advertising is just stupid.

Now some of those movies will make more due to DVD/BluRay sales but many are so bad that the best thing to do is find every single copy and just burn them.

'Brilliant' and 'Great' are not adjectives which I'd
use to describe any of those 'films' – even Citizen
Kane.

But then, I'm not a highly-paid critic, either.

I have been learning lately that professional movie critics' opinion of a film does not correspond closely with mine. This makes the lack of correlation with what they think of as a great film and its profit as no surprise.

x42

BTW: Obviously my typing was off, that should have read :

"then 17 Million people saw it" (not 1.7 as I originally typed!)

Well there are some real stinkers on that list.

I'm not sure. There are a lot of excellent movies in that list too.

I could sit through Ishtar and the Lone Ranger, they weren't as bad as the press made them out to be. I could not sit through Valerian. And I like sci-fi movies.

I'm surprised John Carter didn't make the list. It was an enjoyable movie that also lost a ton of money.

Also the criteria of failure is a little odd. BFG cleared 183 million against a total budget of 140 million. 43 million profit to the studio is a failure?

But – $260.00 USD USDMillion : at let's say $15.00 USD USD a ticket then 1.7Million people saw it. Is that really an unpopular film?

Well, you have to remember popularity doesn't pay the bills. Studios are expensive things to run, and stars are demanding record wages for their talents. So the studios are under greater financial pressure to make a profit, often just to stay solvent. That is why remakes, reboots and sequels are the order of the day.

That's why some of the most interesting films are the smaller, independent (cheaper) films.

Mostly Hollywood accounting practices.

Actors, Production staff, etc get paid before the release (unless the contract is a percentage of return). Some 'never' profit so those percentages don't need to be paid.

Well the term "Hollywood accounting" has a very specific meaning now, especially after the "Coming to America" fiasco.

link

The old rule of thumb was that for every production dollar you should add another dollar in promotion. These days a blockbuster can hit 2 dollars in promo for every dollar in production. So some films that cost 250m need to earn at least 750m to see a profit.

Yes they can shift costs around to make a movie more or less profitable by writing it off against another.

I'd add that movies that "become" popular after their theatrical run can make surprising amounts of money for studios. Something like The Fifth Element, which took off on video, most likely made far more money *after* it left theaters. That's the kind of money that the studios like to bank, and not tell people about. A little accounting trickery, and they take a big piece of those profits off to the bank. So the full picture is vastly more complicated. Sure, Citizen Kane didn't make that much at the box office, but that studio has made a massive profit off the movie over the years.

What surprised me was the thought that some of these films that "bombed at the box office" actually had a lot of people go and see them. There always seems to be a lot of handwringing afterwards "why did this fail ? Have the public lost interest in Cowboy movies ? Was the script bad ? Were the wrong actors cast?" and so on. I usually am left with the impression that no-one went to see them.

But something like 17million people went to see the Lone Ranger film. That's really a lot of people. That Lone Ranger needed 30million plus people to go to be a "break-even" isn't really the fault of the script, the actors (other than maybe their salaries!), or a lack of interest in Cowboy movies. It actually wasn't unpopular it was simply too expensive. So, can a very popular thing really be called a failure?

Well there is "artistic" failure and then "business" failure. I think Lone Ranger fit the latter, but not the former. It wasn't a bad film but was very costly to film. So you are correct: if you need 30 million people to see a film to "break even" then someone dropped the ball.

It goes without saying that how great a movie is artistically (and the level of greatness being subjective depending on the individual of course) has little to do with commercial success/viability. It's not a quantifiable science. Arthouse films generally receive rave reviews, but because they're not mainstream or "accessible" their box office prospects are limited. Movies that have the widest mainstream appeal are "blockbusters" or "tent-poles" that become franchises and major summer event movies. These are often can't-miss pop-culture phenomena such as Star Wars (though it lost some of its luster of late) or anything Marvel, for instance. Disney can rest easy in the knowledge that the $200 USD+ million they spend to make and market these films will be little compared to the over a billion dollars they'll generate worldwide after their theatrical runs (not counting streaming and DVD sales). They're surefire home-runs.

To continue the baseball analogy, there are the low-budget base-hits; horror movies like ‘Paranormal Activity' and anything by James Wan being a prime example. Low budget horror (costing $10 USD million or less nowadays, a small fortune in the past) movies from companies like Blumhouse can often generate $50 USD million or more because there is a built-in audience and moviegoing demo for them. Sure, they don't turn $200 USD million into over $500 USD million like the blockbuster home-runs but that's okay because if you hit enough base-hits you get a run and the profit margin is high.

Predicting how much revenue a movie will generate can be fraught with risks even if the title is well known. ‘Lone Ranger' bombed in hindsight because it's a generation too late (the same can be said for ‘John Carter'). ‘Judge Dredd' (both the mediocre Stallone version and the much better one starring Karl Urban) underperformed because the character is not as well known outside of Britain. And what the heck are "Mortal Engines"???!!! ‘Bumblebee' (‘Transformers' spin-off) failed to meet industry expectations despite its pedigree AND rave reviews – including mine – because it had the misfortune of being released in the same window as DC/Warner Brothers' smashing success ‘Aquaman.' 'Alita' only barely survived with its high production cost on the strengths of James Cameron's reputation and popularity alone. Sometimes a movie's fate is determined by nothing more than bad luck or timing.

What this means is that Hollywood will continue to (and has been doing for a long time in fact) avoid or minimize risks by playing it safe, green-lighting movies that they are quite sure will make a lot of money. So we'll get remakes, reboots and spin-offs because they're proven commodities that Hollywood knows moviegoers would flock the theaters to see. ‘Hobbs & Shaw' anyone?

There is "Accounting" and "Hollywood Accounting". Remember all the troubles Peter Jackson had?

Can"t disagree with anything you said 28MM.

Oh, and "Hobbs and Shaw" looks like something to stay away from.