Oh, come on! Munich was the bomb that sunk DreamWorks which is now a subsidiary of Paramount and no longer an independent studio. No wonder Spielberg has gone back to the Indiana Jones franchise.

aengus on October 23, 2007 at 11:18 AM

DreamWorkds was absorbed by Paramount (part of the Viacom media group) to add content to Viacom’s existing library sales revenue. Munich and every other “bomb” from DreamWorks was profitable–just not as profitable as it could be if it was part of Viacom with an end-to-end content licensing and distribution pipeline.

The bottom line is the bottom line: And Republicans need to understand these economic realities if they want to build their own movie industry infrastructure… the liberals aren’t going to let us play in their sandbox.

It doesn’t matter if Munich brings in a blockbuster billion-dollar profit at the box office… that movie still made a profit because of the millions that Time Warner paid for rights to show that movie on HBO, Cinemax, TNT, etc.

Oh, come on! Munich was the bomb that sunk DreamWorks which is now a subsidiary of Paramount and no longer an independent studio. No wonder Spielberg has gone back to the Indiana Jones franchise.

I know I won’t watch it,period.

canopfor on October 23, 2007 at 1:40 AM

Big Hug from Texas.

Send in Murtha! Move Hollywood to Okinawa.

Thanks, it looks interesting and I’ll consider it.

It’s no fair! My parents had John Wayne and Lee Marvin. We get Cruise and Clooney.

!@#$%^&*

Mojave Mark on October 22, 2007 at 8:17 PM

Don’t forget Matt DAMON!!! and Ben A-fleck!

Multiple Bullseyes!

profitsbeard on October 22, 2007 at 6:27 PM

Can’t you get a little more cryptic?

*Time Warner–the owner of New Line–has a vast library of movies and TV programs. Time Warner makes billions by licensing their films, shorts, and TV series to the American broadcast networks; many of which are now owned by the corporate parents of the studio.
*Time Warner can count on another few billion from licensing studio films to PPV and premium cable TV. All the studios have an “output” arrangement with pay-per-view TV channels to sell them an entire slate of films at fixed prices. Overseas, almost all the PPV TV outlets are owned or controlled by the studios’ corporate parents.
*Even if Rendition never covers the production/marketing cost at the box office, New Line and Time Warner are guaranteed close to $10 billion this year from library sales of their old content over and over again to cable networks, local stations, and foreign broadcasters–which is why you will see The Chronicles of Riddick ten times on TNT this weekend… and because you’ll watch something at home on TV for “free” rather than pay $10 to see a movie at the cineplex, TNT has presold billions of ad dollars for all that library content.

Studios can count on this income flow from TV no matter what happens at the box office. So it’s not 5% on a $40 million investment in three years and it’s not “another problem like in the 70’s when no one was going to see the movies.” These overtly leftist movies will continue to be made because the studios can still make a profit from them. Yeah, it may be “subsidizing a bad movie on the backend” but it’s still a profit to the shareholders and that’s what the studios care about more than art or prestige.

Again, the bottom line is the bottom line: and this means liberals are better at money management than conservatives because liberals can make a $40 million movie with only a $4 million box office take profitable.

You can moan about the injustice of it all, but your moaning won’t keep dozens of overtly leftist movies from being produced and distributed by Hollywood. The only thing that’s gonna change that is for conservatives to start making and distributing their own movies.

!@#$%^&*

No matter what Hollywood wants to say, the fact of the matter is this: you make worthwhile films, people will go out to see them. You make crappy films, and people won’t go out to see them. And the additional danger of making crappy films is that you get people out of the habit of going to the movies. And once people get out of the habit of going(and it has already happened), the film industry is in big trouble.

This past summer when things were going so well, Hollywood was saying that they’re finally showing good films. Now however that the Fall has been a bomb (“Heartbreak Kid” with Ben Stiller is another sterling example), Hollywood blames it on everything BUT their inferior product. I think I read somewhere that Hollywood was blaming a video game release for the poor box office.

And I wouldn’t put too much into pre-sold cable rights. If a Time Warner picture makes money with pre-sold rights to HBO, it may look good to the film’s producers, but to the TW corporate executives it’s an eliminations entry, zero sum. It’s moving money from one unit to another without generating any real profit. In many ways it’s how bad films get subsidized on the back end by accountants at the head office.

So after counting the opportunity cost of production and marketing budgets, Rendition will be a money loser for New Line. The best thing for people like me who oppose the film’s message is to not see it, or any of the current crop of message films. Let Hollywood bleed itself out. Sooner or later the suits from corporate will fire a bunch of the fools who green-lighted these things and we can get back to enjoying Iron Man.

And X-Men Origins: Wolverine, due in May 2009.

(Don’t know how that strike out happened)

Nicole Kidman is online, too, don’t forget.

What Hollywood needs to do is remake “Ivan The Terrible“, with a thinly-disguised Chimpy McBushitler in the lead.

Except, in this version, he joins the “crypto-Nazi-helmet-wearing” invaders to destroy his own country.

Sure to make at least $16,108 in rentals.

Go Hollywood!

Larraby-

Multiple Bullseyes!

Hollywoody is suffering from being so liberal that conservatives don’t dare speak up when they work in the industry. What every studio needs is one person more conservative than the rest of the team that they can trust to tell them when they are going off the edge.

I did see an ad for Rendition that called it an “important” movie. That’s how delusional that studio has become.
I love movies, but I don’t want to pay $8.50 to see a bitterfest.

Two of Reese Witherspoon’s will go to the library this week as will my one Spiderman.

Dusty on October 22, 2007 at 3:30 PM

Instead of taking Spidey to the library go to http://www.rifftrax.com and purchase the custom made audio commentary by the great Michael J. Nelson (of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame). It’s the only way I can sit through the Matrix and Raiders of the Lost Ark!

As a rule of thumb a film has to earn twice its budget, including marketing, to generate any profit for the backers, in this case New Line. The production budget for Rendition was $27,500,000. I couldn’t find the marketing budget online but it had to be another $10m. In any case New Line is deeply underwater on this. The $4m opening (of which the studio only gets $2m – the rest goes to the multiplex) is loose change. Until this bomb clears something like $65m, the geniuses at New Line won’t see a dime. Sure, eventually, when all the various sources are counted (PPV, cable, etc), it will make money. Even Hudson Hawk made money after enough time. But it was still a bad investment.

Ah yes, Lions for Lambs. I saw the trailer for that a week or so back. It oozed social consciousness, and actually got a bit of heckling from the audience for the seeming “here’s my point delivered via hammer” approach. I was kind of surprised it didn’t get cheers (being in a
very, very blue city).
Wineaholic on October 22, 2007 at 2:34 PM

It’s only surprising if you take what the media reports as anti-war sentiment to heart. Just because many Americans are upset with the direction the war has taken, it doesn’t mean they share the same leftist anti-American dogma of Hollywood.

Can America resist the siren song of Cruise?

Is that dirty old man still bankable?

(Don’t know how that strike out happened)

Can America resist the siren song of Cruise?

Is that dirty old man still bankable?

Every kid who wants to see Fred will bring at least one adult doubling the ticket sales. And that’s one fewer adult who can buy a ticket to Lions. I’m sure it will do better that Rendition, due to star power alone. And ultimately it will make money. But I doubt it will ever top the box office.