I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

Deleted

 

I'm wondering what some of you would do from a marketing standpoint to try to salvage a profit?

Obviously DVD sales would be the main focus, but how would you market the disc to those who haven't heard about him before?

Given where this thread is heading, that discussion could be interesting.

 

I have always thought that the most interesting historical benchmarks for IHTSBIH from a marketing perspective are Howard Stern's Private Parts and Artie Lange's Beer League. For those unfamiliar, Lange is a "cast member" on the Stern show who released an independently financed film in 2006 that was distributed by the same company as IHTSBIH.

Stern's audience at the time of Private Part's release in 1997 was much larger than Tucker's (millions and millions). Like Tucker, Stern pimped his movie relentlessly, provided his audience with insights into the movie making process, opened the door to the marketing strategy, confided results from test screenings (the "highest rated comedy in Paramount history"), etc. etc. etc. Many of us listeners got sick of it. He talked of $100 million domestic gross. The film received surprisingly good reviews, still rates at about 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, landed at number one in its opening weekend (with about $15 million as I recall) and ended its run with about $40 million. [I would say we can roughly double those numbers in current day dollars].

Beer League opened in 2006. Stern did all he could to promote the film on the air. Although Tucker dissed Beer League as not even in the same class as IHTSBIH, I believe many in the public would view them comparably. (Personally I rate IHTSBIH as a better film than Beer League, but it is not dramatically better). In fact, Richard Roper, one of the "two thumbs up" guys at the time, gave Beer League a positive review (IHTSBIH was not even mentioned on "At the Movies"). Unlike Tucker, who as noted in previous posts took issue with critics, Roper was often a guest on Stern and considered a friend of the show. Beer League opened on a few screens back East and did so poorly that the investors were not even willing to give it a wider release. Its total box office is around $500,000.00.

So what's the difference, why was Stern able to push his own film to do well (although not spectacularly well) at the box office and not Beer League. Why didn't Stern's pimping and a "thumbs up" from Roper push Beer League to better results?

Simple, Private Parts was a studio financed movie with studio distribution and associated advertising and marketing. I have represented studios, movie chains, producers, writers etc. The movie business is tough. Very tough. Just think what it takes to get you to go see a movie. For a few years after college I saw 100 movies a year in theaters and it did not take much to get me there. Now I see 10, maybe. It is hard to get me to a movie.

I was very interested, but skeptical about Tucker's revolutionary marketing strategy. Could he succeed as a film distributor? I was disappointed, but not surprised that there was nothing new. The most revelatory and interesting discussion on the former board was the pre-release debate between Biscuits and Tucker. In the course of that discussion, Tucker effectively conceded he and his investors were banking on the film being a "black swan."

I do not know as much about economics or marketing or business as many. The following statement may not fit into any economic model promoted by the U of Chicago. But I've been around long enough to know the following: you should count your blessings and money if you get even one "black swan". Tucker's was his book. Think about it, he has sold hundreds of thousands of copies of a book filled with material that is all available for free, at any time of day or night, on the internet. Astonishing.

There is nothing surprising about the fact that an independently financed film, with a small budget and no studio distribution did not do well in theaters. It takes money (lots of it) and infrastructure to effectively distribute a movie. Do I think it was stupid to lead the green band trailer with an unfunny joke insulting fat women? Of course. But it is immaterial. I believe there is nothing Tucker or his investors could or should have done differently that would have changed the domestic box office performance of this film. It is either a black swan or it is not; no one can manufacture a black swan; no one can plan for the unplanable.

 

Does anybody know how much the movie cost to make? And how much Tucker spent on marketing, including the premier tour? I just wonder how much in the red they are, and if he and the other investors have a chance at breaking even.

 

What the hell kind of defense is that?
Here's what I see:

I'm well aware that nobody knows anything here and we're just tossing theories around but this:

Doesn't make sense either. If money was so tight why would they consciously toss 4k (5k? 20k?) to send Dawes, a sound guy and a camera man around making videos that nobody but the hardcore fans would have even a passing interest in? Not to mention editing. You wouldn't. You don't spend a cent on the hardcore, if you have any business sense at all.

Tucker was never my favourite rudius author. I liked his stories despite the fact that he's almost totally unlikable. I loved Gaijin Smash. That's why I came to the RMMB. I liked Corman. I liked Ryan Holiday for a while. That's why I stuck around. I love Philawyer, that's why I'm here. But I really think it's strange when people say Tucker is a good writer.

When people saw the ads for the film, they made a note to look up Tucker on wikipedia sometime. Typing his name into google they would see, oh shit, he's got his own site. After reading some of his stories they would think, okay he's got some good stories, but he can't spell, edit or proofread for shit. Is he a good writer? Fuck no. To say that he is is an insult to literally millions of people. Do I want to go see a film by this guy? Sure. What time is it on? Eight-thirty ...30 miles away.

Tucker spoke about a recent pop culture book - The Black Swan.
He should have paid more attention to a more recent one - Nudge. If something is hard, nobody is gonna do it.
This film flopped the day they failed to secure traditional distribution.

8 million or so.

 

I didn't see the movie, but I did try to read the script last summer. I'm not sure if I made it past page 15 because I found it painful. The script is the foundation for everything else. Everything.

Not having a very good green trailer out at least four or five months in advance was crippling. I believe Tucker had said something about not wanting to saturate his audience too far in advance, but when a country's population is 300,000,000, it takes a long time to find a saturation point. Internet junkies who would see a trailer the day it's released might be bored of it four months later, but the majority of people (who've never heard of Tucker) needed far more time for the trailer to come across their radar. The cut of the green trailer was horrible. Tucker said he was responsible for the edit, and it showed. His green band is a manifesto that inexperienced people should not be in charge of anything that has more than $100 attached to it. This applies to everything from editing trailers for movies, servicing airplane engines, doing bridge construction, juggling at children's birthday parties, all the way down to typing out bake sale recipes.

Just as I tried to read the script, I tried to watch some of the tour videos. The majority of people have a finite tolerance for deliberate cruelty, even cruelty cloaking itself as humor. If someone accidently trips in a theater and sends their popcorn flying, I'd laugh. We've all had our own cluster-fuck moments. But would I stand up and jeer and berate the guy who tripped? No, and nor would most others. Watching Dawes et al. in the tour videos wasn't entertaining, it was id masturbation. It was going for the cheap score and cheap laugh at the expense of someone else's cluster-fuck moment, or worse, looking to generate a field of superiority for themselves and then ridiculing a fan for no other reason than they could. The very limited theatrical run makes perfect sense when you talk about Tucker's brand of humor. Tucker's brand of humor has a light and obvious dusting of cruelty. If Tucker's primary goal was to gross $100+ million and earn FU money, then the premiere tour was the lid to the green trailer coffin. If his primary goal was to stay true to himself, then he succeeded, because he was not able to camouflage his true nature. Bill's act on tour was just a blonder mirror of Tucker's. A better trailer and marketing strategy might have grossed them more money, but sans that the film probably found the appropriate percentage of the population interested in Tucker's brand of humor.

 

First time in a long, LONG time you could say that, isn't it?

 

Interesting comparison to Private Parts. Here's where the difference lies, to me;

1. Private Parts was not only A REALLY GOOD movie, that completely surprised me with how well-paced, directed, and funny it was, but it also featured more of a classical, feel-good, loser turning into a hero plot. In other words, it wasn't polarizing, and the main character was much easier to swallow for the majority of the movie-going public.

Now, I'm not saying that any of these standard elements contributed to the intrinsic quality of Private Parts. They didn't. However, it helps explain its broader mass appeal to reviewers and theater-goers alike.

2. Tucker Max is decently famous among college students, but comparing him to Howard Stern, probably the most popular and well-known radio host EVER, not to mention a guy who had a hit, late-night television show at the time? Come on. Stern was an order of magnitude or two bigger at the time.

For fuck's sake, people; that's Dawes's comedic style, and I, for one, found it absolutely hilarious. Going into e-psychology discussions about what it reveals about him as a person or saying that of all the things that contributed to IHTSBIH's lack of success, THAT had any bearing whatsoever is absurd.

I found him very funny. You might not. Saying it had anything to do with the financial success of the film is ludicrous, one way or the other. Only a small percentage of forum regulars even watched those things.

 

I have read the entire thread. Regardless of what we think of Tucker, I think the reasons why the movie tanked financially are generally twofold--- 1) the economy and 2) the timing of the release. As to the economy, movies are not cheap in a major market like the NYC metro area (where I'm from). When you take into account that many have to pay a small fortune for parking, food, and tickets (a night at the movies could easily run a couple 60 bucks or more), people are going to be pretty picky about what they see in theatres vs. what they rent on their monthly netflix plan or what they choose to watch on "on demand" cable. This is more so in the recession we are in now, as many are out of work/not getting raises/seriously controlling their discretionary income. As such, a question that runs through my cheap ass mind is "Does the big screen really add something to this movie?" I saw it and the answer is a resounding "No." It's not Cloverleaf. It's not Transformers. It's an ok comedy. And to get a big hit comedy in theatres to succeed, you usually need known entities and a massive marketing budget, as reiterated previously. I can think of one comedy that was truly inde that changed the face of comedy on a small budget and limited release---Clerks. This was NOT Clerks by any stretch. Couple what I consider a mediocre no name comedy with a shitty economy, and you can do the math. It was doomed to not succeed at the box office.

I will also add that I think this movie should have been released after Christmas, when the movies are totally dead. Perhaps Late March/early April. IHTSBIH was released on the tail end of the summer blockbuster season, a time where most people have spent god knows how much already trying to catch the latest summer hits. I mean, IHTSBIH was competing with the back end with some of these supposed "must see in theatres" films. That is a battle that a small inde comedy film almost NEVER wins, and I was surprised when I heard they were aiming for a late Sept. release. I honeslty thought that was a HORRIBLE time to try and win people over with this. Basically word of mouth from the summer was still in effect that would stop IHTSBIH dead in its tracks.

 

Well, except for the fact that the movie industry BOOMS during a recession, and this downturn is no exception.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=movie+ ... =yfp-t-701

Just one of many articles talking about this

Films are among the cheapest forms of entertainment, and thus, become preferable to a date at a bar or fancy restaurant when money is limited. Not to mention they're a great way for consumers to escape reality.

 

Grrr! Okay. I just can't sit on my hands any longer.

This is wholly untrue. Historically, movies are considered by most as recession resistant. During most of the Depression and most of the recessions the total number of movies people saw in a year increased. There was a bump for movie attendance for spring and summer and (I think) fall of 2008 during what is to date the lowest point of this recession.

Why? 1. Movies are still the best value for entertainment when compared to vacations, professional sports, concerts, theatre and even a night of dinner and drinking with friends and family. 2. Movies, especially comedies and adventures, provide a respite to all the troubles and worries of real life. People cut back on concessions (or sneak in cheaper snacks) but they still attend movies. In droves.

EDIT: Umm...what KI said.

As for successful comedies, Clerks wasn't a box office hit. It is a dvd cult classic. Criminally low production and p&a budgets, no stars = comedy box office gold? Napoleon Dynamite.

 

I found Andrew Dice Clay funny when I was 20. That demeaning phase most males go through (and come out of) is a market that can be targeted. But it's a small market. Clay's career went down in flames during a monologue on Arsenio Hall. In his case the stage personality of the "Diceman" was a fictional character (think Borat). The problem became where the audience (and eventual overwhelming criticism) would not/could not separate Clay from "Dice." In trying to defend himself (in character, that was the mistake), Clay broke down and cried for a moment on national television. It was like watching little wet coffins of his career roll down his cheeks.

I mentioned the videos because I didn't attend a screening in person. However, I think the behavior at the premieres certainly would have an effect on the film's WOM, or lack thereof. When people go somewhere and have fun, they like to talk about it. When they go somewhere and are ridiculed, or become uncomfortable watching others be ridiculed, then they tend not to talk about it.... at least not in glowing terms. I would assume some Tucker fans brought non-Tucker boyfriends, girlfriends, sisters, brothers, etc. to these premieres. Imagine sitting down with your date/family/friend, ignorant to Tucker's brand, and have him, Parker and Dawes be unleashed on the audience. Then watch a movie of the same behavior. Sure, the Tucker fan might be laughing all the way through it... "Hickory, dickory dock, some chicks been sucking my..." But that non-Tucker fan who was invited along may not have the same rosy view of the movie makers. If a percentage of those audiences spent the next day at work talking about how uncomfortable the experience was, it certainly would affect the film's success.

I'm not judging Bill or Nils or Tucker, just observing behavior. This was never a four quadrant movie, ever, no matter how much they advertised it, no matter how much money they spent. It's audience is not factored by their age or gender, it's based upon their self-awareness, specifically, the lack of it. It's target audience is those who have not yet defined themselves. That's it. It's a shirt to try on at the store to see how it fits. Within a short period of time, most take the shirt off, as it doesn't suit them. I found Clay funny for half a year, then it was over. And for Tucker, it's over. It's been a familiar path to watch, this time from the outside.

 

But as has been mentioned before when referring to those kind of indie successes, whether at the box office or on dvd ...

Clerks - 88% http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/clerks/?critic=creamcrop
Napoleon Dynamite - 65% http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/napoleon_dynamite/?critic=creamcrop
Office Space - 67% http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/office_space/?critic=creamcrop#contentReviews

So strongly positive reviews along with fantastic word of mouth from the vast majority of those who saw the first two (I can't vouch for Office Space, was late into the game on that one myself). Time to get beyond anyone's bad review as being a "hater" (God, I hate how that word has been thrown around. Co-opting a phrase from the guidos doesn't make your argument any stronger.) and just admit what Bill Dawes himself said:

http://laughfactory.com/blog/billdawes/2009/10/12/the-end-of-the-road/

 

Does anyone know what Tucker predicted the movie would do opening weekend?

 

I hope we can get away from discussing this too much; I know we would not even have the board if it wasn't for Tucker and the movie.....but well that board is gone now.

The real shame was that Tucker couldn't be honest with what was happening. I know about the whole narcassistic persona blah..blah..blah.., but you are aware he wrote things like "this will change comedy forever" [ and that his movie CRUSHED[the hang-over. Statements like this were just ridiculous. Rather than saying that he was proud of his movie and thankful for the experience he went down a different path.

I saw the movie, it was funny. It was no where close to Old School or Wedding Crashers. Who knows? Maybe he should have just taken the two million for the script, he always said it wasn't about money so you had to respect that.

I'm glad alot of us can actually write a negative review. Unless you were biscuits (thank god for that guy) our stuff was either deleted or mocked ruthlessley. Their was no way I would be able to disagree with anything as in depth or articulate as Biscuits did, because of that there was no point in posting.

I'm glad we have this now!!! At first I was a little upset because as far as message boards went Rudius was the best. None had the collection of sports, TV, movies, idiot board, ect....like it. However it had gotten away from what made it great. For starters all the 17 year old trolls who posted nonsense didn't help, but also the moderators who mocked you and gave you a red dot for spelling "there" wrong if they didn't just delete your post altogether was getting annoying.

It's a chance for a fresh start and a new look!! Maybe we should just put IHTSBIH in "movie reviews" with the other movies that just came out.

I will however buy Tuckers new book the day it comes out, he still is a fucking riot.

Huge shout out to The Grind for picking up right where we left off!!!

 

I wasn't speculating on why Napoleon Dynamite was a success. I understand that it did well because everybody liked it. I was merely pointing out to that poster that a comedy with a very low marketing budget and no name stars can win big at the box office, since he stated with some conviction that one could not be successful and followed up with an example that was not successful at the box office.