The Death of the Entertainment Industry (or at least Movies)

You're confusing the subject here. $100k (realistically, that's what Paramount is going for) microfilms are not the same as indie/arthouse films that cost $5-$20 million. They are completely different types of movies that shouldn't be lumped under the same label.

And really, "Paranormal Activity" is a unique case, since it is horror, and their economics operate in a special manner. Namely, production budget makes little difference, and there are numerous examples of dirt-cheap films (like Saw) striking it big. But ONLY within the horror genre.

So if your solution is for everyone to make cheap scary movies, yeah, it's a good idea, and one most studios already abide by. (When is the last time you saw/heard about an expensive horror film?)

"Act accordingly" how? What would gauging initial response do? Most of these commercially failing arthouse films garner extremely positive viewer response.

Your response to my discussion of box office take is to counter with a link to critical appraisal? What the hell does that have to do with anything?

I know Tucker has been preaching this since time immemorial, but you need to get rid of the idea that any good film must make money. Or even that a string of good films will do so over a long enough period of time. I've given plenty of examples on the first page ("Citizen Kane" is one of the most memorable), and there are countless dozens of other ones.

I'm a big fan of SPC's movies, and you really can't do much better than they have in terms of finding quality and appealing to the domestic market as much as possible. And yet, they are just scraping by.

The big studios aren't complete idiots.

Certainly the part about only going to theaters when they offer an amazing visual experience is valid for many, many consumers. However, it doesn't completely explain matters; otherwise, why would movies like The Karate Kid remake draw such huge crowds?

And actually, your consumption habits (and those of Frank) are much different than what I was describing; if you watch non-CGI/non-"blockbuster" movies on DVD or Netflix, that's dissimilar to many of my friends, who refuse to do so.

 

I touched on it in my last post, but I don't think people like us are make and break for studios, we are just an example of one more structural change that contributes to the downfall of the industry. Most people I know still view the theaters as a fun experience even if the technology they have at home is superior.

The Karate Kid remake is an excellent example of a movie that will put asses in seats regardless of quality and special effects, it appeals to virtually every demographic from my understanding. It's definitely one of those movies that screams "have a night out with the family" with enough entertainment for kids and enough nostalgia for adults. Theaters will probably continue to profit off of movies like this that appeal to both parents and kids, it's a cheap, fun way to spend a few hours without having to worry about kids getting bored or breaking stuff.

I actually know quite a few people that do what we do, but on the whole we probably are in the minority. Inertia is a powerful thing and most people will watch what everyone else is watching.

 

Untrue. 'Clerks' and 'Napoleon Dynamite' cover comedy. 'Primer' covers sci-fi (It didn't make millions, but it didn't lose money). Simply because the horror genre lends itself to low-budget filmmaking doesn't mean there aren't creative solutions to creating solid drama or comedy or science fiction on a microfilm budget. It just means it hasn't been explored enough.

Again, follow the lead of Paranormal Activity which, if what I've read is true, was the first film to successfully encourage its potential audience to demand a wider release of the film. That's what gauging the initial response would do: determine public interest and, if it shows promise, expand distribution. You say PA is a unique case. It's unique because it was the first to successfully market itself the way it did. First. Probably not "last". It seems to me that Paramount is setting out to determine if this strategy works across the board. And why shouldn't they? Isn't popular consensus the best possible way to determine preference? No more guessing, no more crapshoot.

My response was a request for proof of the statement that SPC is "just scraping by", followed by an expression of my skepticism based on the fact that they've released award-winning films for years, including at least a half-dozen I know to be box office hits. You're right that good movies won't necessarily make money, but plenty do. I would like to see those numbers if you have them available.

 

Pictures is a profitable division of Sony with $460m in income last year on $7.5b in revenue. I don't know for sure how SPC is fit into the equation but given their business model I would not be surpised if they were doing reasonably well on a lower cost business.

 

Most people in the Entertainment forum, myself included, agree that "Dynamite" is an incredibly shitty, boring, pointless film. If your whole argument is that there is a correlation between quality and box office revenue, that example kills it right there.

And "Primer"? Where are you getting that it was in any way, shape, or form a success? It made $424,000 domestically. That's 4 times less than what Tucker's film made. Yeah, the production budget was supposedly $7k, but the distribution costs can easily run to 100 times that much. If that's one of your three best examples of successful non-horror indie films, what more needs to be said?

As for "Clerks", it came out in a much earlier era with different economic rules (1994), and made a whopping $3 million, largely cut into with distribution fees. Yeah, not so impressive.

But even if we accept your premise, that these are in fact all good movies that were financially successful, you're ignoring the 10 equally good/better indie films that can be mentioned for each one that was a monetary failure.

You mean the same process thousands of movies have been going through for the last 40+ years? I don't know how much you know about this subject, but this is a basic step the vast majority of movies go through.

As for the "successfully encouraging its potential audience to demand a wider release", lots of other good smaller films have tried, both before and after. And most were met with failure.

If you don't believe me, you can do the same thing I did; look up their list of movies on Wikipedia, then check the box office proceeds from Boxofficemojo plus other web articles.

Once you're done, read a few business news articles on SPC, and see if it jives with what you've seen.

This is also a great reference;

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/chart/?studio=sonyclassics.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/cha ... assics.htm</a>

Not exactly huge revenue there, and no film has cracked the list in the past 4 years. I briefly checked a few sites that monitor DVD sales to make sure they weren't secretly making a fortune there, but while that market was more lucrative than average for them, it was nothing special, either.

Honestly, one never knows without access to the hard, raw numbers, but my impression is that they are at about break even level. One thing I know almost for certain is that their parent company, Sony Pictures Entertainment, is doing much better. Which is the whole point.

 

I completely agree that it was dogshit. It was still a financially successful film made on a minimal budget. I'm drawing a correlation between cost and profit, because that's what I assumed we were arguing here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be arguing that minimalist budgets nearly always imply box office failure. I'm arguing that that doesn't have to be the case.

Fair enough. Bad example in a monetary sense, at least at face value. But if they'd taken Primer and given it the treatment that PA received? We're talking about a Sundance Grand Jury Prize recipient that got a crappy distribution deal, with its widest release reaching 31 theaters. It's purely speculative, but who knows?

The size of the release of most motion pictures over the last 40 years has been determined by the number of hits they receive on Eventful.com? Really? Test groups are one thing. You have to admit this approach was different.

 

Remember though SPC is more a distribuiter than a Studio.

 

But ultimately, there is no rhyme or reason to the success of a film like "Napoleon Dynamite" at all. Mathematically, it can be modeled as a random occurrence. The same writer/director has made similar films after his initial success, and they have all failed and lost lots of money. So have most of the other (less shitty) hipster comedies.

I'm not arguing every independent film is destined for failure. Rather, that given enough time, they will eventually lose money, and it is impossible to beat the "game". Much like slots or video poker, a studio might hit a jackpot every so often, but eventually, with the odds stacked so against them, ruin is inevitable.

No one really knows, but the odds were firmly stacked against it. I haven't watched "Primer", but if you want to talk about well-received science fiction films, Splice (recent), and Gattaca (classic, 1997) were two examples that failed financially.

And I wouldn't pay attention to film festival awards; "The White Ribbon" won the Cannes film festival and proceeded to get mostly ignored in its US release.

Oh, that's what they did? If they figured out a better way to gauge interest among young people that use the Internet, at most they're cutting down slightly on distribution costs and doing a better job of predicting box office success. But the deck is stacked so firmly against them, I don't believe it matters enough.

Yeah, in fact, reading their Wiki entry, I was surprised to learn that they produced any films at all.

And it's precisely thanks to distributing foreign/lesser known films, rather than ponying up the cash to produce them, that their business model survives.