Bad Movies to Blame for Box Office Slump

macklin01 writes "The LA Times is reporting that box office executives are finally fessing up and taking the blame. Poor box office receipts over the summer weren't caused by surging fuel costs, changes in audience preferences, or anything else. As Slashdot readers might have put it (and as it comes out in the article), 'It's the movies, stupid.'"

Comments

You win the WTF lifetime achievement award

[Rogerborg]

Let me try a simpler analogy; you are a goat fucking sandal wearing yoghurt knitting hippy.

When mommy stops letting you drive her SUV, you're going to discover that a mechanic won't scratch his arse in the direction of your car for less than a hundred bucks. That's because you're paying for 100% of his time.

Now, how is that in any way related to the issue of making movies? Your three-fiddy or whatever it is that you can spare from your paper route money, who exactly are you going to give that to? That will, if you're lucky, pay for a runner to fetch a cup of weak coffee for the woman doing the makeup of an extra who'll be cut out of the final edit.

OK, so let's pool the money. You and a million other rubes send your three-fiddys to a guy who for the sake of argument we'll pretend isn't a classic Hollywood producer but the sort of Whedon/Smithesque writer/producer who's come up with the leather clad lesbo action that your sort so love to watch, box of Kleenex to hand. Let's even assume that you and your million hippy buddies used some sort of voodoo hippy magic to pick out the right unknown nerd with an screenplay out of the braying, sweating herd. Let's pretend all that, and let's pretend that you don't get bilked or he doesn't blow it on building a giant mechanical goat to invade Cuba with.

Now, the movie is made. It's in the can, all pre-paid for by you and your League of Basement Virgins. Now what?

In your model, Whedonsmith just gives the copies away? Uh... what? What? To whom? Just to you nerds? Yes? Then how the is that any horse-buggeringly different from just selling you a fucking copy? No? Then what Commie paradise are you living in where your million buddies don't grudge paying in money and having other people people reap the rewards? And in which Whedonsmith says "Ah, fuck it, I'm rich enough already?"

Do I get three guesses to pick your profession? 1) schoolkid, 2) Californian web designer, 3) tenured professor of economics at an Ivy League college.

Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up

[LeonGeeste]

Did you read my point at all? It was two lines. Let's again go over the point, to which I cannot find a single relevant response in your post:

Distributing DVD on P2P = easy

Distributing physical DVD = hard, because you either only give it or your friends, or you advertise and attract the FBI

DVD can be read by computer: both options are possible

DVD can't be read by computer: only hard option is possible

Let's go over the points I made elsewhere that you tried to address:

Number of people who buy a given official DVD, now that copyright is enforced: a lot

Number of people who would buy a given official DVD if piracy were infinitely easy and unenforceable: 3

Cost to market a DVD: more than the revenues from three people

Decision to release DVD = no

Revenues from movie production: cut by half

Money invested in making movies: cut by half

Please, stop assuming a static model, and start thinking on the margin. You're like the pacifist who says "Gee, I've never had to use violence, so I guess there's no point in being willing to use it."

Now, to your final point:

Your claim: region codes don't prevent piracy.

Your claim: region codes allow studios to milk more profit

Conclusion: region codes prevent interregion piracy.

Fact: one form of piracy is interregion arbitrage.

Conclusion: region codes prevent one form of piracy effectively.

There, did I make my points easy enough to understand this time? Maybe now people will stop emotionally modding me down.

And just to clarify (again): I'm not saying IP laws are even a good idea! I wish there were another way! In fact, I'm working on a paper right now showing there's an alternate way, which I've NEVER seen a Slashdotter propose! So quit acting like I'm the "enemy". I'm not.