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New Riddick Movie Made Possible By Games?
Hugh Pickens writes "Scott Harris writes on Moviefone that the economics of Hollywood are often baffling, as DVD sales, broadcast fees and merchandising tie-ins balance against advertising costs and pay-or-play deals to form an accounting maze. The latest example is the untitled sequel to The Chronicles of Riddick, released in 2004 to a slew of negative reviews and general viewer indifference. Despite its hefty $105 million budget, most of which was spent on special effects, the film topped out at a paltry $57 million domestically. So how can a sequel be made if the movie lost money? The answer has to do with ancillary profits from revenue streams outside the box office. While the combined $116 million worldwide probably still didn't cover distribution and advertising costs, it likely brought the film close to even, meaning DVD sales and profits from the tie-in video game franchise may have put the movie in the black. In addition, Riddick itself was a sequel to Pitch Black, a modestly budgeted ($23 million) success back in 2000. Extending the franchise to a third film may help boost ancillary profits by introducing the Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick DVDs and merchandise to new audiences, meaning that the new film may not even need to break even to eventually turn a profit for the studio."
Maybe we could spend another 23 million on the third film, like they did on the original, and instead of all those flashy bullshit effects ADD SOME FUCKING INTERESTING, COMPELLING, WELL WRITTEN PLOT?!
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man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
How about no.
It was rushed. Terrible organization of scenes, none of it made sense. I saw the original one on TV and, owning the DVD, was baffled by how horrible it was. I had no idea. Explains those negative reviews.
Check the Directors Cut. Enjoyed it a lot. Not confusing at all like the theater release was. I'm excited about a 3rd.
Pitch Black also notable, just an all-around fun Sci-Fi/Suspense/Thriller.
So some people didn't like the movie? I did, and I know many people who do to. I personally am interested in a third movie for the movie's sake. If you didn't like the second one, don't pay to see the third. You don't have to see movies you don't like. Riddick rocks and anyone that doesn't think so can just ignore it.
Just because I doubt myself does not mean I find your position compelling.
But, of course, even if the new film makes a mint for the studio via DVD sales, merch, and "ancillary income streams", none of that will count for suckers who agreed to take percentages of the net profit in their contracts.
Chronicles of Riddick is one of the better Sci-fi movies i know. I had to search for it a long time before i got to see it in cinema and then even longer before i could get my hands on the DVD. Never once did i see any marketing at all.
I thought this was one of those rare occasions where the sequel is much better than the original. I was pretty impressed by how they managed to squeeze a whole world out of the minimal plot in Pitch Black.
HTTP/1.1 400
Sequels are so much better than original stories!
Prequels are even better than sequels.
I can't even describe how great Reboots are.
The Chronicles of Riddick WAS "Riddick 3".
1. Pitch Black
2. Dark Fury
3. Chronicles of Riddick
It helps that Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was a genuinely excellent game on both the XBox and PC. Movie adaptations usually suck, but this game had top of the line graphics, brutal hand-to-hand combat, the voice of Vin Diesel (like him or not, he is start power) and plenty of mature content. No lame PG-13 prison planet.
Anyone who has watched the film industry knows the published budget number have nothing to do with the actual budget. They published 107 million? Actual cost was probably closer to 50 million. Producing such a movie today would probably cost 30 million (what did an episode of BSG cost by the 5th season? 1 million per hour?). Most of the budget is going to be Vin Diesel's fee, after that it's just production cost and advertising. The published cost of the movie will be 100 million again, for tax reasons
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Remember, folks: piracy is killing movies. That's why good movies like The Chronicles of Riddick didn't make money. Because of piracy. And despite the fact that the movie didn't make money, they're making a sequel, which might not make money either, which can also be blamed on piracy.
And yet, despite the fact that both of these movies didn't make money (piracy), somehow the studio remains profitable.
Hell, with profits like these, who needs "profitable movies"?
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
I guess you do keep what you kill.
if it hurts you, dont don it. Why you are still doing it? Ah right, because you still make load of money, regardles of what crap it is thanks to multilevel scheme of MPAA &co.
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I don't care about CoR, not Pitch Black. But I care about the summary. I thought slashdot was pretending to be targeting the intelligent crowd?
Despite its hefty $105 million budget, most of which was spent on special effects, the film topped out at a paltry $57 million domestically. So how can a sequel be made if the movie lost money? The answer has to do with ancillary profits from revenue streams outside the box office. While the combined $116 million worldwide probably still didn't cover distribution and advertising costs, it likely brought the film close to even, meaning DVD sales and profits from the tie-in video game franchise may have put the movie in the black.
Distribution of the movie and advertising, last time I checked, was covered from the movie budget... This "statement" takes up half the summary and tries to convince us that $105M > $116M.
Really, slashdot? Really?
"The Chronicles of Riddick" was a great action movie with a dark Sci-Fi/Fantasy background - in fact it might be quite a unique mix of genres: certainly the (Futuristic Black-Magic) background to the story is way off anything else Hollywood ever made.
That said, it's not surprising that those that first saw "Pitch Black" and then went to see "The Chronicles of Riddick" as a sequel were disapointed: to put it simply "Pitch Black" was a finelly tuned Horror-Action movie while The Chronicles was more of a Rambo style action movie (chewing gum for the brain) Sci-Fi/Fantasy movie with an anti-Hero as the main character (although Riddick as a character was much more developed in the second movie).
Personally I thoroughly enjoyed both movies in different ways, although this might be because I first saw "The Chronicles of Riddick" and then went looking for "Pitch Black" instead of the other way around so I didn't saw the second movie in the
expectation it would be a continuation of the first.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/714-The-Chronicles-of-Riddick-Assault-on-Dark-Athena
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Wow, this is awesome!
I genuinely really liked the Chronicles of Riddick, which prompted me to see and also love Pitch Black. I think that Riddick is one of the most bad-ass characters I have seen in a movie*, and i really enjoyed both movies. I consider them very different, but I liked them both. I'd love to see a third and obviously just hope they don't screw it up. I really just never thought they would make one though, so this is awesome news!
And since I'm telling the world what I think, I also think of Master Chief from Halo when I think of similarly badass characters. Anyone else get that? They're both just *so* good at what they do, which is half killing, half not dying, and half staying undetected. *So* good they get three halves. Bah, I'm being a bit fanboyish.
-Taylor
*yes, i'm young and/or unworthy and you've seen some other way more bad-ass character in some movie. it's just my opinion, don't worry. He killed someone with a teacup! Funny and badass combined are what amuse me.
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
Attention every IP holder looking to create licensed games: the reason this worked is that the game was truly excellent. (PC 90, Xbox 88 http://www.gamerankings.com/browse.html?search=chronicles+of+riddick&numrev=3&site=)
Bad games suck long-term value out of the IP and into short-term profits; great games add enduring value to the IP. I've made games with licensed IP before, and I'm almost certain to do so again, so I care about this sinking in. There are lots of reasons that movie games are usually poor, but one of the biggest is that the license holders think that the added value of the license will make up for a rushed job*. The license will sucker some people into buying, but there's a big cost to that. Please, Hollywood, find a way to work with us so that we can both make great product. There's more fun (and more money) for everyone that way.
*Why is the job rushed you ask? That's the biggest problem with movie games - differing production cycles. Movies have a really long pre-prod with ~3 guys on it, followed by production in something like 1 yr. Games (good, big, AAA ones) want around 6 months pre-prod with ~10 (plus ideally engine dev with 10-20). Then it's 18-24 months of full production, and you can see where the problem comes in. Especially when the game usually needs to wait to design key assets/areas until they can see what the movie is doing.
And here I thought accounting based on the principle losing-money-is-profitable was invented by the much-maligned dotcom industry in Silicon Valley in the late 90s. Or was that on Wall st in the 80s? Well it seems like it's a bit older in Hollywood...
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I was under the strange impression that Riddick was already a trilogy. Sure, one of the films was animated, but that doesn't stop it from existing.
Put identity in the browser.
One, by someone else. Two, perhaps the backers didn't lose their shirts and still have some money left.
You might as well ask how Apple could produce the iPhone, when the Newton was such a failure.
What is it, stupid question day?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
First it's violence.
Now "New Riddick Movie Made Possible By Games?"
I'm sick and tired of video games being blamed for all the horrible things that happen in the world.
-Styopa
Hollywood movies on average only generate 20% of their revenue from ticket sales. The rest is from DVD, BluRay, rentals, merchandising, airlines, hotels, pay-per-view, cable, and the dozens of secondary ways you can watch a movie these days. The 105 million reported cost is inflated to the maximum possible in order to put the studio in a loss position. Then they report only 57 million domestically, which makes it seem like they took a bath on the project. Not so. By making 50% domestically, Chronicles is well above the expected 20%. That is why everything is sequels these days. The costs of marketing a sequel are a fraction of the costs of an original film because everyone is already familiar with the characters. Fans will see it no matter the reviews, and making a sequel automatically increases ancillary revenue for the first film through increased DVD sales and rentals. It's win-win for the studio, which is why there will be an endless supply of reboots and sequels for the foreseeable future. Consider this little nugget. "Return of the Jedi" cost 32.5 million in 1983. It has grossed 475 million worldwide including the 1997 re-release. It has also generated more than a billion dollars in merchandising, and hundreds of millions in DVD, BluRay, LaserDisc, Video, sales and rentals. And yet, David Prowse, who played Darth Vader and had a Net % of Profits clause in his contract, has received a letter every year for nearly 30 years from the studio claiming it has yet to make any money from the movie so it has paid him nothing. How is that possible? Because of Hollywood accounting. The numbers are all fabricated. They take executives lavish salaries in 2008 and write them off as costs incurred against profitable films like Jedi because that executive was involved in "releasing the film in a new format" or some other such drivel. And that despite the fact that the "supposed" cost was incurred 25 years after the release of the film. DD.
So the feature film becomes a very specialized kind of cutscene.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Return of the Jedi has not come out on BluRay yet.
planet texture maps and more
What's really driving me nuts is that none of these commenters have played the game! Which is not only the *topic* of the article (you know, purple means games section), but is one of the greatest FPSes in the last 10 years. I mean, in a thread above yours, someone even mentions some shitty direct-to-video DVD without bothering to mention the game we're all supposed to be talking about!
It's named Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, BTW.
I guess it just goes to show the motto here should be: "Slashdot Games: The only games forum on the web filled with people who don't play games!"
Comment of the year
There are 3 Riddick movies out already. Pitch Black, Chronicles, and Dark Fury. It is animated but tells the story in between the two others.
I thought Babylon A.D. was the 3rd Riddick movie???
One of the few times a sequel takes a new direction and works. I haven't seen a change-up work that well since Aliens (I am NOT putting CoR in the same league). It didn't turn into a rehashed monster flick knockoff of the first. And, I LOVED the death cult. The comparisons to the cult in Conan are woefully weak. Why not call it a knockoff of The Wicker Man if you're going to call it Conan in space? The visuals were original and beautiful from Crematoria to New Mecca to the Art Deco motif of the death cult. Throw in some neat, characters like Thandie Newton as the ambitious hottie wife of a junior officer and you had a good flick. In fact, my only knock was the over-the-top depiction of Riddick as a badass.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
That was my complaint as well. I would have liked two things changed:
1) Moral culpability of the Na'vi: Can't they do SOMETHING bad? Perhaps a second population ("Vi'Na", Green) comprising the other half of the population. All the same characteristics as the Na'Vi, except the two groups butcher each other like savages when they get half a chance. This also makes for a far more interesting dynamic with the Earthlings.
2) Moral justification for the Humans: Unobtainium is necessary to....(fill in the blank), do something to save Earth or its population from massive death and destruction that is within 100 years, and not a reason based solely on man's greed and indifference.
At this point we have Earthlings whose brutality is given some kind of ultimate moral motivation (back against the wall as a species) doing bad things to a group of natives who are perhaps environmentally good but also capable of their own internecine bloodbaths.
At this point its a drama, and not some junior high political metaphor that makes North Korean propaganda look sophisticated.
There are plenty of bad science things going on in the old doctors. For example the old 60s radio show too much of it takes place in this solar system and Mars is a threat... We pretty much knew there wasn't armies on mars back then. come on. The doctor's regeneration has never been believable except perhaps the 1st few which were slower and had side effects etc. Some stuff is just to help the plot.
Wince moments of too much melodrama are a much much bigger problem in the new Who show as well as trying to top the previous season in disaster and its continued heavy focus on the UK. We need more alien locations; all that tech and the older shows traveled more... The recent stuff has gone downhill... Hollywood influence? Unobtainium is blatantly saying it-- so THEN its ok? You want the writer's to point out they know its impossible?
The "science" of Dr Who is largely over-your-head type stuff with minimal BS to explain anything - you are not supposed to know the kind of BS descriptions they cram into NG Star Trek, neoStarWars or even the Vampires focus on the medical condition bringing that into modern "science ficiton" instead of just being mythical horror. (Although "I Am Legend" was good - no the book, not the stupid movie.)
We don't need the CGI or the BS explanations - classic mythology and story telling lacks all of these and are ..."classic" as well as the place where everything gets ripped off from. Hercules is part god, thats enough to know. The Dr comes in, like a know-it-all says a bunch of technical stuff out of your depth and fixes it like it was simple, like a geek fixing his grandmother's computer... Except the doctor keeps talking aloud and isn't upset that nobody follows a word he says or cares to understand.
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Likeable story/Mythos/Character but Vin Diesel is such a ham he kills it for me. Maybe they could do a Batman/James Bond thing and recast the lead?