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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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"Qua!?"
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Sequels are so much better than original stories!
Prequels are even better than sequels.
I can't even describe how great Reboots are.
Funny, but I do get some appreciation about seeing *more* of a character I liked, as long as they don't screw it up. But I liked Riddick so I'd love to see another movie. I feel like trilogies are usually plenty, because then things get tired and you wonder why the director is still doing the same old song (if they even use the same one), but one or two sequels can be good to further develop a story that, if good enough, needed more than a couple hours to tell.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?