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Hollywood's Love of Analytics Couldn't Prevent Six Massive Blockbuster Flops
Nerval's Lobster writes "In June, Steven Spielberg predicted that Hollywood was on the verge of an 'implosion' in which 'three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget movies are going to go crashing to the ground.' The resulting destruction, he added, could change the film industry in radical and possibly unwelcome ways. And sooner than he may have thought, the implosion has arrived: in the past couple weeks, six wannabe blockbusters have cratered at the North American box office: 'R.I.P.D.,' 'After Earth,' 'White House Down,' 'Pacific Rim,' and 'The Lone Ranger.' These films featured big stars, bigger explosions, and top-notch special effects—exactly the sort of summer spectacle that ordinarily assures a solid run at the box office. Yet all of them failed to draw in the massive audiences needed to earn back their gargantuan budgets. Hollywood's more reliant than ever on analytics to predict how movies will do, and even Google has taken some baby-steps into that arena with a white paper describing how search-query patterns and paid clicks can estimate how well a movie will do on its opening weekend, but none of that data seems to be helping Hollywood avoid shooting itself in the foot with a 'Pacific Rim'-sized plasma cannon. In other words, analytics can help studios refine their rollout strategy for new films—but the bulk of box-office success ultimately comes down to the most elusive and unquantifiable of things: knowing what the audience wants before it does, and a whole lot of luck."
These films featured big stars, bigger explosions, and top-notch special effects
Maybe they'll start making... (gasp)... actual plots to accompany those stars/explosions/special effects?
Moar copyright laws! Bigger penalties! Longer terms!
It's fun to add to the Deeeee-M-C-A!
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Don't do the following: 1) make shitty movies (overbroad but use the smell test) 2) Make sequels to shitty movies that might have barely made a profit 3) Make 18 superhero movies, reboot them, and complain when they flop 4) Don't let a fucking formula from a has-been screenwriter dictate the structure of every movie (http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/8947871/The-origin-of-the-latest-Hollywood-formula) You can pay me now or later. I just want a 1% cut of all new movies.
These days there is so little to a story and much more to the effects. There will be good blockbusters sure, but the better ones are about the story (ie, Lord of the Rings/Hobbit/etc).
The same thing that is killing USA's Auto companies (save tesla), Boeing, and hollywood, is that MBA's now run things.
Hollywood USED to be about making the best ART. Now, with the MBA's, it is about making short-term profit.
Likewise, Boeing used to make the best aircrafts (in both military AND commercial). The 787 is all about making short-term profit (in the same way that GE does).
Then US car companies, GM and Ford, used to be about making the best car possible. Now, it is about making short-term profits.
If we really want to restore America, we need to roll back the changes that reagan did. In particular, we need to require that executives NOT own any of the publicly-traded stock in that industry.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And sooner than he may have thought, the implosion has arrived: in the past couple weeks, six wannabe blockbusters have cratered at the North American box office: 'R.I.P.D.,' 'After Earth,' 'White House Down,' 'Pacific Rim,' and 'The Lone Ranger.'
That's only five movies, not six. Was that number a typo, or did you leave a movie out?
Visit the
Great special effects. Story was not engaging. Didn't care about the characters. It's about the story. But with the way movies are funded I assume producers stick their $.02 in and then the studios stick their $.02 and by the time the director is done satisfying everyone the movie is as bland as can be. Spielberg is right but he is also part of the problem.
'R.I.P.D.,' 'After Earth,' 'White House Down,' 'Pacific Rim,' and 'The Lone Ranger.'
Could someone briefly explain why *any* of those movies would be compelling, even if done well?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
In 1967, following the success of "Mary Poppins," Roy Disney said that the Disney studio ought to have "at least one 'Mary Poppins' every year."
There's nothing new about the money people wishing there was a simple formula that they could get rid of all the pesky issues of creativity, talent, and the public's taste.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Pacific Rim has been out for a little over a week and it's already made back it's production budget http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=pacificrim.htm . I'm curious to know what Nerval's Lobster's definition of a Hollywood bomb is.
The problem is that creativity can't be quantified. Pretty much by definition.
You can copy someone else's creative idea and that can even work for a while, until all the creativity has been wrung out of it making it old and tired. But there is no formula to create something new.
Measuring the quality of a a creative work is like the story of the blind men and the elephant. You can look at all the parts but it won't tell you a damn thing about the work as a whole. And if you try to build another one just by sticking the same parts together you won't get an elephant, you'll just get a mess.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
but the bulk of box-office success ultimately comes down to the most elusive and unquantifiable of things: knowing what the audience wants before it does, and a whole lot of luck.
My personal pet theory is a lot simpler:
Not overfeeding them on the same stuff.
There are only so many times you can see the same movie and enjoy it. Hollywood blockbusters have largely turned into remixes of the same movie. If you know anything about storywriting, you've long realized that almost all Hollywood movies have the same script. Not just similarities the way most stories have, say, a beginning, a middle and an end, or a dramatic curve with a typical shape, but actually the same fucking script. Replace specifics like names, locations or technologies/species/etc. (giant robots/aliens/monsters/whatever) with placeholders and you'll see that they're pretty much all telling the same story.
And you can only hear the same story so often before it gets boring.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I saw and liked Lone Ranger based on the trailer, none of the others looked worth watching to me.
I haven't gone to see any of these movies not because I wasn't _mildly_ interested, but because it wasn't worth $14--$17 times three: the cost of bringing myself and my family. That is a lot of cash to see a "meh" movie. It wasn't long ago that movies used to cost $6 a head.
Perhaps the geniuses in Hollywood should use their analytics to actually pick per-movie MSRPs: something they can do with Google's analytics, after they've already bought the movie and are just trying to maximize their investment. Or if that would piss off customers, then just decide to roll out movies such that 3D is the same price as 2D as a special "bonus" or promotion, to effectively bring the price down on movies that you are afraid aren't going to do as well as you thought pre-production.
--"You are your own God"--
And there was a time in this country, a long time ago, when [...] movies that had stories so you cared whose ass it was and why it was farting, and I believe that time can come again!"
big stars, bigger explosions, and top-notch special effects
—exactly what keeps me away from cinemas.
I love Tarantino movies - lots of people love Tarantino movies - lots of people really really hate Tarantino movies.
I liked Watchmen. I thought it was excellent even if it did depart from the book a bit and yes, maybe grew a little dull at times, but was deep enough to get into. Fully half the theater walked out during the first half hour I was in there.
Rocky Horror sucks. The people who like Rocky Horror will tell you it sucks. It's the longest in-box office run of any movie every. It was made before I was born and it still shows every weekend at a theater a half mile from my apartment.
The problem with Hollywood movies today is they use the freaking formulas.
Star Wars - though a formula setter - didn't follow movie formulas of 1977. Yes, say all you want about it being stolen source material, I fully believe you, but it's not how movies were made back then. I know plenty of people who hate Star Wars, not a lot since I chose not to associate with those sorts, but there are many, many people out there who consider themselves too good for such low-brow action flicks.
Avatar - biggest hit of all time. Yes all the block-buster formulas applied, but it also had formula breaking blends of primitive people, aliens, advanced species, spiritual and technical aspects. Even while complying with every blockbuster formula out there it twisted in subject matter only really addressed properly in Japanese Anime and threw in every movie category possible and made it work. On the flip side - Suckerpunch tried exactly the same thing and failed because they focused too heavily on making it look cool and forcing the fact they did so on you. Avatar did it seamlessly.
With the exception of maybe Avatar most of the movies I mentioned, that succeeded or even better yet, did okay but got a cult following had tons of haters. They will endure because of it.
IMHO cult status trumps block buster opening any day. Yes, fine, huge payday on a blockbuster up front, this is what studios want. Cult movies are more of a long term investment. They keep on giving. Disney has learned this, they're milking movies that flopped forty years ago today and making a profit. Disney has learned that movies are long term investment, not just box office warriors. They build a brand and milk it.
You can milk a cult movie. No one cares about a box office hit they forget about and nobody talks about a few years later.
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This argument is getting tiring. I'm not sure what prices are in your neck of the woods, but according to the Toledo Blade on 7/22/1983 (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=8_tS2Vw13FcC&dat=19800722&printsec=frontpage&hl=en) it showed tickets as going $2.75-$3.50, non-matinee pricing. In 2013 dollars, that's right around $7.50 - exactly where a ticket for a non-matinee show is in this area. Sure, in a bigger city, it might be $9 or so; I'm not going to check it for you what the price was is 1983. It's reasonably tied to inflation. It has not spiked above the rate of inflation. Sorry.
Oh, you want to see 3-D? That'll be extra.
Oh, you want to see XD, and sit on the leather chairs with cupholders?
Those tickets are well above $7.50. But you can't complain about seeing a $14 movie in 3-D when there is no historical comparison to what it should cost.
If you're satisfied seeing a movie in the same "environment" as you could have done in 1983, for the same price, guess what: IT CAN BE DONE.
Blu ray is $25 or so
Movie theater is $30 plus the junk food and other costs to see a movie once
If they want people to pay premium prices offer a premium experience
Roomier seats
Kick out people making noise
No kids in adult movies
No babies
Here's a thought. Stop trying to throw 3D pies in my face and actually sell me a persuasive plot. If you don't want me to wait for Netflix, provide a compelling experience at a fair price.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
MAD magazine had a spoof some 20 years ago, about a movie without any plot or any story. Just a huge series of explosions saying, "all action no stupid boring talking parts". TV shows were moving in that direction with programs like Air Disaster, "Most thrilling moments of .." "Americas Most Watched videos..." etc etc. Even they provided too much of context and so finally came the corniest show of the genre, "Destroyed in Seconds!". Some presenter comes in and says something stupid like, "It only takes a minutes for things to get DESTROYED in SECONDS!". Then follows series of accidents, speed boat crashes, race track disasters, floods etc. They did not even have to invest in special effects, They just get video some guy shot and package it into half an hour. People have seen enough real disasters in video enough times. The disaster porn thirst has been fully quenched. Hollywood is not going to make much money off it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Yes, almost all the movies these days suck. But failures?
So far this year, 7 movies have grossed more than $200 Million. Another 9 have grossed more than $100 Million. Most of the movies listed as having "cratered at the box office" have made $60 - 80 Million and some of them were just released this month. RIPD has only made $12 Million but it was only released 3 days ago.
And that's just box office in the U.S. Add in the rest of the world, DVD, etc. and they are making a metric shit-ton of money. Where exactly is the failure here?
It is said, in Hollywood, that the most creative people in Hollywood, are the accountants. How else does a film like Forrest Gump not turn a sizeable profit and pay Tom Hanks points on the gross?
I minimized my browser with this thread as the active tab.
When I looked at my taskbar, the text showing was...
"Hollywood's love of Anal"
I suppose that says something about windows? Like, taskbar entries only support so many characters, or something? :)
I disagree. I'd say it's pretty clear that Hollywood is very successful at quite a lot of meth. :p
It's the entertainment industry in a nutshell - the second an act or movie becomes popular, EVERY studio/label/whatever clones it in an attempt to cash in on the success. Backstreet Boys takes off and sells millions? Enter N'Stync, 98 Degrees, etc. Dark Knight racks up a billion dollars worldwide? Now every superhero movie has to be "dark" and "gritty." Nirvana sells millions of records and overtakes Michael Jackson in the top 40? Enter the grunge era where every band that uses distortion and 4 power chords gets a record deal.
Very few people have "original" thoughts. Everyone else is about oversaturating the market to try to get their little piece of the pie.
In all fairness this is one you can't blame on our culture. Blockbuster movies need to be international. International means they can't have as much culture. Pure action translates well to large audiences worldwide, the more plot the more character the worse it translates.
This one you can blame the 3rd world.
Tom Cruise hasn't had a $100M movie that wasn't a Mission: Impossible sequel in eight years
Tom's last three films:
Rock of Ages grossed only $59M
Jack Reacher grossed $216M
Oblivion has grossed $285M
Other notiables - War of the Worlds grossed over $700M, Valkyrie grossed over $200M, Knight and Day $261M.
That's most of his non-MI sequel films over the last 8 years.
You were saying?
They are all probably mega-dose vitamin takers and believe what they want to believe.
Tom Cruise ... very unlikeable person and prominent figure in a deranged, dangerous money scam thinly disguised as a cult.
Yes, we're all aware he's an actor.
It's way too early to mark Pacific Rim off as a flop.
As of today it's worldwide haul is $175 Million, which is close to it's actual budget of $180 million.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=pacificrim.htm
It has not yet opened in China or Japan, where it is expected to do gangbusters business. It may or may not make back the marketing costs and become profitable, but there is a good chance that it will, which will put it into the esteemed category of "Movies people think were flops but which actually weren't".
The jury is still out.
Lone Ranger, good movie with an interesting plot but tons of Historical Inaccuracies. Just what you'd expect. About the most exciting thing was Helen Bonham-Carters ivory leg.
Despicable Me II, good movie, good with the kids too much Minions.
Pacific Rim, Godzilla meets Transformers.. Pass, wait for cable.
After Earth? Really do we have to talk about how dumb it was? Hell No! Will Smith did his best glad handing every talk show with his kid, but it couldn't save it.
R.I.P.D looks promising but maybe too much CGI and too little plot. Maybe.
RED II, good movie saw it this weekend but Meh, Bruce Willis is making too many movies, Loopers, Die Hard 99. He must need money. Helen Mirren is great in as is John Malkovich is very funny. But why did they get Cathy Zits Jones? Also Brian Cox and Anthony Hopkins so the two Hannibal Lecters in the same film. Hopkins is getting old, you can tell. Cox in this Russian Spy Zar garb is ridiculous. Something about Helen Mirren with a .50 cal sniper rifle though...
White House Down? Really? do we need to even say how bad it was. You could tell that from the trailers.
Horror flicks do well, this weekends box was lead by a horror flick but those usually die out after a couple of weeks.
It also doesn't have to be a summer movie.
This year a Walken/Pacino flick was released? Did anybody see it? It's already on Red Box "STAND_UP_GUYS" It has Alan Arkin in it too, good movie but
it was out of theaters so fast I couldn't believe it.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The problem with Hollywood films right now can be summed up by they're killing the cat in an attempt to save it. What do I mean?
There's a popular screenwriting book called Save The Cat - The Last Screenwriting Book You'll Ever Need that sets a page by page forumla for events within a typical movie. Things like, an opening image, setting the theme, introducing the hero, start of a B plot at the beginning of Act II, cross points for A and B plots, the great False Defeat, leading up to a Crisis of Self Confidence, and then the Big Payoff.
Blah blah blah blah.
Slate has a good article on how this book as turned movies into showdown of formulaic familiarity.
It's not like the forumla is bad, per se. But if every film had been made this way we'd never have classics like Bridge Over The River Kwai, Laurence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, yada yada yada. Because the formula is limited. At its heart, it harkens back to Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces thesis (which every /. nerd into Star Wars should have heard about). A fine way to tell the Great Hero story, but terrible for deep character studies. And that's what's missing in Hollywood film and why good television like The Sopranos, The Wire, Game of Thrones and Mad Men have become so popular (and let's not forget the first few seasons of Battlestar Galactica, which were fantastic).
In fact, George R. R. Martin's entire Song of Ice and Fire series eschews the whole Great Hero narrative and offers flawed characters with conflicting motivations told from multiple points of view, and - sorry to bring this word in on a tech site but... - that's why it's art. Which is also why Transformers isn't.
A lot of people have been discussing issues with the blockbuster cycle and financing, and that's all part of it too. But there is a serious dearth of experimental writing involved too. The whole Hollywood system is screwed up. But let's at least Thank God for HBO and other cable network financing of long form multi-episodic storytelling.
That explains, at least in part, why you're so clueless about Star Wars. (Not that you're not as clueless about everything else in your post, just this part stood out.) You're a fanboy, and anything that diminishes the stature of your fandom is banished from your world.
Here's a free clue for you - it's a rare movie that doesn't do well at the box office that makes the big bucks later on as a cult favorite. The movies Disney is making bank on are their hits - their flops, you very, very rarely hear of. They aren't stupid.
I don't get it.
William Gibson saw Pacific Rim twice, I just saw it with my son this weekend, haven't even had a chance to see R.I.P.D., and everyone I know has seen the Lone Ranger and loved it.
And they haven't even started overseas sales.
Don't count the chickens before they've hatched.
Not everything is the first weekend.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
... is the day Analytics get to rule the world.
Human beings are famous for being irrational.
True, we are predictable, but, as irrational beings, our so-called "predictability" is not actually that "predictable", after all.
Blockbuster movies become blockbuster movies because they somehow sync with the audiences. Be it King Kong or Casablanca or Star Wars or Gone With The Wind, they sell because the fulfill something that the audiences need - either to be entertained, or to be informed, or to be enlightened.
Lately, actually not lately, but has been for the past several decades, Hollywood has lost its touch.
Instead of producing movies that can fulfill the needs of the audiences, Hollywood has been relying on formulas, sequels, and remakes of old classics.
The "Analytics", sad to say, is just a new name for their formula Hollywood has been relying upon since the 1980's.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
It used to be that even a badly made film could do well in the box office if Hollywood put a real effort behind promotion. If there were big enough explosions to make the trailers look good, and enough advertisement to swamp out the bad press, a film could still do well even if it had absolutely noting going for it except some name stars and spectacular explosions. I think one of the things that has changed is how well connected movie goers have become. When a film sucks you tweet it or facebook it and there's a couple hundred people who are now less likely to see it. And they tweet it to their friends, and in surprisingly few steps even Kevin Bacon gives it a miss.
In short, the phenomenon Hollywood is fighting against (perhaps unknowingly) is social networking. They continue to play to their strengths -- trailers attached to other blockbusters that might also have bombed, and TV spots that fewer and fewer people see, because who in the prime demographic watches network tv anymore? So they spend like they always have, and it isn't working anymore because people are migrating to a different model for choosing a movie, and the effect is starting to be seen.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
but the bulk of box-office success ultimately comes down to the most elusive and unquantifiable of things: knowing what the audience wants before it does, and a whole lot of luck.
In particular in our economic times when people think twice before paying a ticket and $8 for a cup of soda, the audience wants quality. Quality, engaging plots (horror, drama, sci/fi, action, commedy, whatever) that keep you at the edge of your seat, or comm. Special effects is just spice. You can put spice on a turd, but that won't turn it into a cut of filet mignon.
I knew that Pacific Rim was going to flop (even though I wanted it to succeed.) I mean, giant robots vs monsters? What the fuck is the main population made off? 4-th graders? I know that in /. (and in the interweebz in general) we like to paint the population as dumb (where population == everyone but us), but that's just bullshit...
in the book "Reel Power". Commenting on the futility of surveys, focus groups, and similar market research, he said it's pointless to ask people what they'd like to see in a movie, because, of course, what they'd like to see is something that they haven't seen before. I've been wondering for years when audiences would finally get tired of all the explosions and car chases, but had resigned myself to "never", simply because there's always a new crop of teenage boys growing. Maybe there's hope.
The trouble with trying to make movies that appeal to everyone is that you have to cater to the LCD. That means lots of explosions, car chases, and low brow plots that everyone can follow without having to think very much. It also means that the themes are generally trendy and politically correct. So the women tend to be good looking, strong, confident and smart. The guys tend to be dumb, weak, and doughy (Kevin James comes to mind). This has been the formula for success for many years now in Hollywood.
The trouble with this approach is that you quickly run out of ideas. Every movie seems like the one you saw last week. Every car chase seems just a little bit less exciting than the last one. So they try to come up with these gimmicks like 3D to spice it up. The first time you see it, it's pretty cool. But that fades as well.
I think George Clooney was the first person I heard express the "one for them, one for me" idea. In other words, make one low ball fluff movie for the studios and make a smaller independent high brow film for himself. Fortunately for him, he's in a position that he can pick and choose the movies he wants to make.
God help you if you try to buy it for home. When you find one movie out of the lot, where the experience was good, or you liked the plot... You bring it home, and every time you want to watch, you're forced to sit through 15 minutes of unskippable ads. W.T.F.?
Is it a wonder everyone pirates?