A cut of concessions was likely out of the question. Studios are still taking 60% of ticket prices from theaters, meaning the only viable means of making money for a theater owner is concessions. That's the reason popcorn is 8 bucks.
Microsoft purchased Minecraft in Sept 2014. At the time, the game had sold 60 million copies worldwide across all platforms. By February 2017, the game had sold 121 million copies, doubling the number since the acquisition, and making it the best-selling PC game of all time (2nd best across all platforms). That's why Notch got the promotion.
You don't, but 90% of phones sold are sold by an ISP as part of a subsidized contract-based deal. Hey, pay 900 dollars for that phone at Best Buy with no contract, or get it from us for only 360 (with a 3 year contract)!
Maybe, never saw the need for an Apple TV myself. PS4 does everything it can do, including with HDR, Netflix, Prime, etc. plus many things it cannot, like games (obviously), but also bluray, DVD, and VR. With only 100 dollars difference in the price, it was no competition.
Interesting. Am in Canada, and I think Prime is great. Recent shows I have watched; Bosch, Mr. Robot, American Gods, Night Manager, Man in High Castle, and Preacher. All great shows, and none looked CATRS.
My kids love Youtube. When they were younger, they would watch stuff like the video of the duck and the lemonade stand. As soon as one got popular, more would show up along the same lines, often with swear words, death of the main character, or sexual acts. I am all for parody, but the knock-offs were clearly made by teenagers who thought it was hilarious that young children would think it was a new cartoon of their favourite character only to see them impaled by a pole. As a result, no more youtube until they were teenagers. Youtube, it's about time.
Agree, and worth noting that the extras on many DVDs / BRs are worth getting hold of the disc. Unfortunately, Hollywood really started going with the "Making Of mandatory participation" route where the stars all say, "he's the most brilliant director", "she's an amazing actor, one-of-a-kind", "I was so honoured to work with so-and-so", etc. Lots of fluff. But hidden in there are some real gems. Using your Blade Runner example, the 5-disc Collector's Edition has some incredible stuff on it, including a 30-min documentary just explaining how the 5 different cuts came into existence. Great stuff, and not available via streaming.
No, they didn't. Don't forget that studios get about 50% of the domestic box office receipts, and only about one-third of foreign receipts. Advertising and marketing are not counted in the costs to make a movie, those are on top of the stated price and usually range to at least 75% of the original budget. Take King Arthur from your list. 39 million US means only 19.5 mil in revenue for the studio domestically, 107 million foreign means only 36 more. That totals 55.5 million without including marketing costs. Since the production costs were 175 million, the marketing costs were likely in the 100 mil range. The studio therefore spent 275 million on this project, but only recouped 55. That is a massive loss.
The other films in your list may have fared a little better, but not by much. Even Transformers didn't do very well if you run the numbers. 130 mil / 2 = 65 mil domestic, + 473 / 3 = 157 mil foreign, for a total take of 222 mil. The production cost was 217 mil, and 150 mil spent on marketing. That means 367 mil total spent on that film, but an actual loss of 145 mil.
Some of these films will continue to recover costs for years in media sales, rentals, pay-per-view, etc., but they are very unlikely ever to turn a profit.
Man, look at the hate for Notes on/. It's almost like someone said "I love Nickelback" and the groupthink was,"oh wait, to be cool, you have to hate Nickelback". Well, I for one love Notes. My company is wedded to it, with thousands of NSFs built over the years, it would take decades to replace that with Outlook/SharePoint. I used to work on Outlook, and I hated it. It crashed all the time, unread marks never worked consistently, and people who used to it seemed to think that one crash a day was normal, something you had to put up with.
"No one wants digital music players" when they had one model available, the 64 MB Sony Network Walkman which forced you to convert your MP3s to ATRAC. All that for a cool 700 bucks!
Say what you want about the 1st and 2nd sequels, but there's not really any reason to re-open the Matrix story other than to make money.
True. But the Brothers may surprise you. The additional stories in the Animatrix were all well done, there is no reason to think they can't create another intriguing plot line in a new major motion picture. And I would much prefer Hollywood make money using original thinkers like the Wachowskis than turning out dreck such as Charlie's Angels 2 or Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Just...no. Stop it right now. Stop before something bad happens.
HAHAHAHA! I love the Slashdot naysayers, you can always count on them to start the whining....
Man, the first Matrix was probably the best sci-fi action movie I had ever seen. I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival before it was released, and knew absolutely nothing about it at the time. 20 mins in, I was going WTF... ? 2 hours later, I never wanted this film to end. When they released 2 and 3, although the originality of the first was now forever lost, and the big reveal that we are all human batteries was long past, the story was engrossing and the effects were terrific. I loved this trilogy. Then the brothers came out with "V for Vendetta". That movie was brilliant! I watch it about once a year on DVD, and enjoy it every time. So I have to say, I cannot wait to find out what they have in store for us in Matrix 4 & 5. Bash them all you like, I will still go and see the movies.
DD.
Very interesting article, very well written. My daughter loves Angry Birds, it is one of the few games I have actually played on her iPod Touch which doesn't make me grimace. This article does a very good job of explaining why such a simple game is so intriguing. They are milking it a bit now with the addition of the Eagle as an in-game paid-upgrade, but the original game was simply very well put together. This article explains how it came to be such a big seller, and regardless of whether the "humans are the only creatures which use parabolic curves" argument holds any weight, it certainly made for interesting reading.
DD.
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.
Theya re like 99% against GM on the other side of the ocean. You cant get a pro-GM result published in a European-based journal.
Ironic because you cannot get an anti-GM study done in the US. Monsanto is the biggest corporate sponsor of Agricultural Studies at American universities. As soon as any study is done of GM products and their potential health effects, Monsanto calls the dean and offers to pull all funding. Since American colleges and universities live off of corporate funding, it is a simple decision for the dean.
"Cenzic's acceptance to the SecureIT Alliance alongside our recent designation as a Microsoft Certified Partner highlights our expertise and experience in working with Microsoft technologies as well as a proven ability to meet customer needs," said Mandeep Khera, vice president of marketing for Cenzic.
http://www.cenzic.com/pr_20061011/
So, this report on browser vulnerabilities must be "Fair and Balanced" given that they are a Microsoft Certified Partner.
In the old days, years before OpenOffice or even StarOffice existed, Lotus Symphony was an office suite. So unless this is another "SBC buys AT&T and then starts calling itself AT&T", how can Symphony be described as a variant of OpenOffice in any way, shape, or form?
No man, the Lotus offering was called Lotus SmartSuite. There once was a Lotus offering called Symphony, but that was back in the DOS days. I loved that product, but it never really caught on. It was not an office suite, it was a tool to add charts and things to spreadsheets. And IBM Lotus Symphony (the new one) is a variant of Open Office. It is the base code which has been enhanced to originally be an embedded Office Suite in the Notes 8 client, but has evolved into a fully separate alternative to MS Office. I use it regularly even though I have a full Office license.
DD.
I have never been a big Microsoft supporter, but their numbers don't lie. From CBCNews dated today :
1). Microsoft said it was helped by rising sales of Windows-based personal computers. The company said it has sold 100 million copies of its new Vista operating system since it was launched a year ago.
2). The company also reported better-than-expected sales of Xbox 360 game consoles and improved software sales to business.
3). After markets closed Thursday, the software giant said its profits rose 79 per cent to $4.71 billion US, or 50 cents a share, from $2.63 billion, or 26 cents a share in the same period last year. That beat the consensus estimate from analysts polled by Thomson Financial by four cents a share. Revenue at the company rose 31 per cent to $16.37 billion from $12.5 billion in the year-ago quarter. Analysts had expected $15.95 billion US in sales.
The curse will undoubtedly continue with this one. The weakest of the first 4 were The Movie and Search for Spock. Then came the laugher directed by Shatner, Final Frontier, did that ever stink. Then Generations, and finally, to hit an all-time low for utter crap, Insurrection. In between, they had some decent even numbered movies, but this one? Curse of number 11.
DD.
Every company builds in obsolescence. It's part of the game. How long something will last vs. consumer expectations. If it breaks too soon, you won't buy that brand again. If it lasts too long, that company won't sell enough of the newer models. Take Maytag as a perfect example. Their advertising for years showed a Maytag repairman bored out of his skull because supposedly Maytag products were so durable so he had nothing to do. But that is not reality. You won't find a Maytag dishwasher that will last 10 years. If you do, it's called Miele but it costs thousands more. My mother's original fridge lasted 30 years, back when things were built to last. Almost nothing is built to last these days, else what incentive would you have to upgrade?
One of the quirks of a capitalist society, but hey, it is better than having no choice at all!
DD.
Slashdot Mirror
A cut of concessions was likely out of the question. Studios are still taking 60% of ticket prices from theaters, meaning the only viable means of making money for a theater owner is concessions. That's the reason popcorn is 8 bucks.
OW! OW! Something is biting me in the ass! OW! OW!
I have the affliction where I can't remember people's names. I forget what it is called...
Microsoft purchased Minecraft in Sept 2014. At the time, the game had sold 60 million copies worldwide across all platforms. By February 2017, the game had sold 121 million copies, doubling the number since the acquisition, and making it the best-selling PC game of all time (2nd best across all platforms). That's why Notch got the promotion.
You don't, but 90% of phones sold are sold by an ISP as part of a subsidized contract-based deal. Hey, pay 900 dollars for that phone at Best Buy with no contract, or get it from us for only 360 (with a 3 year contract)!
Maybe, never saw the need for an Apple TV myself. PS4 does everything it can do, including with HDR, Netflix, Prime, etc. plus many things it cannot, like games (obviously), but also bluray, DVD, and VR. With only 100 dollars difference in the price, it was no competition.
Yep, XB1 for me. More expensive than AppleTV, but games!
Interesting. Am in Canada, and I think Prime is great. Recent shows I have watched; Bosch, Mr. Robot, American Gods, Night Manager, Man in High Castle, and Preacher. All great shows, and none looked CATRS.
My kids love Youtube. When they were younger, they would watch stuff like the video of the duck and the lemonade stand. As soon as one got popular, more would show up along the same lines, often with swear words, death of the main character, or sexual acts. I am all for parody, but the knock-offs were clearly made by teenagers who thought it was hilarious that young children would think it was a new cartoon of their favourite character only to see them impaled by a pole. As a result, no more youtube until they were teenagers. Youtube, it's about time.
Agree, and worth noting that the extras on many DVDs / BRs are worth getting hold of the disc. Unfortunately, Hollywood really started going with the "Making Of mandatory participation" route where the stars all say, "he's the most brilliant director", "she's an amazing actor, one-of-a-kind", "I was so honoured to work with so-and-so", etc. Lots of fluff. But hidden in there are some real gems. Using your Blade Runner example, the 5-disc Collector's Edition has some incredible stuff on it, including a 30-min documentary just explaining how the 5 different cuts came into existence. Great stuff, and not available via streaming.
No, they didn't. Don't forget that studios get about 50% of the domestic box office receipts, and only about one-third of foreign receipts. Advertising and marketing are not counted in the costs to make a movie, those are on top of the stated price and usually range to at least 75% of the original budget. Take King Arthur from your list. 39 million US means only 19.5 mil in revenue for the studio domestically, 107 million foreign means only 36 more. That totals 55.5 million without including marketing costs. Since the production costs were 175 million, the marketing costs were likely in the 100 mil range. The studio therefore spent 275 million on this project, but only recouped 55. That is a massive loss. The other films in your list may have fared a little better, but not by much. Even Transformers didn't do very well if you run the numbers. 130 mil / 2 = 65 mil domestic, + 473 / 3 = 157 mil foreign, for a total take of 222 mil. The production cost was 217 mil, and 150 mil spent on marketing. That means 367 mil total spent on that film, but an actual loss of 145 mil. Some of these films will continue to recover costs for years in media sales, rentals, pay-per-view, etc., but they are very unlikely ever to turn a profit.
I know, I know, man the barricades! But annoying nonetheless...
Man, look at the hate for Notes on /. It's almost like someone said "I love Nickelback" and the groupthink was,"oh wait, to be cool, you have to hate Nickelback". Well, I for one love Notes. My company is wedded to it, with thousands of NSFs built over the years, it would take decades to replace that with Outlook/SharePoint. I used to work on Outlook, and I hated it. It crashed all the time, unread marks never worked consistently, and people who used to it seemed to think that one crash a day was normal, something you had to put up with.
"No one wants digital music players" when they had one model available, the 64 MB Sony Network Walkman which forced you to convert your MP3s to ATRAC. All that for a cool 700 bucks!
Say what you want about the 1st and 2nd sequels, but there's not really any reason to re-open the Matrix story other than to make money.
True. But the Brothers may surprise you. The additional stories in the Animatrix were all well done, there is no reason to think they can't create another intriguing plot line in a new major motion picture. And I would much prefer Hollywood make money using original thinkers like the Wachowskis than turning out dreck such as Charlie's Angels 2 or Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Just...no. Stop it right now. Stop before something bad happens.
HAHAHAHA! I love the Slashdot naysayers, you can always count on them to start the whining.... Man, the first Matrix was probably the best sci-fi action movie I had ever seen. I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival before it was released, and knew absolutely nothing about it at the time. 20 mins in, I was going WTF... ? 2 hours later, I never wanted this film to end. When they released 2 and 3, although the originality of the first was now forever lost, and the big reveal that we are all human batteries was long past, the story was engrossing and the effects were terrific. I loved this trilogy. Then the brothers came out with "V for Vendetta". That movie was brilliant! I watch it about once a year on DVD, and enjoy it every time. So I have to say, I cannot wait to find out what they have in store for us in Matrix 4 & 5. Bash them all you like, I will still go and see the movies. DD.
Very interesting article, very well written. My daughter loves Angry Birds, it is one of the few games I have actually played on her iPod Touch which doesn't make me grimace. This article does a very good job of explaining why such a simple game is so intriguing. They are milking it a bit now with the addition of the Eagle as an in-game paid-upgrade, but the original game was simply very well put together. This article explains how it came to be such a big seller, and regardless of whether the "humans are the only creatures which use parabolic curves" argument holds any weight, it certainly made for interesting reading. DD.
Except games haven't used EAX in years. When is the last time you saw a game advertised with EAX? 2005? 2006?
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.
Theya re like 99% against GM on the other side of the ocean. You cant get a pro-GM result published in a European-based journal.
Ironic because you cannot get an anti-GM study done in the US. Monsanto is the biggest corporate sponsor of Agricultural Studies at American universities. As soon as any study is done of GM products and their potential health effects, Monsanto calls the dean and offers to pull all funding. Since American colleges and universities live off of corporate funding, it is a simple decision for the dean.
"Cenzic's acceptance to the SecureIT Alliance alongside our recent designation as a Microsoft Certified Partner highlights our expertise and experience in working with Microsoft technologies as well as a proven ability to meet customer needs," said Mandeep Khera, vice president of marketing for Cenzic. http://www.cenzic.com/pr_20061011/ So, this report on browser vulnerabilities must be "Fair and Balanced" given that they are a Microsoft Certified Partner.
In the old days, years before OpenOffice or even StarOffice existed, Lotus Symphony was an office suite. So unless this is another "SBC buys AT&T and then starts calling itself AT&T", how can Symphony be described as a variant of OpenOffice in any way, shape, or form?
No man, the Lotus offering was called Lotus SmartSuite. There once was a Lotus offering called Symphony, but that was back in the DOS days. I loved that product, but it never really caught on. It was not an office suite, it was a tool to add charts and things to spreadsheets. And IBM Lotus Symphony (the new one) is a variant of Open Office. It is the base code which has been enhanced to originally be an embedded Office Suite in the Notes 8 client, but has evolved into a fully separate alternative to MS Office. I use it regularly even though I have a full Office license. DD.
I have never been a big Microsoft supporter, but their numbers don't lie. From CBCNews dated today : 1). Microsoft said it was helped by rising sales of Windows-based personal computers. The company said it has sold 100 million copies of its new Vista operating system since it was launched a year ago. 2). The company also reported better-than-expected sales of Xbox 360 game consoles and improved software sales to business. 3). After markets closed Thursday, the software giant said its profits rose 79 per cent to $4.71 billion US, or 50 cents a share, from $2.63 billion, or 26 cents a share in the same period last year. That beat the consensus estimate from analysts polled by Thomson Financial by four cents a share. Revenue at the company rose 31 per cent to $16.37 billion from $12.5 billion in the year-ago quarter. Analysts had expected $15.95 billion US in sales.
The curse will undoubtedly continue with this one. The weakest of the first 4 were The Movie and Search for Spock. Then came the laugher directed by Shatner, Final Frontier, did that ever stink. Then Generations, and finally, to hit an all-time low for utter crap, Insurrection. In between, they had some decent even numbered movies, but this one? Curse of number 11. DD.
Every company builds in obsolescence. It's part of the game. How long something will last vs. consumer expectations. If it breaks too soon, you won't buy that brand again. If it lasts too long, that company won't sell enough of the newer models. Take Maytag as a perfect example. Their advertising for years showed a Maytag repairman bored out of his skull because supposedly Maytag products were so durable so he had nothing to do. But that is not reality. You won't find a Maytag dishwasher that will last 10 years. If you do, it's called Miele but it costs thousands more. My mother's original fridge lasted 30 years, back when things were built to last. Almost nothing is built to last these days, else what incentive would you have to upgrade? One of the quirks of a capitalist society, but hey, it is better than having no choice at all! DD.