Amph At The Movies (film discussion thread)

There really shouldn’t be a Creed 3, but if there is Michael B Jordan wants to direct


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honestly the asking price for selling blockbusters to streamers are basically going to sit at 500 million dollars, cuz if they made a billion dollars the studio gets half. Also Bond has poured so much into stop/start promotion with two sliding release dates and Bond definitely does media tie ins.

Of course, the notion that any movie will make over a billion dollars before 2022 (if we're lucky!) is going to go poof. Although if anyone is sitting on a 50 million dollar budget movie, they could maybe get a profit from it if the streamers cough up like I dunno 200 million for it? I want to see how much Netflix paid for Coming to America 2!

Interesting quote from the Deadline article that sums up the whole conundrum
We’ve heard right along that studios with numerous finished films shelved by the pandemic have had cursory talks with streamers, but cursory conversations don’t usually lead to articles. What streamer wouldn’t kill to premiere a movie like Top Gun: Maverick or the sequel to A Quiet Place, and what studio that has seen theatrical revenues completely dry up wouldn’t want to add cash to its bottom line? But most studios have decided it would be shortsighted to empty its slates of its best titles, and been resolute in hanging onto most of its slam dunk hits. A few deals have happened, where cash-hungry studios sold finished films for a substantial markup. That includes the WWII Tom Hanks film Greyhound, which Sony sold to Apple TV + and most recently with Paramount selling the Eddie Murphy Coming To America sequel to Amazon. But many feel MGM and the Bond franchise would likely be better served hanging in. While MGM is working on a Creed sequel that Michael B Jordan is considering to direct, and a new creative team is aggressively building a promising slate, Bond remains MGM’s crown jewel.

 

I watched a horror movie called Boo. Don't bother; it's awful.

 

Greyhound wasn't bad, but I would never have gone to the theater to see it. The holiday moviegoing season is dead. Dead in the U.S. and dead in Europe at least. The pressure on studios to sell off a few of the major big budget releases to streamers will continue to increase.

 

I'm wondering what's taking so long for them to postpone WW84, there's virtually no chance it could actually open in December.

 

WB got kicked in the teeth with Tenet they may be guns shy. They moved The Witches to HBOMAX but, annoying fact, even though Bell signed a deal to put HBOMAX content on Crave in Canada (how I watched Raised by Wolves) it isn't on there, they are still going with international Withces release. Right now Cineplex site has it listed for November 20th. Really!

 

It could also be that Tenet just isn't that good.

 

Well, again, Tenet did a lot better internationally than it did here in the US. I'm not sure if $400+ million will even help it reach break-even, but whichever the case is, it looks like the situation could be worse worldwide by December, judging from how things are going.

 

MGM, Lionsgate and even Paramount are could be gobbled up by another studio/tech company. I don't think Disney is in a buying mood, especially after the decades long acquisition of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and finally 20th Century Fox. Amazon or Apple getting those 3 could be in there, Netflix seems to just want to grow it's stuff in house (and raise my damn bill every year or so)

 

Recently watched Tremors and Misery for their 30th anniversaries, my reviews linked--all the more variety for October viewing. Misery I've been aiming to finally get to for a while--and it did not disappoint.

Tomorrow, I'm off for another theater trip for a cult werewolf flick favorite of mine--Dog Soldiers, if anyone's seen that...

 

Dog Soldiers was good. The director also did the Descent, a movie I am a big fan of.

 

Waiting for that Unchained Melody/Who You Gonna Call? mashup

 

So Fauci along with other experts are saying that it won't really be towards the end of 2021 that will see life have "normalcy" aka theaters could be running at full capacity. It does sound like the spring and particularly the summer of 2021 will be "better" but that does not mean theaters can run even close to capacity. At best 50%. If that is the case and were looking at Q4 when theaters can really have a good chance of running under "normal operations', then how long it is going to be until even some of the tentpole movies finally give in and at do a PVOD release or at least a duel one? I think by next summer several will give in. They really have to at that point especially if production of other films continues meaning the studios will have full slates in 2022. Eventually you got to start releasing stuff. I think the two movies that might get hold indefinitely is Bond and Top Gun 2 which makes me so bleeping mad since those were two of the movies I was most looking forward to this year!

 

I also like Descent, though it's one of those where you have to pick an ending version.

Anyway, came back from Dog Soldiers--glad to finally watch it in a definition above my ageing DVD copy! It's a lot more black humorous than I remember it being from watching it last.

 

Bit more on the attempted Bond deal from Hollywood Reporter, short version: it was Apple for a year for 300 million, MGM wanted 600.

While the scuttled deal says a lot about Bond, it may signal more about the present state of MGM. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that the studio has been financially stretched thin while forgoing revenue from theatrical grosses and weathering a months-long film and TV production shutdown earlier this year amid the pandemic. MGM’s top shareholder is Anchorage Capital, run by former Goldman Sachs exec Kevin Ulrich, who leads the studio’s board of directors.

Multiple sources say Apple kicked the tires on Daniel Craig starrer No Time to Die and mulled an offer in the $350 million to $400 million range for what would have been a 12-month license. (Bloomberg first reported Apple’s offer.) That was far short of the $650 million to $700 million — one source tells THR that even $800 million was mentioned — that MGM was hoping to get to make such a deal worthwhile.

The valuations on the MGM side are informed by several factors. The movie cost around $250 million to produce, including the tax incentives from some of the shooting locations. There are licensing fees that need to be paid to United Artists, co-run by Megan Ellison’s Annapurna and MGM, and to Universal Pictures, which is currently set to distribute the movie internationally. Then there are generous box office bonus deals for stars Craig, Rami Malek as well as director Cary Fukunaga and others. There is also the $50 million or more spent on marketing the movie, which has been (so far) twice delayed. And MGM was basing their numbers on a presumed global box office of over $1 billion, a figure attained by 2012’s Skyfall but not by 2015’s Spectre, which grossed $880 million.

But to streamers such as Netflix, the numbers were a nonstarter. “Bond is a one-shot kill,” says one top executive, “but is it worth it? You’d be setting up a need for a Bond-like movie once a month and for $500 [million] or more, it’s not worth it. You’re better off focusing on your own originals.” (Netflix has been investing heavily in its original action movies, notably its Michael Bay spy thriller 6 Underground, starring Ryan Reynolds, which cost at least $150 million and was viewed by 83 million member households within a month of its Dec. 10, 2019, release.)

But what was driving this fishing expedition was MGM’s current financial state. Sources say the Beverly Hills-based company is accruing around $1 million in interest a month on the money it borrowed to make No Time to Die, which it won't be able to recoup until the movie opens in theaters.

“MGM is suffering. Every major distributor at this point has a pile of unreleased expensive movies. The pile grows larger by the day,” says Hal Vogel, CEO of Vogel Capital Research. “These films are inventory. They are sitting there with no return on their investment. Even with low interest rates, the interest costs are piling up. So going the streaming route is not that crazy. You’ve spent the money. And you’re not getting it back anytime soon.”

...

Complicated things is the fact that MGM only owns part of Bond. Half is controlled by EON Productions, co-run by Barbara Broccoli, daughter of original Bond producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli. Multiple sources say that Broccoli was initially unaware of the streaming-rights fishing expedition for No Time to Die, and when pitched by Ulrich, quickly took the boats out of the water, so to speak. “This was definitely not a meeting of the minds,” says a top-ranking studio exec with knowledge of the overtures.

Broccoli is seen as a staunch traditionalist who is very much in support of the theatrical experience. Furthermore, Bond is a franchise connected to luxury and scarcity, and by going to a streamer there could be a brand hit in her eyes, according to one insider. “It’s a dip into a pool you won’t be able to get out of,” says the source.

That sentiment points to a generational divide among executives. It is especially notable that even as MGM may be seen as cash-strapped, and could theoretically sell the Bond franchise, any buyer would have to contend with EON, an entity that is driving the creative engine on the movie and determining the output. It’s telling that there has not been a James Bond series focusing on, for example, Moneypenny, or spinoff on Goldfinger, or even, say, a cartoon centered on Blofeld’s cat.

 

An interesting premise for a movie; thousands of years into the future with no more humans; robots find a human child.

 

The studios are operating at the notion that they have billion dollar grossers in their back pocket but that seems unlikey until maybe 2022? Like mid 2022. I think the COVID-era ceiling would be like 500 million worldwide, if theatres spend all of 2021 at 50% capacity or less. Of course, theatres may just straight up closing now without any tentpole product to keep them afloat. Tenet made about 350 million worldwide but with cases spiking in a lot of moviegoing countries ceiling that would probably go even lower.

 

It was good. Quite good, in fact. Not great, but still good. It's so good that you must now give me your PS5 as penance.

 

Exactly. That’s ridiculous.

Maybe $1 billion gross before Covid, but I think studios aiming way too high with these movies.

 

They're still budgeting for box office returns on both the production end and the sale end, it won't last if this model keeps up (and as I've said before, I think it will). The executives that can't adjust will be content to run their studios into the ground and get multi-million dollar golden parachutes.