Post Random Movie-Related Thoughts You Have

[bada]

but then again bureaucratic corporate behemoths are often very stupid, so we'll see if they are right I guess.

Yeah

HBO Max is still lagging behind Disney+, Amazon Prime, and Netflix in terms of subscriptions. I don't think they got as much juice from the day-of streaming release experiment as they were hoping, or at least that seems to be the common impression

The day of streaming release model is a failure but the WB execs pushed it hard and are doubling down on the off chance it might still work and they get to keep their jobs after the merger. Its a bad strategy and they are gonna be on the street.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[bada]

If your short term model is too lose money and alienate the creatives so they don't work with you in the long term then success.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[bada]

Breaking into the China market, which lets face it is and will always be an iffy proposition, and releasing theatrical movies day and date on a streaming platform that only exist in the US doesn't really seem to go together in my imagination. Especially since AT&T sold the movie division to Discovery. Disney seemed to learn their lesson and released their Kung Fu Marvel movie theatrical only and made a bunch of money they would have just given away. Dune is doing well theatrically world wide. Releasing it on HBO Max the day before theatrical is a doubling down of a bad idea. They aren't getting huge bumps in subs from this strategy and even if they did and people loved getting these movies right away what is going to happen when as you suggest they move away from it and you have to go to the theater again? Hope people are too lazy to cancel like their gym membership?

[The Argonaut]

The future of television is television. This moment of big movies being released on streaming platforms is temporary, as the big players try to fight for space in the streaming wars and establish themselves as major players there. But the streaming platforms will eventually focus on series. Big movies will go back to the cinema before long. Disney's current model of big franchise movies in the cinema being followed by spin-off series on streaming is going to be the model for a lot of these companies. But I don't think the cinema is going anywhere. Give it a couple years to settle

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[Malloy]

I dunno, but it's not only harming the movies' box office returns, I think it's also hurting their "cultural standing." Probably a bad way to phrase it but I mean like their overall cultural penetration. Their release feels much more fleeting, less important. VENOM 2 felt like a bigger deal than The Suicide Squad (even though there are obviously other factors at play there, like confusion about whether TSS was a reboot or a sequel or a Snyder-like director's cut or what)

hard yes

[Malloy]

I am watching Do The Right Thing for the first time and did a quick Google search for the younger Italian brother, realized, "Oh, yeah! He's one of the parking garage attendants from Ferris Beuller." (The guy on the right in the gif below.)

But then I did some digging and found out...this guy was in Sonic Youth??? He was apparently the first real drummer they had: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Edson

also in stranger than paradise, i think

[VinylGuy]

To add at our Dune discussion

https://variety.com/2021/film/columns/d ... 235074489/

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[Strat]

So, strip away all the pomp and excitement of a theater experience and Dune sucks?

MAYBE MAKE BETTER MOVIES HOLLYWOOD AMIRITE

[Jorge]

They've already recouped $75M in the foreign market, so they'll get their other $90M back between theatrical, Blu-Ray, and new subs.

FWIW tentpoles usually need to double their budget to start being profitable

[E.H. Ruddock]

And another thing no one has mentioned yet is the continued growth of green screen technology. The implicit concern here seems to be that if Dune performs poorly, we'll get less massively awe-inspiring film productions. But I just don't buy it. Between the de-aging of DeNiro, fake Tom Cruise, and the digital backdrops of Dune, we're well on our way to having the majority of our fantastical tales cobbled together on a bunch of computers.

We're getting 4 more Avatar movies and no one can stop it. So yeah

[VinylGuy]

Again, i feel they should have leave the movie only in cinemas and Imax for a month. Then exclusively on Hbo Max.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[The Argonaut]

I get a little bored of the "the underperformance of this specific film means that this type of film is dead forever and will never be made again" take. It's never been true and it won't be. I'm seeing takes that because 'The Last Duel' isn't making money, it's going to be the last drama film with movie stars. Give me a break. If Dune doesn't do great, they aren't going to abandon big VFX sci-fi movies. They just might not make another Dune movie and six Dune TV shows. Oh no! They'll try again with an N.K. Jemisin property or whatever. Every type of movie is going to keep getting made. I was listening to a podcast with a documentary filmmaker who had made a funny movie about some sado masochist in the eighties and he said something about how they wouldn't let him make that movie in today's market. Bullshit. This year on HBO, on 'How to...with John Wilson', we went into the bedroom of a man who wants to grow his foreskin back and we saw a demonstration of his homemade apparatus in which he got completely naked and tied a rope around the end of his dick and pulled on it. That was on TV. If they stop making a certain kind of movie, it's not because one movie didn't do well. It's because that type of movie has been done to death and there is nothing left to say.

[E.H. Ruddock]

They've already recouped $75M in the foreign market, so they'll get their other $90M back between theatrical, Blu-Ray, and new subs.

FWIW tentpoles usually need to double their budget to start being profitable

I doubt it'll do that well. What's the marketing budget on this thing?

I can see it easily reaching $330m in the box office.

[bada]

Jorge is right. You take the actual budget on the film which is always higher than what they say and the marketing costs and subtract interest and the money that goes to the exhibiters and you need to make a billion to come out OK. You'll never make that streaming or day and date. Now maybe it makes more sense to make eight 30 million dollar movies than gamble on one Dune but if they make a big movie putting it on TV first is fucking dumb. I get the idea of getting $10 a month from 100 million people and being able to rely on that money month after month year after year is an attractive proposition but sabotaging these tent poles in the vain attempt to prop up an underwhelming streaming service is leaving money on the table. Just do what VG suggests and leave it in the theater for a month or 45 days then put it on streaming. You can do both and suck the thing dry.