PlatnumRoyce

these numbers are misleading because they include hefty backend payments so they're not "production budgets" especially when talking about big hits (e.g. PotC4, which we know had a small budget than PotC3). Take "Foodles Productions" (Force Awakens) if you include all payments made through November 2015, it had a net (uk) budget of ~181M million pounds or ~225M USD. NOT 446.6M as this article implies. You get 446.6M because one of the biggest hits of all time has massive backend payments. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08463295/filing-history?page=2 A similar problem exists for JW sequels. No, but we still know it filed for ~40M of "QE" in Hawaii in 2014 https://files.hawaii.gov/dbedt/annuals/2016/2016-film-tax-credit.pdf and [___ missing Lousiana film credit] (it turns outInvertigo was a real Sony film that died pre-release) Neither of these say "Jurassic World" but we know it was a big budget film that filmed on Kauai in 2014 and one such film filed for tax breaks. There are presumably tens of millions worth of missing funds but I really don't think JW1 broke the bank given these reports.

It likely didn't. The "$165M budget" was likely always wrong as it is clearly derived from Malta's reported tax break. So $>10M in cost overruns in Malta + the Moroccan and UK film costs + other post-production work. I'm not sure how you get to $310M from that but I can easily see how it was actually above 200M without overages.

What actually happened? The tricky part is that this also doubled as marketing for the film by trying to recreate "method acting' hype around Ledger's Joker (and Leto was also at the time/later publicly feuding with WB over how his role was significantly nerfed during studio meddling). This stuff happened but if 2016 SS was released in 2022 you'd have either had such events not mentioned or downplayed/spun differently. It clearly rubbed people the wrong way but some degree of the way it was talked about was bad in a way WB thought would "sell cars" for Suicide Squad.

I do want to point out the cross-cutting nature of analysis versus moral takeaways. From a follow-up comment to the Puck piece by an anonymous Disney exec. This is someone Belloni knows that's involved with making Disney films saying "that's a true reading of what's happening at the box office and it's a morally bad outcome" (while also arguing Iger's making overt production related decisions also reflect this belief). This comment isn't disputing the basic conceptual framework doesn't actually map onto people's true perceptions of Disney projects. The line between "very online" cultural commentators and creatives is obviously a fairly blurry one that's not hit with the savvier "corporations are cynics" mode. It's actually in no way obvious that "regressive gender stereotypes versus progressive female empowerment" explains why people get see or don't see movies as opposed another explanation that's not just pablum. I liked the marvels but it's not like you can look at that film and rise of Skywalker and avoid glaringly obvious quality issues and it actually is a little interesting that this is the sort of analysis you're getting of why the last few years of Disney have been filled with divisive failures. It's flattening the entirety of cultural responses into a single dimensional "virtuous/viscous" line (our virtues aren't rewarded due to the vices of others which are the exact inverse of our virtues).

Is it too early to say Madame Web isn't really falling through the floor as predicted?

A lot of people saw Mitchells and the Machines without really a peep from conservative media. Disney really defined themselves as the face of changing children's entertainment content in a way that really simply part of a long term trend. I don't think you can undersell the importance of Disney's specific execution here. They got hit on all sides due to their initial attempt to have it both ways and then served themselves up as a piece of red meat to a guy with a 10-20% chance of becoming president at the time the chance to define himself in opposition to Disney. But this getting into weeds of how I see an old political controversy. Don't take 70% too literally but it's some recollections of polling in regards to FL-Disney fight. Essentially the terms of the fight were picked to unify GOP and split Democrats. See especially (as that poll indicates) the fact that it was ultimately over elementary school content versus middle/high school. Basically the trap is the distinction between debates about what should be taught to second graders versus "being banned from saying gay." Basically the framing of the issue got the opponents of the bill defined as sort of anti-status quo (because default mental image is these topics never organically coming up in elementary school) despite the bill being a change in the status quo. tl;dr if an "obvious-future-presidential-candidate" wants to pick a specific fight, it's probably not in your best interest to join in. There's likely a reason this specific ground was selected. Look at how Bob Iger describes the culture war/value clash stuff. He frames those debates in a vastly different way and reflects the grounds that are much more favorable towards Disney litigating such issues. OTOH, it's just hard to tell without knowing the baselines including no opinion stuff. downside of not actually having accessed to paywalled poll. But yeah, you could tell a story that assumes a significantly higher negative opinion baseline. On the other hand, we also know there isn't anything like a mega-boycott of Disney by conservative parents so a 67% negative score would imply lots of people have negative opinions without changing habits.

Honestly, pretty much a nothingburger of an article that's almost more interesting for what's not said than what is (i.e. praising Agatha's production while saying nothing about Daredevil). Just a slightly puffy reiteration of old news.

Think about it as a 2x2 matrix: "it is/isn't happening" and "this is a good/bad thing." "It isn't happening and if it was happening it would be a bad thing" is just not the same thing as "it is happening and its a bad thing." These are genuinely different arguments. The "so what" I was angling for was just "left's shift over to the right side of the 2x2 matrix." "Don't become the face of a culture war fight where you're on the 30% side of a 30/70 issue" would be the substantive advice I'd give but that's really not generalizable for multiple reasons. I mean, the Lightyear stuff directly came up as part of the multi-month Florida-Disney fight that clearly is the inflection point in the relationship. The Lightyear stuff was actually treated radically differently from Mitchells and the Machines, Onward, etc. The obvious difference isn't "the kiss" it's Disney picking a fight with DeSantis over a FL education bill. We've also clearly see a persistent damage to Disney animation. The most banal answer blames everything on D+ changing expectations. To what degree is that it?

Again, this is a real thing that's been supported by multiple independent data sources. We can debate the "so what" of it but this isn't a "we've aggregated 5 tweets from social media to make you bad" story. It's a real and notable shift in the company's brand.

Oppenheimer Budget - Because you mentioned Oppenheimer's budget on another thread - any thoughts on this? New Mexico has an "Uplift Zone" which 2022 didn't include the physical sets Oppenheimer built on Ghost Ranch (definition was changed and I now think that no longer applies). Uplift Zone spending went from ~5M a year to 50M and then back down to 15M (https://www.nmlegis.gov/handouts/RSTP 091823 Item 6 NM Film Presentation.pdf). The biggest productions in those areas were (1) Oppenheimer and (2) Ghosted. Oppenheimer lacks a press release about this but press reports said they filmed for 3 days at ghost ranch and spent $3M on physical production. Contrast that with Ghosted which has a press release mentioning non-timeline filming data. https://nmfilm.com/production/ghosted I don't think we can estimate how much money Oppenheimer spent from the tax credit data (unless there's a way to nail down more specifically ghosted shooting schedule) but am I wrong?

Your right but I find this baffling. Even if it's mediocre, I believe they could "Gatsby" it. I don't understand how the film couldn't be salvaged as a commercial film as long as everyone is willing to go along. I mean, the book it's being based on is basically a farce with extra quasi-time loop fun (and a great cast). There's more to it than that but you should at least be able to pivot to that.

Sounds fun. Do you have a link? My only nitpick is that "development costs" (which would include rights purchases) seem like the one normal production budget thing that isn't included in UK film breaks.

You'd think so but I'd argue the tone of the dark knight's ending is radically changed by having Gary Oldman just sell the hell out of the "not the hero we deserve" monologue combined the pounding motion of the score that quickly cuts off. For better or worse, it somehow ends up avoiding the bittersweet feeling the plot is leading you towards.

The Disney budgets are still insane (and well above trades) after you take the tax credits into account. To my eyes, it's clearly a real mixed bag likely stemming from how people get their data. For example: I'm 100% sure Bottoms' number comes from the raw spending from one state's worth of filming (lousiana despite the film had other costs) given LA Fastline is public knowledge. Contrast that with another film, 65, where the studio clearly pushed a 45M budget. This was at net spend from Louisiana but there's another $10M of filming in Oregon (800k tax breaks) and likely $$$ in post-production in California/overseas.

they're not. Nothing in the article implied Sony believed in 2024 this film was on track to be a franchise starter and the film shows clear signs of being changed to avoid tainting other films by association with this one (no post credits scene, ADRing and editing out lines that connected this film explicitly to Peter Parker)

No, but they did say, on average, their films made 1/3rd revenue theatrically Yeah, this was very explicit in the interview (with the only exception being that I read it as covering the "2 year ultimate" instead of just the theatrical release - but I think that is a point of debatable interpretation). Sorry if that didn't come across in my initial comment. Also, to be fair, Netflix tried to get a normal-ish release for Roma but at that point theaters weren't willing to go along with a nuked theatrical window.

It's always going to be funny to me that this character got her own tv show. Yeah, I know the character was reintroduced in the late 2000s/early 2010s but this is the version of the character I've organically stumbled upon reading old comic books as a child. It's just the goofiest example of peak-Superhero possible. It's a combination of wanting to do Batman without having access to Batman (see also how Arrow always liberally borrowed Batman villains) and the CW-ness of the CW.

The smoking gun there really is Batwoman. Despite being a Batman property, having absolutely awful ratings and having to recast the show's lead in a messy situation, the show kept on trucking because these shows were clearly profitable from day 1 as netflix co-productions. though they were at ~3M viewers when that Netflix deal was signed.

The founder of Neon just did an interview where they mentioned the film's P&A + Oscar spend combined to $20M

I'll Defend Gods of Egypt but at least I understand the hatred. However, I really don't understand how 2017's Power Rangers got silently pushed into meme-movie status. I recall when the film was being praised as another Lionsgate success story. Power Rangers got a 58% critics score on RT, an A cinemascore and an opening weekend of $40M (On a 100 million dollar budget). Even the bad news on OW wasn't actually - a 66% recommend (so high 70s/low 80s % positive) posttrak score. Of course, the film had a pretty terrible 2.2x domestic legs (though somewhat better legs in european markets) and the film's IMDB score is terrible at 5.9 (and not full of 1/10 scores). The low overall gross meant even a clearly good 40M OW wasn't enough to make this film a franchise.

I think this is Zaslov just as much or more than James Gunn. When Zaslov bought WB he made multiple explicit statements indicating he thought this was a bad strategy. I disagree and I think it is exactly what comic book publishers should be doing (it raises awareness of characters while not risking audience blowback due to the niche nature of such productions). However, WB's been very open about this, people just weren't listening. Zaslav explicitly said multiple times he didn't want multiple batmen/supermen running around and he doesn't want multiple non-compatible universes of DC content.

re: Marvels, isn't this where production timelines come in (you don't actually know what's a hit or flop prior to moving forward with the next project)? I don't really get why people are ignoring Secret Invasion in this discourse when "Nick Fury investigates the Skrull on earth" plot clearly was initially intended as the immediate sequel to The Marvels and got weirdly reworked into being a prequel (why is Nick Fury "back on earth for the first time since Endgame"...well, the space station explodes at the very end of "Marvels" and we see Fury re-established on earth). All three works flopped suggesting both quality concerns and a real weakness in interest in 2019's Captain Marvel. This really is obviously a complete vindication of a criticism of the original movie/original movie's characters despite the film's insane box office run. There just was no residual goodwill and no residual interest in the film. I wouldn't have predicted this based on Captain Marvels' Box office (and even post-box office) run but it just seems undeniable. What looked like one of the most sure things imaginable (Nick Fury getting a solo tv show is as easy a sell as a black widow movie) turned out to be a risky mirage. All 3 Captain Marvel sequels/spinoffs are, on paper, significantly less risky than a big budget show about Scarlett Witch and Vision post-Endgame. Still, the film's supporting cast is messy and hurts the film in a way that's obvious but also understandable to overlook. You really needed to chose either Ms. Marvel or "child sidekick from first movie" (either reoccurring as a kid-sidekick or being shown all grown up). Either really could work but trying to splitting the baby is, as king Solomon noted, a bad thing. The film is much more interested in setting up Ms. Marvel than having the payoff of Rambeau(?) whose powers messily have nothing to do with either Captain Marvel or the antagonist.

They don't but this is a regular occurrence. DC explicitly vetoed the use of Blue Beetle in Arrow Season 2 because they were planning a BB/BG film (which died). This is why they renamed Ted Kord as "Ray Palmer" and gave the Atom an Iron Man suit. Amanda Waller and The Suicide Squad were featured as a "1-2 times a year" character on Arrow but both were killed off in preparation for (Deadshot also went from being a slightly more frequent than that reoccurring villain to being killed off for the same reason) John Constantine was killed off of/retired from Legends of Tomorrow presumably in preparation for JJ Abraham's JL: Dark tv show that never actually happened (you can tell the CW lost Constantine rights because they continued to use the actor). Gotham & Arrow both clearly had explicit bans on using Harley Quinn despite both shows trying to get around this by implication. Deathstroke started off as a main character of Arrow but was written off for years due to Affleck's Batman using the character.

male-oriented?