PDC1987 Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Tom Cruise was huge in the 90s. I believe A Few Good Men, The Firm, Mission Impossible and Jerry Maguire adjust to 300m or near it. Though Days of Thunder flopped so it shows no actor is perfect $82 million in 1990 is a flop? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dementeleus Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 It's actually interesting, TV used to be derided as mass-appeal garbage, the "boob tube", watered down sitcom and procedural and action pap. It was more nuanced than that, but it does feel like the mid-budget, mid-range, programmers of the past morphed into the high-grade TV stuff of now. I think this is largely true. One reason is that when they're showrunners, writers have so much more control over their material than if they're screenwriters -- and while premium cable had been around for awhile, the late 90s is when they really started to develop more content, and then cable networks started following their lead. Secondly, the huge rise in marketing/promotional costs for movies made it untenable for a mid-budget movie to be profitable. Sure, it might only cost 30-50m, but marketing costs pushed that figure way over 100m, and for a drama aimed at adults, that makes it pretty hard to be profitable. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dementeleus Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 $82 million in 1990 is a flop? No, DAYS OF THUNDER was a hit, although it didn't get good reviews. FAR AND AWAY was the disappointment, although it wasn't a huge bomb. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redfirebird2008 Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 I loved Days of Thunder as a kid and I don't really like NASCAR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redfirebird2008 Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 (edited) I think this is largely true. One reason is that when they're showrunners, writers have so much more control over their material than if they're screenwriters -- and while premium cable had been around for awhile, the late 90s is when they really started to develop more content, and then cable networks started following their lead. Secondly, the huge rise in marketing/promotional costs for movies made it untenable for a mid-budget movie to be profitable. Sure, it might only cost 30-50m, but marketing costs pushed that figure way over 100m, and for a drama aimed at adults, that makes it pretty hard to be profitable. Steven Soderbergh recently gave a pretty good speech about how ridiculously expensive it is to market and distribute movies in this day and age. http://deadline.com/2013/04/steven-soderbergh-state-of-cinema-address-486368/ Edited July 9, 2015 by redfirebird2008 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
23IsEverywhere Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 At the risk of reinforcing the GrumpyTele™ stereotype... LUCY is awful on almost every level, aside from maybe the first 15 minutes. It's not thematically interesting, it's dumb but not idiotic enough to be a guilty pleasure, and even the action isn't particularly special given Besson's background. I can honestly say Lucy was my least favorite movie I have seen in theaters. Its pseudo intellectual plot and cinematography clashed heavily with its assumption that the viewers wouldn't understand any info that they weren't spoon fed. The early action was good but later action scenes were dry and pointless. The movie couldn't even reach the so bad it's good catagory, and worst of all the film wasted a talented cast. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAR Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Lucy is one of those films where I liked it at first watch. But the more I thought about it it's really a fucking mess 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Marston Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 $82 million in 1990 is a flop? I guess flop is a strong word but it was definitely an underperformer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TServo2049 Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 (edited) When I was a kid, I had always thought Days of Thunder was popular. It was parodied, it had a simulator ride installed at theme parks like Kings Dominion and Great America when they were bought by Paramount, and so on. But yeah, it was forgotten within a couple years. (Kind of like Backdraft, another real-world-thrills movie of the same time which was still fairly fresh in the public memory when I was a kid, then a few years later it was as if it never existed.) I guess it was expected to be "the next Top Gun" and it didn't achieve those heights. But at the same time, is it one of those movies like Congo or Batman & Robin or the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes that people seem to remember as being a "flop" when it actually did turn a profit of some kind? (Actually, I don't even think Apes '01 was that much of an underperformer - $362m WW on a $100m budget. Point still stands, films whose reputations suggest they were more of a failure theatrically than they really were.) Edited July 9, 2015 by TServo2049 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dementeleus Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 When I was a kid, I had always thought Days of Thunder was popular. It was parodied, it had a simulator ride installed at theme parks like Kings Dominion and Great America when they were bought by Paramount, and so on. But yeah, it was forgotten within a couple years. I guess it was expected to be "the next Top Gun" and it didn't achieve those heights. But at the same time, is it one of those movies like Congo or Batman and Robin or Planet of the Apes 2001 that people seem to remember as being a "flop" when it actually did turn a profit of some kind (just not as much as the studio wanted)? The Dissolve had a great series called "Forgotbusters" about this exact phenomenon... and of course DAYS OF THUNDER was one of the movies featured. https://thedissolve.com/features/forgotbusters/381-days-of-thunder-drove-1980s-blockbuster-excess-int/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAR Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Days of Thunder adjusts to 158 million. When was the last a Cruise film not named Mission Impossible made that much Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fancyarcher Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 1992 was 4 originals, 3 sequels (one a comic book adaptation), a TV adaptation, a fairy-tale adaptation, and a based-on-a-true-story. 1993 was 4 originals, 4 book adaptations, 1 TV adaptation, 1 based-on-a-true-story, and no sequels. I'm actually surprised that the 1990s had four years (2 consecutive) where not a single sequel placed in the top 10 releases of the year: 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998. ('98 was the last year that would ever happen.) The reason I surprised is because people were complaining about sequels even then. Actually 1994 did have a sequel in the top 10, or a franchise film if you wanna be more specific. Clear and Present Danger, which at the time was the third Jack Ryan film, and the second and final one with Harrison Ford. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avatree Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Days of Thunder adjusts to 158 million. When was the last a Cruise film not named Mission Impossible made that much War of the Worlds - 297M The Last Samurai - 148M Minority Report - 185M Vanilla Sky - 143M all this side of 2000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Lucy was awesome although I feel it could've been more. I wanna see a movie were people who suddenly get close to absolute power aren't too afraid, or too dumb or too good to use it. I wanna see a realistic movie about that and how a normal human would react. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dementeleus Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Actually 1994 did have a sequel in the top 10, or a franchise film if you wanna be more specific. Clear and Present Danger, which at the time was the third Jack Ryan film, and the second and final one with Harrison Ford. I guess you could count it as either a sequel, or a book adaptation, or both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TServo2049 Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 (edited) Oops. Yes, CAPD counts, it continued the Harrison Ford Jack Ryan franchise. (Actually, Patriot Games is a rare early example of a sort-of-not-quite-reboot - as a kid, I had no idea The Hunt For Red October was even a Jack Ryan movie, I thought that Sean Connery as the Russian submarine captain was the protagonist because his face was the only one on the poster. Baldwin's Ryan sort of feels like the deuteragonist in his own movie, Connery just had that power to steal any movie from the supposed main character.) Edited July 9, 2015 by TServo2049 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fancyarcher Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 I guess you could count it as either a sequel, or a book adaptation, or both. Well the previous adapted Patriot Games came before HFOR in the series timeline (I've read a lot of the Tom Clancy novels, so I know this stuff), but the film version decided to cast an older Ryan (Ford), so it's rather wonky in that regard. Still, I refer it to a book adaption / franchise film, much like I do with the James Bond films. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fancyarcher Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Oops. Yes, CAPD counts, it continued the Harrison Ford Jack Ryan franchise. (Actually, Patriot Games is a rare early example of a sort-of-not-quite-reboot - as a kid, I had no idea The Hunt For Red October was even a Jack Ryan movie, I thought that Sean Connery as the Russian submarine captain was the protagonist because his face was the only one on the poster. Baldwin's Ryan sort of feels like the deuteragonist in his own movie, Connery just had that power to steal any movie from the supposed main character.) Connery practically steals The Untouchables from almost everyone else in the cast (DeNiro was excellent though), and he won a well deserved Oscar for that film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Marston Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 When I was a kid, I had always thought Days of Thunder was popular. It was parodied, it had a simulator ride installed at theme parks like Kings Dominion and Great America when they were bought by Paramount, and so on. But yeah, it was forgotten within a couple years. (Kind of like Backdraft, another real-world-thrills movie of the same time which was still fairly fresh in the public memory when I was a kid, then a few years later it was as if it never existed.) I guess it was expected to be "the next Top Gun" and it didn't achieve those heights. But at the same time, is it one of those movies like Congo or Batman & Robin or the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes that people seem to remember as being a "flop" when it actually did turn a profit of some kind? (Actually, I don't even think Apes '01 was that much of an underperformer - $362m WW on a $100m budget. Point still stands, films whose reputations suggest they were more of a failure theatrically than they really were.) Backdraft was another summer underperformer at the time. Thought it had a ride at Universal Studios that lasted until 2009 which probably helped the film on home video Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4815162342 Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Numbers logic: this doesn't mean IO is getting less presales than it did two days ago, this means Minions is getting more. That does seem like my logic. I'll allow it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
