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Well, of course - these are 'Blockbuster' films, designed with high budgets, like AAA games - they need to be guaranteed to make back a significant investment m
by lostgame 7y ago
Well, of course - these are 'Blockbuster' films, designed with high budgets, like AAA games - they need to be guaranteed to make back a significant investment made into something with such high production values.
South Park recently lambasted this in S26E02, 'Band in China,' where we saw a host of characters on their way to China - part of a group the series was lambasting on selling out to China with regards to censorship. The characters had been 'selling out' to expand their financial markets to China.
A film usually needs to make back twice its budget in order to be deemed a 'financial success.' If that film has a budget of $80-180mil, the execs are going to want it to fly with the lowest common denominator. If it happens to actually say something as well, and become critically-acclaimed, such as Joker, or the Dark Knight, well, that's an exception.
tl;dr: High budget superhero action films need to be guaranteed to make their budget back. They are made to hit the lowest common denominator and sell tickets. If they happen to be brilliant they are an outlier to the rule.
- EliRivers 7y agoLet's not forget that the studios have an artistic side too; Harry Potter and the Order of the phoenix lost over a hundred and fifty million dollars (sic) but out of the goodness of their hearts they pressed on with the series!
- rowanG077 7y agoHow the fuck is that possible? It was one of the largest film franchises at the time.
- EliRivers 7y agoThey made a fortune out of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jjeaff 7y agoAgreed, Hollywood accountants may be more creative than the filmmakers. But really, all they are doing is taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another. Their marketing division or others will simply massively overcharge the film for their services. Thus showing a huge charge against the film budget. This is to keep from paying royalties based on profit. This is also why Keanu Reeves is one of the richest actors in Hollywood. He made a 15% on gross deal for the matrix. So no amount of shifty accounting could get the studios out of paying him. One can only assume they made that deal at the time because they didn't expect the movie to be all that successful.