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The film industry needs as much help as it can get at the moment, all studios have been hit with massive flops this summer. After the Flash, on track to lose at

The film industry needs as much help as it can get at the moment, all studios have been hit with massive flops this summer. After the Flash, on track to lose at least $200million, Warner need Barbie to be a hit, so this bizarre double header is a way for Warner and Universal to get some positive buzz going for their films. Both of the are tracking to do well, and they didn't cost too much to make like the Flash or Dial of Destiny, so their break even is at a much lower gross.

vasco 3y ago
The mega producers might have had a worse year, but the film industry as a whole is fine. And if you want to help someone, help smaller independent films by attending your local film festivals instead of mass produced crap. Who cares if the 78th comic book movie flopped.
- drumhead 3y ago
  The big studios are a major source of finance and distribution for the Indies, if they do badly there's going to be less money from the rest of the industry and less appetite for risk. If you're on course to lose over a billion like Disney you'll start to pull back for funding anything on the fringe. Mass produced "crap" has always provided the funds for the more artistic or less commercial ventures.
  - probably_wrong 3y ago
    That sounds a lot like trickle-down economics for movies. And considering we've passed day 50 of the writer's strike and what we know about the troubles of the CGI industry, I'm skeptical of studios funding anything for the love of cinema when they are already failing to properly fund the people doing their blockbusters.
    - drumhead 3y ago
      I don't think the writers or even actors have as much leverage with studios now as they think they have. They've got so much content now they can just haul out their back catalogue and show that instead with no production costs and very little marketing spend. Longer term they'll just move more production overseas or use new technology like LLMs.
emilsedgh 3y ago
Or maybe these studios need to stop making stupid movies that nobody cares about anymore. Flash? Seriously? Promote actual movies a little more rather than spending hundreds of millions on dumb movies and leaving no room for real cinema.
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  You realize these corporations are just catering to what crowds want to see. Not always perfectly as we see in results, but that's the directions they all are taking, they are for-profit organizations after all, not some government branch being paid from taxes. So what you are complaining about is rather shallowness or masses who want more popcorn fun rather than taking chances with experimental productions (just to be clear I am all for it, ie Tarantino broke through by similar 'taking creative chances', but folks do rarely visit unconventional stuff en masse). Haven't seen Flash yet but these movies all aim to be next juicy Endgame. If you want to blame anybody for current direction of Hollywood, blame all folks visiting Avengers franchise.
  - ReptileMan 3y ago
    The masses were as shallow in the 80s and yet we enjoyed brainless actions all the time. The quality of stupid movies has done downhill even if the budgets are enormous.
- dawnerd 3y ago
  Making trashy movies is fine. Paying problematic actors a ton of money and letting budgets go out of control isn’t. There’s always a need for filler movies - some of the best cult classics have been just that. The other issue is they release movies at the worst time. IMO the new mission impossible is going to flop because it came out so soon before probably the two most anticipated movies of the year.
  - nullify88 3y ago
    I'm not convinced the new MI will flop. A lot of hype has been built around the movie which has been continually delayed due to covid and scheduling, during which they trickle previews and exclusive trailers on YouTube. Previous MI films and Top Gun have also been refreshing in the age of CGI movies. Everyone is excited for it.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
troupo 3y ago
> The film industry needs as much help as it can get at the moment, all studios have been hit with massive flops this summer. You can't help those who are unwilling to help themselves. Literally no one forced them to sink 300 million into Dial of Destiny, for example. Or all the other crap they are putting out.
- drumhead 3y ago
  I think they understand the error of their ways now. Disney especially have been guilty of overspending. After Thier year of flops, they're going to cut back spending massively. When you look at this week and see how a film that cost $15million is already more profitable than Dial of Destiny that's an embarrassing lesson to them.
  - superchroma 3y ago
    Nooo, I want them to sink way too much money into Tron Ares before they give up.
  - troupo 3y ago
    They haven't "realized the error of their ways" if they still pour money into projects no one wants or asked for. "Cutting spending" usually means removing funding from actual good movies and ideas, and doubling down on money-makers, no matter how dumb, stupid, or creatively bankrupt those money makers become.
ReptileMan 3y ago
>all studios have been hit with massive flops this summer Ahh yes. The studio have been hit trough no fault of their own. I think the studios have produced total shit for a long time. Destroyed franchizes with incompetent writing and it is catching up. Latest Indidana Jones is case in point. Everything about that movie except Harrison Ford is bad. And the latest reincarnation of Olive Oyl of Popeye fame is so unfitted for the role of action heroine it is not even funny.
- dawnerd 3y ago
  Your point about Indy definitely doesn’t match my experience or the experience of many others who think it’s one of the top three.
  - ReptileMan 3y ago
    The box office results point to those "many others" being not that many.
    - prennert 3y ago
      Something I never understood: how can movie and music quality be measured by counting one-off paying audiences (cinema goers, pre-streaming album buyers)? People will only know how good it is once they watched it and therefore already paid. There is no money back if you don't like it. Hype / marketing and timing must be a huge part of what makes box office numbers.
    - dawnerd 3y ago
      Terrible metric, it can be both a great movie and so terribly in the box office, especially a Disney money that’ll be able to stream shortly for basically free.
glimshe 3y ago
Sound of Freedom is being a profitable success (46M gross so far, 15M budget) and a trend to follow for religion-influenced movies bringing large audiences. It's not a one-off, we saw that with Jesus Revolution too (53M gross, 15M budget). When you are smart about the audience and costs, you can make a ton of money in the business still. I have a theory that the low interest rates in the past several years created massive distortions in the movie business. Firstly, incredibly expensive movies that, while entertaining (like the last Indiana Jones), have very little hopes of turning a profit. Secondly, streaming services having mountains of money and making things that are, well, too good and unprofitable long term. For instance, according to some unofficial numbers, you can make four Sound of Freedoms with the budget of a single Amazon Lord of the Rings episode!
- bsder 3y ago
  However, this presupposes you can pick the guy who wrote the "Sound of Freedom" out from the rest of the dreck a priori. Nobody can do that. Go down the list of films in 2023 on IMDB. How many of those didn't make back their money domestically? A LOT. The profit from even one of your movies barely pays for a single other flop. Matt Damon commented in an interview that the problem was the collapse of DVD sales. With DVD sales, you could occasionally get a long slow burn after the movie was done (see: John Wick). Without DVD sales, it's either get it at the box office or you're done.
  - glimshe 3y ago
    Maybe you can't pick that these movies easily a priori, but this one in particular came from a pretty strong crowdfunding campaign. So that's potentially a bankable early signal. My claim is that there is an underserved market and companies are starting to invest in it and create movies that aren't ultra low budget. More movies to come, and like any market with limited competition, an opportunity to watch for. About DVD/Blueray sales, a separate and interesting discussion. Digital purchases were supposed to replace those, but with non-portable DRM and cumbersome UIs with subscription services, this isn't happening yet. I wonder if anyone will "solve" the problem of buying a movie in the 21st century, or maybe buying movies is dead for good?
q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 3y ago
> they didn't cost too much to make A quick search suggests each had a $100M budget, so it's worth noting they're not exactly cheap. They'll still need pretty big opening weekends to turn a healthy profit.
TMWNN 3y ago
>Warner need Barbie to be a hit, so this bizarre double header is a way for Warner and Universal to get some positive buzz going for their films. People on /r/boxoffice are saying that if <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbenheimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbenheimer> works (and so far it seems so), a) there will be business school case studies. b) Expect other informal studio cooperations like this.

vasco 3y ago

The mega producers might have had a worse year, but the film industry as a whole is fine. And if you want to help someone, help smaller independent films by attending your local film festivals instead of mass produced crap. Who cares if the 78th comic book movie flopped.

drumhead 3y ago
The big studios are a major source of finance and distribution for the Indies, if they do badly there's going to be less money from the rest of the industry and less appetite for risk. If you're on course to lose over a billion like Disney you'll start to pull back for funding anything on the fringe. Mass produced "crap" has always provided the funds for the more artistic or less commercial ventures.
- probably_wrong 3y ago
  That sounds a lot like trickle-down economics for movies. And considering we've passed day 50 of the writer's strike and what we know about the troubles of the CGI industry, I'm skeptical of studios funding anything for the love of cinema when they are already failing to properly fund the people doing their blockbusters.
  - drumhead 3y ago
    I don't think the writers or even actors have as much leverage with studios now as they think they have. They've got so much content now they can just haul out their back catalogue and show that instead with no production costs and very little marketing spend. Longer term they'll just move more production overseas or use new technology like LLMs.

emilsedgh 3y ago

Or maybe these studios need to stop making stupid movies that nobody cares about anymore. Flash? Seriously? Promote actual movies a little more rather than spending hundreds of millions on dumb movies and leaving no room for real cinema.

saiya-jin 3y ago
You realize these corporations are just catering to what crowds want to see. Not always perfectly as we see in results, but that's the directions they all are taking, they are for-profit organizations after all, not some government branch being paid from taxes. So what you are complaining about is rather shallowness or masses who want more popcorn fun rather than taking chances with experimental productions (just to be clear I am all for it, ie Tarantino broke through by similar 'taking creative chances', but folks do rarely visit unconventional stuff en masse). Haven't seen Flash yet but these movies all aim to be next juicy Endgame. If you want to blame anybody for current direction of Hollywood, blame all folks visiting Avengers franchise.
- ReptileMan 3y ago
  The masses were as shallow in the 80s and yet we enjoyed brainless actions all the time. The quality of stupid movies has done downhill even if the budgets are enormous.
dawnerd 3y ago
Making trashy movies is fine. Paying problematic actors a ton of money and letting budgets go out of control isn’t. There’s always a need for filler movies - some of the best cult classics have been just that. The other issue is they release movies at the worst time. IMO the new mission impossible is going to flop because it came out so soon before probably the two most anticipated movies of the year.
- nullify88 3y ago
  I'm not convinced the new MI will flop. A lot of hype has been built around the movie which has been continually delayed due to covid and scheduling, during which they trickle previews and exclusive trailers on YouTube. Previous MI films and Top Gun have also been refreshing in the age of CGI movies. Everyone is excited for it.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

troupo 3y ago

> The film industry needs as much help as it can get at the moment, all studios have been hit with massive flops this summer. You can't help those who are unwilling to help themselves. Literally no one forced them to sink 300 million into Dial of Destiny, for example. Or all the other crap they are putting out.

drumhead 3y ago
I think they understand the error of their ways now. Disney especially have been guilty of overspending. After Thier year of flops, they're going to cut back spending massively. When you look at this week and see how a film that cost $15million is already more profitable than Dial of Destiny that's an embarrassing lesson to them.
- superchroma 3y ago
  Nooo, I want them to sink way too much money into Tron Ares before they give up.
- troupo 3y ago
  They haven't "realized the error of their ways" if they still pour money into projects no one wants or asked for. "Cutting spending" usually means removing funding from actual good movies and ideas, and doubling down on money-makers, no matter how dumb, stupid, or creatively bankrupt those money makers become.

ReptileMan 3y ago

>all studios have been hit with massive flops this summer Ahh yes. The studio have been hit trough no fault of their own. I think the studios have produced total shit for a long time. Destroyed franchizes with incompetent writing and it is catching up. Latest Indidana Jones is case in point. Everything about that movie except Harrison Ford is bad. And the latest reincarnation of Olive Oyl of Popeye fame is so unfitted for the role of action heroine it is not even funny.

dawnerd 3y ago
Your point about Indy definitely doesn’t match my experience or the experience of many others who think it’s one of the top three.
- ReptileMan 3y ago
  The box office results point to those "many others" being not that many.
  - prennert 3y ago
    Something I never understood: how can movie and music quality be measured by counting one-off paying audiences (cinema goers, pre-streaming album buyers)? People will only know how good it is once they watched it and therefore already paid. There is no money back if you don't like it. Hype / marketing and timing must be a huge part of what makes box office numbers.
  - dawnerd 3y ago
    Terrible metric, it can be both a great movie and so terribly in the box office, especially a Disney money that’ll be able to stream shortly for basically free.

glimshe 3y ago

Sound of Freedom is being a profitable success (46M gross so far, 15M budget) and a trend to follow for religion-influenced movies bringing large audiences. It's not a one-off, we saw that with Jesus Revolution too (53M gross, 15M budget). When you are smart about the audience and costs, you can make a ton of money in the business still. I have a theory that the low interest rates in the past several years created massive distortions in the movie business. Firstly, incredibly expensive movies that, while entertaining (like the last Indiana Jones), have very little hopes of turning a profit. Secondly, streaming services having mountains of money and making things that are, well, too good and unprofitable long term. For instance, according to some unofficial numbers, you can make four Sound of Freedoms with the budget of a single Amazon Lord of the Rings episode!

bsder 3y ago
However, this presupposes you can pick the guy who wrote the "Sound of Freedom" out from the rest of the dreck a priori. Nobody can do that. Go down the list of films in 2023 on IMDB. How many of those didn't make back their money domestically? A LOT. The profit from even one of your movies barely pays for a single other flop. Matt Damon commented in an interview that the problem was the collapse of DVD sales. With DVD sales, you could occasionally get a long slow burn after the movie was done (see: John Wick). Without DVD sales, it's either get it at the box office or you're done.
- glimshe 3y ago
  Maybe you can't pick that these movies easily a priori, but this one in particular came from a pretty strong crowdfunding campaign. So that's potentially a bankable early signal. My claim is that there is an underserved market and companies are starting to invest in it and create movies that aren't ultra low budget. More movies to come, and like any market with limited competition, an opportunity to watch for. About DVD/Blueray sales, a separate and interesting discussion. Digital purchases were supposed to replace those, but with non-portable DRM and cumbersome UIs with subscription services, this isn't happening yet. I wonder if anyone will "solve" the problem of buying a movie in the 21st century, or maybe buying movies is dead for good?

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 3y ago

> they didn't cost too much to make A quick search suggests each had a $100M budget, so it's worth noting they're not exactly cheap. They'll still need pretty big opening weekends to turn a healthy profit.

TMWNN 3y ago

>Warner need Barbie to be a hit, so this bizarre double header is a way for Warner and Universal to get some positive buzz going for their films. People on /r/boxoffice are saying that if <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbenheimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbenheimer> works (and so far it seems so), a) there will be business school case studies. b) Expect other informal studio cooperations like this.