5 ms·

Kill the Blockbuster

69 points by treitnauer 15y ago

geoffschmidt 15y ago
There is a serious flaw in this analogy. It costs tens of millions of dollars to make a Hollywood blockbuster, and you don't find out if it was money well spent until opening weekend. But a couple of unemployed software developers can test out a startup idea for a few thousand dollars, and very plausibly get to millions of users or ramen profitability in a few months if the idea is good. The incentives are totally different. So even if we agree that consumer media internet startups are becoming formulaic (I sure don't), this isn't the reason why.
- pfraze 15y ago
  Maybe they're not, but man was the SXSW show floor depressing.
  - trafficlight 15y ago
    For someone who wasn't there, can you elaborate?
    - pfraze 15y ago
      Yeah, I just wasn't very inspired. They were all companies I've known, or undifferentiating copies of companies I've know. On the plus side, I was encouraged about the odds of getting funding.
  - geoffschmidt 15y ago
    If there were now 10X more startups, but only 2X more ideas per year, would that account for your depression?
    - pfraze 15y ago
      Maybe, but that was't the proportion I saw.
smackfu 15y ago
"the bottom line is that it’s never been more difficult for filmmakers to get an original story made" On the contrary. With affordable HD gear and computer editing, it's never been easier for a filmmaker to make their movie themselves. Compare to 20 years ago, where Kevin Smith could barely afford to buy and develop grainy black-and-white film on a $30 grand budget.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  I think it's more accurate to say it's never been more difficult for filmmakers to get an original story made that requires 10s of millions of dollars to bring to life. Studios have definitely gotten more conservative on the upper end, and the middle is nearly non-existent compared to the past.
  - andjones 15y ago
    What stories require 10s of millions of dollars to bring to life? Perhaps I'm showing my ignorance of the film industry. But, what stories require 10s of millions to make?
    - batista 15y ago
      "What stories require 10s of millions of dollars to bring to life? Perhaps I'm showing my ignorance of the film industry. But, what stories require 10s of millions to make?" Any science fiction/fantasy movie with complicated sets and lots of effects for one. Any historical piece, with revives an older world. Anything involving lots of actors. Anything involving even one famous actor. 10 million dollars is at the absolutely bottom end concerning most of the famous Hollywood movies. Budgets around 70M-100M+ is the norm.
    - davidw 15y ago
      This says Toy Story had a budget of 30 million dollars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story
      - 15y ago
RandallBrown 15y ago
Silicon Valley to Hollywood is a good analogy. Can non-blockbusters in Hollywood make money like they can in the valley?
- siavosh 15y ago
  Sure, ex. Blair Witch Project
- vellum 15y ago
  Yes, they can. There are a lot of examples in this quora post: http://www.quora.com/What-movies-cost-the-least-to-make-but-generated-the-most-at-the-box-office http://www.quora.com/What-movies-cost-the-least-to-make-but-...
  - erichocean 15y ago
    That quora post is virtually worthless. Comparing "production costs" between films is effectively meaningless. For example, Paranormal Activity had a "production cost" of only "$15,000", and did "$190 million" at the box office. Sounds great, right? Wrong. First, every low budget production involves calling in a huge number of favors (read: free work) that is not done on normal, funded films. So even the $15K number is ridiculously low if you are trying to compare the issue at stake: money spent on production value. But let's ignore that. Next up is the cost of prints. A print on a wide release averages about $1200/print. Suppose we order 3000 prints on the Paranormal release. How much did we just spend? $3.6 million. (Without doing a wide release, there's no way to hit $190 million at the box office.) Wait, that doesn't sound right! The Quora post makes it sound like some heroic filmmaker got their film made for $15K and it "made" $190 million! And now you're telling me they couldn't have even sold tickets without spending another $3.6 million? Yup. The $15K bit is a lie, part of the publicity of the film. Of course, they don't keep the whole $190 million. Roughly, they'll end up with around 50% of that after the theaters take their cut. So we're really talking $95 million on a $15K production budget, and a $3.6 million print budget. But wait, there's more: making the correct payments to the production staff, actors, director, etc. and the cost of marketing. You see, a film that's shot under budget will have to make up those numbers if it does well. There is no free lunch. For our purposes, the amount is likely to increase a $15K budget by 10-100x (not a typo). In many cases, substantially more as top-line talent takes a percentage of that $95 million gross. And then we hit the advertising. In a nutshell, Hollywood (and in this case, Paramount did the marketing) has a tough time marketing anything in the usual way for under $20 million. So let's go with that, even though I suspect the numbers for Paranormal were higher. So...with all that, was Paranourmal a hit? Absolutely. Was it an example of a $15K movie that made $190 million. No, not even close: you're a few orders of magnitude off. The same is true of every other film on that list. ----- The real reason Hollywood does not make "low budget" films like the OP seems to want is because even spending zero, nothing, nada on the production budget still incurs $20-30 million in costs to distribute that film. So ask yourself: if you were going to spend $20-30 million manufacturing and promoting something, wouldn't you want to spend some serious money on the production itself? Wouldn't you want to make sure the story/actors/direction had a high likelihood that people would watch the resulting film? You would, which brings us to the real problem: actual films cost more. Suppose you were really frugal, you tailored your story to easy locations, few setups, just a couple of actors, etc. Even then, $200K is pretty low to do a film that would actually be watchable (the "found footage" genere is basically the only kind of film that can be reasonably shot for the under $50K budgets in the Quora article). So okay, $200K – and you don't have distribution yet, and likely won't get it. That's a lot of money to "invest" in a film that won't make even it's production costs back. The vast majority of independent filmmakers don't have that kind of money to blow on a film and get zero return. (Raising money there is just as hard as Silicon Valley, if not harder.) It can be done. Like Crazy is a recent example, made with a $250K production budget and shot on HDSLRs. It's done well enough that the production team will get to have another go on a presumably bigger film. But it won't be done often, and bitching about the 120 films the Hollywood studios make each year (yes, it really is that low) isn't going to change what they make.
cnorgate 15y ago
Well said. Silicon Valley has created this perception that everyone should be trying to go for the next big blockbuster... of course, that what the VC community would like everyone to do. Because they can only make money on blockbusters - they can't make money on the scale or time horizons of a more modest growth business. Don't believe the hype.
noonespecial 15y ago
"It’s too risky. It doesn’t test well in focus groups. It’s not made for everyone." Oh how I want to see movies that are not made for everyone.
- eostyx 15y ago
  How many good 'Hacker' movies have there been? Better yet, has there been any good hacker movies, ever? The only movie I liked wasn't remotely "hacking" was the first Matrix. It was mostly some pop terminology sprinkled through it. Much like all Hollywood interpretations of what hackers actually do. It's hilariously actually.... Spinning 3D cubes to hack into some database, while the actor looks like he's playing an awesome game of minesweeper on flaming tits that emit crummy (inappropriate) pop music. *enhances image resolution above what it's original source res is... Badazz >.>
  - jseliger 15y ago
    Pirates of Silicon Valley was okay, and I liked The Social Network, even if it bears the same resemblance to Facebook's actual history that Lord of the Rings does to the actual Middle Ages. But your overall point is well-taken.
    - waterlesscloud 15y ago
      I thought Anti-Trust was ok. It's pretty Hollywood, but the core ideas were pretty good.
      - nitrogen 15y ago
        Miguel de Icaza had a cameo in Antitrust. The computers are all running Gnome on Linux. A few decisions are made by characters that wouldn't be made by an actual engineer for the sake of dramatic tension, but overall, it is highly realistic as far as Hollywood goes.
  - batista 15y ago
    enhances image resolution above what it's original source res is...Badazz Well, it's not totally impossible. You can sort of interpolate a higher resolution from an image, with stuff like "fractal resizing", etc: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/07/better-image-resizing.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/07/better-image-resizi... Although, this is also accurate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaMdXjTn9rc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaMdXjTn9rc

69 points by treitnauer 15y ago

There is a serious flaw in this analogy. It costs tens of millions of dollars to make a Hollywood blockbuster, and you don't find out if it was money well spent until opening weekend. But a couple of unemployed software developers can test out a startup idea for a few thousand dollars, and very plausibly get to millions of users or ramen profitability in a few months if the idea is good. The incentives are totally different. So even if we agree that consumer media internet startups are becoming formulaic (I sure don't), this isn't the reason why.

pfraze 15y ago
Maybe they're not, but man was the SXSW show floor depressing.
- trafficlight 15y ago
  For someone who wasn't there, can you elaborate?
  - pfraze 15y ago
    Yeah, I just wasn't very inspired. They were all companies I've known, or undifferentiating copies of companies I've know. On the plus side, I was encouraged about the odds of getting funding.
- geoffschmidt 15y ago
  If there were now 10X more startups, but only 2X more ideas per year, would that account for your depression?
  - pfraze 15y ago
    Maybe, but that was't the proportion I saw.

smackfu 15y ago

"the bottom line is that it’s never been more difficult for filmmakers to get an original story made" On the contrary. With affordable HD gear and computer editing, it's never been easier for a filmmaker to make their movie themselves. Compare to 20 years ago, where Kevin Smith could barely afford to buy and develop grainy black-and-white film on a $30 grand budget.

waterlesscloud 15y ago
I think it's more accurate to say it's never been more difficult for filmmakers to get an original story made that requires 10s of millions of dollars to bring to life. Studios have definitely gotten more conservative on the upper end, and the middle is nearly non-existent compared to the past.
- andjones 15y ago
  What stories require 10s of millions of dollars to bring to life? Perhaps I'm showing my ignorance of the film industry. But, what stories require 10s of millions to make?
  - batista 15y ago
    "What stories require 10s of millions of dollars to bring to life? Perhaps I'm showing my ignorance of the film industry. But, what stories require 10s of millions to make?" Any science fiction/fantasy movie with complicated sets and lots of effects for one. Any historical piece, with revives an older world. Anything involving lots of actors. Anything involving even one famous actor. 10 million dollars is at the absolutely bottom end concerning most of the famous Hollywood movies. Budgets around 70M-100M+ is the norm.
  - davidw 15y ago
    This says Toy Story had a budget of 30 million dollars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story
    - 15y ago

RandallBrown 15y ago

Silicon Valley to Hollywood is a good analogy. Can non-blockbusters in Hollywood make money like they can in the valley?

siavosh 15y ago
Sure, ex. Blair Witch Project
vellum 15y ago
Yes, they can. There are a lot of examples in this quora post: http://www.quora.com/What-movies-cost-the-least-to-make-but-generated-the-most-at-the-box-office http://www.quora.com/What-movies-cost-the-least-to-make-but-...
- erichocean 15y ago
  That quora post is virtually worthless. Comparing "production costs" between films is effectively meaningless. For example, Paranormal Activity had a "production cost" of only "$15,000", and did "$190 million" at the box office. Sounds great, right? Wrong. First, every low budget production involves calling in a huge number of favors (read: free work) that is not done on normal, funded films. So even the $15K number is ridiculously low if you are trying to compare the issue at stake: money spent on production value. But let's ignore that. Next up is the cost of prints. A print on a wide release averages about $1200/print. Suppose we order 3000 prints on the Paranormal release. How much did we just spend? $3.6 million. (Without doing a wide release, there's no way to hit $190 million at the box office.) Wait, that doesn't sound right! The Quora post makes it sound like some heroic filmmaker got their film made for $15K and it "made" $190 million! And now you're telling me they couldn't have even sold tickets without spending another $3.6 million? Yup. The $15K bit is a lie, part of the publicity of the film. Of course, they don't keep the whole $190 million. Roughly, they'll end up with around 50% of that after the theaters take their cut. So we're really talking $95 million on a $15K production budget, and a $3.6 million print budget. But wait, there's more: making the correct payments to the production staff, actors, director, etc. and the cost of marketing. You see, a film that's shot under budget will have to make up those numbers if it does well. There is no free lunch. For our purposes, the amount is likely to increase a $15K budget by 10-100x (not a typo). In many cases, substantially more as top-line talent takes a percentage of that $95 million gross. And then we hit the advertising. In a nutshell, Hollywood (and in this case, Paramount did the marketing) has a tough time marketing anything in the usual way for under $20 million. So let's go with that, even though I suspect the numbers for Paranormal were higher. So...with all that, was Paranourmal a hit? Absolutely. Was it an example of a $15K movie that made $190 million. No, not even close: you're a few orders of magnitude off. The same is true of every other film on that list. ----- The real reason Hollywood does not make "low budget" films like the OP seems to want is because even spending zero, nothing, nada on the production budget still incurs $20-30 million in costs to distribute that film. So ask yourself: if you were going to spend $20-30 million manufacturing and promoting something, wouldn't you want to spend some serious money on the production itself? Wouldn't you want to make sure the story/actors/direction had a high likelihood that people would watch the resulting film? You would, which brings us to the real problem: actual films cost more. Suppose you were really frugal, you tailored your story to easy locations, few setups, just a couple of actors, etc. Even then, $200K is pretty low to do a film that would actually be watchable (the "found footage" genere is basically the only kind of film that can be reasonably shot for the under $50K budgets in the Quora article). So okay, $200K – and you don't have distribution yet, and likely won't get it. That's a lot of money to "invest" in a film that won't make even it's production costs back. The vast majority of independent filmmakers don't have that kind of money to blow on a film and get zero return. (Raising money there is just as hard as Silicon Valley, if not harder.) It can be done. Like Crazy is a recent example, made with a $250K production budget and shot on HDSLRs. It's done well enough that the production team will get to have another go on a presumably bigger film. But it won't be done often, and bitching about the 120 films the Hollywood studios make each year (yes, it really is that low) isn't going to change what they make.

cnorgate 15y ago

Well said. Silicon Valley has created this perception that everyone should be trying to go for the next big blockbuster... of course, that what the VC community would like everyone to do. Because they can only make money on blockbusters - they can't make money on the scale or time horizons of a more modest growth business. Don't believe the hype.

noonespecial 15y ago

"It’s too risky. It doesn’t test well in focus groups. It’s not made for everyone." Oh how I want to see movies that are not made for everyone.

eostyx 15y ago
How many good 'Hacker' movies have there been? Better yet, has there been any good hacker movies, ever? The only movie I liked wasn't remotely "hacking" was the first Matrix. It was mostly some pop terminology sprinkled through it. Much like all Hollywood interpretations of what hackers actually do. It's hilariously actually.... Spinning 3D cubes to hack into some database, while the actor looks like he's playing an awesome game of minesweeper on flaming tits that emit crummy (inappropriate) pop music. *enhances image resolution above what it's original source res is... Badazz >.>
- jseliger 15y ago
  Pirates of Silicon Valley was okay, and I liked The Social Network, even if it bears the same resemblance to Facebook's actual history that Lord of the Rings does to the actual Middle Ages. But your overall point is well-taken.
  - waterlesscloud 15y ago
    I thought Anti-Trust was ok. It's pretty Hollywood, but the core ideas were pretty good.
    - nitrogen 15y ago
      Miguel de Icaza had a cameo in Antitrust. The computers are all running Gnome on Linux. A few decisions are made by characters that wouldn't be made by an actual engineer for the sake of dramatic tension, but overall, it is highly realistic as far as Hollywood goes.
- batista 15y ago
  enhances image resolution above what it's original source res is...Badazz Well, it's not totally impossible. You can sort of interpolate a higher resolution from an image, with stuff like "fractal resizing", etc: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/07/better-image-resizing.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/07/better-image-resizi... Although, this is also accurate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaMdXjTn9rc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaMdXjTn9rc