4 ms·

Sony Pictures CEO: nothing good ever came from the Internet

28 points by hernan7 17y ago

johnnybgoode 17y ago
Hear that? That's the sound of a business model being made obsolete.
- froo 17y ago
  Actually not at all, This year has so far been the biggest year on record for Hollywood in terms of ticket sales. The thing that's sucking for them, is that budgets for movies are going way up so that they can compete with other studios (its a budget arms race) and the markets unfortunately can't cope with that. It's hurting their bottom line, but it's their own damn fault.
  - johnnybgoode 17y ago
    I don't think that's what this is about, unless the internet is responsible for movie budgets going way up and nothing else.
    - froo 17y ago
      Umm, its exactly what its about. He's complaining that "the big evil internet" is killing their business, because more people are consuming more media. Yet however, the actual data shows that ticket sales in cinema are actually going up, but not at the same rate of consumption of those films. The people that had no intention of paying top shelf price for those films are not. Yet the budgets for films have gone way up so that these studio's can compete with each other. Yet, the growth of ticket sales hasn't grown at the same rate (while rentals have stayed fairly static, just the distribution channels have changed somewhat) - so their profit margins have become less. So he's complaining that the people who had no intention of paying to see those films, are not paying to see those films and because they've chosen to raise the budgets of those films significantly, its killing their business. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films Films like Titanic and Waterworld were notoriously expensive for their time. Now that's considered nearly an average budget for a blockbuster - inflation sure as hell hasn't gone up by that much, and costs of actual production have gone down with going to digital media, digital editing etc.... What they really need to focus on, is less extravagant budgets. Take a leaf out of the book of TV. Lost, which is a notoriously expensive TV show to produce, cost $44 million dollars for the first season which consisted of 25 episodes at 44 minutes running time each... or roughly 0.04 million dollars per minute of entertainment for the end viewer. Similarly, lets look at Spiderman 3.. Sony Pictures most expensive film, $258 million dollars cost with a running time of 139 minutes, or 1.86 million dollars per minute of entertainment for the end viewer. See the big divide there? It's really a function of cost of production.
      - radu_floricica 17y ago
        I watched a few of those movies, and I simply cannot see where those budgets went. You sure it's not just creative accounting somewhere?
      - johnnybgoode 17y ago
        You said their business model wasn't at all being made obsolete. Now you're saying they need to take a page from TV and focus on less extravagant budgets to survive? I guess if you just mean they'll still make movies, then sure. The dollar per minute figures are slightly misleading, because if you took just the first couple of episodes of Lost, the number would be much higher. The pilot cost $10 to $14 million to produce. That's about 0.14 million dollars per minute. Of course the average cost goes down as more episodes of the same show are made. That's why they filmed some movies (like LOTR and the Pirates sequels, I think) back-to-back.
        froo 17y ago
        Umm, no, the business model is fundamentally sound, it's just they need to reduce unnecessary costs which they've increased themselves. In the case of the LOTR and Pirates sequels being filmed back to back, that was a situation consisting of continuity more than anything because the story is an ongoing saga. If you look at that list of most expensive films ever made, the Pirates sequels come in at number 1 and 4... I don't think budget considerations were part of the equation. (Also take note, Lord of the Rings isn't on there anywhere, because Pete Jackson reduced costs by setting up Weta Digital to do lots of their special effects inhouse. The cost of the entire trilogy was $285 million, less than the cost of the third Pirates movie) Last I heard, Disney were considering making a 4th "Pirates" film, and given the subject matter (probably the fountain of youth as was suggested at the end of At Worlds End) - it might be another extravagant budget as well. Also, in your argument of pilots vs ongoing costs, have you ever wondered how much of that is due to cost of sets? With TV, generally they're re-using sets over and over, so of course the cost goes down, because the cost per episode is reduced. With Film, the medium calls for lots of "throwaway" shots, which means lots and lots of sets. Consider your average Michael Bay film, they might have explosions that cost several hundred thousand dollars each, yet are only 1 or 2 seconds of onscreen action and they might film them several times if there are any major faults. But at the end of the day, it's all time wasting entertainment. I'd watch 6 episodes of Frasier (which were relatively cheap to produce) over a generic Michael Bay film any day - so why should the latter cost orders of magnitude more to produce? It's the same amount of entertainment for the viewer.
plinkplonk 17y ago
" He complained the Internet has “created this notion that anyone can have whatever they want at any given time. It’s as if the stores on Madison Avenue were open 24 hours a day." " And this idiot gets paid millions of dollars a year!
- bad_user 17y ago
  Worse than that, these people are pushing DRM and probably lobbied for DMCA.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    Plenty of very smart people push DRM too.
    - jhickner 17y ago
      Any examples? I've never heard an intelligent pro-DRM argument and I'd be genuinely interested.
      - tptacek 17y ago
        I didn't see your response until this had fallen off my "comments" list, and since I'm sure very few people will read this comment now, I'm going to forego the detailed response. You can catch me via email (check my profile) and I'll take a SWAG at an answer; if you find the answer remotely compelling, I'll turn it into a blog post and thank you for the prod.
- CalmQuiet 17y ago
  I expect that "nothing good will come out of the internet" to Sony... or anyone else who declines to leverage its power. Sony has in past made some great contributions. But also some "great" trojans. This fellow's mentality will not help it rise via such former glories.
froo 17y ago
I wonder how much of Sony Pictures revenue is made up of DVD etc sales off internet merchants such as Amazon.com? I also wonder how much additional merchandise they're also selling as a result of this global marketplace? Similarly, netflix has boosted rentals of their movies by how much? And lets not forget the direct download rentals aswell, off stores like iTunes. It's not as if the Internet is making much of a dent on their bottom lines (in terms of ticket sales), I mean, this year, so far has been Hollywoods biggest year in terms of ticket sales/profit in the cinemas. http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/02/business/fi-boxoffice2 http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/02/business/fi-boxoffic... Quote from the article: "An increase in ticket prices also helped boost January's box office. The average ticket price was $7.29 last month, up from $7.18 a year ago. But attendance surged in spite of the higher cost. Audiences bought 141 million movie tickets in January, up 16% from the 121 million sold during the same month last year." Yep, that internet stuff, really killing the movie business.
zaidf 17y ago
He must feel really insecure about his job. I don't envy him.
heresy 17y ago
The next generation of media companies must be laughing to themselves at how easy its going to be to eat Sony Pictures alive.
hendler 17y ago
Is the comment coming from Sony that different than if it came from the RIAA? But however stupid the comments, if attention getting is part of his job... not bad.
zimbabwe 17y ago
The Internet is people. It's a much less formal place for interaction than something like a bureaucratic corporate system. But both are just people, and good things come from people. Nina Paley released Sita Sings The Blues under Creative Commons because nobody was able to watch her film because studios like Sony Pictures passed her up. Roger Ebert called it one of his favorite films. It's a hilarious and moving movie that I wouldn't have seen if it hadn't been placed online. Nina Paley isn't the Internet. She's an animator. But the Internet is where she released her movie. I'll also say that it's better than anything Sony Pictures has released in a long, long while. (sitasingstheblues.com for the interested.)
Tichy 17y ago
Probably he is only aiming for eternal fame. That quote might go around for centuries, like the "we estimate the global demand for computers to about 3 units" one.
- TweedHeads 17y ago
  "Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM"
rms 17y ago
"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." -Jack Valenti
kubrick 17y ago
Heaven forbid that the Internet lets people be more than just mindless spending machines.

28 points by hernan7 17y ago

johnnybgoode 17y ago

Hear that? That's the sound of a business model being made obsolete.

froo 17y ago
Actually not at all, This year has so far been the biggest year on record for Hollywood in terms of ticket sales. The thing that's sucking for them, is that budgets for movies are going way up so that they can compete with other studios (its a budget arms race) and the markets unfortunately can't cope with that. It's hurting their bottom line, but it's their own damn fault.
- johnnybgoode 17y ago
  I don't think that's what this is about, unless the internet is responsible for movie budgets going way up and nothing else.
  - froo 17y ago
    Umm, its exactly what its about. He's complaining that "the big evil internet" is killing their business, because more people are consuming more media. Yet however, the actual data shows that ticket sales in cinema are actually going up, but not at the same rate of consumption of those films. The people that had no intention of paying top shelf price for those films are not. Yet the budgets for films have gone way up so that these studio's can compete with each other. Yet, the growth of ticket sales hasn't grown at the same rate (while rentals have stayed fairly static, just the distribution channels have changed somewhat) - so their profit margins have become less. So he's complaining that the people who had no intention of paying to see those films, are not paying to see those films and because they've chosen to raise the budgets of those films significantly, its killing their business. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films Films like Titanic and Waterworld were notoriously expensive for their time. Now that's considered nearly an average budget for a blockbuster - inflation sure as hell hasn't gone up by that much, and costs of actual production have gone down with going to digital media, digital editing etc.... What they really need to focus on, is less extravagant budgets. Take a leaf out of the book of TV. Lost, which is a notoriously expensive TV show to produce, cost $44 million dollars for the first season which consisted of 25 episodes at 44 minutes running time each... or roughly 0.04 million dollars per minute of entertainment for the end viewer. Similarly, lets look at Spiderman 3.. Sony Pictures most expensive film, $258 million dollars cost with a running time of 139 minutes, or 1.86 million dollars per minute of entertainment for the end viewer. See the big divide there? It's really a function of cost of production.
    - radu_floricica 17y ago
      I watched a few of those movies, and I simply cannot see where those budgets went. You sure it's not just creative accounting somewhere?
    - johnnybgoode 17y ago
      You said their business model wasn't at all being made obsolete. Now you're saying they need to take a page from TV and focus on less extravagant budgets to survive? I guess if you just mean they'll still make movies, then sure. The dollar per minute figures are slightly misleading, because if you took just the first couple of episodes of Lost, the number would be much higher. The pilot cost $10 to $14 million to produce. That's about 0.14 million dollars per minute. Of course the average cost goes down as more episodes of the same show are made. That's why they filmed some movies (like LOTR and the Pirates sequels, I think) back-to-back.
      - froo 17y ago
        Umm, no, the business model is fundamentally sound, it's just they need to reduce unnecessary costs which they've increased themselves. In the case of the LOTR and Pirates sequels being filmed back to back, that was a situation consisting of continuity more than anything because the story is an ongoing saga. If you look at that list of most expensive films ever made, the Pirates sequels come in at number 1 and 4... I don't think budget considerations were part of the equation. (Also take note, Lord of the Rings isn't on there anywhere, because Pete Jackson reduced costs by setting up Weta Digital to do lots of their special effects inhouse. The cost of the entire trilogy was $285 million, less than the cost of the third Pirates movie) Last I heard, Disney were considering making a 4th "Pirates" film, and given the subject matter (probably the fountain of youth as was suggested at the end of At Worlds End) - it might be another extravagant budget as well. Also, in your argument of pilots vs ongoing costs, have you ever wondered how much of that is due to cost of sets? With TV, generally they're re-using sets over and over, so of course the cost goes down, because the cost per episode is reduced. With Film, the medium calls for lots of "throwaway" shots, which means lots and lots of sets. Consider your average Michael Bay film, they might have explosions that cost several hundred thousand dollars each, yet are only 1 or 2 seconds of onscreen action and they might film them several times if there are any major faults. But at the end of the day, it's all time wasting entertainment. I'd watch 6 episodes of Frasier (which were relatively cheap to produce) over a generic Michael Bay film any day - so why should the latter cost orders of magnitude more to produce? It's the same amount of entertainment for the viewer.

plinkplonk 17y ago

" He complained the Internet has “created this notion that anyone can have whatever they want at any given time. It’s as if the stores on Madison Avenue were open 24 hours a day." " And this idiot gets paid millions of dollars a year!

bad_user 17y ago
Worse than that, these people are pushing DRM and probably lobbied for DMCA.
- tptacek 17y ago
  Plenty of very smart people push DRM too.
  - jhickner 17y ago
    Any examples? I've never heard an intelligent pro-DRM argument and I'd be genuinely interested.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      I didn't see your response until this had fallen off my "comments" list, and since I'm sure very few people will read this comment now, I'm going to forego the detailed response. You can catch me via email (check my profile) and I'll take a SWAG at an answer; if you find the answer remotely compelling, I'll turn it into a blog post and thank you for the prod.
CalmQuiet 17y ago
I expect that "nothing good will come out of the internet" to Sony... or anyone else who declines to leverage its power. Sony has in past made some great contributions. But also some "great" trojans. This fellow's mentality will not help it rise via such former glories.

froo 17y ago

I wonder how much of Sony Pictures revenue is made up of DVD etc sales off internet merchants such as Amazon.com? I also wonder how much additional merchandise they're also selling as a result of this global marketplace? Similarly, netflix has boosted rentals of their movies by how much? And lets not forget the direct download rentals aswell, off stores like iTunes. It's not as if the Internet is making much of a dent on their bottom lines (in terms of ticket sales), I mean, this year, so far has been Hollywoods biggest year in terms of ticket sales/profit in the cinemas. http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/02/business/fi-boxoffice2 http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/02/business/fi-boxoffic... Quote from the article: "An increase in ticket prices also helped boost January's box office. The average ticket price was $7.29 last month, up from $7.18 a year ago. But attendance surged in spite of the higher cost. Audiences bought 141 million movie tickets in January, up 16% from the 121 million sold during the same month last year." Yep, that internet stuff, really killing the movie business.

zaidf 17y ago

He must feel really insecure about his job. I don't envy him.

heresy 17y ago

The next generation of media companies must be laughing to themselves at how easy its going to be to eat Sony Pictures alive.

hendler 17y ago

Is the comment coming from Sony that different than if it came from the RIAA? But however stupid the comments, if attention getting is part of his job... not bad.

zimbabwe 17y ago

The Internet is people. It's a much less formal place for interaction than something like a bureaucratic corporate system. But both are just people, and good things come from people. Nina Paley released Sita Sings The Blues under Creative Commons because nobody was able to watch her film because studios like Sony Pictures passed her up. Roger Ebert called it one of his favorite films. It's a hilarious and moving movie that I wouldn't have seen if it hadn't been placed online. Nina Paley isn't the Internet. She's an animator. But the Internet is where she released her movie. I'll also say that it's better than anything Sony Pictures has released in a long, long while. (sitasingstheblues.com for the interested.)

Tichy 17y ago

Probably he is only aiming for eternal fame. That quote might go around for centuries, like the "we estimate the global demand for computers to about 3 units" one.

TweedHeads 17y ago
"Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM"

rms 17y ago

"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." -Jack Valenti

kubrick 17y ago

Heaven forbid that the Internet lets people be more than just mindless spending machines.