4. Film

Summer Movies in Review

As the weather cools, it’s time to look back and see how we did on our Summer Movie predictions. We’re all about the money and 2009 was the biggest summer in Hollywood history. Movies are an international obsession so we prefer to look at international box office instead of merely the domestic totals. The reason… international box office now accounts for about 60% of theatrical revenue and is crucial in determining a film’s profitability. Angels and Demons is a great example, having had so-so business domestically but cleaning up in the foreign markets.

Leading the box office charge was Harry Potter. No real surprise there as most Potter films are at or near the top of the standings each year. The big surprise was the success of Ice Age 3 which nabbed the second place spot ahead of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Sorry Michael Bay! The cute characters in Ice Age 3 earned more than $869 million in ticket sales and became the most popular animated film ever abroad.

Angels and Demons came in fourth and in another surprise, The Hangover was the number five movie of the summer as well as being the third-biggest R-rated movie ever made. Nobody saw that coming. There were still plenty of flops. Land of the Lost, Year One, Public Enemies, Funny People and Bruno were all disappointments. However, the numbers for the last two are solid enough for the comedy genre.

Here are the top ten movies of the summer, and by comparison, what we thought would top the charts back in May:

1. Harry Potter ($925 million)
2. Ice Age 3 ($869 million)
3. Transformers 2 ($831 million)
4. Angels and Demons ($484 million)
5. The Hangover ($453 million)
6. Up ($416 million)
7. Night at the Museum 2 ($404 million)
8. Star Trek ($384 million)
9. Terminator: Salvation ($371 million)
10. Wolverine ($363 million)

Our predictions:

1. Harry Potter ($900 million)
2. Transformers 2 ($750 million)
3. Ice Age 3 ($600 million)
4. Star Trek ($500 million)
5. Night at the Museum 2 ($500 million)
6. Angels and Demons ($450 million)
7. Wolverine ($400 million)
8. Terminator: Salvation ($300 million)
9. Up ($300 million)
10. Public Enemies ($250 million)

How did we do? We correctly guessed the top film of summer and went 9 out of 10 overall, missing only on The Hangover. Who knew? Not bad for the unpredictable world of entertainment.

Winners and Losers with Oscar’s new “Top Ten”

The June announcement that the Academy Awards will now feature 10 Best Picture nominees is still reverberating in the industry. Doubtless it will have many profound effects – some positive, some negative – on Hollywood. About 300 films qualified for the award in 2008, so now almost one out of every 30 films will now have a chance to be a Best Picture nominee. The biggest upside is that more films will have the potential to capitalize on their nominations, in box office receipts and ancillary revenue.

But there will be a far larger impact on the big players in the entertainment industry, as well as some ripples in often overlooked areas.

Independents
The optimistic view is that an expanded list would make room for indies, foreign films, blockbusters and even comedies, an underrepresented genre at the Oscars. Imagine a list from last year that included The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Role Models and WALL-E. Or would those films still be shut out and replaced with Revolutionary Road, Che, Frozen River and The Changeling?

The Trades
Variety and the Hollywood Reporter have fallen on hard times during this recession. What better was to improve the bottom line than full-page “For Your Consideration” ads for every film from Transformers to The Hangover for three months.

Critics
Talk about fodder for the Internet and a new cottage industry. Pundits and prognosticators will come out of the woodwork to predict the almost every film’s Oscar chances. And the expanded roster doubles their chances of correctly predicting this new “Top Ten.”

Directors
When there were only five contenders for Best Picture, usually at least one director in that group missed out on a nomination. That often led critics to comment “Did the film direct itself?” Now at least five films will see their helmers shut out further dampening the egos of directors.

Studios
The expansion to 10 nominees has already increased the stress level of some studio executives who worry they’ll have to spend even more money on award campaigns. Most studio films will not merit serious consideration however and no amount of marketing will change that. Instead, smaller players will have a chance to get noticed… or at least in theory.

Academy Members
They’ll have to fill in 10 entries for Best Picture on the nomination ballot now, twice the work and twice the headaches. That will lead to more questioning of members’ choices, especially when it’s doubtful that they’ll have time to see a host of contending films.

Oscar’s Cachet
The Oscar has always been one of the most sought after awards in entertainment. The dilution to a top ten threatens the credibility of the Best Picture award. And in honestly, there isn’t an overabundance of quality films anymore. Go down to your local Cineplex and look at what names are in lights. In a year with Land of the Lost, Bruno and Year One I wonder where the Academy will even find 10 worthy films this year.

The change has been made but the dust won’t settle for quite some time. Will bigger be better in Hollywood? We’ll find out in February 2010.

For Your Consideration… Best Picture Nominees Expand

If you’ve ever felt that your favorite movie got robbed of a Best Picture Oscar nomination, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) is here to help. Starting in 2010, they will be expanding the number of Best Picture nominees from five to 10. Woo Hoo!

Truth is, this change isn’t about you. It’s about the pursuit of the almighty dollar. For the last decade, the Academy has been under pressure to get better ratings and keep ABC and those advertisers happy. The theory goes something like this according to Sid Ganis, President of AMPAS, “Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going to allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize.”

The Academy argues that they’re simply honoring an earlier tradition. Back in the 1930’s and 40’s, the Best Picture category welcomed 10 nominees. In 1931/32 there were actually 12 nominees. The 16th Academy Awards (1943) was the last year to include a field of that size with Casablanca being named Best Picture for the year. Too bad we don’t have the quality of films of say, 1939, when the nominees were Dark Victory, Gone With the Wind, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, Wizard of Oz and Wuthering Heights. Now that’s a Top Ten list!

Such a move might have made sense back in the 1960’s and 70’s but today the American film industry makes very few great films. Just look at the theatre marquee this weekend when Transformers, Year One and Land of the Lost are all in lights. With such gems to choose from I wonder where the Academy will even find 10 worthy films this year.

I’m tempted to call this the “Dark Knight Rule” because it feels like it’s in response to the blockbuster’s awards snub which came back to bite the Academy on Oscar night with low ratings of the show. The thought might be to increase the buzz (and television ratings) by adding nominations. Ratings for the telecast have slipped steadily since the 1990’s when more than 55 million viewers tuned in to see Titanic win Best Picture. With other entertainment options like the Internet taking people away from what used to be must see television, 10 spots would allow popular films like Dark Knight or Star Trek to be nominated. That could cause more viewers to tune in.

However, the Academy has never been about recognizing action-adventure films and box-office smashes (the Lord of the Rings trilogy being the recent exception). They simply don’t resonate with voters. With so many more dramas released every year compared to popcorn films, this rule simply makes it easier for the Academy to include niche dramas (think The Wrestler) that wouldn’t have had a chance otherwise.

Personally, I think this move undermines the integrity of the Academy Awards. Whether you agreed or disagreed with the five nominated films each year, there was a cachet around being nominated. There’s a little less luster on Oscar now… and five extra montages during the telecast next year.

I remember being at a friend’s house and his 8-year old son walked in with a huge trophy. When I inquired what he won for he replied, “It’s no big deal. Everyone gets one.” I don’t know about you but I don’t want the Academy Awards to turn into a 10-and-under suburban soccer league.

Come on AMPAS, is this what you’re really about? Are you so obsessed with television ratings that you are willing to sacrifice the original mission of the Academy? The real winners in this are ABC, the Oscar consultants who lobby voters for nominations and the trades. I can envision the full-page “For Your Consideration” ads for Transformers even now.

The Incredible Shrinking Theatrical Window

The pressure has been building for studios to shrink the amount of time between a film’s theatrical and video release has been growing the last few years and I can’t help but wonder what the future holds. Proponents of this “day-and-date” paradigm stress that it gives audiences a choice of how and when they want to see a film.

Studios are starting to listen. There have been whispers for some time about Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox releasing selected movies simultaneously on DVD and pay-per-view. Even further on the horizon is the possibility of consumers being allowed to watch high-def pay-per-view movies before the DVD release.

Tried and true formulas don’t change easily, however. Conventional wisdom held that a theatrical release was the springboard for successful releases in home video and broadcast television. Ancillary markets such as VOD, Web downloads, airlines, music and merchandise also relied on the theatrical window. In addition, major powerbrokers in the windows game have little desire to change. Exhibitors have long threatened to refuse to show films from a studio that tries to cut the time between the two releases in a way that undermines theater revenue. And no one knows how home video giants like Wal-Mart and Best Buy would react.

Even with that kind of resistance innovation still happens. Since Steven Soderbergh’s low budget film Bubble in 2006 there’s been a move towards simultaneous release for independent and foreign films. It’s worked best for niche distributors like Magnolia and IFC because they are vertically integrated and can control production as well as distribution. Magnolia is owned by Cuban / Wagner companies, which also own the Landmark Theatre Group, while IFC produces many of its own films and owns a handful of cinemas.

This spring, IFC’s French import Summer Hours and Magnolia’s The Girlfriend Experience (another film directed by Steven Soderbergh) have continued the march. Both were delivered simultaneously in theatres and video on-demand. In Experience’s case, the film was available a full month before on VOD before it hit theatres. The two films have done well in both arenas and avoided cannibalizing either revenue stream. That might convince distributors that simultaneous big screen and VOD releases could be an important piece of the indie distribution puzzle.

Release patterns for independent films already harken back to the time where a film would play in one theatre at a time in a city, then slowly expand if the interest allowed. Since these many of these films play in so few markets, VOD provides a bigger geographic footprint with more than 50 million cable and satellite TV subscribers. Audiences outside of LA or New York benefit from VOD premieres as they can watch the film immediately and not have to wait months later to catch it on DVD.

For studios with films with wide releases however, this model doesn’t work. Their logic goes that a simultaneous release would cut into profits of that critical first week in theatres and ultimately cannibalize the other markets. If a film is available on every platform initially audiences are only going to watch it once, maybe twice. In the traditional model you can watch a film in the theatre, buy it on PPV, buy the DVD and then see it on broadcast or cable. Small art house films don’t have the huge budgets and investments in P&A that blockbusters do. They need a staggered approach in order to squeeze out as much money as possible from each window.

People value exclusivity and “newness.” In all the debate about shrinking windows, people should remember some basic economic theory about premium pricing - there is almost certainly a way to still capture the value that people place on exclusivity while catering to the reality that not all of them will be able to get to the theatre to experience that newness on the big screen.

Bottom Line: If you are reliant on a certain number of theatres to show your film, you have to accept the exclusivity window. Any type of innovation, be it VOD or a web release will be severely constrained. So despite their growing acceptance, simultaneous releases work better for smaller films. Although it’s shrinking, the window between theatrical release and the home video launch will remain.

Summer Movie Preview

The thermometer might say spring but for Hollywood it might as well be summer… Summer Blockbuster Season that is. What used to start on Memorial Day weekend now begins on May 1st with X-Men Origins – Wolverine and continues with a string of hilarious comedies, adrenalized action films and engaging animated flicks. Or that’s what we pray for every year. So put your brains on autopilot and prepare your bladder for 48 -ounce drinks… summer is here!

Here at Media Mogul, we’re all about tracking the money. Luckily, so are the studios. Who will be the winners of summer 2009? With our extensive research, inside scoop and some mystical business skills developed over two decades in the industry we place our bets. Here are our predictions (estimates are for worldwide box office).

May 1 | X-Men Origins – Wolverine
This film looks back and explores the origins of one of its most beloved characters, Wolverine. The producers hope to regain the audience interest lost after the third X-Men sequel, The Last Stand, was such a disappointment. Initially, this film seemed like a slam-dunk but with the negative buzz from a rough copy circulating the Internet, I’m not so sure. Most X-Men fans will go see the movie but it will fail to capture a wider audience.

Box Office Prediction: $400 million. Benefits by being the first film out of the gate but isn’t the blockbuster hit Marvel was hoping for.

May 8 | Star Trek
The old warhorse gets a makeover by director J. J. Abrams… taking it where no one has gone before. We’ll get a look at how Kirk, Spock and McCoy met using everyone’s favorite plot device, time travel. Cue the Alexander Courage theme… now! I’ve trusted J.J Abrams in the past (think Mission Impossible 3) but I’m not convinced he can pull off a reimaging of the Star Trek universe. I might be wrong as the buzz has been tremendous and Star Trek has the largest fan base next to Star Wars.

Box Office Prediction: $500 million. Becomes the largest grossing Trek film of all time but not the biggest film of summer.

May 15 | Angels and Demons
Tom Hanks returns with better hair but with a weaker plot in this prequel to DaVinci Code. Based on the Dan Brown book, this time Harvard religion expert Robert Langdon races against time to save the Catholic Church from a secret society called the Illuminati. Several signs don’t bode well for the film. Prequels usually earn less than their predecessors and A&D doesn’t have the name recognition of DaVinci Code. Even with a wide potential audience and a returning cast and crew, Angels and Demons is stuck in purgatory.

Box Office Prediction: $450 million. Can’t measure up to DaVinci Code.

May 22 | Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
With the box office success of 2006’s Night at the Museum, a sequel was a forgone conclusion. The action moves to Washington D.C. where Ben Stiller and his “friends” wreak havoc on the Smithsonian Museum. Like many sequels, studios assume we want more of everything and we get it here… bigger cast (Amy Adams, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Jonah Hill, Ricky Gervais, Dick Van Dyke, Bill Hader and many more), more characters (Abe Lincoln, Al Capone, Ivan The Terrible, and Amelia Earhart among others) and innumerable comedic set pieces. Even with that largess, the comedy and clean family fun make it hard to bet against.

Box Office Prediction: $500 million. Children of all ages never tire of Stiller and Williams fooling around.

May 22 | Terminator Salvation
Christian Bale stars in this prequel, which traces the mythic beginnings of the series when John Connor first becomes the rebel leader when a war breaks out between man and machine. Honestly, I wasn’t excited about this film but two things have changed my mind. First, the third Terminator film underwhelmed me. The story didn’t hold up and not surprisingly didn’t perform up to franchise expectations. After T3, I felt that the series had run its course. Second, based on the trailers shown it looks like every other apocalyptic war movie. Unless the studio is sandbagging, the lack of originality will hurt prospects. But with Bale starring and the fact that all three earlier films made buckets of money I wouldn’t write it off…

Box Office Prediction: $300 million. The franchise loses steam. Next up, Terminator: The Rest Home Chronicles.

May 29 | Up!
How can you bet against Pixar? Their nine straight box office hits represent the film equivalent of Joe Dimaggio’s 56 game hitting streak. But all good things must come to an end. Although it’s the only kid movie in theatres until Ice Age arrives in July and represents Pixar’s first foray into 3-D, the story has left me cold. Do kids really want to see a film about a cranky old man? I’m betting they don’t.

Box Office Prediction: $300 million. Comes up with decent box office but becomes Pixar’s first disappointment.

June 5 | Land of the Lost
How this made it to the screen is anyone’s guess. The Saturday morning series from Sid and Marty Krofft was know for cheesy special effects and simple moral lessons that kids could understand. But the highlight for me was the Sleestaks, a race of evil lizardmen that scared the hell out of me as a kid. As with most big budget cinematic remakes, my guess is the low-tech charm that made the series fun will be lost and made it into a bunch of CGI nonsense with occasional bouts of stupid humor. See this at your own peril.

Box Office Prediction: $150 million. Will Ferrell’s miserable track record with nostalgic television series (see Bewitched) continues.

June 12 | The Taking of Pelham 123
In a summer of remakes this one takes a gritty 70’s subway thriller and puts director Tony Scott at the helm to spice things up. Expect style over substance with flashy cinematography and lots of quick cuts. Based on the trailers it looks like Inside Man on a train instead of in a bank. Denzel Washington is the cop who’s charged with bringing down a psychotic John Travolta holding the New York City transit system hostage. Tension ensues. Please… watch the closing doors.

Box Office Prediction: $250 million. Two weekends at the box office all to itself without serious competition helps the numbers.

June 19 | Year One
Here’s one of the few movies on this list that’s not a remake or sequel. Then again, it’s produced by Hollywood’s current cash cow Judd Apatow and stars Michael Cera and Jack Black. Sound familiar? The duo play a pair of cavemen wandering through history. The movie follows no logical timeline, jumping from Adam and Eve to the Sacrifice of Isaac to Roman times. Might be the funniest cavemen since History of the World, Part One. Think of it as Superbad meets Sunday school.

Box Office Prediction: $200 million. Comedies have a tough time in the summer.

June 24 | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Movies based on toys… I still don’t get it. But after the success of the first you knew this was coming. Apparently people want giant robot action films. Who knew? The sequel looks like an amped up version of the first. The trailer doesn’t show much more than ships, airplanes and other objects exploding. But they explode in style. Some would say that’s all a summer blockbuster needs and a little dumb fun is fine by me.

Box Office Prediction: $750 million. If it does close to the same box office as the first it has a chance to be the summer’s highest grosser.

July 1 | Public Enemies
Johnny Depp plays 1920’s Chicago gangster John Dillinger, while Christian Bale plays his FBI nemesis Melvin Purvis. Like Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger became a ‘folk hero’ for an American public who had little sympathy for the banks that had sent the country into the Depression. Sound familiar? I’m a huge fan of Michael Mann and with this cast you’d think he’s got hit on his hands. But releasing a period piece in the summer feels wrong to me.

Box Office Prediction: $250 million. Best to be expected given it has to compete with Transformers and other blockbusters.

July 1 | Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Fox rolls out a third installment of its Ice Age cartoon franchise with the Manny the Mammoth and his friends, this time doing battle with dinosaurs in a secret underground world. Wait a sec… dinosaurs AND mammoths? Good thing this is a kids film. Voices of the original cast are back (Ray Romano, Denis Leary and Queen Latifah) and Simon Pegg is introduced as a one-eyed weasel who hunts dinosaurs. This installment is Fox’s first 3-D film, which the studio hopes will be another hook to draw in the kiddies.

Box Office Prediction: $600 million. The first two Ice Age films combined to gross more than $1 billion in worldwide box office.

July 10 | Brüno
Following the breakout success of Borat, fans were eagerly awaiting Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow up. Three years later, Cohen brings another of his Da Ali G Show characters to the big screen - Brüno, a flamboyant gay fashionista. With a similar premise as Borat, Brüno claims to be from an Austrian television show wanting to talk to Americans about subjects ranging from fashion to homosexuality. Will audiences embrace this movie like they did Borat or will it turn out to be a one-trick-pony?

Box Office Prediction: $200 million. Sacha Baron Cohen’s comedy does well stateside but doesn’t translate well to the rest of the world.

July 15 | Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
If one movie on this list is a sure bet, it’s this one - no other Harry Potter movie made less than $795 million. The series is so popular that sometimes it seems like they could’ve just shot J.K. Rowling reading the book onscreen and made a fortune. Although the stories continue to get darker, it’s all about teen romance at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as Harry begins to fall for his best friend’s little sister. Warner Brothers delayed the film’s release from last November to this summer to take advantage of a mid-July window devoid of serious competition. Smart move.

Box Office Prediction: $900 million. It’s Harry Potter, after all.

July 31 | Funny People
After way too many Executive Producer credits, Judd Apatow gets back into the director’s chair for a third time. This bittersweet tale stars Adam Sandler as a stand-up comedian who finds out he has a terminal disease. Definitely a departure from the hilarity of 40-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up but Apatow has a way of making any topic funny.

Box Office Prediction: $250 million. Good for a summer comedy and Apatow shows he still has the magic touch.

August 7 | G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
I can see the pitch meeting for this. Eighties toy franchises are really hot so let’s adapt another one. Smurfs? Nah, too politically incorrect. What about G.I. Joe? It’s got soldiers, patriotism and machines… great choice! Problem is G.I. Joe doesn’t have the same nostalgia value (think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and director Stephen Sommers is no Michael Bay. This is a recipe for disaster.

Box Office Prediction: $100 million. Maybe the early August release will help catch kids before they go back to school but I see this one being a dud.

Media Mogul’s ‘Box Office Champ of 2009′ goes to:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

3-D, the Ultimate Blast from the Past

Although we’re not even to summer, 2009 might be remembered as the year 3-D saved Hollywood. Studio executives bullish on the future of 3-D are pointing to the recent success of “Monsters vs. Aliens.” The 3-D release by Dreamworks has already eclipsed $100 million and is likely on its way to $200 million in North American box office. Much of that success can be attributed to 3-D. About 2,000 of the initial 7,000 screens were equipped for 3-D broadcast, which costs viewers $2 to $4 more to see. That represents about 56 percent of total ticket sales thus far, a nice haul for less than one third of the total screens.

The movie could set a benchmark for a host of other big-budget 3-D films. Robert Zemeckis’s “A Christmas Carol,” an animated remake of the Charles Dickens tale about Scrooge starring Jim Carrey, is planned for release in November. James Cameron is at work on “Avatar,” a $200 million 3-D film set for December in which a war veteran named Jake travels to another planet. And Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn,” based on the popular Belgian comic strip about a reporter and his dog, is due out in 2011.

According to a report released in January by Piper Jaffray entitled “3D from Our Perspective: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Emerging 3D Ecosystem,” new 3-D technology will drive content production, displays and related technology to a sizeable market over the next few years, reaching an estimated $25 billion by 2012.

It’s not all sunny for 3-D though. Even with the wonders of an old-is-new technology, content is still king. Titles like “Beowulf” and “Bolt” left critics lukewarm and underperformed at the box office. The draw of 3-D couldn’t overcome poor storytelling. Theater owners have also been slow to embrace the technology, which carries a price tag of up to $75,000.

Without more screens, the 3-D films coming out over the next few years could find themselves with limited venues at which to play, resulting in lost revenue. In fact, after DreamWorks completed the 3-D version of “Monsters,” its filmmakers created 2-D prints because the company knew not every theater would have the capabilities to show the film in the new format.

While 3-D is off to a good start, a poor economy and slow adoption by the theatre chains will slow it down. Only several years of hits like “Monsters vs. Aliens” will convince studios and theatre owners alike to pony-up on a reinvented technology.

Don’t Mess with Wolverine… or Fox

It seems like this happens every summer. Last week a rough cut of the new Wolverine movie was leaked. Even without special effects or final music it spread like wildfire through the Net and awoke Fox from it’s slumber. You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit in the wind and you don’t mess with Fox. One unlucky film critic found that out.

Looking to scoop the competition, an online reviewer for Fox News named Roger Friedman saw the movie and gave it a glowing review in his column.

This may be the big blockbuster film of 2009, and one we really need right now. It’s miles easier to understand than “The Dark Knight,” and tremendously more emotional.

Let’s see now… a reviewer for Fox News writing about an unreleased film distributed by none other than 20th Century Fox, both of which are owned by News Corp. You can see where this is heading. Friedman is now out of a job and an entertainment conglomerate has once again made its priorities clear:

We’ve just been made aware that Roger Friedman, a freelance columnist who writes Fox 411 on Foxnews.com — an entirely separate company from 20th Century Fox — watched on the Internet and reviewed a stolen and unfinished version of ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine.’ This behavior is reprehensible and we condemn this act categorically — whether the review is good or bad.

Seems to be much ado about nothing, especially given how widely the rough cut has been downloaded. According to the Bit Torrent news blog TorrentFreak, the “Wolverine” rough cut has been downloaded over one million times in the past week and ranked at Number 1 on its download chart. It also happens to be the only film on the charts that hasn’t been released. That comes with the territory of being a hotly anticipated blockbuster. Ease up Fox - you’ve got bigger fish to fry than going after a lone reviewer toiling away at one of your media outlets.