That's the problem with having a behind-the-scenes making-of story that's far more interesting and exciting than anything in the actual movie.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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While the movie doesn't look particularly good, i'm sure significantly worse movies have made more money. I kind of feel bad for Delgo. I think i'm going to start a campaign to save the movie.
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I never heard anything about this movie until now. Kind of hard to generate an audience without promotion.
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Why the heck would he spend the money to print over 2,000 copies of the movie if he wasn't going to spend a fraction of that on some kind of advertising? It costs, conservatively, 10,000 (and up to 50,000) dollars to print a single copy of a movie, so he could have spent as much as 25 million just on prints, or most of his budget. One does wonder why he didn't do a smaller release with more advertising.
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posted
The first two sources I found gave a cost per print range of $1200-$2500 which I think is a bit more plausible than $10k-50k. Perhaps $10k-$50k is what you'd pay for a small printing run (like a few prints for film festivals, for instance).
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posted
Yeah, I wondering that myself. A single working copy, I've heard, can run $50,000 or more. That would depend on a lot of things, like the length of the film, the type of film used, and I'm sure other factors as well. Still, the distribution of this film alone, if your number is more accurate, could have easily been about 5 million dollars, if not closer to 10. That's a hell of an investment for a return of half a million.
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who was the poster that said that Star Wars Episode III was a total masterpiece / best movie they ever saw ever
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: If he was smart, he went with digital distribution only.
Is that feasible? I thought most theaters still used traditional projectors, so even if you made the movie digitally you had to print it onto film (thus incurring the huge cost). Has this changed radically in the past few years?
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quote:I thought most theaters still used traditional projectors...
I believe that's changed in recent years, to the point that a handful of blockbusters have been distributed under restrictions requiring that they only be shown in digital release.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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What medium is used, out of curiosity? Are the movies distributed online, or on a blu ray? It seems like that system would start to open things up to pirating mighty quick.
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IIRC, there were two competing formats four years ago: a "secure" download (secured by methods I don't know) and optical media.
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Under the circumstances, the marketing team was doing people a favor by failing to make sure they knew this movie existed.
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posted
Maybe if it had better character designs. No way I'm looking at characters as off-putting as that for more than a minute.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: "House of Yes" was watchable.
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I liked Scooby Doo.
quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: I love Wing Commander, but I think I'm in the minority there.
Who are you freaks and how did you get in here?
Interesting feature on RT: Average Tomatometer Per Year. Mr. Prinze tops out at 50% in 1997 (the year of House of Yes) which at 62% is the highest rated movie it appears he has ever been a part of. Mostly he lingers in the sub-30% field.
Haven't seen House of Yes, so I can't attest to its qualities. But I did see WC, and I know that I pretty much only have any affection for it because I saw it in Germany at a science fiction film festival when I was punch-drunk from too much travel and not enough sleep.
Okay, and because I have some affection for the source material and a kind of lingering pity for Chris Roberts. It's not a good sign when your computer game has a better cast than your movie.
But by and large, if I knew Freddie Prinze Jr. was going to be involved with a project, I would take it as a sign I should run the other way.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:But I did see WC, and I know that I pretty much only have any affection for it because I saw it in Germany at a science fiction film festival when I was punch-drunk from too much travel and not enough sleep.
I had to question whether I was drunk or not while watching it. Unfortunately, no, I was sober.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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You know, now that I think of it, I wonder if Delgo beats Treasure Planet in terms of... "flopness"?
Disney's Treasure Planet was a catastrophic loss of funds, but that's because Disney put the full force of their marketing machine behind it and spend gobs of money in advertising. Such is not the case for Delgo, who could have gotten better advertising if the account was handed over to my dog.
Then again, it's apparently been in production for some time - six years?!? So who the hell knows.
Or maybe this will do to Fathom Studios and Electric Eye what Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within did to Square Pictures.
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Treasure Planet made almost $110 million worldwide AND was nominated for an academy award. It didn't live up to expectations, but was hardly a flop...
quote:Originally posted by lobo: Treasure Planet made almost $110 million worldwide AND was nominated for an academy award. It didn't live up to expectations, but was hardly a flop...
OK, in retrospect maybe not as severe, but it was bad enough to force Walt Disney Corporation to restate their earnings for the year.
And, let's face it, the Academy Award Animated Movie category usually contains pretty much any animated movie released that year; it's not that competitive a category.
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quote:Originally posted by lobo: Treasure Planet made almost $110 million worldwide
Yet it cost 140 million to make. And that's -not- counting all the money Disney dumped into advertising. Domestically it only made 38 million.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the film, but a "flop" in Hollywood terms is a film that fails to make back the money spent creating and promoting it. It has nothing to do with the quality of the film or any awards it was nominated for.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
Treasure Planet's saga should be analyzed as a case study in marketing failure; it's different than delgo because it was actually a decent film, and the failure was more or less due to bad budgeting and bad management outside of the creative process.
Films like Delgo and The Spirits Within fail doubly because they are horrific movies in and of themselves, so there's little hope of worldwide gross recuperation through things like DVD sales. You just eat the losses after word of mouth gets out. The two or three people you know who actually saw the movie go 'it was lame.' Then, the only people who pick up the DVD's are grandmas doing blind-shop for their extended family.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Treasure Planet's saga should be analyzed as a case study in marketing failure; it's different than delgo because it was actually a decent film, and the failure was more or less due to bad budgeting and bad management outside of the creative process.
That, and all the trailers focused almost exclusively on the "X-Treme SportZ" scenes of the film, despite the act that that audience wouldn't be caught dead at a Disney film.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:I thought most theaters still used traditional projectors...
I believe that's changed in recent years, to the point that a handful of blockbusters have been distributed under restrictions requiring that they only be shown in digital release.
That's not true. Most theatres still use mainly 35mm (traditional) projection and might have, at most, one or two auditoriums equipped with digital projection.
Special events, however, can be required to be digital (such as premieres, charity screenings, etc.), but not general release. In fact, the only generally released movie I've seen required to be a specific format was Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Kevin Smith requested that it be shown only in 35mm.
quote:What medium is used, out of curiosity? Are the movies distributed online, or on a blu ray? It seems like that system would start to open things up to pirating mighty quick.
Digital movies are distributed on removable hard drives loaded with the movie and physically sent to the theatre. The theatre copies it over to their own system. To prevent piracy, a digital license is needed to "unlock" the movie file. These are sent through e-mail or USB drive and are time-coded.
Individual trailers are generally sent on the hard drive with the movie or on a DVD. Except for rare instances, they don't need a license.
Posts: 450 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: That, and all the trailers focused almost exclusively on the "X-Treme SportZ" scenes of the film, despite the act that that audience wouldn't be caught dead at a Disney film.
haha, yeah, that's part of the overall Marketing Failure pancake.
It just oozes clueless disney execs going NAW HOW KIN WE GET TH KIDS WITH THEIR INTERNET AND THEIR SKATEBOARDS TER COME SEE THIS PICTURE-SHOW. I HEAR TELL THEY LIKE THEIR "EXTREME" SPORTS AND THEIR TOTALLY COWABUNGA KICKBOARDING, LETS US PUT THAT IN THERE. ALSO DO WE HAVE A WHACKY SIDEKICK, MAKE IT A ROBOT
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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"Yeah boss. I mean, that Jar Jar Binks thing from Star Wars was such a hit. Everyone's talking about it. Lets ad something like that."
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