The Hot Blog

Great piece DP. Wish this sort of reality would get through to the masses who suddenly discuss boxoffice gross like its the new texas hold-em. And understand it about as much.

Yes, nicely done.

Why on Earth is Tropic Thunder a $150m movie? I guess we'll be seeing a lot of ads of Downey over the summer.

"They have Adam Sandler, whose box office clout and limits the company knows quite well."

Limits? I guess you're including SPANGLISH, which I believe was Sony, and PDL... but other than those two somewhat prestige flicks, what Sandler has tanked for Sony, or any other studio, for that matter? I guess there's the somewhat arbitrary letdowns of Little Nicky (New Line?) and that cartoon movie he did, but for the most part, for 13 years running the Sandler business is a good business to be in. Didn't even middling Sandlers like MR. DEEDS clean up?

ZOHAN is going to be WAY more huge than anyone's anticipating; Among umpteen other reasons, I'll put forth that it's the first "broad" Sandler performance in some time. His fans (ie, me) miss the Waterboy/Madison/Nicky days of CRAZY SANDLER; He's been playing straight man in his own movies for too long, and we're champing at the bit to see him back in over-the-top form.

Well said, Dave. I was wondering how long it would be until I read about the Marvel/Par deal on Iron Man.

Good job, Dave, from a guy who does media stocks for a living and where profits matter. Grosses matter to the theatre stocks and National Cinemedia.

I'll link your Hot Button post over to RealMoney.com. Maybe Cramer will read it and invite you on his show. I think a Poland vs. Lex showdown on MAd Money might be fun.

Huffington Post says early feedback off the Sex and the City screening is favorable:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/05/sex-and-the-city-movie-re_n_100202.html

Waah, waah. Haven't studios been "going broke" since Mary Pickford formed United Artists. I guess it's worse now because you can hear studio heads crying in 5.1 Dolby Digital.
It's amazing that studios can afford to give filmmakers huge backlots and free lights and staff.
Hold on. They CHARGE! You mean they claim a picture "cost" 150million to make, even though that includes production costs in making it in THEIR facility which they made a profit on, plus now every budget includes the cost of cross-promotional marketing on the networks owned by the same conglomerate. So you sell space to yourself, then claim it as a promotional expense on your taxes?
If they were so close to going broke as they claim, we would never see a picture with a budget over 10 million dollars.
I'm sorry-I'm just tired of the studio bullsh*t. Speaking of which, when's SOB going to be on cable again?

Lex, the limitation is that Sandler doesn't sell overseas, which means his budgets can't grow like Carrey's or Smith's did... which is probably to his benefit.

Little Nicky was the anomaly and I don't hold it against him. He is one of the biggest stars in America. But the last of muscle overseas is, in fact, a limitation.

Thing on Zohan is, it doesn't matter whether it's $130m or $180m. More is better, but my point is that they are prepared for either event... and anything less than $130m is unlikely.

Nice work Dave. Altho it's somewhat ironic that you would write a piece regarding the innacuracies/spin/false perceptions about a film's financial performance, and yet within your piece you egregiously claim that Pearl Harbor made "around 180 domestically." I guess your perception of its performance means more than how it actually did at the box office.

Signed,
Michael Bay

Lane,

Pearl Harbor did 180 before the studio demanded back its two dollars...

Actually, Pearl Harbor did $198 domestic and $450 worldwide. Apparently, I was looking at the seasonal chart and my eye picked up the two $180m movies by mistake (the second one besides Apes being Jurassic Park III).

My apologies.

I have now made a correction.

While Warner Bros. is sharing The Dark Knight, they are also reaping the rewards from toys. Batman Begins did so well in the toy arena that they overshot with Superman Returns, producing far too much product. Cars was instead the major toy seller that year, and accounts for one of the many reasons we are not seeing a 2009 Superman installment.

I should point out, in fairness, that I have now reduced the budget estimate on Tropic Thunder to $100 million after a discussion with parties close to the film.

My earlier figure of $150 million was based on sources near the set, but I don't have strong enough information there to be unwilling to make the adjustment, as I have been on many other movies over the year. If the piece I was writing was specifically about TT, I would have spent more time on a budget number before publsihing. Besides, making back $100 million is challenge enough.

The story have been edited, but if you are in comments here, you may well have already read the $150m figure... like McMahon.

Hey, was that really Michael Bay?

Maybe not, but just in case:

YOU OWN, SIR.

CHEERS.

Good Gawd, what a great racket the studios have: "We only made 1.1 billion! But don't dare look at the books...WAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!"

And that ZOHAN trailer is bizzaro. The audience laughed at Sandler's violent shenanigans, but the theater was a tomb with every joke about hair-styling. We're in the 21st century and studios spend millions on plots out of FRANCIS THE TALKING MULE.

Jokes about Mary Pickford and Francis the Talking Mule in the same entry. BRILLIANT!

Sandler in a comedy is good for about $125 mill or so, tops. (Even adding Nicholson in ANGER MANAGEMENT or big-time VFX in CLICK only put about $10 million more each in the domestic till.) Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling himself.

7/20/2007 Chuck and Larry $120m
6/23/2006 Click $137m
5/27/2005 The Longest Yard $158m
2/13/2004 50 First Dates $121m
4/11/2003 Anger Management $136m
6/28/2002 Mr. Deeds $126m
11/10/2000 Little Nicky $39m
6/25/1999 Big Daddy $163m
11/6/1998 The Waterboy $161m

Oops, had forgotten LONGEST YARD. But apart from that, you gotta go back to the late '90s to find a $135+ picture, and that was when he had just become king of the hill and audiences hadn't yet grown tired of his schtick. From 2000 on, save YARD, I'm still essentially correct.

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