The Hot Blog: Why Fox's Bad Year Is "Not That Bad"

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December 07, 2008

Why Fox's Bad Year Is "Not That Bad"

A commenter on another entry coughed this up...

"How are you any different than Nikki Finke when it comes to Fox and Vantage? There's no variation on your shtick, and it's not based on reality or facts. "Fox isn't as bad as you think." "Vantage is on the verge of collapse." You've been repeating some variation on those two statements forever, as if you say it enough times it will suddenly become true or be accepted as fact." Rothchild

Well... first the personality stuff.

Just because you say that I am not basing my comments on facts does not make it so. I offer facts out the buttocks over and over. If you don't care to believe the facts, that's your issue. Not mine.

So here we go again... please feel free to disagree with said facts and/or my interpretation... or just keep throwing mud. Your call.

Vantage is not on the verge of collapse. Vantage is, essentially, a former division playing out its pipeline. Is there some factual reason you disagree (other than "the studio or Nikki told you so")... or do you just want to bark?

As for Fox... again... details. Fox appears to have a very strong 2009 ahead. If X-Men Origins: Wolverine / Night at the Museum II / Ice Age 3 go into August looking like Superman Returns, Poseidon, and Lady in the Water, you can bet that I will be right there calling for Tom Rothman’s head... for cause... not over personality or a narrow view of his tenure's success.

The huge difference between the issue of Fox and the issue of Vantage is that the failure of one and the failure of the other are not comparable in any real way. Vantage was a start-up, focused on quality “indie” filmmaking and not necessarily profit. Vantage as a breakeven would have been a win for Paramount. But it lost a fortune, even though many of the movies were excellent and/or truly ambitious.

Fox, as a major studio, is in a completely different business. The studio is built to risk more, with less interest in quality than revenue, with the goal of bigger gains. (If I am sounding patronizing, my apologies… but you don’t seem to get it.)

No one year defines a major studio. It cannot. (Nor can grosses without the benefit of knowing costs or awards.)

And if you look at Fox over the last two years, it will be very apparent why. By year end, there is a real chance that Fox 2008 will have the identical domestic box office as Fox 2007. Yes, there will be seven more films this year, but that difference can mostly be attributed to movies that Fox’s financial stake in was significantly less than releases in years past (or not their money at all).

Of course, domestic box office is not the whole story. Foreign is, in most cases, more significant. But with two movies to go – one looking a lot stronger international than domestic – Fox is only $230 million behind last year’s film’s totals.

All that said, Fox will eat a lot of dollars on Australia and Meet Dave. They will take losses on X Files: I Want To Believe, and Jumper (in spite of $222m worldwide… I don’t believe their cost claim is close).

They will be highly profitable on Horton Hears A Who!, 27 Dresses, and What Happens in Vegas.

Pretty much everything else is marginally either a loser or winner, often because of the investment of others, whether Walden or Media Rights or some international deals. This was not as intended... so not a positive... but no disaster either.

And going back to year-to-year realities… Fox had home runs with some pretty iffy movies in 2007 (and I don’t hold Rotten Tomatoes as the ultimate arbiter of quality) and people were raving about how great the year was. Fox’s line-up this year made a lot of similar efforts… and pretty much every one tanked vs expectations.

This was a down year, no question. No one is going to give Fox a parade this year. Nor should they. But perspective is always called for.

One year you get a massively more successful than expected The Simpsons Movie. The next year, you get X-Files 2. (And yes... I am sure that YOU knew this would happen... zzzzz... yes, we should all be running studios instead of those idiots who do...zzzz...) You invest in M. Night Shyamalan and like everyone else has, you live with him doing as he likes… and you more than double his last film… but it’s still only his second film since The Sixth Sense not to get to $250m worldwide… so even though you are well into breakeven, it’s seen as another disaster. You have two rom-com cash cows… and no one is talking about anything but Sex & The City.

What is WB’s #2 film for the year? 10,000 BC. $269m worldwide. So… what’s the difference between that and Fox’s #2 film (Jumper, with $222m worldwide)? The difference, in perception, is The Dark Knight. Take Batman and New Line off of the WB box office chart and you have a bad year. Of course, you can’t take Batman off the list… and you shouldn’t. New Line, you must. (And what an irony that New Line will have 3 highly profitable films this year after being shut down.) But you need to keep in perspective that ONE success is often the difference between a bad year, a mediocre year, and a great year… in perception.

Want to go #3 vs #3 with WB vs Fox? Get Smart vs What Happens In Vegas. The WB title got better reviews and grossed $10 million more worldwide. Smart cost at least $50 million more than Vegas. So which would you prefer at your studio?

I’m not trying to just rip on WB. They did have The Dark Knight. And it counts. Just like Superman Returns counts… same idea… arty director for a superhero movie… money loser. Just as X-Men and X-Men 2 and X-Men 3 still count. Just as it matters who made the profits on Iron Man and who took the losses on The Incredible Hulk. So is Marvel the company of the future or is it an undisciplined spender in danger of overreaching? The facts, while not always embraced by the media, are still the facts… whether you like them or not.

And again… don’t get me wrong… it was a crap year for Fox. And Australia’s box office demise is the rancid cherry on top. (The reviews for The Day The Earth Stood Still ain’t going to send anyone to bed with a smile either.) There will be write-downs this year.

But when you start comparing it to Vantage… well, you can’t. Everything Vantage could have ever expected to happen in their favor pretty much happened. And they still lost a ton on money. And so, that experiment ended.

And if there is a reason for me to keep pointing at Vantage – forget the delusion that they are really a working business at this point – it is because they led an indie movement with their much higher rate of spending that was no small part of dragging the Dependents down and the true independents with them this last year. Great movies? Perhaps. But if you make There Will Be Blood and it gets the BP nomination and it wins Best Actor and you still lose tens of millions? Sorry. You know who could afford that? A major studio… with a few big dumb hits to support the loss. But it is a recipe for disaster if you are in the specialized business.

Back to Fox… Rothman (and the oft forgotten Jim Giannopoulos) were on top of the world last year. And this year they are the whipping boys. And this next year… well, we will see.

Perspective. And yes, facts.

Your turn.

Posted by dpoland at December 7, 2008 02:41 PM

Comments

I kind of like the idea of turning this into a regular feature: "Yell with David". Perhaps a video component could be added?

Posted by: jeffmcm at December 7, 2008 03:14 PM

Let me revise that - 'Joust' with David would make more sense.

Posted by: jeffmcm at December 7, 2008 03:27 PM

Their movies next year will suck as well. MARLEY & ME will make them a boatload of cash, though.

BUt here's what you're missing: the quality of Fox films will only continue to drop because nobody will want to work with Rothman. He is simply not talent-friendly. They're going to keep hiring third stringers they can push around on middling movies, and it's going to be harder and harder for them to attract stars if they can't attract filmmaking talent. It's a spiral they will not get out of unless they start treating the Gavin Hoods of the world with a tiny bit of respect and stop making movies that are just soul-crushingly terrible.

Posted by: Devin Faraci at December 7, 2008 04:52 PM

Also, WB is working on a GET SMART sequel, so I guess I'd rather have the franchise picture at my studio.

Posted by: Devin Faraci at December 7, 2008 05:44 PM

Here's the thing that boggles my mind about Rothman: HE LOVES FILM! If you ever see him on FOX movie channel. You can see it exude from him in ways few executives ever show it, but he's a douche to talent. It's a ridiculous dicotomy. Which leaves me with the impression that Tom should run the RKO/FOX MOTION PICTURE MUSEUM instead of running the studio. A museum curator might be a better job for the man. Until then; FOX is fucked. Totally and utterly fucked.

Posted by: IOIOIOI at December 7, 2008 06:46 PM

X-Files 2 was drastically mismarketed.

I didn't see it, so maybe they had to go the route they went, but nothing in any of the trailers gave any indication whatsoever what the movie was about, or why anyone should care (the fact that I didn't see it, and feel no need to, given my love of genre fare, says something too). Fox guaranteed that only the diehard fanbase would come out, and no-one else, especially when they didn't even screen it for reviewers who might have at least clarified the plot to confused.

So yeah, when I saw how it was being sold, I KNEW....zzzzzzz....

Posted by: LYT at December 7, 2008 08:20 PM

The movie isn't about anything, so I don't know how else they COULD have marketed it. So bizarre that that script got greenlit.

Posted by: Devin Faraci at December 7, 2008 09:23 PM

Fox marketing is brilliant. They can sell anything except comedy or the unsellable, like X-Files 2.

Posted by: Rothchild at December 7, 2008 09:29 PM

Without getting into the rest of your earlier comment, for the moment, Devin... that is exactly my point.

Do you really think that Tom Rothman shoved the X-Files 2 script down Chris Carter's throat... or did he let the filmmaker do what he pretty much wanted to do?

Posted by: David Poland at December 7, 2008 09:55 PM

Dave - X-FILES 2 happened because of the strike. That movie was hanging in limbo for years until the demands of getting films into production meant they started scrambling for pictures that were 'ready to shoot,' although I don't think that script was ready to shoot as a throwaway episode of the series. My question was a touch rhetorical.

Although here's an interesting thing: you're right in that Rothman didn't micromanage that one quite the way he micromanaged something like WOLVERINE, or the way he brought on a nobody to piss on the FANTASTIC FOUR films (and I say that as a guy who kind of likes them). He sometimes lets movies be terrible without his input.

But seriously: how many Fox films since BORAT have been any good? And they didn't even make that one if I'm remembering correctly. Drop the numbers BS and think about the quality of output. There is none. And this is something that even the junket press is noticing, and those people like the worst shit imaginable.

Posted by: Devin Faraci at December 7, 2008 10:05 PM

The Simpsons Movie, Australia and 27 Dresses were all varying levels of good. And while I haven't seen it, Horton seemed to be quite well received, didn't it?

Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at December 7, 2008 10:34 PM

How is "DAY..." tracking?

Seems like something that they must've expected would be a 35-50 mil opener; Maybe it will be?

I can't tell if awareness is anywhere in the ballpark though.

Posted by: LexG at December 7, 2008 11:23 PM

How could they lose money on Jumper with over $200 million worldwide? X-Files was shot in Vancouver and made $68 million worldwide.
Wolverine should be better than Electra but make about the same as X2. Ice Age 3 may be running out of steam, but break even. Museum 2 should get a great opening weekend like Madagascar 2 and run out of gas like M2 as well, still making a profit.

Posted by: doug r at December 7, 2008 11:25 PM

The stories from the crew on Wolverine are fairly disturbing. The level of approvals needed on production design, costume and everything else such mixed with a director very much out of his element. I'm sure it will be better than Elektra, but that's like saying I'd rather eat tree bark over a shit sandwich.

Tom Rothman and the marketing department will continue to get fifty-million on the opening weekend of crapfests like Fantastic Four, but there's no billion-dollar Harry Potter or Dark Knight or even a Batman Begins to birth a Dark Knight because of the LACK OF QUALITY (the one movie Cameron makes every ten years is an anomoly).

Making good movies sometimes means making more money and rarely means making less... so why not just fucking make a good movie?

Posted by: sloanish at December 7, 2008 11:47 PM

'The stories from the crew on Wolverine are fairly disturbing. The level of approvals needed on production design, costume and everything else such mixed with a director very much out of his element.'

yeah, i'll second that, sloanish, much of 'wolverine' was filmed down south and i heard the kiwis on the shoot just wanted to get on with it but all manner of bullshit was flying behind the scenes

Posted by: leahnz at December 8, 2008 12:50 AM

Feraci - Drop the numbers BS and think about the quality of output. There is none.

Poland - Vantage was a start-up, focused on quality “indie” filmmaking and not necessarily profit. Vantage as a breakeven would have been a win for Paramount. But it lost a fortune, even though many of the movies were excellent and/or truly ambitious.

Fox, as a major studio, is in a completely different business. The studio is built to risk more, with less interest in quality than revenue, with the goal of bigger gains.(If I am sounding patronizing, my apologies… but you don’t seem to get it.)

you don’t seem to get it.

Posted by: Martin S at December 8, 2008 07:01 AM

"You" who?

Posted by: jeffmcm at December 8, 2008 01:40 PM

"Day" is only tracking at about $40 million, but a good comparison for "Day" is Mummy 3, a film that was trashed critically and financially stateside, but made up for it overseas.

Likewise look for the studio to give the film a bump to reach $100 million domestically if it looks like it'll fall short, as that's a mark that Fox shockingly hasn't hit outside of animated flicks since June, 2007.

Good points, DP, but it's agreed with Fox micromanaging everything from Babylon to Wolverine, it's going to have lasting effects.

Posted by: EthanG at December 8, 2008 02:42 PM

I was going to ask the same question about The X-Files 2 as Doug R. I thought the studio would at least break even on theatrically gross and make some profit on DVDs and others.

Can someone elaborate on the troubles with Wolverine? I haven't heard anything until now. I saw the trailer and am not thrilled about it at all. Any words on Magneto?

Babylon sucks, big time. Just wasted an hour or so of my life watching the DVD.

Posted by: ployp at December 8, 2008 05:57 PM

The Hot Blog

December 07, 2008

Why Fox's Bad Year Is "Not That Bad"

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