Mountains of Sadness

[andrewducker]

Guillermo Del Toro's At The Mountains Of Madness has been dropped by the studio because it was going to be an $150million R-rated movie.

The forums are awash with people saying "How dare the bean-counters deny ART!"

The thing is, a movie costing $150million would have to make about $500million for them to make their money back. Del Toro says that he think that "the R should be worn like a badge of merit in promoting the movie", but if you look at the figures here, no R-rated movie has even come close to making $500million in the US. If you include worldwide figures then you get a total of...two in the last ten years.

Now, if he really thinks that his movie is the next The Passion of The Christ or The Matrix Reloaded, then great! But if I was a movie studio trying to work out where to put my money, I strongly suspect it wouldn't be in the hands of someone who's highest worldwide gross so far is about $160million...

Comments

[fub.livejournal.com]

Though I wonder how you could make a non-R rated movie of the Mountains of Madness.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I think you could. Most of the horror is suggested rather than gory. I can't imagine that the odd shoggoth or giant albino cave penguin would warrant an R-certificate and surely neither would depictions of madness or non-Euclidian geometry.

I also think that you could do it with a much lower budget. Hell, I reckon you could do it as a TV mini-series of say six times 50 minutes.

But then I'm a beancounter...

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

"The thing is, a movie costing $150m would have to make about $500m for them to make their money back."

Um. What?

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

I don't know what proportion of ticket price stays with the cinema.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Ah, so a film would have to take about $500m for them to make their money back. That makes more sense.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Roughly 5% – about 95% goes to the movie companies, according to my old manager when I worked there. That's why the prices on popcorn/drinks are so high...

[andrewducker]

aha!

Looks like it's about 20-25% in the first week, rising after that to 50% and higher:
http://themovieblog.com/2007/10/economics-of-the-movie-theater-where-the-money-goes-and-why-it-costs-us-so-much

Of course, they'd probably be spending another 25-50 million on publicity.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Interesting, thanks! Looking at the list, that means either the Matrix made a loss, or it cost considerably less to make than AtMoM was predicted to cost. Either surprises me - do you know which it is? Actually there's a third option, that the economics of these things has changed since then.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

It's possible both are true. The last two Matrix films would have saved money on production because they were made simultaneously. Also, Revolutions performed the worst at the box office of the three films. It took only $139m in the US compared to $171m for the first one and $281m for Revolutions.

And of course this doesn't include box office around the rest of the world, DVD sales, TV licensing, rental income etc.

[lilaanne.livejournal.com]

(trying for a fourth time to post this)

I am not sure that it's as simplistic as that.

I'm not sure where you got the stats about movie budget/returns from (I was under the impression that for a mid-level picture opening worldwide you'd be looking at budget plus about 75-100 million more back.

But, leaving that aside a good case study about giving directors money to do things that might be a risk is Christopher Nolan. He went from Memento (R rated, Budget: $5,000,000, 11 screens opening, $235k take in the opening weekend) to Dark Knight (budget $185 million, Gross: $530,000,000). Even though he cut his big budget teeth on Insomnia before he took over Batman he was by no means a safe bet.

Other similar stories come from game changers Peter Jackson, and the Wachowski brothers.

But Nolan and del Toro are very different. What has del Toro done to merit such a big gamble?

His last _directed_ picture before Hellboy II was Pan's Labyrinth - an R rated movie. That had a budget of about 10million dollars and grossed about 35million dollars. It isn't Avatar but it did make it's money back and then some. In the meantime much like Jackson he's been making his name by not directing things and producing a stable of young artists that may otherwise not have gotten a chance to be seen on the worldwide stage (have a check at his credits on IMDB - they are impressive). He is at the moment one of the smartest game players in Hollywood and over the last 5 years he has made a lot of noises and changed a lot of rules.

But, Universal don't want to spend the money?
This coming from a studio that last year gave the director of Jumanji and Hidalgo $150 million to make the R rated flick 'The Wolfman' and got back $61 million?

Perhaps Universal didn't want to spend the money in case it was another bomb like the Wolfman. Odds are they will release it and another studio will snap it up .

But many films are getting cut and chopped without regard to scope or story in order to suit the PG-13 that gets all the revenue. They have been sad stories all over the shop in the last years of great projects with big budgets that get dropped because they have an R rating that can't be changed. And it's sad that writers and directors are feel that they need to make huge sacrifices in order to get a film made. And there is always the idea that if they don't play along they won't get the money for their next picture.

Some stories need to be told at a certain level and studios should be investing their money and their faith in them and if it's not happening that is something that needs to be questioned.

[andrewducker]

The Dark Knight, of course, was rated PG-13. LOTR, likewise PG-13. And at that rating, I suspect it could make its money back (although it wouldn't be guaranteed). At an R rating, I can't see much evidence that it would.

[lilaanne.livejournal.com]

Again, the 'making the money back' thing is confusing me but Hellboy and Hellboy II did pretty well and were PG-13.


Pan's Labyrinth made it's money back at an R rating. I don't get where the idea that giving del Toro a lot of money to make an R rated picture is a bad idea. Specially if you look at the titles he's been involved with - there has hardly been a false step there. District 9 may not have been finished if not thanks to him, same goes for the much maligned Splice. He produced the oscar nominated Bitufiul (the director Alejandro González Iñárritu has had three major Hollywood films mainly thanks to him) and Edgar Wright has been publicly thanking him for his support since Hot Fuzz.

Trying to put a decision to give a film a large budget into context does not just involve looking at it's rating and how much money it is likely to take.

[andrewducker]

None of those movies made anywhere near $500million. I don't see why handing him more money would necessarily make more money back.

The combination of a director whose never made anywhere near that much money, and a certificate that almost never makes that much money would make me deeply suspicious that the movie would pull in anywhere near enough to make a profit.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

The question is not necessarily that the picture would make it’s money back or generate a profit. It’s a little more subtle than that.

There is not a limitless supply of cash to be invested in making movies. Funds will go to the movies most likely to make the most return. So a film that would make a modest profit will not be chosen when there is a competing film that makes a big profit.

Funds may also not be invested in making a movie but in doing other things. There is a rate of return hurdle to be jumped.

This hurdle will be risk adjusted. By that I mean the higher the risk that the movie doesn’t make money (or enough money) the higher the required return will be in order to make the investment worthwhile.

Risk factors will include the rating and the historical data about how ratings influence ticket sales and the size of the budget. If you have $150m to invest you could chose to invest it in one $150m movie or in ten $15m movies. I think there is a better chance of losing hundreds of millions of dollars by placing a big one off, winner takes all $150m plus distribution etc bet compared to lots of small bets, most of which will give you some thing in return, one of which might bomb (and cost you $15m) and one of which might be a smash and net you a fantastic return.

The movie business is a business.

[sageautumn.livejournal.com]

"The movie business is a business."

THIS.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's easier to just be marketing one $150 million movie than ten $15 million ones.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, and I recall an anecdote told by one producer who said he could make his film for $5m and the studio said take $15m, we’ll be spending $5m on marketing and we want to be absolutely sure that the movie is good.

Still, instead of ten movies at $15m, try five at $30m.

It’s the distribution of the population of film earning and the weak correlation between production budget and revenue that are the key factors here I think.

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

Few things spring to mind.

1) As other people have said, I think you're maths are out on the £500 mil thing. Most films do eventually claw back a profit for a studio in the long term with international grosses, foreign distribution, DVD sales, broadcasting rights and whatnot.

2) Twenty years ago the two most expensive films ever made were Total Recall and Terminator 2. Both R rated. I don't know when the sea change happened or why.

3) How much money do you need to throw at barrel shaped aliens, snow and dead penguins? $150 million? Really? More than Hellboy 1, Hellboy 2 and Pans Labyrinth combined?

[andrewducker]

I do wonder why on earth it's so expensive. It's not like CGI actually costs anything nowadays!

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

Another story springs to mind.

Frank Darabont made a film called "The Mist" a few years ago: an R rated Steven King adaptation. He wrote a new ending for the story: Steven King loved it but the studios hated it because it was incredibly grim and downbeat. Rather than change anything, Darabont agreed to slash the budget in half.

The film still underperformed.

(But is incredibly good)

[andrewducker]

I liked The Mist. Didn't like the new ending though. I don't mind grim, but this felt very much like an author going "Look! I can completely fuck my characters! Because I can! Hah!"

(Liked the rest of the film a lot though)

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I don't really understand the terror that an R rating instils. Or the supposed lack of audience numbers.

Surely pushing films that look like they'll do well to have ratings below R just means the stigma will continue because the films that DO get an R rating will be ones that would have got a smaller audience regardless of rating? It's a vicious circle

Ratings are somewhat silly a lot of the time, and biased towards not showing or limiting very specific things.

[andrewducker]

They do seem to be silly a lot of the time. I can understanding wanting to shield children from torture porn (and porn), but sometimes it does get pretty over the top.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

It was ridiculous in the late 90s (I think, maybe mid 90s or early 00s, I lose track) when high levels of violence was basically A-OK in a 15, but heaven forbid you took drugs or had sex.

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

The supposed lack of audience numbers is actually pretty genuine. Pretty much every time studios have attempted a big budget R rated blockbuster over the last few years they've underperformed.

Watchmen, for example: that was a very brave film for a studio to take on in many ways: long, expensive, R rated and with reasonably esoteric source material. They marketed the fuck out that film. It didn't do well.

I don't think that it's impossible: The Expendables made a fair chunk of change with a hard R, but it's budget was only $80m and it got a lot of mileage out of having an incredible cast.