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Week Of May 14, 2007 - Wed / Fri
May 16, 2007
Ten Things The Studio
Doesn't Want You To Know ...
Numbers 1 - 5HOW MUCH DOES THE MOVIE COST?
But there is a whole parade of reasons why studios don't want the real numbers in play. One is to avoid detailed analysis by those of us who really have no vested interest. Another and greater reason is to avoid detailed analysis by those people who have a direct interest in what the bottom line looks like. They do have to offer some detailed reports to profit participants, but there is a long held assumption that these reports are almost always inaccurate and filled with studio-friendly twists, at least until the audit.The classic rule in Hollywood is that if you actually have to file a lawsuit, you and your representation have failed to do the job. Rage is a daily part of this town, but plausible deniability allows people to keep working together, even when they hate one another. Lawsuits shatter that false front.
HOW MUCH DOES THE MOVIE REALLY COST?
The media has become much more aggressive about digging out the rumors and realities of movie budgets these days, in great part because the massive numbers of some of the movies make good copy. In response, studios with budgets of over $100 million have taken to "setting the budget" by giving the number they feel they can get away with to a major media outlet. One thing you can be sure of ... if the studio is admitting to $282 million, it's a lot more than that. (Even at that budget level, millions are still a lot of money and tens of millions are still BIG money, often the difference between red and black ink.) Setting that figure somewhere relatively comfortable means that a third group, investors, won't start complaining at a corporate level.HOW SIGNIFICANT IS THE STUDIO TO THE OVERALL BUSINESS OF THEIR PARENT COMPANIES?
The hard reality is, modestly. The studios are very high profile, especially considering how small they are as segments of the bigger companies. Full service film studios can be very profitable and they can actually lose money in a given year. But with annual studio budgets that never have cracked $2 billion (as far as I know), these divisions are significant, but not primary part of the multination corporations that they are a part of. Obviously, the dynamic is different at a place like MGM, which is barely full service these days. And Viacom is mostly a media company, so Paramount means more to their future, even if success and failure have not moved the stock needle, driving Sumner Redstone to distraction and a so-far-unsuccessful stock split.Companies like New Line and the Weinstein Miramax, which was something of a partnership with Disney, are even less significant to the gains and losses. The mega-success of The Lord of The Rings trilogy and Harry Potter did nothing to the stock price of Time-Warner. And losing money on something like Superman Returns won't do anything either. The reason why execs scramble for cover is not to save the company, but to save their asses.
At Sony, Howard Stringer is very fortunate to be in an "up" cycle with Columbia and the rest of the motion picture division. With electronics flailing, the movie business is a bright light. But if things cycle back to a 2 or 3 year down period on the movie side, as they often do, expect a speedy break up of the assets.
HOW MUCH CONTROL DO STUDIO EXECS ACTUALLY HAVE OVER THE STUDIO'S FORTUNES?
Well, the easy answer is, "all of it." After all, they are making the calls. But the tougher answer is "some."After you watch this business for a while, you start to realize that everyone has hot streaks and cold streaks and they seem somewhat beyond logic. It makes the execs who have long wining runs all the more impressive. There have always been sequels, but the arrival of the modern franchise - once again, a piece of movie history that starts with Star Wars - has changed the dynamic yet again.
For a studio exec to live off of a franchise of six or seven or eight years makes little sense, really. Sure, any one of the films could damage the series. But really, aside from making the initial deal, who is responsible for Bond, for Potter, for Spidey, for Pirates? Especially as budgets crack the $200 million, $250 million, and $300 million mark? That would be the people who make the movies, hands on. Because with that kind of juice behind it, the machinery is bigger than the execs, for better or for worse.
As a result of these franchises, execs extend their careers. Why was Superman being seen a successful so important to Warner Bros? Because it is a venerable franchise and WB is competing with Spider-Man, et al, and if they fail in that game, they are deeply humbled. But in terms of the studio's fortunes, they sold off half the movie during production, so there wasn't all that much upside financially anyway. It's the illusion that it matters that matters.
WHO IS BEING BLAMED FOR FAILURE X?
Have you ever noticed how fingers are never pointed in public when a movie crashes and burns? You don't think everyone is so pleasantly well behaved in the hallways of the studios, do you? Here's a hint ... if you aren't blaming someone else, you are to blame.The famous Wheel of Blame is about the right tool to come up with an answer. Its prongs include, "Bad Date," Bad Concept," "Bad Marketing," and "Bad Title." Where the wheel can never go is, "Bad Studio Chief." As a result, every supporting group in the process feels the heat. No matter what the turd shot out of the bowels of the studio, distribution is expected to find " the date that will work" and marketing is expected to find a way to sell it.
Of course, not throwing blame around is cause for the employees of a studio to love the boss. Without naming names, there is one studio dependent in town where the boss really embraces every movie they put out and when something doesn't work, may be disappointed, but realizes the challenges he sometimes puts in the hands of his team. On the other hand, a dependent that had every ounce of success they could have ever imagined last year continues to seek an answer to why things didn't go even better, looking not at the content of the films, but at the value of the employees. Blame is tough.
E Me.
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