The Movie Thread

[vienna]

Its been all over the local entertainment news here in LA about Tom Hank's disappointment his movie Greyhound will not get a proper big screen, movie theater release and is, instead head to direct streaming on Apple TV+; Hanks appears to have been put in a position to have to go along with Sony Pictures' deal to sell the movie rights to Apple for USD $70 Million, an approximately 40% initial return on the USD $50.3 budget of the film...

One thing I wasn't aware of was Tom Hanks actually had been working on the project for about a decade and even wrote the adapted screenplay for the film himself, so the project was bit of a labor of love for him; in the interviews I heard, Hanks said he had envisioned and set up the film to be a big screen production taking full advantage of the scale of movie theater screens and sound systems, so streaming to smaller screen devices is a let down...

I've got to say, for a film that revolves around naval warfare and with the attendant CGI necessary to pull off a good rendition, a USD $50.3 Million budget is a bargain; I'm gonna guess Hanks didn't ask for his usual star salary...

The film is getting some very good reviews, so I'm hoping it will finally get a theatrical release after the lock down is over...





<O>

[ET2SN]

Originally Posted by vienna

Its been all over the local entertainment news here in LA about Tom Hank's disappointment his movie Greyhound will not get a proper big screen, movie theater release and is, instead head to direct streaming on Apple TV+; Hanks appears to have been put in a position to have to go along with Sony Pictures' deal to sell the movie rights to Apple for USD $70 Million, an approximately 40% initial return on the USD $50.3 budget of the film...

One thing I wasn't aware of was Tom Hanks actually had been working on the project for about a decade and even wrote the adapted screenplay for the film himself, so the project was bit of a labor of love for him; in the interviews I heard, Hanks said he had envisioned and set up the film to be a big screen production taking full advantage of the scale of movie theater screens and sound systems, so streaming to smaller screen devices is a let down...

I've got to say, for a film that revolves around naval warfare and with the attendant CGI necessary to pull off a good rendition, a USD $50.3 Million budget is a bargain; I'm gonna guess Hanks didn't ask for his usual star salary...

The film is getting some very good reviews, so I'm hoping it will finally get a theatrical release after the lock down is over...





<O>

... in 2026.

Tom is lucky the pandemic isn't known as Tom Hanks Disease, as Norm McDonald used to call it.

Since we're all in line to suffer and sacrifice, I don't feel bad for his movie that already earned some money.

[tmccarthy]

[vienna]

Originally Posted by ET2SN

... in 2026.

Tom is lucky the pandemic isn't known as Tom Hanks Disease, as Norm McDonald used to call it.

Since we're all in line to suffer and sacrifice, I don't feel bad for his movie that already earned some money.

The thing that I find most disturbing about the way major films and stars are going directly to the various streaming service is the public is now being edged out of seeing films they might really want to see because they would have to subscribe to a streaming service to see a given film; the cost of the varying services would mean consumers would have to spend considerable amounts of money just to cover the possibility of seeing any or all of the various releases; if you want to see, say, Das Boot 2020 you have to subscribe to Apple+; if its a Disney film, then you need a subscription to Disney+, as so n and so on, accruing a substantial monthly/annual bill just to keep the possible bases covered...

The old major studios tried to 'corner' the theater market decades ago by buying/building theaters across the US, branding them with their name, and making them the exclusive venues for their releases, forcing out the smaller, independent theaters, and setting the scene for a possible rigging of ticket prices; the Federal government stepped in and passed legislation to force the studios to divest themselves of their self-owned theaters and keep the market competitive for all theater owners; the way things are progressing with the streaming services, some similar sort of solution may be required...

It used to be in the past few decades before streaming, films had a theatrical run and then went to either cable TV release or VHS/DVD rental, so at least the public had at least a couple or so ways of seeing releases, but now, if you are a streaming service subscriber for a particular release, you're out of luck; as time goes on and streaming services get more and more proprietary about their 'content', they are less likely to want to issue the releases as DVD/BDs, etc., since the want to milk every little cent out of their customers as possible; there was a similar sort of situation in the VHS heydays when the studios would only provide a limited number of tapes for rental and not for sale to the public; in some cases, you could buy a copy of a recent release tape, but the price hovered at about the USD $ 100+ pricing level and it usually took at least a year before the tapes for newer releases were issued in mass at far lower prices'...

I just checked on Amazon and the Complete first season of Das Boot became available on DVD last Nov 2019, a full year after its streaming release, so it could be estimate the DVD relase for Season Two will be around Apr 2021...

On the matter of Greyhound earning money, it is an old Hollywood metric that a film doesn't really turn a profit until its gross receipts exceed an amount twice its actual cost, so the film is still a bit of a ways to go to attain profitability, an amount of over USD $100 Million; Hanks, and his fellow producers, however are making some money since producers are paid an upfront fee out of te budget at the start of the filming; they also have percentage shares of the revenue, some from the gross 'first dollar' receipts and others from the proceeds/profits after expenses have been met and paid; Hanks, though, also gets a fee for adapting the screenplay with the amount dependent on the nature of his contract...




<O>

[Jimbuna]

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by tmccarthy

"Why on earth are there so much excellent Science fiction books, but so much SciFi trash movies?"

Well this film is an exception

[Jimbuna]

[tmccarthy]

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Catfish

"Why on earth are there so much excellent Science fiction books, but so much SciFi trash movies?"

Well this film is an exception

The real reason for all the trash sci-fi movies is that the studio execs and, in many cases, aren't really sci-fi fans and are really only interested in the money side rather than the art side of their projects; how many time have there been articles about a sci-fi film being panned critically because of miscasting, failure to remain faithful to the source text, or having a less than knowledgeable director all because some studio exes wanted a 'sure bet' box office star over a lesser star with better appreciation for the part, changes to scripts to either ease expenditures, ease marketing concerns, or meet the demands of an already miscast star (or director), or hired a director not because he was better fit for the project and understood the source, but more because he was a 'bankable' personality the studio hoped would be able to repeat his/her previous successes in other genres...?...

Films like Star Wars, ET, and 2001 were successes because all the elements were in the hands of their creators and not being derailed by corporate bean counters...




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[Jimbuna]

[tmccarthy]

[Jimbuna]

[tmccarthy]

[Jimbuna]

[tmccarthy]