Although history will most likely be very kind to PTA and The Master, I fear that the box office success, or rather eminent failure might affect PTA's future filmmaking endeavors. In a Reddit like fashion, what can we do tell help 'the cause'? Thoughts?
Quote from: md on September 28, 2012, 10:50:34 AM
what can we do tell help 'the cause'? Thoughts?
Buy a ticket to his films every chance you can/buy all his DVD's/never download his shit/Keep bringing up his name in conversation.
Duh.
Well, it was #7 last weekend, and very high in the per-screen average.
http://boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2012&wknd=38&p=.htm
Do we know when it's expanding to more screens? This is still pretty much a limited release.
I guess there's the potential awards re-release, right?
There's also countries outside USA that can help the box office. :yabbse-wink:
the foreign market will help it break even but its not going to making 20million in the US. The word of mouth is seemingly killing this film.
How many of your friends, who know youre a pta fan, have asked you 'what the hell was the point'? I've told them to watch it again.
I guess you guys dont seem to give a shit that the weinstein company will take a big L for this and it will affect future projects. Maybe the intouchables is more along your tastebuds.
I'm shocked, the opening night 70mm screening in London isn't even a quarter full yet. This is disappointing and I hope more fans turn up for this. The film will no doubt have a good life on DVD/Blu-ray, but regardless of whether I like it or get it, I need to see it in 70mm a couple of times.
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on September 28, 2012, 11:39:06 AM
I guess there's the potential awards re-release, right?
This is why I'm not worried. It'll probably make as much money in January as it will in its initial release.
The craziest part is how far the divide between the cinephile's anticipation and the general public's disinterest.
Or even the divide between NYC/LA and the rest of America.
I don't know why anyone would be surprised though. It's actually doing decent numbers if you go by per screen average (last week it had the 4th best PSA of any film in the Top 10) and it's playing on like 1/4 of the screens any other 'wide' release. I'm still kinda shocked that TWBB ever managed to cross over.
Yeah, after it went wider in the U.S., it's been making almost as much money as shit like Resident Evil, which is in three times more theatres. Problem is it was never given a chance to make nearly as much money on its first weekend as the other Paul Anderson flick. Maybe the post-awards season will give it a new life box-office wise, but it's not going to be a big hit. Let's hope it makes its money back and everyone involved gets happy enough with that.
Another consideration. Would Megan Ellison (peace be upon her) be fine with not making money on PTA films?
TWC is getting paid, so why would they care? Unless I have something wrong here.
Well, Megan said The Master changed her life. If she was serious, she may hope to make money on other people's films, and finance a not so commercially successful auteur whose work she admires. As for TWC I don't know exactly how that works. Are they distributors?
We should just come to terms with the fact the dude makes duds.
We all know it, Megan Ellison knows it, Robert Elswit's wife knows it (http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=11437.msg301190#msg301190). The best we can hope for is Inherent Vice saves his career by not being too weird.
He's just not concerned with the zeitgeist. His two "hits" have been accidental. Boogie came at a time when Clinton had tuned the public mindset to smut, and let's be honest, no one outside of this board watched that movie because of its tracking shots.
cmbb in particular was misconstrued because of the political climate.. people were thinking about oil cos of Bush in Iraq, they thought it had something to say about it, even critics tried desperately to tie the "meaning" of the film to a literal greed for oil, or generally capitalism. They were wrong, but enough of them were sufficiently deluded to make it a relative hit.
Now with the master his backers at best could have hoped for the scientology thing to catch on. It didn't. The film is too unique to have "popular" appeal because popular appeal depends entirely on a simplification/distillation of meaning that has to match the REAL moviegoers expectations:
"This movie is about porn cos movies can be about porn and they can be about nudity.."
"This movie is about oil and I kind of heard that oil is important right now and movies can be about things that are important right now.."
"This movie is about scientolo--- wait, what the fuck did I just watch?"
I think we can rest easy cause I think Megan Ellison knows PTA and his film will make them money in the long run. Today production companies are too short sighted. They probably have to be because they put in hundreds of millions of dollars towards a budge for a film. That's a huge risk. If it doesn't make the majority of it back in the first weekend it's a failure cause it'll be impossible to make the money back after that. It seems they have the same attitude toward smaller or PTA size films though. They don't see the award to spend thirty million on a film and the best they can hope for in the box office run is thirty to forty million (My guess after looking at what CMBB made at the box office). It's actually a huge risk too if you look at that way cause there is such small room for error with a film like the Master.
I don't know if this is true on PTA size films but I read somewhere a while ago that a really large budget film doesn't actually turn a profit until it doubles it's budget. This is due to many factors including press for the film, actors/directors/producers/others have it in their contract that they get a percentage of the profits if it the film does well and other reasons i forget. So just because CMBB budget was somewhere around thirty million and it made forty means it made a ten to fifteen million profit.
I think Megan Ellison can see that PTA films will have a longer shelf life to make them money. She's not so short sighted. Everyone who saw the film will buy the DVD or blu ray and continue to buy the film in whatever newer/higher def it is released. It can be rereleased if it does well in the awards season. People will buy the anniversary versions of the film. People five ten twenty years down the road will discover the film and buy it.
Just out of curiosity, are there any numbers on the budget for The Master?
Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on October 05, 2012, 12:41:46 PM
Just out of curiosity, are there any numbers on the budget for The Master?
IMDB has estimates for every film. It estimates The Master's budget at 40 million.
Oh, I usually go to Box Office Mojo and they don't have information on that. 40 is more than I thought. It needs a little bust to break even, but there's a lot of time from now until awards season for it to make its money back.
If The Master loses $10 million, that's 0.02% of Larry Ellison's net worth.
:shock:
EDIT: I'm sorry, I should have said "Eli Roth"!
The Master is now making more money in less screens than Resident Evil 3D, which came out the same week.
The Master will do fine. It's got buzz, and will continue to build that pre-Oscar buzz and will get a nice push before and after the awards season; it's a narrow margin, but it looks like it's in line with a well-traveled business model. And, like a lot of the European directors, PTA's already got his next projects lined up, so he's doing fine. Always having the next project ready to go is every director's dream. I pulled that last statement out of my ass but I'm sure it's true. The monetary value of producing/releasing The Master is not just limited to the box office bottomline either; studios like these kinds of movies because they attract other talented filmmakers and actors and build relationships, which are super important. Having a PTA onboard advertises the studio's commitment to the filmmakers, which is a smartplay and is good for the business. Obviously money is tight these days so they can't be as flagrant as they used to be with their darling filmmakers, but PTA is arguably the most respected filmmaker in the industry right now, so, as long as there's money, it's smart to give him that coveted Woody Allen career.
Also, Meg Ellison owns the Terminator franchise. She's running a long game. Money can still be lost, but at least all the moves are sound.
Kal, am I' completely full of shit?
Quote from: pete on October 08, 2012, 02:07:55 AM
PTA's already got his next projects lined up, so he's doing fine. Always having the next project ready to go is every director's dream.
Quote from: Ari Gold
You book the next movie before the last one opens.
^ What I learned from Entourage.
I just realized that The Master was postponed to January 6th 2013 here in Portugal, after being initially announced for October, and maybe it has something to do with the modest box-office in the U.S. It will now come out at the beginning of the awards season to try and cash in on some of the possible accolades. I will now light myself on fire...
Damn, that's rough. My heart goes out to you. Looks like this week marks the end of The Master's wide release here in the U.S. I got my fill, but am still praying on that Oscar run, and also that the theater owner I talked to will figure out how to work a 70mm projector...
Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on October 15, 2012, 06:41:07 AM
I just realized that The Master was postponed to January 6th 2013 here in Portugal, after being initially announced for October, and maybe it has something to do with the modest box-office in the U.S. It will now come out at the beginning of the awards season to try and cash in on some of the possible accolades. I will now light myself on fire...
Yeah and no 70mm theaters. Sucks
Yup. That too.
So The Master will likely be PTA's worst performing film at the box office to date. What do you think the reasons for this are? And what effect do you think this will have on PTA's ability to finance future projects?
This topic has been touched upon in various other threads, but I thought it deserved it own.
he's finished that's all.
he made a flop no one wanted to see, he gave it a shit title, he didn't push the scientology angle hard enough, he didn't make the scientology movie idiotic scandal-mongers DID want to see, he made an ambiguous film that appeals to introspective losers who generally don't flock en masse to the cinema/out of their basement ever, he's a filmmaker's filmmaker and filmmakers don't number in the millions and are rarely 13 to 17 years old, he didn't push the titties angle hard enough, and finally, this:
Quote from: Pubrick on March 16, 2010, 09:30:37 PM
it's time to start preparing for PTA's backlash/downfall. by this i mean the point in his career where he becomes too good for critics or the general public to understand what he's doing. he's actually been this way since he began but ppl somehow kept up with him. i think we're coming to the Barry Lyndon part of his career where everything he does onwards will be completely misunderstood, underrated, and looked over. Barry Lyndon was characterised as "kubrick's period piece" and that was all -- but it was THE MOST REALISTIC thing he has ever done, he illuminated a world lost to darkness, he reanimated corpses, he made statues come to life. everything afterwards was misunderstood and spoken of in the same "missing the point" kinda way.. the shining "that's just his horror film.. ooh scary" -- it was, as we all know, SO - MUCH - MORE than that.
of course this has always happened to many great movies since forever but the difference is that most directors never try any harder than what everyone expects of them. it started with Magnolia that he made a decision to expect a LOT from his audience. the film is generally thought of as the epitome of his "altman-esque" period.. he musta become SICK of this under-reading of his work so he did the opposite with PDL. irony of course is the Altman-esque elements in the story with the pivotal use of "he needs me". with that song and its usage PTA was acknowledging quite consciously the debt he owes to his influences, he needs his past as much as he needs to find something new. and so PDL became known as just a "sandler movie", undersold, misunderstood.. everyone generally missed the point.
CMBB is the biggest case of everyone missing the point so far. the film quickly became known as "an american classic about GREED and OIL" ok the book was called OIL but the film is as much concerned with that macguffin as it is with being a faithful adaptation of its supposed source material -- NOT VERY MUCH AT ALL. PTA's idea of adaptation is sophisticated, it isn't about the book but the information he got from it. he is just paying respect to the book as much as he was paying respect to altman in PDL. he can't escape his past or the origin of his ideas. but OIL and GREED wasn't the point. neither was Capitalism. these are all buzzwords that ppl use to try to contain what seems like a sprawling and unwieldy work. the problem is that no one tries to go much further than that.
he made barry lyndon, he thought everyone would care.
this is pta right now:
Really after he broke up with Fiona Apple his movies have gone to shit.