Sony Pictures Chairman on Ghostbusters Reboot "Haters" : "It's The Greatest Thing That Ever Happened"

[burnout02urza]

I cannot wait for this movie to come out.

Everything about it looks so awful, it's going to crash and burn. I am filled with sheer spiteful glee at the likely outcome of this, as well as the idiots who kept insisting it was going to be good. This will be a double middle finger to them, and we'll mock them for it forever.

 

[Zeras]

The only thing I see is that the failure of this movie will be attributed to misogynists, not the fact that this film didn't have to be made and the jokes fell flat, the effects looked like something half-**sed made from the late '90s/early '00s and the actors weren't trying their best.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Here is a thing to say: I will not even hate-watch that movie.

This is a behavior I don't understand, the hate watch. This guy actually has a point with it. I mean EVERYONE complains about Michael Bay but his movies make really good profits. Especially, the extremely hated Transformers... soon to release Part 5, and part 7 is greenlit. For all the rage, people still show up to watch Michael Bay movies which means you are voting FOR him with your wallet.

The hate watch is amazing consumer behavior. I don't spend my money on things I don't like or simply even don't approve of. How someone can pay to go see a movie they hate is beyond me. I would just be pissed for 2 hours and that doesnt sound like a good value. I can be pissed for free or go spend money to do something that takes my mind off of it. But to spend money to have it shoved in my face for two hours? I don't get that behavior.

But many people do it so, it wouldn't surprise me if he is right and this movie does awesome at the box office.

Never deny the power of train wreck fascination. I was in the "rent it off Netflix to see how badly they screwed it up" camp for a fair bit. Then the people making the movie lost their minds and started lashing out and insulting the critics, so now I don't even want to do that.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

I highly doubt someone will go see a movie just because they can click the 'dislike' button

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bayformers say hi.

If you try hard enough, you can come up with a list that would take whole books to store. But those two franchises specifically? If I had a dollar for every whiny "hater" with a ruined childhood who went to the midnight showings alone, I could put my hypothetical kids through college.

Michael Bay has called people out on this before, and...they proved him right.

Bay also didn't openly insult said audience or have an actor call them basement dwelling virgins.

 

[hermes]

I highly doubt someone will go see a movie just because they can click the 'dislike' button

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bayformers say hi.

If you try hard enough, you can come up with a list that would take whole books to store. But those two franchises specifically? If I had a dollar for every whiny "hater" with a ruined childhood who went to the midnight showings alone, I could put my hypothetical kids through college.

Michael Bay has called people out on this before, and...they proved him right.

There is another thing that helped the Michael Bay movies: foreign market. Honestly, at this point, you can spread a turd into 9mm tape, send it to China and get ready to pick up the money with a shovel. Unfortunately for Sony, this movie will not premiere in China, and while hate watching is a true phenomenon, it tends to concentrate on the first week... I don't think this movie can stay on top of the box office long enough once word of mouth gets around.

But I do see Rothman's point: This was all free publicity... Before the backlash, this was going to be yet another forgettable ill-conceived remake, the best that could get was being innocuous enough people forget about it one hour later. Now it falls next to American Sniper and Passion of Christ where seeing or liking it is almost a political statement, regardless of the quality.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

I highly doubt someone will go see a movie just because they can click the 'dislike' button

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bayformers say hi.

If you try hard enough, you can come up with a list that would take whole books to store. But those two franchises specifically? If I had a dollar for every whiny "hater" with a ruined childhood who went to the midnight showings alone, I could put my hypothetical kids through college.

Michael Bay has called people out on this before, and...they proved him right.

There is another thing that helped the Michael Bay movies: foreign market. Honestly, at this point, you can spread a turd into 9mm tape, send it to China and get ready to pick up the money with a shovel. Unfortunately for Sony, this movie will not premiere in China, and while hate watching is a true phenomenon, it tends to concentrate on the first week... I don't think this movie can stay on top of the box office long enough once word of mouth gets around.

But I do see Rothman's point: This was all free publicity... Before the backlash, this was going to be yet another forgettable ill-conceived remake, the best that could get was being innocuous enough people forget about it one hour later. Now it falls next to American Sniper and Passion of Christ where seeing or liking it is almost a political statement, regardless of the quality.

Free publicity like this only goes so far though. You get a bunch of people seeing it the first week to see what the fuss is, or to "spite the haters" as was said a bit ago, but if the movie sucks that first week is all you're gonna get.

Doesn't help matters that this thing is going to be going up against the latest Star Trek movie (which had one of it's actors die recently which is only going to put MORE butts in seats), and The Secret Life of pets (which is going to draw a LOT of the little kid market).

Add in that this film will NOT be showing up in Chinese theaters due to their taboo with showing the dead, openly INSULTING their critics, the lackluster reaction to the trailers, and this thing couldn't have more going against it if it opened up the same month as Star Wars Episode 7.

 

[RaikuFA]

Here is a thing to say: I will not even hate-watch that movie.

This is a behavior I don't understand, the hate watch. This guy actually has a point with it. I mean EVERYONE complains about Michael Bay but his movies make really good profits. Especially, the extremely hated Transformers... soon to release Part 5, and part 7 is greenlit. For all the rage, people still show up to watch Michael Bay movies which means you are voting FOR him with your wallet.

The hate watch is amazing consumer behavior. I don't spend my money on things I don't like or simply even don't approve of. How someone can pay to go see a movie they hate is beyond me. I would just be pissed for 2 hours and that doesnt sound like a good value. I can be pissed for free or go spend money to do something that takes my mind off of it. But to spend money to have it shoved in my face for two hours? I don't get that behavior.

But many people do it so, it wouldn't surprise me if he is right and this movie does awesome at the box office.

Never deny the power of train wreck fascination. I was in the "rent it off Netflix to see how badly they screwed it up" camp for a fair bit. Then the people making the movie lost their minds and started lashing out and insulting the critics, so now I don't even want to do that.

When did they do that?

 

[hermes]

I highly doubt someone will go see a movie just because they can click the 'dislike' button

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bayformers say hi.

If you try hard enough, you can come up with a list that would take whole books to store. But those two franchises specifically? If I had a dollar for every whiny "hater" with a ruined childhood who went to the midnight showings alone, I could put my hypothetical kids through college.

Michael Bay has called people out on this before, and...they proved him right.

There is another thing that helped the Michael Bay movies: foreign market. Honestly, at this point, you can spread a turd into 9mm tape, send it to China and get ready to pick up the money with a shovel. Unfortunately for Sony, this movie will not premiere in China, and while hate watching is a true phenomenon, it tends to concentrate on the first week... I don't think this movie can stay on top of the box office long enough once word of mouth gets around.

But I do see Rothman's point: This was all free publicity... Before the backlash, this was going to be yet another forgettable ill-conceived remake, the best that could get was being innocuous enough people forget about it one hour later. Now it falls next to American Sniper and Passion of Christ where seeing or liking it is almost a political statement, regardless of the quality.

Free publicity like this only goes so far though. You get a bunch of people seeing it the first week to see what the fuss is, or to "spite the haters" as was said a bit ago, but if the movie sucks that first week is all you're gonna get.

Doesn't help matters that this thing is going to be going up against the latest Star Trek movie (which had one of it's actors die recently which is only going to put MORE butts in seats), and The Secret Life of pets (which is going to draw a LOT of the little kid market).

Add in that this film will NOT be showing up in Chinese theaters due to their taboo with showing the dead, openly INSULTING their critics, the lackluster reaction to the trailers, and this thing couldn't have more going against it if it opened up the same month as Star Wars Episode 7.

True... but you are still missing something he did mention. During the first weeks, half the people that will see it are not there "to spite the haters", many people want to see it to justify their hatred. No matter how much you trash it online later, no matter if you only waited as far as the opening credits to get up... if you went and pay the ticket, they got you as far as they are concerned. That is the public that would not be even bother to be there if the movie was not such a hot topic.

They were going to compete with Star Trek regardless; and they knew some foreign markets were closed to them regardless. What the Internet attention did was turn a movie that should be a limited release for a few weeks into the most anticipated movies of the year (with no spandex), it doesn't matter if the anticipation is because of a "It sucks. I told you so" attitude.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Here is a thing to say: I will not even hate-watch that movie.

This is a behavior I don't understand, the hate watch. This guy actually has a point with it. I mean EVERYONE complains about Michael Bay but his movies make really good profits. Especially, the extremely hated Transformers... soon to release Part 5, and part 7 is greenlit. For all the rage, people still show up to watch Michael Bay movies which means you are voting FOR him with your wallet.

The hate watch is amazing consumer behavior. I don't spend my money on things I don't like or simply even don't approve of. How someone can pay to go see a movie they hate is beyond me. I would just be pissed for 2 hours and that doesnt sound like a good value. I can be pissed for free or go spend money to do something that takes my mind off of it. But to spend money to have it shoved in my face for two hours? I don't get that behavior.

But many people do it so, it wouldn't surprise me if he is right and this movie does awesome at the box office.

Never deny the power of train wreck fascination. I was in the "rent it off Netflix to see how badly they screwed it up" camp for a fair bit. Then the people making the movie lost their minds and started lashing out and insulting the critics, so now I don't even want to do that.

When did they do that?

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ghostbusters-star-melissa-mccarthy-responds-898196

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ85g2Al1ZA

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2015/09/25/paul-feig-slams-ghostbusters-haters-misogyny-and-insults/72802648/

Care for more?

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

I highly doubt someone will go see a movie just because they can click the 'dislike' button

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bayformers say hi.

If you try hard enough, you can come up with a list that would take whole books to store. But those two franchises specifically? If I had a dollar for every whiny "hater" with a ruined childhood who went to the midnight showings alone, I could put my hypothetical kids through college.

Michael Bay has called people out on this before, and...they proved him right.

There is another thing that helped the Michael Bay movies: foreign market. Honestly, at this point, you can spread a turd into 9mm tape, send it to China and get ready to pick up the money with a shovel. Unfortunately for Sony, this movie will not premiere in China, and while hate watching is a true phenomenon, it tends to concentrate on the first week... I don't think this movie can stay on top of the box office long enough once word of mouth gets around.

But I do see Rothman's point: This was all free publicity... Before the backlash, this was going to be yet another forgettable ill-conceived remake, the best that could get was being innocuous enough people forget about it one hour later. Now it falls next to American Sniper and Passion of Christ where seeing or liking it is almost a political statement, regardless of the quality.

Free publicity like this only goes so far though. You get a bunch of people seeing it the first week to see what the fuss is, or to "spite the haters" as was said a bit ago, but if the movie sucks that first week is all you're gonna get.

Doesn't help matters that this thing is going to be going up against the latest Star Trek movie (which had one of it's actors die recently which is only going to put MORE butts in seats), and The Secret Life of pets (which is going to draw a LOT of the little kid market).

Add in that this film will NOT be showing up in Chinese theaters due to their taboo with showing the dead, openly INSULTING their critics, the lackluster reaction to the trailers, and this thing couldn't have more going against it if it opened up the same month as Star Wars Episode 7.

True... but you are still missing something he did mention. During the first weeks, half the people that will see it are not there "to spite the haters", many people want to see it to justify their hatred. No matter how much you trash it online later, no matter if you only waited as far as the opening credits to get up... if you went and pay the ticket, they got you as far as they are concerned. That is the public that would not be even bother to be there if the movie was not such a hot topic.

They were going to compete with Star Trek regardless; and they knew some foreign markets were closed to them regardless. What the Internet attention did was turn a movie that should be a limited release for a few weeks into the most anticipated movies of the year (with no spandex), it doesn't matter if the anticipation is because of a "It sucks. I told you so" attitude.

Again, you are REALLY overestimating how many people are going to be willing to see this movie out of spite/trainwreck syndrome/agreeing with the politics. Basing your advertising on that sort of thing only really works with smaller budget projects. Hatred was able to turn a profit due to all the controversy over it because they never spent that much on it to begin with. If the game was anymore bare bones you would've been playing as a wire frame.

Ghostbusters 2016 though? The cost of the regular advertising ALONE was well into the hundreds of millions, let alone what it cost to make the actual movie. The only people who are drawn in by this sort of thing are gonna be primarily people who'll only see it once if it sucks (The spite and trainwreck people), and the people who agree with it's politics (Who, with this particular brand of politics, have a bad habit of not actually buying anything). So you have people who'll only see it once, and people who'll "support" it, but not pay to see it, and that's not even taking into consideration the amount of people who were turned off from the aforementioned insults from the cast I posted above.

The odds stacked against this movie is so horrifically bad that it's ONLY hope is to actually be good DESPITE everything, and that might not be enough.

 

[Necrozius]

I'm one of the few people that I know who's actually looking forward to this movie despite being pretty disgusted with all the outrage, political shit shows and virtue signalling infesting the internet. The internet is being pretty fucking awful about this whole thing. FFS the trailers weren't THAT bad. Jesus.

 

[sageoftruth]

I think a bunch of these posts have the wrong idea. Sure, some people do hate-watch stuff, but the point of any publicity is to ensure that people who DO want to see it now know about it. Same with Michael Bay movies. It's not the haters who are coming in droves to watch it. Its the people who actually want to see the movie, who know about it thanks to all the negative coverage.

Still, he's probably making a mistake by fanning the flames too much. If he goes too far, he'll end up turning potential watchers away from it as well. On the other hand, if he's really cutting out all reasonable critiques to make those who disapprove look like mustache twirling villains, then he may end up prompting others to watch it just to spite them.

Those kinds of tactics disgust me, due to the collateral damage they tend to cause.

EDIT: Looks like this argument was already covered. Oops.

 

[Areloch]

So, do people actually think that more people are willing to shell out cash to hate-watch a movie than just torrent the movie after the first day?

Because, I gotta say, I have doubts about that.

Besides, with all the comparison to Bay movies, what's the most scathing comments you can level at the Transformers movies? They have a stupid plot? It's nothing but action and explosions?

If all someone wants is a lame popcorn action flick, those are hardly negatives, especially when someone hearing about it can look at the trailers and go "Yup, those are a lot of explosions, and wow the CGI looks really good".

Compared to the Ghostbusters movie, where people can legitimately claim that the CGI looks cheap and lazy, the jokes look unfunny, the actors may be phoning it in, Sony pictures contemplated suing the original actors if they weren't onboard, the director and actors have insulted people that weren't impressed with the trailers, etc, etc.

Those are all pretty negative things that speak about the movie itself and the people behind it. I feel there's a marked difference between "this is just some dumb action flick" and "this is a lazy cash-in comedy that doesn't even look funny" when trying to actually get people to watch if.

 

[Fandom Ghost]

Usually I watch all the Nostalgia Critic episodes, I don't think I can even take a humorous review of this one though. How's that? Not only will I not see the movie, I won't watch a review, I refuse to let my friends talk about it around me (so I don't blow up) and bought the original on Blu-ray, then replayed the game on PS3 on hard. Maybe, just maybe, when there's a Rifftrax for it, but it will be more painful than Birdemic IN The Room.

Also, you guy know Ecto-cooler is out again now? There's no slimer on it, not even a GB logo, just a little black rectangle with the title. Seems they are trying to salvage anything they can buy attempting to blur the difference between this and the original, which started with the title.