The Big Picture: The Numbers

[B Goy]

To me the reason Scott Pilgrim failed was the same reason that Kickass failed.

They were advertising films that weren't going to happen.

If you never read Kickass and only saw the trailer then you'd think it was just a comedy on some guy who tries to be a superhero, isn't that good but internet memehood inspires others to take up the mantle as he then gets better and eventually all the heroes team up to face the bad guy with the little girl and dad being the best ones even if no one takes them seriously.

Kickass was alright but it wasn't the film the non-geeks were promised, the general public looked it up and realised it wasn't their cup of tea after they realised the film was going to stay true, they wanted wacky comedy, not dark comedy that abandons comedy by the third act with the torture scene (seriously... why? it's marketing hell). It failed.

Scott Pilgrim also was advertised as just comedy until the above scenario happened.

Basically if people want to make movies like Kickass and Scott Pilgrim then they need to ditch the dark and drama and only make it a spoof of the genre or just comedy if they want the Hollywood cash flowing in.

Sad? Yes. Necessary? Also yes.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

My only thought after watching this was "...and the exact same can be said for gaming." It's always about the bottom line.

Great! As if I didn't already want to eat a gun!

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

Awful news, glad you put it out there Bob.

 

[Savber]

*facepalms*

WHY????

 

[Varya]

This is why I'm sad to be poor. I want to go and support a lot of movies but simply haven't got the money. Yes, I'm just one guy, but I represent a large group of people that I think want to support the industry but can't. It doesn't help that both Scott Pilgrim and Kick Ass was released so late in Sweden that the US DVD release was so close to our Theatrical release, making piracy the option a lot of students my age went for.

 

[DearFilm]

As if I needed another reason to hate The Expendables, god this species sucks sometimes.

As an R-rated, money making movie you would think that people would use The Expendables as a reason to make At the Mountain of Madness. Scott Pilgrim was a PG-13 kiddy-love-story. Its success would have in no way aided the creation of Mountains of Madness, save to give the production company extra money. From a standpoint of audience and market, Expendables seems to me to be absolute proof that R-rated entertainment can make money.

Could there be any better way to show that you missed the point? Mountains of Madness, wasn't JUST an R-rated movie, it was an H.P. Lovecraft movie, and H.P Lovecraft isn't exactly the world's biggest money maker, pair that with Del Toro (Who's movies a usually cult hits but rarely hit it big in theaters) it was a big risk. Scott Pilgrim, as Bob said, was based on an independent Canadian comic book, with a heavy helping of geeky references on top of it, (You know, kind a risky investment) if Scott Pilgrim had made money at the box office, the people helming projects like Mountains of Madness would be more likely to take that kind of risk, but Scott Pilrim didn't make money. You know what did make money? One of the biggest wastes of time in the history of cinema, a pandering, painfully boring action movie, filled with amazing talent that it did absolutly nothing with. But because it made shitloads of money instead of Scott Pilgrim, the heads at Universal were not willing to take a risk as bit as Mountains of Madness.

Getting it now?

I understand your point, but it still makes little difference to me in terms of my original idea. Scott Pilgrim would have proven a larger point about the marketability of an unknown property, but other than giving Universal capital needed to invest in another movie, its success would have been widely moot when it comes to making At the Mountains of Madness. Scott Pilgrim appealed to the polar opposite sensibilities of the audience Madness would court. Scott Pilgrim failed for reasons totally unrelated to any problems that would plague Mountains.

Scott could only be marketed as a film for young hipster video gamers who are thick skulled emotionally stunted whiners (if indeed protagonists are the surrogate for the audience). Scott Pilgrim could never draw in older more savvy or romance-averse audiences. From a marketing standpoint, Scott Pilgrim was a male oriented chick flick that could only alienate people from there. Madness would be a large scale sci-fi horror film that could bring in anyone looking for a bold, beautiful, fairly original tale or terror. Horror movies, even R-rated ones rake in cash.

Universal should look at films like The Expendables, as well as the success of Aliens to justify the creation of Mountains. Saying that Scott Pilgrim's failure killed Mountains is like saying that Love, Actually was the reason for the success of The Descent.

 

[Enrathi]

Wow, i didn't even know about this. It's so sad that such a promising movie had to be canned. I hope Lovecraft horror hits the big screen someday. That one classroom sex-ed. was truly scary and mindbending an that was just a parody! :s

Let's hope Del Toro finds a home for his project.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105242/

Not the same, but probably the best Lovecraftian film out there. Though I really would love to see a big budget Lovecraft film.

 

[Motakikurushi]

As if I wasn't angry enough at the points Bob raised regarding box-office emphasis and profit (that Universal tried to establish a unique demographic among intelligent, self-aware movie lovers and got its ass handed to it by a fucking overly masculine, pandering, poorly written pile of mindless garbage), I reached the point of infuriation when I heard that not only are people seeing Pirates 4, but it's the highest grossing movie this year with a ridiculous $250million dollars intake globally in the first week. Cut that shit out humanity.

 

[fundayz]

Oh they actually thought Scott Pilgrim would actually make them money?

It could be the greatest movie ever, but the whole premise has no appeal to anyone who a) hasn't read the comic or b)isn't a geek.

And The Wolfman was a boring film no matter how you try to paint it.

Also, "Sophisticated, high-end, hard to please, movie geek audience". Wow, way to flatter yourself: You are not sophisticated nor hard to please, you are just socially maladjusted. You are just as fast to jump on band wagons when movies play to your tastes.

Ugh... I don't know why I even bother watching this.

 

[DearFilm]

I liked The Expendables. Went to see it in a cinema with a mate of mine and we both switched are brains off and enjoyed the silly men running around with big guns and loud explosions. It reminded us both of when we were little kids watching copies of Rambo that our big brothers had recorded off the TV onto VHS tapes.

I didn't go see Scott Pilgrim because it had nothing for me to invest in. I don't like the actor, I think he's bland and annoying. I didn't like the look of it because I don't like that style of comic, I don't like indie music and I don't like retro games. I might see it one day. It might prove me wrong. I hope maybe it does and maybe I regret not seeing it in the cinema when it was out. However I don't think it's failure can be blamed on the HP movie not getting made.

Lets look at this.

Scott Pilgrim is a fairly new IP from some fella in Canada who not a lot of people have heard of. As a comic and gaming fan, I never heard of it until the movie was announced and local record stores and comic shops started filling their stores with the novels.

HP Lovecraft, is known world wide, is older than pretty much everyone on this site and is renowned in both the "geek" and "non-geek" world as a father of horror writing. His appeal is much greater than that of Scott Pilgrim.

I'm not sure of the order in which these movies where pitched, but perhaps it was a matter that the studio decided, that because comic book movies at the time were hot news, they'd try go with the "little book that could" rather than an iconic one. Perhaps it was just a bad move on their part. Just like I would think it was a bad move to not advertise SP more and release it on the same weekend that everyone whose been alive since the 80s could go see a movie that had all their childhood action heros in. Nostalgia won out there. Might not be your nostalgia but you're not the generation it was aimed at.

So while it was a shame this HPL movie isn't currently getting made I dont think that...
It's the fault of Scott Pilgrim for failing at the box office,
Scott Pilgrim didnt fail at the box office because we're all idiots and The Expendables was made.

You sir, are one of the few people here who really seems to get it.

 

[Mr. Sparzy]

Who says the box office doesn't matter?
Nickelodeon is allowing M. Night Shamalam to produce the other two Last Airbender movies because it did good at the Box Office, despite it's negative reviews and the countless negative awards it got from critic websites. It even got a worst movie of the year award from one website, but because it succeed at the Box Office, were getting more of it. My childhood is going to be ruined even more, and I'm not even an adult yet.
*sigh*

 

[TheEnglishman]

Whilst I like the Fast and Furious series (except the first one) and The Expendables, I was made sad by the poor Box Office Results of Scott Pilgrim, it would be nice to see more risks taken by big studios, and it's sad that they don't because of money reasons.

 

[diablomaki]

that was so mother falconing depressing. i love del toro, didnt know he was gonna do lovecraft.
so my emotions were as follows
freakin cool
rated R freakin cooler
oh....
well damn

 

[Dhatz]

I say to any business not alowing retrospective payment:

FUCK THEM!!!!!

Edit: NO FUCKIN WAY to spend more than 1M on scott pilgrim!

 

[Darth IB]

There was going to be a potentially good Lovecraft movie? And it was cancelled? Now I'm sad

 

[Littaly]

I laughed at the Scientology joke

The rest of the episode was OK, nothing you can't figure out yourself.

 

[BrotherRool]

I'll be honest, considering the number of people who really enjoyed Fast 5, the move to a sequel is bringing happiness to more people. It's not like PotC4, it's actually good at what it wants to be and what people want to see

I liked Scott Pilgram and it's a real shame it didn't do well. But it's not surprising either. A lot of the jokes and references would even have gone over the heads of a large section of modern gamers. Sometimes you've got to face reality