The Big Picture: The Numbers

[CommanderKirov]

Well. I thought that you are going to delve into the fact that the latest Cannes festival made the decision of awarding the prize based on the directors persona rather than the movie's content...


But I guess this one is fine too.

 

[GeorgW]

Aw man, I've always been interested in Lovecraft but have never been able to bother with the books! I would have loved that movie. Bad move, Universal, bad move.
Incidentally, I've just rented scott pilgrim.

 

[chessmasterhex]

Amen bro.

 

[CD-R]

This is the same exact reason that they made 7 SAW films: because gullible people with too much money and not enough sense/taste kept going to see them.

The original SAW film was a masterpiece of psychological suspense and horror. It kept you guessing right up until the end, literally. The second one was decent, if a little rushed. All the rest were just a filthy cash grab.

If we're lucky, Bob, Nintendo or MS will greenlight that as a game, a la Eternal Darkness. A guy can dream.

They already made a SAW game and it sucked out loud.


However they also made a Scot Pilgrim game and it did not suck out loud.

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

Depressing. This is probably as pure an example as there is of capitalism simply not working.

I agree. The best movies are produced by anti-Capitalist countries like USSR, Cuba, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya, et al.

Now, if we only had some sort of endowment on a national scale that could fund art like "Scott Pilgrim" and Lovecraft that would free selfless artists like Del Toro and Cameron from oppressive Capitalist pig studios and let them make whatever films they want on the taxpayer's back.

Actually Capitalism works perfectly when it is allowed to work. In this case, people WANT "The Expendables", people WANT "Fast & Furious 4/5/6". If people didn't want to watch crap, they wouldn't voluntarily give their money to watch crap.

I should clarify, I'm not saying that capitalism doesn't work, I'm saying that the way it works has done harm this time around. The whole purpose of it is to serve as a reward for good work, which it often does. It's like xp for real life, and it usually works in that respect.

What I believe happens here though is that money is being earned by the suggestion of good work rather than good work itself. Expendables earned more than Scott Pilgrim, but arguably Scott Pilgrim was a better film. Expendables simply had the power to make more people take a gamble and pay to see it. The money in this case is earned by convincing people to try it, not by the product being any good.

I don't think people WANT these movies, but they do fall for marketing for these movies because we consider them a safe option. In this case, capitalism is working for the marketing side, not for the product itself, which makes the product a high risk when it can't receive benefits from effective marketing. What I mean is that by the way capitalism works, wide-access is much more important than quality in the film industry in the majority of cases, and certainly here.

 

[BrownGaijin]

Not to get off subject, but I wonder if Waverly Theater could do for Scott Pilgrim what it did for this little flop:


OT: Moral of the story, "Profits talk".

 

[Thespian]

I was never much of a Bob-fan myself, but recently he's really grown on me. Maybe it's because his second show is all nice and settled in, or maybe it's because a lot of his views have been similar to mine lately and he's been well spoken in the extra consideration columns... Or hell, maybe it's because I have Jimquisition to compare him with making Bob seem vastly superior.

In any case, I really enjoyed hearing about all of this. It's nice to get a clear-cut view into the industry of film without any pretense or sugar-coating. And since Del Toro is my favourite director possibly ever (Sorry M. Night, last airbender sucked T_T) it was all doubly interesting.

Hats off to you sir.

 

[Earaldor Xerron]

This was kind of sad. But good nevertheless.
I hope you don't get any trouble for mentioning a certain book. You are totally right about what you said.

 

[Earaldor Xerron]

This was kind of sad. But good nevertheless.
I hope you don't get any trouble for mentioning a certain book. You are totally right about what you said.

 

[kingmob]

Is it just me or was this whole episode a wide open door that was just kicked in?
More like a rant really. I understand where it comes from, but in his capacity as a movie-critic, Bob should try and focus on the movies that do come out. i understand it can be frustrating, but I doubt most viewers watch his reviews to hear him whine some more...

 

[Casual Shinji]

Scott Pilgrim had grand designs, big themes, and a message at its heart, but it bungled the execution. The characters were all defined by a single trait which only later on may have found a second foil to give the illusion of dimension. Scott never rose to a level where I would expect anyone to be friends with him, let alone love him. The entire final scene in the night club was a confusing mess of motives, conclusions, and ideas that never fully gelled into the meaningful whole that it was clearly striving for. Scott Pilgrim was a noble failure, and I wish it had been more, because I think the visual talent clearly on display was worth being seen. However, storywise and characterwise, it never rose to meet those expectations.

It was so consumed with doing things with originality and newness that it never took the time to perfect the older arts of concise, meaningful story.

Well said!

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World tries to be Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with geek references. It achieves the latter, but fails at the former.

 

[WanderingFool]

More Scott Pilgrim bullshit? Also The expendepals was not that bad. There are worse movie out there like Twilight

The Expendables was not a great movie, in fact, I would go as far to say it wasnt a real good movie, or even a plain good movie, but I still enjoyed.

That is completely pointless, however...

As great an innovation Scott Pilgrim may have been, if people dont like it, than shit, its screwed. I cant fathom why people should pay money to watch a movie they dont like, over a movie they did like. Sorry to a lot of people here on the Escapist (as it does seem to be this way) that Scott Pilgrim got suckered punch by a Macho mantasy, but it makes no sense that people would support something they didnt like or care for over somthing they did like or care for. Its like women protesting to end women's suffrage... why support something you obviously dont like?

Also, I cant stand people calling anyone who watched The Expendables over Scott Pilgrim ignorant, or anyone who says one group is ignorant for choosing something over another. Thats just the height of arrogance, I myself am guilty of this sin also, so dont bother pointing that out.

Bob, seriously... you're sore over this, we get it. But its been several months, almost a fucking year, GET OVER IT, ALREADY!

Spoiler: As long as money rules, what makes money becomes superior to what doesnt, and something that makes more money faster wins out always... Even if we dont like the outcome:

 

[blanksmyname]

I regret seeing Scott Pilgrim only once when it was in theatres. I wish we'll see a ton of DVD sales ala Batman Begins, but that seems unlikely considering, as I believe some critic pointed out, it's made for an audience that downloads everything anyways.

I remember watching a video of Edgar Wright and Scott Pilgrim's cast promoting the film (though I think it had already been out for a while), with Del Toro, of all people, interviewing them. There was one moment where he said something to the effect of "To all the people asking why there aren't any good movies these days: Whenever we make a good movie, you never come see it."

He said a lot of awesome things in that video. At one point he defended Michael Cera's acting ability by comparing it to porn. And it worked. There was another point where he said in regards to Scott Pilgrim "Anyone who didn't see this is a ************." At the time, it seemed as though he was just telling people off for not seeing a fantastic film, but if he were to say it again now, it'd feel more as though he's telling people off for ruining his dream project. I wonder if there was any of that contempt behind his statement.

It's all so sad. All these motherfuckers spoiling everyone's fun.

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

Don't look at me i saw scott pilgrim at the cinema! And also the vast majority of the population are complete fucking morons who gawp like idiots at shit like the expendables and transformers.

 

[kickyourass]

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?

 

[itf cho]

Blame Universal for Scott Pilgrim's failure, Bob - not the public. It was obviously a niche film that would appeal to only a small segment of the public, but yet someone greenlit a budget far in excess of what the movie could bring in. I don't know what sucked up the majority of the money.

The cast? Cera can't get that big of a paycheck, can he? And the remainder of the cast don't seem to be in line for big-ticket paychecks. Not that I thought any member of the cast was particularly bad.

Special Effects? Heck... the graphic novel roots actually let them get away with some pretty cheesy effects if I recall correctly. The Director? Locations? Where the heck did 60 million go??

To me, it sounds like someone really oversold Scott Pilgrim to Universal, and the execs in charge didn't understand their product well enough to estimate the revenue it would generate. And it's too bad. With a much more modest budget, SP might have been considered a hit; and might have paved the way for similar projects - with a modest budget. And out of that, they might have wound up creating a runaway hit somewhere down the line.

As for the Lovecraft movie... darn, it sounded interesting. Here is to hoping that del Toro founds another studio willing to bankroll the project.

 

[Cheesus333]

This made me angry. Not cause I disagree, but because I know he was right.

I fucking loved Scott Pilgrim. Nothing would have been better for that film than for it to get the profit it deserved. And it was pretty upsetting when I found out how bad it did, which I later attributed to online film torrenting (that was how the majority of people I know had seen it).

But now, not only did that film not do well, but another potentially mind-blowing (in a relatively literal sense, it is Lovecraft after all) will never see the light of day. I am disappoint

 

[Dectilon]

Part of Scott Pilgrim box office fail could also be blamed on limit release

Hell I'm not even sure if the movie was released in some countries at all (like Sweden)

It did, but it was only up for a couple of days. I intended to see it, but it was gone by the time I had time to.

I got it on DVD though, and it's good. It's unfortunate really how a thin layer of video game culture makes people think it's a movie about video game geekdom or something.

I'll admit I'm part of the problem. I went to see both Thor and the new Pirates movie recently. Neither were particularly good, but at least I could riff on them with the people I went to see them with afterwards.

 

[JPRanger]

I suppose the only thing we can really do about this is just really pay attention to what movies are the unique risk-takers, and which are the safe cash-in clones. The fact is, it doesnt matter if the risk-taking movies are good or bad.. if they make money, we WILL see better films emerge, such as Del Toros project. So if you notice a film come out in theaters that in your opinion seems like it ISNT just a cash-in .. go see it .. dont bother trying to figure out if you think its good or not .. hell, just pay for the ticket and leave if you can afford it and dont think its good lol we all need to do our part here to make sure that we see more worthwhile films emerge.. same concept goes for the gaming industry. I would prefer NOT to see this industry turn into any more of a barren wasteland.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

This is why I will always choose to be elitist when it comes to pop culture stuff. At least my ways don't have any pretense about the way of things. I like this stuff, this stuff requires more to be enjoyed out of the general non-specified human, this stuff isn't being made any more cause most people aren't capable of appreciating them...and that's pretty much it.


Let's hope Del Toro gets to make his movie...maybe it'll be another LoTR style hit, who knows, Avatar was pretty niche on paper too.