THB #93: The Batman (no spoilers)
| March 6, 2022
-30-
May 1, 2022
"Netflix, the great disrupter whose algorithms and direct-to-consumer platform have forced powerful media incumbents to rethink their economic models, now seems to need a big strategy change itself. It got me thinking about the simple idea that my film and TV production company Blumhouse is built on: If you give artists a lot of creative freedom and a little money upfront but a big stake in the movie’s or TV show’s commercial success, more often than not the result will be both commercial (the filmmakers are incentivized to make films that will resonate with audiences) and artistically interesting (creative freedom!). This approach has yielded movies as varied as Get Out (made for $4.5 million, with worldwide box office receipts of more than $250 million), Whiplash (made for $3.3 million, winner of three Academy Awards), The Invisible Man (made for $7 million, earned more than $140 million) and Paranormal Activity (made for $15,000, grossed more than $190 million).From the beginning, the most important strategy I used to persuade artists to work with me was to make radically transparent deals: We usually paid the artists (“participants” in Hollywood lingo) the absolute minimum allowable by union contracts upfront, with the promise of healthy bonuses based on actual box office results—instead of the opaque 'percentage points' that artists are usually offered. Anyone can see box office results immediately, so creators don’t quarrel with the payouts. In fact, when it comes time for an artist to collect a bonus based on box office receipts, I email a video clip of myself dropping the check off at FedEx to the recipient."
Jason Blum Sees Room For "Scrappier" Netflix
| April 30, 2022
"As a critic Gavin was entertaining, wry, questioning, sensitive, perceptive"
Critic-Filmmaker Gavin Millar Was 84; Films Include Cream In My Coffee, Dreamchild
April 29, 2022
| January 24, 2022
DP/30 Audio: Bombshell, Jay Roach
| December 13, 2019
DP/30 Audio: The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Jonathan Majors
| December 4, 2019
DP/30 Audio: The Mustang, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
| December 4, 2019
So we’ve come to another decade. I like lists and wanted to get a best movies of the decade thread going with the MCN community. I’ll start things off. (If this has been started elsewhere I apologize)
1. Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood (Tarantino, 2019)
2. Black Swan (Aronofsky, 2010)
3. War Horse (Spielberg, 2011)
4. The Master (Anderson, 2012)
5. Drive (Refn, 2011)
6. Hacksaw Ridge (Gibson, 2016)
7. The Dark Knight Rises (Nolan, 2012)
8. The Tree of Life (Malick, 2011)
9. Ex Machina (Garland, 2015)
10. Inside Llewyn Davis (Coen brothers, 2014)
Top 5 performances
1. Natalie Portman, Black Swan
2. Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
3. Marion Cotillard, The Immigrant
4. Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
5. Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street
Ever since I walked out of the theater after seeing Black Swan it has been my unquestioned best of the decade until this summer when I saw Once Upon a Time. I’ve got to give it up to Quentin recency bias be damned. I did not think he was capable of making a movie this great again after a string of underwhelming movies for me. This is a truly great work that celebrates all I love about movies.
My Top 10 of the decade in no particular order:
Boyhood
Drive
Zero Dark Thirty
Roma
Phantom Thread
Blade Runner 2049
True Grit
Interstellar
Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
Everybody Wants Some!!
…something like that. probably forgetting a couple things, and tons of stuff I haven’t seen.
Have no problem at all with the Oscar noms, but feel bad that A24 didn’t get any traction on anything. After winning for Moonlight so soon into their existence they seemed like they would be a perennial contender. Not that they didn’t have a good year both critically and financially, but that’s got to be a kick in the teeth to not be able to put anything sexier than cinematography into the crowd.
So that big community of people who used to post on the Hot Blog constantly never resurfaced? I thought there’d be 100 comments on here. Where’d everybody go? Did all of that old-school crew who was on here commenting every day for years not return after the re-design, or am I just in the wrong place?
The BYOB is a little hard to find. Only yesterday did I see this even though I visit MCN almost daily. I’ve been posting in the comments section for the stories that are at the top of the home page. I never scrolled down far enough to see the BYOB. Not sure if that’s an issue for anyone else. Long live A24. Uncut Gems > OUATIH. Not even close.
So based on the early reviews it appears that the only two people in the world who will enjoy Doolittle are Kevin Reynolds and Costner, who at least were able to make their $170 million debacle for Universal coherent and a little interesting (and a wee bit profitable). Universal’s strengths are always in the small and midrange size films (or growing large) and whenever they go REAL BIG out of the gate they get hit by a truck. Do they have a lot of turnover in their ranks or just no institutional memory? You would think after Battleship, 47 Ronin and Mortal Engines they would think “Damn, lets never do that again.”
Good point Hcat. Were they that confident in RDJ’s ability to draw people in? And if so, why? Not exactly a track record of huge box office success outside of the MCU.
It was probably elements came together and they lost control. Hey we have the rights to the IP which targets at the lucrative family audience and has potential for sequels, hey one of the few big stars left wants to do it, we have a tentpole on paper even if the script isn’t on paper yet. Basically whatever reasoning that also led Warners to greenlight Pan a few years ago (though to be fair Warners has a much better track record birthing these budget busters than Uni).
They could fit an entire year of Blumhouse and Packer sized films into this budget, which out outgross this even if it was a success.
I’m still lurking. Just hasn’t been much to respond too. But now that Stella and done others have returned I’ll be around FWIW. I’m having carpal tunnel surgery on my right hand tomorrow so may not be posting for a while but I’ll be reading
And for the record by Favorite film of 2019 us still Midsommar and my favorite if the decade is still The Witch. 1917 was pretty great. JoJo Rabbit I want to love more than I did. Uncut Gems rocked me (Bogosian is SO FREAKING GOOD. DEVASTATING EVEN). Episode 9 was….just fine but so slap dash and utterly forgettable. Can’t wait for Gretal.
Off work 5-6 weeks. Lots to watch. Roll on 2020.
Hey Bill good luck with your surgery hope it goes well.
Hope the surgery went well. I don’t know if its the case with you but I have a outpatient procedure I am looking forward to tomorrow since it means an inarguable day off of work, 5-6 weeks sound luxurious as long as its not painful and you still have some sort of compensation. Hope all goes swimmingly, and you fill your recovery with films.
So one of the links on the main page was about how Disney finds the word Fox to toxic to continue to use it so after 85 years they are back to Twentieth Century Pictures (which given the current date makes even less sense). They will be keeping the fanfare though, so that’s something, now they just have to make films deserving of it (not that the old regime exactly went out with a bang, why in the world would you make Call of the Wild with a fake fucking dog?).
And not for nothing but there is something comforting about Bad Boys for Life landing as big as it did. I mean the formula was pretty worn out when the first one premiered but here we are incalculable years later and some star power still delivers. Bruckheimer has more lives than a cat.
I was shocked. It seems like Smith’s star has been fading. Can’t remember the last time Martin Lawrence was in something. Part II was more than 15 years ago. And the trailer didn’t strike me as anything special. But damn the people wanted more Mike and Marcus. And I agree that is somewhat comforting. Next up: National Treasure 3!
I truly hated Bad Boys 2.
But Bad Boys 3 tends to lean back to the original… it’s about the characters, not the dead bodies being thrown out of the back of the truck.
David might have hit on legitimate trend for Bruckheimer films. Bay, Smith and Lawrence were scrappy and hungry for the first one, top of the world for the second, and perhaps found the mojo again now that they are past their BO prime. His first idea for sequels always seem to be MORE! and that overwhelms and collapses on top of whatever made the original shine. You can point to the same occurrences with the Cop films (Murphy still trying to prove himself with Cop, running on autopilot for Cop II) his Depp pictures, and Gun and Thunder. Maybe now that they are underdogs again they can recapture the magic. I guess that means good things for Cop IV but bad things for Top Gun II (though you can maybe claim that Cruise is always hungry nowadays).
If Mojo is accurate Bad Boys for Life cost significantly less than Bad Boys II. Less is more and going for the flavor of the first one definitely worked. The second one is just bonkers. It’s so excessive and pulverizing. Gleefully offensive. Initially I had little interest in the new one but knowing it veers away from the second makes me curious. Looks like a good Redbox movie.
Figure that both Smith and Lawrence likely got 20 million each for BB2, their quotes have gone down significantly. Lawrence might get reimbursed through access to the craft table. Bay’s paycheck had to be hefty as well but since his signature style should be easy to ape on the cheap so that savings alone even with inflation makes a significant difference.
Anyone want to guess on the over/under for The Gentlemen this weekend. I would think 10 million seems about right if not a hair lower. But I vastly underrated the ceiling for Knives Out (certainly didn’t think it would outgross Once upon A Time) so surprises happen.
I read that The Gentlemen is tracking for about $10 million. Can’t imagine it makes much more than that. It looks like one of the best action comedies of 2002. I like a lot of people in the cast, but I get the same feeling that I got whenever I saw a preview for Gemini Man. This movie looks so dated and it doesn’t seem like there’s much of an audience for it now.
who knew there was a BYOB section (i may need eyeball surgery)