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
I guess there’s more Lying Dog-Faced Pony Soldier fans out there.
The Way Back is getting pretty responses. Interesting. That formula still works if you know what you’re doing. I do agree that the trailers were lame.
If The Way Back is actually good I will be shocked. That trailer is just punishingly bad. Hardball meets Hoosiers. White man redeemed by poor kids of color. Looks straight out of 1998. Yuck.
The Invisible Man is fantastic. Lives up to the hype. Great flick.
ugh, already the second longest wait between Bond films in nearly six decades and we get another half year added?
Absolute torture. Hope they are already working on selecting a new Bond an developing the next installment. They need to keep these no more than three years between them.
Saw the trailer today before Invisible Man. Does nothing for me. Not a huge Bond fan though.
The trailer is a mishmash, the last entry was the weakest Craig but I will always hope for transcendence or at least a decent good time (I still occasionally check out new Simpsons and Saturday Night lives with the same optimism). I think the Craig run has been excellent though (I put Casino Royale up on a shortlist with Die Hard and Raiders as action manna) and hope they give him a decent send off. The series goes through highs and lows. ebbs and flows but it is always something to look forward to on the horizon. They can stop with Bat and Spider men but I hope Bond keeps going until I expire (though looking at the state of the world, everything could collapse before November).
How was Invisible Man?
It is fantastic. As good as I hoped. Highly recommended.
this real-life dumber version of ‘the stand’ blows
Did everyone else know a new Mark Wahlberg/Peter Berg movie was hitting Netflix today? I’m not saying that’s earth shattering but I had no idea that was being released today. And I try to pay close attention to this stuff. I remember when it was first announced but I’ve seen no promos for it whatsoever.
The movie sounds like a perfect fit for Netflix. It seems like Jack Reacher helped prove there wasn’t a market anymore for this type of literary franchise adaption in theaters anymore, or at least one of a normal scope.
And if there was ever a director who would benefit from not having his box office reported…… outside of Lone Survivor I don’t think any of Berg’s films were profitable in theatrical. He’s lucky to have Wahlberg pulling for him.
Was reading some speculation on whether other films will bump their dates due to Coronavirus, and I have to think that Fast 9 looks like the most likely contender. China was what brought it into the black. But now the problem is that Universal already has Bond in the tight and crowded holiday window, are they going to want to sell both of them at the same time?
And I just noticed that BOM had the runtime of F9 at over three hours. I know the charge of “that seems excessive” can be levelled at every single aspect of these films, but three hours? Based on their existing ratio they are going to need like 12 pages of dialogue to fill the time.
No I agree with all that Hcat. I just had no idea it was coming out today. Not sure if that’s me or Netflix.
Maybe they are trying a new strategy, this title isn’t as high profile as Bright or Birdbox so they might feel they can experiment and just push out the awareness through their menu. If they pull enough eyeballs simply by placing it prominently on their menu they would save a bundle on internet ads increasing awareness of its existence. Their previous big marketing pushes have always seemed to be more about Netflix than the actual movie, “look we have a Sandra Bullock movie!” “Look Netflix has the Irishman!” “Ryan Reynold! Michael Bay! We’re a big boy studio!” It would be interesting to see if they can get eyeballs on a project just by presenting it without a marketing push or a thousand think pieces about “what to all the boys I’ve loved means to me.”
Yeah that’s fair. I guess I’m still getting used to this new world. It was only a few years ago that a new Wahlberg/Berg was a wide theatrical release with all the marketing that entails. Now it just gets dumped on Netflix with hardly any promotion. And yes as you said Netflix does seem like the right place for it. But I still find myself getting surprised sometimes when something like this happens.