Atlas Shrugged

So I guess you could say we've almost come full circle from the age of McCarthy and the Hollywood blacklist of liberals (aka 'communists')?

:P
 
I believe just as you do, Gonzo, but I do not see an agenda.
Critics tend to be Liberal just as those working in the studio
system and in universities tend to be. But that doesn’t mean, to
me anyway, that there is any specific agenda they all follow.

I do not believe any critic (or group of them) have an agenda to
sink this movie. I tend to believe they are all individuals who
hold a similar political view and this film does not espouse that
view. It’s also not very good so it’s difficult for me to believe
that souls were sold or an agenda needed to be pushed.
 
Instag8r said:
As far as box office reports, it was only able to open on 299 screens and no network (except for FOX) would allow them to run advertisements/trailers, all for editorial reasons they stated. Editorial reasons my ***.
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First off, lets look at this logically, without involving politics. The entire budget of the film is reported to be $10 million. When they quote that figure I don't know if it includes marketing or not, but I can't imagine the total marketing budget was more than a couple million.

What does it cost to buy a :30 national tv commercial spot? That varies widely, but it runs up well over $100k for prime time popular shows. So if you figure they had $1 million for television buys they really only had the money to buy a few hundred commercial time slots. That's 2-3 commercials an hour during prime time over a couple of weeks.

Now for advertising to be effective you need to get your ad in front of people multiple times before they really notice it - there's a common marketing rule of thumb that says a viewer needs to see an ad 7 times before they are likely to be influenced by it. The exact number may be debatable, but the truth of it is it's essentially a waste of money to run an ad just a couple of times in front of any given audience - most of them just won't notice it.

When you can only buy a limited number of commercials you don't go spreading those over a bunch of different channels and shows - you pick a few targeted spots and concentrate all of your advertising there in order to make your limited impressions really count. Additionally, the price of advertising is always negotiable, and you're going to get the best price per spot by negotiating a package deal for all your ads. When your ad buy isn't big, splitting it across even two networks will severely impact your purchasing power.

So now, you've only got enough money to advertise on one network - which one do you choose? Easy - the one who's demographic is most likely to be interested in your film, because they are the most likely to notice your ads (and act on them) in the first place. Thus, if your film appeals to a conservative/libertarian audience, then you choose Fox as the most effective place to spend your entire marketing budget.

It's not a political choice, it's a marketing/demographics choice. And the other networks didn't refuse to run their ads for 'editorial' reasons, they refused to run them because they couldn't afford to buy the air time, plain and simple.

But marketing isn't just about buying air time - it's about telling a story, and you use whatever techniques are necessary to do so. So once you've bought your ad time on one network you need to reinforce the message to the audience. Putting word out that your ad was 'rejected' by the other networks is a brilliant way to do this - it reinforces an existing 'us against them' idea in the audience's mind, and leverages it by placing your product firmly on the 'us' side of the equation. That's the kind of personal identification/investment that creates true fans of your product.

Now, to really put this one to rest, let's bring back the politics a little bit. While 'Hollywood' may skew liberal, the fact is all of the mainstream television networks are owned by multi-billion dollar transnational corporations. Every one of them spend millions of dollars a year lobbying to reduce government regulation & taxation so they can maximize their profits and limit government interference in their operations. It takes a pretty big stretch of the imagination to believe they would have any 'editorial' convictions against running ads for a film that promotes their own interests.

The situation is pretty clear to me - the filmmakers spent their limited marketing budget where it was likely to net them the largest audience. They reinforced their media buys with politically oriented guerilla marketing techniques. That core audience went to see the film on opening weekend & enjoyed it, but failed to create enough word of mouth marketing to grow the audience. Critics almost universally panned the film, which probably kept away the small percentage of the audience who might have been aware of the film from advertising but we're only casually interested in it.

Seems to me the smartest thing the filmmakers could do now would be to play up the idea that the film's failure was due to a liberal hollywood conspiracy against it as an early step in their marketing campaign for the DVD release...
 
Nobody is saying anybody refused to run their ads. We are saying they had little money for promotion (this film WILL make money because it's really not doing bad considering it had no marketing) we are saying that it had to be made outside the studio system because they wouldn't touch this subject matter with a ten foot pole, neither would most of the talent or tech people in hollywood.
 
Gonzo_Entertainment said:
Nobody is saying anybody refused to run their ads. We are saying they had little money for promotion (this film WILL make money because it's really not doing bad considering it had no marketing) we are saying that it had to be made outside the studio system because they wouldn't touch this subject matter with a ten foot pole, neither would most of the talent or tech people in hollywood.
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It's not doing great.

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=atlasshrugged.htm

Also Box Office Mojo and Wikipedia report a production budget of $20 million. I've seen other sources say $10 million so I'm not sure what's right.

But I don't think turning a profit is particularly important to John Aglialoro. I'm not sure whether he'll go ahead and make parts 2 and 3 but it's clear that the film will give plenty of attention and momentum to causes that Aglialoro supports like Ayn Rand, Objectivism and the Tea Party movement.

But I agree with It Donned on Me that the film has a significant DVD market not least in people who didn't want to be openly 'seen' going to it in the cinema.
 
Great thread.

Haven't seen it yet, but I will, and I will buy the DVD. My 16 year old daughter went to see it on her FIRST official date (yes, were that conservative, no dating until 16). She made this video in response to the youtube marketing campaign.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL0MG2Bdqo0

According to the marketing camping, every video submitted as a video response will end up on the Blue Ray.. (this is an interesting marketing idea by the way, you can bet 75% of those submitting a similar spot will drop the $30 for the BlueRay set... there are over 15,000 response! )

This is a complete "niche" market, I just happen to be in that "niche," if the film is at all true to the novels concepts, Im sure Ill like it now matter the production.
 
NickClapper said:
It's not doing great.

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=atlasshrugged.htm

Also Box Office Mojo and Wikipedia report a production budget of $20 million. I've seen other sources say $10 million so I'm not sure what's right.

But I don't think turning a profit is particularly important to John Aglialoro. I'm not sure whether he'll go ahead and make parts 2 and 3 but it's clear that the film will give plenty of attention and momentum to causes that Aglialoro supports like Ayn Rand, Objectivism and the Tea Party movement.

But I agree with It Donned on Me that the film has a significant DVD market not least in people who didn't want to be openly 'seen' going to it in the cinema.
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Not a regular conservative talk radio listener, but when I have listened for several months now it's been a big topic of conversation and delight (the release of this movie). It will do very well in the DVD market. Would not expect a ton of box office with almost no ads to speak of (I think I saw one commercial), and a pretty limited number of screens. Also, as you say, profit wasn't the point.
 
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To the whole "McCarthyism" topic we have touched on. I don't talk openly about my political beliefs (socially pretty liberal, and fiscally I think Paul Ryan is a liberal spendthrift) in my social and film circles for the exact reasons we have discussed. You have a fear of being blackballed.
 
NickClapper said:
Hmmm... I think you need to chill out a little and just accept that there isn't a conspiracy by film critics everywhere.
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I'm not a libertarian, but I do share quite a few of their beliefs and sentiments. I'm closer to a libertarian than I am to red or blue, that's for sure. That said, I don't have any respect for Rand, for various reasons.

Just wanted to make some disclosure before I pointed out the "conspiracy of critics" thing is a red herring. It doesn't take a "conspiracy" for diploma mills to churn out robots who all think alike.
 
Gonzo_Entertainment said:
Nobody is saying anybody refused to run their ads. We are saying they had little money for promotion (this film WILL make money because it's really not doing bad considering it had no marketing) we are saying that it had to be made outside the studio system because they wouldn't touch this subject matter with a ten foot pole, neither would most of the talent or tech people in hollywood.
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Actually, that seemed to be exactly what the original poster was implying, unless I seriously misinterpreted the portion of their post I quoted.

But that aside, I find it very hard to believe that the reason the studio system wouldn't make it has much to do with the politics of the subject matter at all. You just have to look to the broad world of independent film to find a huge pool of material that the studios wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, not because it goes against their politics but rather because it goes against their goals - marketability and profitability. No matter how liberal you think hollywood may be it's impossible to ignore that it's a business and industry first and foremost, and that everything they do is geared towards maximizing profits while minimizing financial risk. Nobody in the industry is interested in making small movies that appeal to a limited audience - even if it would be profitable to do so - because the margins and the total profits are simply too low to be worth the amount of time and effort it takes to do so.
 
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ItDonnedOnMe, I think you got it nailed with both your posts. And thanks for teaching me something about how marketing works in the film biz.

"I empathize...hard!" OMefingG! I really loved that. That caused a stifled (trying to be quiet) guffaw when I heard it.
 
And I'm guessing "featuring non union caste and crew" is pretty clever too. Funny people over there at that Second City.
 
Without getting *too* political, let me say a couple of things up front.

-I am about as libertarian as you can get.
-I've read Atlast Shrugged.
-I have not seen Atlas Shrugged, and I don't really have any intention to.

I've never understood why Ayn Rand has become the patron saint of libertarians when there are writers who are actually good that could easily take up that mantle (Robert Heinlein comes to mind). Rand is so heavy handed and ham fisted in her message, that I can only imagine that it would translate to the film.

With all of that being said, I think people have a tendency to confuse "I agree with the message protrayed in that work of art" with "that is a good work of art" (or conversely "I don't agree..." with "bad work of art"). Christians can say the only reason Kirk Cameron isn't a mega-star is that there is an Anti-God trend in hollywood. At the end of the day though, he's not that great of an actor and the movies he stars in are not good.

So sure, there are probably some critics who are ultra lefties who would shoot down the movie just based on politics. Overall though, I'm willing to bet that Atlas Shrugged (again, I haven't seen it) has a lot of defenders who are confusing "I like that message!" with "It's a good movie!".
 
TDME... I get your point, and pretty much agree. Though I think she is a good visual writer and I enjoy her style. Anthem is a great short read, and the Fountain is awesome looking movie.

I believe that she was marketed as a philosopher writer, where as Heinlein is Sci-Fi. Sci-fi wasn't really even considered "serious" literature until relatively recently. Maybe that explains why she is the patron saint, just guessing no data to support said theory.
 
That makes sense. To expound upon that, Sci Fi did (and still does) kind of have a stigma attached to it because of how much incredibly bad Sci Fi there is out there. If you look at something like Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", the only real Sci Fi aspect of it is the setting. Most people see the genre as ray guns and aliens, but good sci fi is far beyond that. Plus I've always found the libertarian messages in that book to be more up my alley than those in Atlas Shrugged.

I think my main problem with Atlas Shrugged, as far as writing style is concerned, is the John Galt speech. To me it came off as "I'm going to interrupt the flow of the novel and pontificate for 8 MILLION PAGES so everybody can understand what my opinion on this is".
 
I should also say, if you enjoy the movie or the book, more power to you. It's not like I'm the end all be all of what is or isn't good. I was just trying to say that if someone likes the message of something, it makes it more difficult to wrap your head around the fact that others would dislike it, and that may be where the perceived "critics conspiracy" thing is coming from.

I realized some of what I said could have come off as douchey, so I just wanted to clarify :)
 
TDMExperience said:
I think my main problem with Atlas Shrugged, as far as writing style is concerned, is the John Galt speech. To me it came off as "I'm going to interrupt the flow of the novel and pontificate for 8 MILLION PAGES so everybody can understand what my opinion on this is".
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100% agree. After about 10 pages of the same thought expressed in a thousand variations, I skipped past the rest of it to the end (of the speech). I enjoyed the rest of the book, though.
 
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