Don't worry - your movie can't suck this bad

tokenwhiteboy said:
Look at the crew...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1986953/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

This cost at least 1 million.

Consider this.. just crew (125 of them) working 30 days for $200 a day is $750,000.
Click to expand...

You miss my point. For all you know, all the crew who were there on the production days were working for free. For all you know the Producers are incredibly savvy and negotiated incredible deals on the post work and equipment hire.

Or maybe they didn't. But my point was merely that - you can guess at how low the budget was all day, but that doesn't mean it's suddenly a high budget movie. And the film still did okay at the box office.
Even for a $1mil budget, making ~$650,000 at the box office is really no worse than many other films that don't make back their budget at the box office (and there are many), and once you factor in home video sales, you might even find they make most or all of their money back. Making $72 at the box office from a $1mil budget is absolutely catastrophic, but the reality is that's not what happened.


rayw said:
Jax,
Have you ever gone back to see how well some of the recent films you've worked on performed financially vs. production budget?
Or their critical results?

Any useful take aways from that?
Click to expand...

I have not, but it would be interesting to look at. The Australian audience is a bit weird though when it comes to our own films. I think there's something about our own accent that puts us off our films (we sound like that?!) or something.
 
Last edited:
I think there are more than a few here that like to jump right at anything I post without even thinking beneath the surface...

"And after watching the trailer, it doesn't seem terrible... which proves the adage, you can make a movie... but you can't make people see it... (unless you advertise)"

What I find interesting is that it is very likely that the distributor put out (or influenced the placement) of this "news piece" in a way to generate a buzz and to push better ancillary sales.

Also very interesting to note from the BO numbers that they must have done some advertising in Turkey and UAE (two of the very first places and indie should look to distribute) vs focusing on the US audience. I wonder what the box office cut is in those countries? Since we know that theaters here would get 50% of the BO.
 
jax_rox said:
I have not, but it would be interesting to look at.
Click to expand...
Please.
In all your spare time, before Sunday. :yes:

The Australian audience is a bit weird though when it comes to our own films. I think there's something about our own accent that puts us off our films (we sound like that?!) or something.
Click to expand...
I've kinda picked up on that weird audience thing over the last few years.
Interesting about the (possible) accent perspective.

Do the bulk of your TV and theatrical/DVD releases come from elsewhere in the world to the point that you guys really find your own accents "not what we're used to hearing"?
 
Dear Jesus...

I just found Storage 24 on Netflix...

100% how not to start a movie... 10 minutes in and NOTHING has happened except a cliche empty container.
 
photon said:
There is a possibility that they never even tried to make money with the theatrical release and were simply trying to fulfill some sort of a contractual obligation.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's a contractual obligation thing involving assorted unions and guilds.

I think the distributors just minimize their damage of a known stinker by showing such it in a single theater or two, "One and done!", the go on their merry way trying to make a buck off it it through lower risk/higher margin venues such as DVD, BR, and VOD.

I see a lot of well known actors in obviously sh!t films, them likely to satisfy some contractual agreement.
 
Last edited:
jax_rox said:
I find it intriguing that Universal picked it up, assumedly for the US 'release' and then did nothing with it - Surely they must have paid some amount to secure the rights..
Click to expand...

Maybe they just had a very similar film coming out and didn't want to run into legal trouble...?
 
Oh! Sweet!
I can get it @ 43% off!
Only $16.97!

Makes me wonder if I could/should make my own horror film for about nothing.
 
Oh, haaaail!


I've seen enough lo/no budget films to know better than to NOT embody every cliche nube filmmaker.
Waaaaaay too many no budget nube filmmakers take themselves waaaaay too serious.

Big hint: Go the other direction. :D
 
I like the trailer and I've seen it a couple of times on rental DVDs. I'm a monster geek, so I'll have to check this movie out. This reminds me of Ray's thread about the movie, CREATURE.
 
Perspective:

My tiny-budget debut feature had two very limited theatrical runs. One week at a restaurant/theater in Brooklyn, and one week at a multiplex at home in Richmond, VA.

The Brooklyn theater had two screenings per day. I showed up on the day of the first screening and handed out as many fliers as I could. That was really all I could afford to do. The first screening had all of five people in the audience. I had an absolute blast though, because one of the audience members was an uncle of the lead actor, and he kept laughing loudly and hysterically, and I didn't care that he was a family member, I was flattered.

When I showed up for the second screening, I was stoked to find a PACKED theater. It was a hip young crowd, dressed to the nine, and with an overall high energy. "Wow, Brooklynites are cool!", I thought to myself. I couldn't believe so many people turned up for a tiny no-name film, and they made such a social event out of it!

But then the movie started, and nobody (save for 2 or 3 people) was actually watching. Almost everybody was treating the movie like it was a distraction. As each minute passed, I grew more and more incensed. They knew the filmmaker was in the room, and just talked over the movie. Half of them weren't even sitting down! I started shushing people, with extreme prejudice. It took a few minutes, but the room eventually cleared out.

It turns out that after the poor showing at the first screening, the restaurant manager decided to open up the theater (which has a bar in it) for group of people celebrating their friends' birthday, even though none of these people had any interest in watching a movie. ZERO people payed admission for the second screening. But hey, there was that one person who decided to ditch his birthday-celebrating friends and stay for the movie, and he loved it!

So yeah, your movie CAN do worse than to make $72 at the box office. It's actually a tremendous accomplishment just to do that.
 
Netflix... There are all sorts of low budget movies on there that I never hear of or see any advertising for, and my friends watch those movies all the time, and completely judge a book, just by it's cover alone. Can netflix help get your movie payed for? Judging by the movies on netflix, the unheard of low budget ones are just as common as the famous ones.
 
Last edited:
jax_rox said:
I find it intriguing that Universal picked it up, assumedly for the US 'release' and then did nothing with it - Surely they must have paid some amount to secure the rights..
Click to expand...

Maybe Universal wanted it as an 'unrealized asset'. Studios do this all the time (the Weinsteins are notorious for it). Buy the US rights for a foreign movie, then basically sit on it. It's useful for tax reasons.
 
I spoke to the director on twitter, budget for film was around £1.5 million,he says despite the viewings, the film was actually profitable, which to me means he has done what he needed to do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top