Distance Ed Ideas -

• Audiences Are Tired of Long Stream of Commercials Before Movies
  Audiences are getting tired of sitting through 15 minutes or more of commercials and trailers before the movies, and some theaters are starting to react. The Washington Post looks at theaters that have started cutting back on the commercials or announcing the time that shows actually start. (As opposed to when the "pre-show entertainment" starts.) I might note that my own local Warner Theater shows no more than three or four trailers prior to the start of their movies. Sometimes they even start the movie directly!
• Movies & Real Life Dept. - Crusades, 9/11 & the Movies
  Director Ridley Scott has a big new movie coming out this month, Kingdom of Heaven. The basic story looks at the life of a knight in the years leading up to the Third Crusade in 1187. It has claim to some historical authenticity, though much of the reality in the film is debatable. It is certainly told with 21st century sensibilities. But there has been substantial debate over the film because it looks at a fight between Muslims and Christians, East and West, religious and secular society. Some charge that the movie will fuel anti-Muslim sentiment. Others say that it sanitizes the behavior of either the Muslims or the Christians. But the big dispute, the core issue, is that movie director Ridley Scott is presenting what many will accept as the definitive version of history rather than historians. (Washington Post)
  
  This connects to what has been an on-going conflict - how true does "based on a true story" have to be? Let's face it, it's one thing to rewrite the reality of a millennium ago. But what about when you rewrite what's happened in the last 20 years? Think about Scott's own Black Hawk Down, or Wolfgang Petersen's The Perfect Storm. Both deal with real events that have been fictionalized to a lesser or greater extent. With The Perfect Storm, the filmmaker had no choice but to fictionalize the story as no one lived to tell what actually happened on the fishing boat Andrea Gale. And yet the story in the movie deals with real people who left behind real survivors.
• Surviving Blair Witch - What Do You Do For
  An Encore?
  When we last looked at the three student filmmakers who created the monster hit Blair Witch Project there were doing..... Nothing? A look at what the folks who made the most profitable movie of all time are doing now. Say what you like about Blair Witch (I thought it was great!), the movie showed that Americans were hungry for something different from the standard blow-em-up summer movie. (Washington Post)
• Penguins Clobber Robot Airplane
  I went to see the documentary March of the Penguins over the weekend, and it's no mystery why this short documentary is bringing in young and old to the theaters. It has everything -- life, death, love, loss, killer albatrosses and sea lions.... Seriously, this is one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen this summer. It's the story of the conception, birth, and adolescence of a generation of penguins on an ice shelf on the coast of Antarctica. The incredible thing about this movie, from a mass comm perspective, is that this last weekend, after being in release for seven weeks, it is now the number six movie in the country, and has made more than $26 million, making it the second highest-grossing non-IMAX documentary. (As for my headline -- Penguins did $7.1 mil this weekend; Stealth did $5.9 mil. There is indeed some justice in the world!) Though it has gotten great reviews, the movie really demonstrates the incredible value of word-of-mouth
• Why Did Hollywood Bomb in 2005?
  It's no secret that the Hollywood movie box office was down in 2005 compared to previous years. There have been a number of theories why this is so. Movie critic Michael Medved, writing in USA Today, says the problem is too many liberals in Hollywood making movies that are out of touch with American values. (Medved criticizes Michael Moore, who might deserve criticism; but Moore has undoubtedly been wildly commercially successful. He praises Mel Gibson's The Passion, another undoubtedly successful movie that was also one of 2004's most violent films. As I see it, the thread of commonality here is that both were passionate films made by filmmakers who cared more about their vision than the marketplace.) USA Today's readers gave a variety of responses to Medved's commentary, saying that movie attendance is down because of bad behavior of audiences, offensive content, derivative plots, and the rise of DVDs.
  
  So what was successful last summer? The R-rated comedy Wedding Crashers was been successful beyond any predictions. Why? Apparently because audiences are hungry for raunchy comedies.
  
  A recent interview with the team who wrote the raunchy comedy Wedding Crashers suggests that it is a failure of nerve that is afflicting the box office, not inappropriate content/DVDs/file sharing. The writers point out that they had to really push to keep Wedding Crashers R-rated rather than taming it down to the more marketing-correct PG-13. And this notion really disturbing. Because let's face it: the movie is still going to be pretty rude at PG-13, but it will then be readily available to teens. But if it is R, it is - at least in the theaters - limited to marginal adults. The gamble paid off, with Crashers being a huge summer hit.
  
  Authors Steve Faber and Bob Fisher explain why they wanted it to be R-rated, along with how the movie is about class conflict and is actually a tribute to the screwball comedies of the 1930s. They also noted that the audience skewed much older and more female than anyone had expected. I was astounded by this interview from KCRW's wonderful interview show The Treatment and urge you to listen to either the streaming content (linked to above) or the podcast.
  
  
  
  
  But on the other hand, the G-rated documentary March of the Penguins has been another surprise success, going from art house release to being a Top-10 hit. No, it hasn't made a ton of money, but it didn't cost much to make, either. On the third hand, $100 million budget action flick Stealth is bombed, making only $13 mil its first weekend out.
  
• Napoleon's Dynamite With Marketers
  Indie teen film Napoleon Dynamite took everyone by surprise when it became a big hit last year. It cost $400.000 to make and brought in $50 million at the box office and more than $100 million in DVD sales. And it is now the darling of the licensed merchandise market. Apparently being uncool has never been so cool! (I didn't know that the omnipresent "Vote for Pedro" shirts were from the movie.) (Washington Post)
  
• Wedding Crashers Explain What's Wrong With The Movie Industry Today
  One issue that's received extensive coverage here over the last year is why Hollywood is in a long-term box office decline. As I mentioned, there have been charges that too many liberals are making movies, DVDs come out too soon, and there's too much file sharing.
  
  
  As a side issue, I've heard charges of how Brokeback Mountain is the critics' darling but is bombing at the box office. Funny, a movie that cost $14 million to make and has brought it $32 million so far to date is not a bomb. Do I think it will cross $100 million boundary often used to describe a monster hit? Probably not. But my economics classes taught me it's not the gross that matters, it's the return on investment. Most producers would love to see box office at 200 percent of production costs.
• • Everyone's Gone To The Movies Dept.
    There's been so much serious news to talk about as of late that I haven't had a chance to do a single entry on the movies all through Oscar season. Unless something really big happens, we're going to the movies this week.
    • Why are Brokeback Mountain and March of the Penguins the Two Most Impressive Box Office Performances of 2005?
      According to Box Office Mojo, the promotion, distribution, and content of these two very different movies brought people out to see offbeat (gay cowboys and penguins!) movies that were relatively inexpensive to make and that no one thought would be particularly successful. For the record, Brokeback cost about $14 million and has brought in $73 million so far. Penguins cost $1 million for the US distribution rights to the French documentary, and it brought in $77 mil. But what delights me about the two films more than anything else is that they absolutely defy all the ideologues on what is wrong with the movies today. A fascinating look at the 10 movies that had the most impact on the box office in 2005. They aren't necessarily the biggest, though some are; they aren't necessarily the best, though some are; but they did make a difference when it came to the box office. Must read.
    • Why Munich Won't Let Go Of Me
      Munich, Steven Spielberg's revenge story about the 1972 Olympic massacre, was not my favorite movie of 2005, but it is the one that has stuck with me the most. I think the reason it has done so is because it deals with the cost of vengeance - not so much in terms of money, though it is expensive - but on the soul.
      
      Eric Bana plays an Israeli intelligence agent name Avener who realizes that he gradually loses his humanity as he and his team hunt down and kill the members of Black September who planned and implemented the massacre.
      
      What makes the movie so disturbing is how we see Avener as both a caring husband and a killer. The film is unusual in that it is a Spielberg film with two memorable sex scenes - one with an innocent Avener making happy love to his pregnant wife; the other is a desperate Avener seeking (and not finding) peace in his wife's bed while images of the massacre are intercut with their coupling. The link above is to a blog entry by Jim Emerson on Roger Ebert's web site that deals with the controversy surrounding this deeply disturbing scene.
      
      But do yourself a favor and watch this movie. See for yourself what all the fuss is about. Just don't expect to leave the theater with any level of comfort.
      
      
• Everyone's Gone To The Movies Dept. - Why Did Hollywood Had a Bad Year?
  With the Oscars coming up this weekend, there’s been lots of talk about what a disastrous year Hollywood had in 2005.  Why disastrous?  The 2005 box office was down six percent from the year before.  According to the web site Box Office Mojo, this is the first time since 1991 that there’s been a dip in revenue from one year to the next. 
  
  There have been a lot of explanations of what’s wrong with the movie business.  Conservative critics say that Hollywood is too liberal and is making movies that don’t appeal to the American public.  I don’t know.  The raunchy comedy The Wedding Crashers, which emphatically earned its “R” rating, brought in $209 million.  On the other hand, the Christian themed The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe brought in $288 million.   Call it a tie when it comes to political morality. (For the record, I have not seen Wedding Crashers; I did see and like Narnia.)
  
  Others have claimed that the problems are too many sequels and remakes.  A quick look at the top grossing movies of 2005 shows that the sixth installment of Star Wars brought in $380 million, the fourth outing of Harry Potter grossed $288 million, the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory took in $206 million, and the latest Batman flick made more than $200 million.   On the other hand, the remakes or sequels of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Love Bug, and Miss Congeniality all did pretty tepid business, with each grossing somewhere between $48 and $68 million.
  
  One clear problem was that there were some very expensive movies that either lost money or barely made back their initial cost of production.  Take Peter Jackson’s overly long King Kong.  It looks like a hit with $216 million in box office, until you consider the fact that it cost $207 million to produce.  Now I realize that it has taken in untold millions more from overseas sales, product tie ins, and eventual DVD sales.  But while it had a decent overall box office, the domestic return on investment is not impressive.