Director Peter Berg on the set of his latest film Battleship.
One of the movie podcasts that I listen to is KCRW’s The Business. It’s predominantly an interview show where host Kim Masters of The Hollywood Reporter interviews actors, directors, producers, and creators “about the business of show business. It goes beyond the glitz and glamour to the who, what, why and how of making movies and TV.” In honor of RIMPAC 2012 starting last week, I wanted to look at a recent episode of The Business where director Peter Berg was on the show and talked about some of the fallout on his latest film Battleship.
Battleship as you may recall, did not do well here in the United States and currently has only brought in about $63 million. However, Battleship’s silver lining is that it made $239 million overseas for a combined total of about $300 million. Not bad, though not great when you consider the budget for Battleship was $209 million.
Number crunching aside, what I found really interesting about Berg’s interview is how calculating and “assembly-line” like making Hollywood blockbusters are. Schedules are locked in, release dates are locked in, and everything along the way needs to contribute in some way to making sure the film comes out on time. If not, money could be lost on a film as millions of dollars are at stake.
“We sunk your Battleship.” No, not The Avengers . . . aliens.
Though Berg never shies away from the fact that Battleship did have its share of problems and obstacles that needed to be overcome, his major conceit is that the film had a bad release date:
Battleship did under perform domestically, but none of us saw the nuclear bomb that Avengers was going to be . . . if you look at the history of the Marvel films, if you look at Iron Man you look at Thor, if you go talk to the people that predict it the people in Hollywood who, all they do is study tracking, read the tea leaves; everyone thought, everyone in the business thought that Avengers would open to $80 million, maybe $85, would drop off 65% second weekend, another 60% the third weekend so that we felt by the time that the third weekend came . . . [Avengers didn’t follow that and just went] up and up and up. And then it opens to the largest weekend in film, north of $200 million, and its third weekend when we come out it makes $62 million dollars.
While being beaten down by The Avengers is exactly what happened, there are definitely other reasons why Battleship didn’t do too well–first and foremost being, the movie was about frigging aliens. Getting people to buy in to an adaptation of a board game such as Battleship was definitely a big enough challenge to begin with, but when it was announced that the antagonists of the film were aliens . . . that in my opinion, turned the movie from something curious, into something preposterous (and not in a good way). As much as I liked the film (3.5/5 stars, Red Band Redux), it definitely was no Avengers killer–something that a better movie would have been able to do.
Peter Berg with lead actor Taylor Kitsch.
Putting the premise of the movie aside, I do think Berg is onto something when he talks about releasing the film internationally three weeks before its domestic debut, especially in China where he thinks some money was left on the table:
The poor box office we incurred domestically from my mind was primarily the result of a bad release schedule. If you look, we made quite a bit of money internationally, it would have made a lot more, it underperformed by about $40 million in China because nobody realized James Cameron was bringing Titanic 3D a week before us. That was a monster hit. When I was in China doing press for Battleship Chinese journalists were crazy looking at me like “Titanic 3D?” Titanic 3D . . . that’s an issue? “Oh yes.” [The Chinese] never got to see it the first time, they’re crazy about 3D films; so if we had come out and there were a lot of reasons why we couldn’t pull it ahead domestically; but if we had come out 3 weeks ahead of Avengers [in the US like we did internationally] it would have been a different story.
On why Battleship couldn’t follow it’s international release strategy:
It gets really complicated. We had so many [commercial] tie-ins with companies like Subway, Coke, Cisco; they had all committed a ton of money, they had a media strategy that was tied in to a release date that was three weeks after Avengers; and it just became a real pain in the but to move it.
As always, marketing seems to always play a big role in movies . . . sometimes to the detriment of a film. But would a different release date (something before Avengers in April or a few weeks later in June) have helped? Maybe, but it’s really hard to say. For whatever reason, Americans do tend to frequent the cineplex more in summer than other time of the year so unless you have a surefire hit (à la The Hunger Games), releasing before summer is a calculated risk. On the other side of that if you release later in summer, you still have to contend with the other summer movies.
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The scariest part of the interview though, came when Berg was asked about what he thought was going on with studio blockbusters that have been running into problems as of late and have been pushing their release dates back (GI Joe: Retaliation, World War Z):
I think there’s a lot of pressure on studios to take these big swings and have these big contacts and have home runs. And it’s not easy to make these films. And it’s not easy when you’re locked in to a release date and you’ve got a film that is going to be seen–all of [these big budget films] have huge visual effects components. And the reality is when you make these films the visual effects aren’t coming in till the very–sometimes, you’d be shocked at how last minute, maybe a week before a release you’re still sliding shots in, completed shots in. You don’t have the luxury of really knowing what you have often times till it’s too late.
He then goes on to talk about how with smaller films, dramas with just a few actors, a reshoot could cost just a couple of days for maybe $40,000 whereas a visual effect shot for something like Battleship could cost a couple of millions of dollars and take weeks to months to redo.
All scary thoughts when there’s a movie you want to see that’s not finished till the week before it comes out. And even then, just the decision to go with footage that you have–even though it may not be great footage or what’s best for your film; that’s gotta be tough for any filmmaker to swallow. For these big Hollywood movies though, that’s life. You have to make the release date or loose millions of dollars.
If you do have some time, I really encourage you to listen to the podcast to hear Berg talk about more in detail about the film. A lot of it might sound like he’s defending his film, but there are some good nuggets in there that are interesting to hear. You can find out more about KCRW’s The Business here and download this specific podcast episode here.
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Disney’s Acquisition of Star Wars
Tags: Disney, George Lucas, LucasFIlm, Marvel, Marvel Entertainment, Pixar, Star Wars, Walt Disney Company
Wise is Yoda.
The Walt Disney Company sent the collective movie world on tilt today with the news that Disney will be purchasing LucasFilm Ltd for approximately $4 billion. The sale includes everything under the LucasFilm Ltd umbrella including the LucasFilm film unit, LucasArts video game unit, effects house Industrial Light and Magic, Skywalker Sound, and most prominent among them–the rights to the entire Star Wars universe. Perhaps the biggest news to come out of the whole deal is that Disney is kicking the tires on Star Wars: Episode 7 and is targeting a 2015 release with potentially more episodes to come.
Needless to say, this is some huge news that is already prompting a lot talk, buzz, and speculation about everything under the collective sun at Disney and especially the future of the Star Wars franchise.
Disney: Buying vs Creating
From a financial and business standpoint the purchase of LucasFilm makes perfect sense for Disney. They get to add another recognizable and family friendly name brand to their already large stable of family friendly name brand characters. The tactic of acquiring other name brands has served Disney well in the past 6 years. After a ten year relationship with Pixar dating back to the first Toy Story, Disney acquired Pixar Animation Studios in 2006 for $7.4 billion in stocks. Then in 2009 Disney announced that they would be acquiring Marvel Entertainment in a deal for $4.24 billion which would bring Marvel’s character’s into the Disney fold and gave birth to this year’s mega-blockbuster The Avengers. Now, three years later Disney has done it yet again and on similar terms with their acquisition of LucasFilm.
Over the past six years Disney has positioned themselves as THE center for lucrative family entertainment. In this time there definitely has been a shift at Disney from content creation to acquisition and becoming a repository for similar properties. Yes at the end of the day all these decisions are about how these properties will make the company money, but what does this say about the company itself?
Walt Disney was long gone by the time I was born, but I grew up watching the classics like Bambi, Dumbo, Cinderella and then experienced the second golden age of Disney animation with great films like Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and Lion King. After that last run though, things definitely take a different turn. As I got older it seemed as though every Disney movie was getting direct to video sequels and you could start to tell that they weren’t coming out with as much quality original content as they had in the past.
I guess you could say that the company is just changing with the times and their acquisitions over the past six years only reflect this change. In fact, if you look at the current trends in Hollywood right now where sequels, adaptions, remakes, and reboots are all the norm . . . acquiring the rights to Star Wars (ie: acquiring familiarity) totally makes sense. My biggest fear is that the next generation of kids/movie fans may not have anything to call their own if this current trend of rehashing and retelling stories from their parents’ past continues. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m down to see another Star Wars movie as much as the next person, but I’ve grown up in a world where the Original Trilogy meant something. I don’t think that could be said of those who grew up in a world where Jar Jar and angsty Anakin could have been their first introduction to the Star Wars universe.
What Comes Next For Disney, Star Wars, and Everything Else?
The Force is with Disney when you combine Star Wars with the collective power of the mouse house.
With today’s news comes a ton of questions, not just about the proposed film, but about how all of Disney’s properties could potentially intermingle with one another and the partnerships and creative projects that could be created.
First and foremost is Episode 7 itself. With a projected target date of 2015 (assume a summer release), production would have to start towards the end of next year (at the latest) in order to make this date. Is there anything currently in development right now? Is there a script or even a screenplay at this point? What would it be about? From a production standpoint who would be involved?
One of the most interesting nuggets from today’s news announcement is that George Lucas will serve as “creative consultant” on Episode 7 which means that he most likely will not be directing and only give creative input into the film. With that said who will screen write the story if there already isn’t one? Who will direct the film? And gulp . . . who will star in it? These are all questions that are currently circulating, answers for which I don’t think we’ll get for at least another year. However, that’s not stopping the movie blogosphere from already suggesting recommendations.
I know many Star Wars fans were disenfranchised when the new trilogy came out and continuously still when Lucas again altered the Original Trilogy when they were released on blu-ray. With today’s news that Lucas will be relegated to a supportive role rather than grand master on upcoming films I think is the reason why there is a lot of renewed interest and hope that Star Wars can be good again. Our first recommendation . . . friend of the blog and local screenwriter Brian Watanabe should be in the writer’s room on Episode 7, 8, or 9. After all, he did give some pretty good ways to remake the the prequels that made for some pretty good drama. With new Star Wars films a certainty, the question now will be: Will they be better than the prequels?
Sort of the next tier I guess is how this latest Star Wars film and the franchise itself will affect Hollywood. Star Wars has influenced so many filmmakers working today that who knows how many will jump at the chance to not just work on this film or any of the future films in the pipeline, or how many will make pitches to Disney for potential projects now that George Lucas is not controlling the reigns. Who knows, maybe Indiana Jones could come back for another tour. Granted, some of this this is all pie in the sky at this point, but when you live in a world where creative access to Star Wars and other Lucas related properties maybe viable, you can’t help but be excited by the possibilities.
Then comes the potential across the Disney landscape and the potential for cross collaboration, crossovers, and synergy between these Disney properties and creative units. Probably the first thing that jumps out with fanboys is that theoretically Pixar Animation could do an animated movie set within the Star Wars universe. With their track record for great storytelling and a focus on characters this could be a great project. However, this is what everyone said three years ago when Disney acquired Marvel . . . a Marvel movie done by Pixar, that’d be great! Three years later though we’re no closer to seeing the beginnings of this than when we were back then. And don’t even get me started on Marvel or Star Wars characters crossing over. I don’t think the universes should mix at all. However, the long talked about Star Wars TV show could get some life breathed into it seeing as how Disney owns ABC as well as a slew of other different TV channels. Only time will tell if any of this comes to fruition.
My (New) Hope . . .
In the grand scheme of things, I think Disney could possibly be the right place for the Star Wars franchise. There are some circumstantial numbers out there to prove it. If there is one thing Disney is smart about these days, they know how to foster success; you only have to take a look at their previous two high profile acquisitions to see that. With both Pixar and Marvel, both of those divisions have retained their internal structure and autonomy from when they were acquired. I mean, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it right? With the internal development process that goes on at Pixar, it could have been a disaster if Disney chose to fully integrate them into the Disney brand. Same goes with Marvel. They seem to have a pretty good formula going as they craft and produce the Avengers line of films. The way Marvel vets stories and personnel seems genius in this post-Avengers world.
And I hope the same goes for LucasFilm and Star Wars. I hope that Disney takes what they’ve learned and gained from their previous acquisitions and applies that same management style to their latest. If they can do that, then I think that galaxy far far away will be just fine.