The last decade plus tells me that Sony will never learn that lesson.
Look at all the Spider-man films. Look at Men in Black 3. Look at the various $80-120M comedies (not action/adventure comedies either. Just people talking comedies).
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BO 0715-1716 - Ghostbusters bows but Pets bow wow, Dory rekts Shrek for DOM record
- Thread starter xaosslug
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The last decade plus tells me that Sony will never learn that lesson.
Look at all the Spider-man films. Look at Men in Black 3. Look at the various $80-120M comedies (not action/adventure comedies either. Just people talking comedies).
MIB 3 did good numbers but the budget was crazy. Should have been sub 200M and call it a day.
LUFTRAUSER
Banned
$150mil is pretty much the average for big special-effects laden movies like this, right? I don't think they can lower the budget much.
And yet, here we are, where a lot of people feel like they were lumped in with the "ain't no bitches gonna hunt no ghosts crowd" because they thought the the trailer kind of sucked, the GB super fans have created some sort of conspiracy theory where the movie was "stolen" from Ivan Reitman based on the Sony emails, and more people wer willing to pay to see last weeks talking dog movie in its opening weekend.
Sony and Feig never should have tried to attach an agenda to the movie. I don't think casting four women was a big problem, but the way they reacted to the reaction to that was. It might have been cathartic to call out your trolls on Twitter, and go on TV and make fun of them, but now your press tour is no longer about whether or not the movie is good, it's about something else entirely. Now, reviews or your decision to go see the movie are votes in whether or not girls are better or boys are better.
It's neat that Paul Feig thinks it's fantastic that he made a Summer blockbuster starring four women three of whom are 40+, but frankly, he should have waited until the film was a smashing success before crowing about it, because it gave his film an agenda that turns some people off for different reasons, ranging from "I don't agree with this agenda" to "we didn't get the best possible version of Ghostbusters because the director cares more about his agenda".
In reality, the Pre-release press should have been variations of "I just wanted to find the four best people for the Ghostbusters reboot, that captured the spirit and chemistry that the original team had, and thats these four actresses. Watch the movie and I'm sure you'll agree that this new team of Ghostbusters has much of the charm and chemistry everybody loved in 1984."
Editorials pleading for women to go see Ghostbusters as a blow against the patriarchy are not really helpful. Compare this to Star Wars, where they didn't really focus pre-release on the fact that the none of the new main characters were white males, and instead focused on how Star Wars it was. Its an important milestone thatwe can have blockbuster films with no or few white male leads, but Ghostbusters as a franchise is not historically about third wave feminism and neither is Star Wars. Making your pre-release hype about that is just a mistake, when they really should hav just used the valuable minutes they had to talk about the movie.
MrMephistoX
Member
Considering they bought Dreamworks animation I'd say it's a fair comparison.
excelsiorlef
Member
Well then I hope they abandon ship only after giving Feig a sequel lol.
The Lone Courier
Member
Make an MIB/ 2* Jump street/ Ghostbusters/ Smurfs cinematic universe Sony. Print money.
Same with the Amazing Spider-Man films. Sony execs even stated that they were going to try and get the budget back to ~$150M after the super expensive Spider-Man 3. That never happened. Deadline reported that Amazing Spider-Man 2 cost in the $255M range (Sony claimed $200M), with an extra $180-190M in marketing.
The reported MIB 3 budget number was widely rumored to be significantly lowballed as well.
EDIT: I will say that Sony is quite successful with a lot of their low-mid budget stuff released under various labels. However, they have been failing pretty spectacularly to play in the big leagues for several years now. This will be even more apparent when they lose Bond.
PhoncipleBone
Banned
Right now, DW is the JV squad.
Sapiens
Member
I'll put a lot of money on the idea that there have already been significant discussions behind the scenes on how to proceed after this rather weak launch. You don't dump 150 mil into the a summer movie expecting it to make only 45 in its first week.
I meant to say JV. Good catch.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
In all honesty whatever happens going toward I'm sure it won't be the last we see of a female Ghostbuster. It's got the audience that matters and any studio and/or film director would be a fool to not carry that over.
Ant-Man managed to come in for twenty million less despite needing plenty of CG and other effects (ants, action sequences, toy trains, etc.), plus it had (arguably) a bigger name cast. They can definitely save some money, and they (Sony) desperately need to figure out how to do it. They consistently overspend on their films. Ghostbusters shouldn't have cost more than some of these big superhero movies, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 shouldn't have cost more than The Avengers, Men in Black 3 shouldn't have cost over fifty million dollars more than Guardians of the Galaxy, Spectre shouldn't have cost $95,000,000 more than Rogue Nation, etc.
Yea the Amy Pascal era spared no expense despite the rest of Hollywood downsizing their budgets (ala Marvel and Ike). And not on just the film's production budget either, executive perks like $250k personal assistants drew criticism from investors. She was not good for Sony's blockbusters. And hell the funniest thing to come from Sony was The Interview fiasco.
LUFTRAUSER
Banned
Well, if that's the case than maybe Sony just wastes money. But even still, Ghostbusters is still underperforming, even if they had reduced the budget. I mean, they spent almost $150mil on this and that doesn't even include the marketing budget. Like I said I think this movie is going to be a bomb.
Speaking of SLOP. I saw the film with my daughter this weekend. It was an all around mediocre film from my perspective. There were some funny parts, but everything else was they stupid kind of over the top that is supposed to appeal to kids. Ice Age is way worse though. I'm not even bothering with that.
My 2.5 year old daughter sat still through the movie, so I guess she didn't hate it. However, I got a "Turn on Nemo instead" about 3/4 of the way through and had to explain that theatres don't come with remote controls.
My 2.5 year old daughter sat still through the movie, so I guess she didn't hate it. However, I got a "Turn on Nemo instead" about 3/4 of the way through and had to explain that theatres don't come with remote controls.
Plasticine
Member
Paul Feig was trying to make a summer blockbuster out of a popular IP and found it impossible.
David Yates was able to build The Legend of Tarzan in a cave! With a box of scraps!
Paul Feig is sorry. He's no David Yates.
A $180 million dollar box of scraps
excelsiorlef
Member
When they gave the budget, maybe not. But this was in the realm of Sony's own projections.
PhantomZone
Member
With how they marketed the film, if they do not make back the money they spent on it (film budget and the budget for the promotion) justice will have been served as a box office flop 
. And I shall be doing the Perfect Strangers "dance of joy" to celebrate.
. And I shall be doing the Perfect Strangers "dance of joy" to celebrate.vinnygambini
Why are strippers at the U.N. bad when they're great at strip clubs???
WE NEED MOAR! MUST GET SEQUEL!
excelsiorlef
Member
With how they marketed the film, if they do not make back the money they spent on it (film budget and the budget for the promotion) justice will have been served as a box office flop
Justice will have been served?
Dance of joy?
I guess you and 3N16MA need to bring #SaveTarzanFilms to Chinese social media
obijkenobi
Member
Agreed with this in particular. In another thread, I posted how I thought they would have been better off having a mixed team with a strong female lead, just like how Episode 7 handled it. No one gave a fuck that Rey was the lead character and force user. The trailer showing the characters doing Star Warsy type things really helped shut down the few people that back lashed against a white female and male black lead as well.
WordAssassin
Member
Oh my god I'm crying, the reaction is already gold but THE ZOOM AT THE END *cackles*This is the Ghostbusters fanbase:
It's almost as if you didn't read the OP where a Sony rep said they're pleased with the numbers and will be making more films because it's an important franchise to them.
It's almost as if you assume Sony had no idea at all that there was a negative shit storm surrounding this movie and didn't adjust their expectations accordingly.
This is the Ghostbusters fanbase:
No lies there.
PhantomZone
Member
Justice being served in that they tried to make money off of a classic franchise doing things in the wrong way (not in the spirit of the original - bad reboot etc).
Dance of joy =
.Studios always say this sort of shit.
See WB reps going on about BvS' amazing performance, and then magically finding the need to completely restructure their DC film arm like a month later by complete coincidence.
Ghostbusters didn't/ doesn't need a massive budget. Red Letter Media is going to drive this point home with their review later this week. Mike already mentioned in his RE: View critique of the original that the proton packs are like lightsaber-- better when used sparingly. Use them too often and you start getting the prequel effect and the lightsaber looses its mystic and coolness factor.
They should have had 2 or 3 small effects scenes scattered about the film (library ghost, dream ghost, terror dog chase, Dana kidnapping), 1 medium scene (Slimer at the hotel) and save the bulk of your cash for the big final (Zuul and Stay Puft).
They just made this too much of a spetical. Less is more.
They should have had 2 or 3 small effects scenes scattered about the film (library ghost, dream ghost, terror dog chase, Dana kidnapping), 1 medium scene (Slimer at the hotel) and save the bulk of your cash for the big final (Zuul and Stay Puft).
They just made this too much of a spetical. Less is more.
Plasticine
Member
Sony was also happy with how Amazing Spider-Man 2 performed and swore up and down their expanded universe was still a thing. Meanwhile they were begging Marvel to take the property over.It's studio spin and nothing more. We'll probably never know how the studio actually feels. We can only infer based on what they do next.
They're overspending on marketing, too. They reportedly spent about as much marketing Ghostbuster as they did making it. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had a ludicrous marketing budget (they were paying to put Spider-Man on every damn box the USPS was using for shipping for a stretch prior to release).
MegaManTrigger
Banned
Expecting a sequel is very optimistic, why would a studio like Sony burn through more money on a property that won't be profitable for the budget that they had? If Ghostbusters had a modest opening and consistent legs, then I could see it. But I really don't see any chance of a sequel. This is the same studio that had Sinister Six, Venom, TASM3 etc. lined up which now disappeared after TASM2 managed to make less than TASM.
obijkenobi
Member
They could do a sequel while breaking up the cast a bit. It's easy enough to say "Character X just couldn't take it anymore" and bring in other leads.
vinnygambini
Why are strippers at the U.N. bad when they're great at strip clubs???
starchild excalibur
Member
It's not abnormal to spend on marketing the same amount you spend on the production budget - especially for bigger films. It's why they always say you should double a film's production budget to get it's "true" budget.
You can argue that GB underperformed, but Sony isn't spending any more than most studios would have on advertising it.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
"Classic franchise"? There was one good movie. Nobody did jack shit with the property after the cartoon.Justice being served in that they tried to make money off of a classic franchise doing things in the wrong way (not in the spirit of the original - bad reboot etc).
Dance of joy =The dance of joy Purely because I will be happy when it's officially declared a box office flop
BronsonLee
Member
Personally, I always dance when things fail because misery loves company
excelsiorlef
Member
Justice being served in that they tried to make money off of a classic franchise doing things in the wrong way (not in the spirit of the original - bad reboot etc).
Dance of joy =The dance of joy Purely because I will be happy when it's officially declared a box office flop
Yeah only assholes wanna make money off a classic movie, like making two cartoons, special branded juice drinks, toys, toys, toys... oh wait that happened in 1986.
A bad follow up (I'm going to keep my beliefs that this 2016 one was great out of it), shit that happened in 1989.
MegaManTrigger
Banned
The problem is this assumes the issue is fixable with regards to changing cast/characters, which I'm not sure it is. Especially when people equate the iconography of Ghostbusters to the original 4 cast.
PhantomZone
Member
The second movie was more than serviceable, you're forgetting the cartoons, comics, games
excelsiorlef
Member
The second movie was more than serviceable, you're forgetting the cartoons, comics, games
This movie was better than GB 2.
And was basically the movie version of the cartoon.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
This reboot did more to revive GB than everything you just listed. Your not seeing the bigger picture.The second movie was more than serviceable, you're forgetting the cartoons, comics, games
This is the Ghostbusters fanbase:
Hahaha
A Link to the Past
Banned
Yeesh. Yeah, if you feel that Feig is talking shit about you, you might belong to a class of people about whom shit should be talked :v
bryanee
Member
I don't agree with that at all. But to each their own.
I wonder if they will add the dance scene back in for the bluray.
There have been some recent high profile marketing campaigns that spent a ton, but that's not how it's usually done. The rule of thumb used to be half of the production budget. These costs seem to have gone up in recent years (though whether that's wise spending is debatable as they're not getting any more butts in seats...), but you still shouldn't be spending double on your movie. The Force Awakens didn't spend as much as production cost, for example. They're absolutely overspending. The marketing strategy over at Sony is also horrible. Poor distribution on some of the Ghostbusters food products was disappointing. Poor trailers were much worse. Slapping Spider-Man on people's EBAY shipments, showing half of the movie in trailers, and that app that promoted a Sinister Six spinoff (that won't be happening) if you used it during that Alicia Keys song during the credits was not money well spent on The Amazing Spider-Man 2. They simply have to get budgets under control at all levels.
MegaManTrigger
Banned
Based on what? Sony says sequel, but let's see if they actually greenlight one.
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