M & A weekend gross
Mikael Welander
bad!
Gojira1971
>bad!
Did it break Spider-Man's record?
tmon
<M & A made $59 399 at box-office this weekend. That's $4569 per
theater. Not bad!>
Wow, 7,000 people showed up on the second weekend!
Ironywaves
news:9378-3F3...@storefull-2354.public.lawson.webtv.net...
Well, it opens Friday in Atlanta. We better hurry... that's not exactly a
blockbuster film gross, to be honest.
Will
Olompali4
>blockbuster film gross, to be honest.<
Shoot, that's barely a block party film gross.
Did anyone expect cinema surrealism to smash records?
tmon
<Well, it opens Friday in Atlanta. We better hurry... that's not exactly
a
blockbuster film gross, to be honest.>
It's a miserable showing among Dylan fans, never mind the movie-going
population.
Jesse Jones
the gross per theater is impressive, which was the writer's point.
SMIMICHA637
>population.
It's actually a very good showing for a film in limited release. It's grossing
more _per theater_ than some of the highest grossing movies in the country.
This is probably why Sony Pictures Classics decided to expand its release to
105 cities through December:
tmon
< The total is small because it is in a limited number of cinemas.
But the gross per theater is impressive, which was the writer's point.>
And why has it been playing in such a limited zone? I'm not bashing
M&A, but if you have to travel 100 miles to see it, commercially it's in
the crapper.
Richard
From: jesse...@mindspring.com (Jesse Jones)
And the news on the street is that we will soon see a greatly expanded DVD
version. That may be a keeper since it is said to fill in some of the blanks
in the "story line."
Richard.
d.wallace
Does anybody know how much it cost to make?
Who paid? It's partly a BBC tv production or something?
What was the gross on the first weekend?- In other words how much
money is it going to lose? (or will it recoup it in some other way-
like through soundtrack sales or something?
Did the actors work for free?
SMIMICHA637
In the "5 to 10 million dollar range" - a low budget film by contemporary
Hollywood standards.
>Who paid?
A lot of different people, all of whom probably made their money back as soon
as Sony Pictures Classics snapped up the distribution rights.
>or will it recoup it in some other way
The movie will turn a profit from the sale of foreign distribution rights and
dvd/ video sales. This is why Sony Pictures Classics bought the rights.
>Did the actors work for free?
They all took pay cuts.
Ironywaves
news:20030810193426...@mb-m25.aol.com...
It had a lot of big names in it, including Dylan. I'm thinking it lacks a
promotional push... perhaps action figures? *grin*
Dockery
Dale Goodvin
> M&A, but if you have to travel 100 miles to see it, commercially it's in
> the crapper.
>
Just go see it for crying out loud.
Dale
Cpyle4bob
which is the best part of it...that it's not commercially accepted or spewed
out. i love the POINT that it's an independent film not made for the masses
but for the bob fans. bob isn't hurtin for the almighty $$
LikeARollinStone
>bad!
>
Yeah...not bad at all considering there were only about a dozen or so people at
the matinee showing on Sunday in San Francisco. Somewhere this movie is
attracting the crowds.
Anyone recall what the budget of this film was? At this rate they might just
break even by December.
Tricia J
(LikeARollinStone) wrote:
As pointed out above, the film cost somewhere between $5 and $7
million, and went into profit as soon as the deal was signed with Sony
Pictures for distribution.
ken
"going into profit" may be a big ambiguous here,
unless a deal was struck by the distributors to
"purchase" the film for a given amount from the
filmmakers. the filmmakers may have received a profit
on their labors, but the distributor, as of Sunday,
August 10th, have not.
as of Sunday the 10th, TOTAL gross revenues only
slightly exceed $194,000. It is currently on 23
screens in its third week of release, and ranked at
#51, down from #45 nationwide.
one may expect that foreign distribution, if it is
pursued, will greatly enhance the final revenue
dollars on this pic. foreign gates may account for up
to double domestic returns.
domestic revenues tend to grow marginally with indie
releases over time, especially if word of mouth
attracts viewers to the theatre. without a
corresponding increase in viewing traffic, indie
exhibitors could be expected to drop a low-performing
film for a potential higher grossing product.
mainstream releases tend to drop 35-50% on second
weekends, with subsequent weekends experiencing
further drops until the exhibition window has passed
and the film is released on video (currently averaging
5 1/2 months from initial release dates.) the indie
market does not necessarily follow this trend.
is M & A growing? no. can it turn around? yes.
will it likely do so? my contacts say no. their
advice is not what one would want to hear if planning
future bookings.
will M & A increase its distribution territory over
time? hmmmmm....
but in the profit zone? not even close. will it ever
eventually make a return to its distributor? only
time will tell who has fell and who's been left
behind...in other words, possible, but not likely.
ken
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Tricia J
>>Anyone recall what the budget of this film was? At
>this rate they
>might just
>>break even by December.
>
>>>>As pointed out above, the film cost somewhere
>between $5 and $7
>million, and went into profit as soon as the deal was
>signed with Sony
>Pictures for distribution.<<<
>
>"going into profit" may be a big ambiguous here,
>unless a deal was struck by the distributors to
>"purchase" the film for a given amount from the
>filmmakers. the filmmakers may have received a profit
>on their labors, but the distributor, as of Sunday,
>August 10th, have not.
>
Since the original question was related to those who put up the budget
for the film, that is what I was referring to, not the distributor's
profits or losses. I imagine they would take a longer-term view on
that, including DVD sales and tv rights, etc. It's my understanding
that the distributors would have paid the producers for distribution
rights and subsequent DVD production and distribution and sales to
foreign markets and tv networks, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
ken
>Since the original question was related to those who
put up the budget
for the film, that is what I was referring to, not the
distributor's
profits or losses. I imagine they would take a
longer-term view on
that, including DVD sales and tv rights, etc. It's my
understanding
that the distributors would have paid the producers
for distribution
rights and subsequent DVD production and distribution
and sales to
foreign markets and tv networks, but please correct me
if I'm wrong.<
essentially, you are right. the distributor
"purchases" the product for purposes of exploitation.
there may be deferred points due some of the
production people involved, but generally speaking the
distributor bears the cost of the product, its
merchandising, and hopefully reaps the subsequent
profits.
Dylan and Charles and the producers have more than
likely already been fully recompensed for their
efforts. will Sony Classics recoup their investment?
it's really hard to tell.
it doesn't appear likely from both domestic and
potential foreign theatrical sales. video/dvd? it
may be pushing the envelope to think that one million
units of this will be sold anytime soon. over time?
perhaps.
still, in the midst of all this, i'm still working
towards screening the print at my little theatre
tucked away in the great northern piney woods of the
Trinity Alps in Northern California.
it must needs be done...
LikeARollinStone
>"purchases" the product for purposes of exploitation.
>there may be deferred points due some of the
>production people involved, but generally speaking the
>distributor bears the cost of the product, its
>merchandising, and hopefully reaps the subsequent
>profits.
>
>Dylan and Charles and the producers have more than
>likely already been fully recompensed for their
>efforts. will Sony Classics recoup their investment?
>it's really hard to tell.
>
>it doesn't appear likely from both domestic and
>potential foreign theatrical sales. video/dvd? it
>may be pushing the envelope to think that one million
>units of this will be sold anytime soon. over time?
>perhaps.
>
>still, in the midst of all this, i'm still working
>towards screening the print at my little theatre
>tucked away in the great northern piney woods of the
>Trinity Alps in Northern California.
>
>it must needs be done...
>
>ken
Too bad you didn't get a copy. I was looking forward to taking a vacation up
there this summer. I hope you get to screen it eventually.
Do you know how much a theater has to pay for a film like this? And are they
guaranteed anything if hardly no one sees it or do the theaters take the full
brunt of a weak turnout resulting in a loss. Seems like a very risky business
for theater owners.
Suzie
> tricia wrote:
>
> >Since the original question was related to those who
> put up the budget
> for the film,
On 13 Aug 2003 15:38:02 -0700, dyla...@yahoo.com (ken) wrote:
> Dylan and Charles and the producers have more than
> likely already been fully recompensed for their
> efforts. will Sony Classics recoup their investment?
> it's really hard to tell.
>
> it doesn't appear likely from both domestic and
> potential foreign theatrical sales. video/dvd? it
> may be pushing the envelope to think that one million
> units of this will be sold anytime soon. over time?
> perhaps.
Is it maybe the BBC who put up the money and not Sony Classics?
I just read this:
"I hope it at least makes back the $10M that the BBC invested in it. "
from the site:
http://potrev.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Masked_Anonymous/Forum.htm
Here is the whole post that I took that line from, Suzie:
"So here's all my pent-up feelings about the movie ...
After seeing it I have basically the same opinion I had when I read
the script: This is not a movie that will fill cineplexes with butts
-- it's more of a cult/art film. I hope it at least makes back the
$10M that the BBC invested in it.
I agree with you about Bob's acting, but I think he's doing that
deadpan thing deliberately because all the other characters are
speaking for him in various ways, and he's trying not to confuse the
message.
The whole thing was, for me, very stagey and stylized, almost
didactic, like a Bertolt Brecht play ... everything in it was a symbol
for something, everything was trying to make a point, and so none of
the acting seemed quite natural to me. (Penelope Cruz's was the most
"natural" seeming performance, imho, but I still don't understand the
function of her character.) It was unfortunate in a way, because with
that kind of script, the whole responsibility for turning the script's
crafted, skeletal, metaphoric personae into real people falls on the
actors; they have to personalize their characters and give them
credible personalities and motivations by adding a lot of emotional
information that isn't written down anywhere. But all the actors in
M&A seemed to me to be walking on eggshells, reluctant or even afraid
to add much personal interpretation to their roles ... perhaps because
they were all overly in awe of Dylan and were trying to be as "true"
as possible to what they perceived as his intent in the script. In
particular, I was very disappointed in Jeff Bridges and the actor
(can't remember his name) who plays Cupid. Neither of them gave me any
more insight into their respective characters' motivations than I got
from reading the script, which was basically no insight at all.
(Although the fight scene at the end was really gripping!) I was more
impressed with the animal rassler/chicken man(Val Kilmer?) and with
John Goodman. I thought Jessica Lange was overacting
and that she should have made her character more relaxed in a kind of
Ritalin-popping way.
The overall structure of the film struck me as not being a narrative
story at all, but rather a series of music videos, placed end to end
in a sequence to create a sense of plot, but not really tied together
as a unified whole as, for example, the individual scenes in a
detective story or a love story are. Individual scenes in a
full-length narrative film do not stand alone; rather, their emotional
and ideational content depends on their relationship to other scenes.
For example, the sense of mystery in a given scene is usually achieved
by deliberately withholding certain information until subsequent
scenes when the mystery is resolved; tension builds and then is
resolved by the way in which the characters develop over the course of
several scenes; flashbacks heighten or decrease tension and mystery by
presenting information in a different sequence than the one in which
the viewer infers that the action in the film is "really" taking
place. By contrast, music videos are short, self-contained, highly
symbolic, stylized pieces in which there is very little emphasis
placed upon characters and their relationships. Instead, the
characters (if they even exist) are vehicles for dramatizing either
the music's lyrics or the emotional and even physical impact of the
music on listeners. They are designed to create a visual accompaniment
to the music, which is the central aesthetic component. So there's
very little suspense in M&A. There's no foreshadowing, and although
there are flashbacks, they seem more like captions below the paintings
in an art exhibit, furnishing information but not creating very much
in the way of emotional effects as a normal flashback sequence would,
either by building anxiety and tension or by releasing it as mystery
is resolved. Instead, things just happen, one after the other, and as
you watch them, they download their semantic content, and you absorb
it somewhat passively. Each scene, each music video, delivers its own
message, without much reliance on its relationship to earlier or
subsequent scenes. Each music video creates and resolves its own
emotional milieu pretty much independently of the others.
And therefore, watching the film is a very cerebral experience, once
you dissociate your own love of Dylan from the process and focus on
simply trying to understand what is happening. You understand what is
happening by following the sequence and constructing the overall
meaning out of these independent scenes, these blocks of content and
music, out of the sequence in which they're presented, and out of the
series of messages or points that the scenes are transmitting. And not
out of character development, because there isn'treally any.
I can't think of any other films that I've seen that have attempted
this sort of loosely-coupled episodic structure. M&A might be the
first. It's interesting, intellectually challenging, and many of the
scenes are really fun to watch, but at the end the experience doesn't
seem very emotionally involving.
Whether you find M&A compelling, I suppose, will depend on whether you
tend to be analytical or emotional in the way you approach life ... I
personally enjoyed it, but I'm afraid the average American viewer
won't.
H. "