Tony the Tigger
Well-Known Member
There’s not good reason.
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Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs
- Thread starter Disney Analyst
- Start date
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
The industry eviscerated Zalev over this. Financially if pre/post theatrical is covering additional spend beyond production, they are generally getting ahead of an outright write off. It's a pretty bad business move unless you can stop a production a lot earlier.
I won't outright lie and say this movie has blockbuster potential, but it could recoup costs if the public likes it. We also have to acknowledge this is a global movie and most of the reason people really think it is going to fail (controversial statements from its lead) are going to be completely missed by the broader audience, let alone the International one.
I'm not trying to frame this as a total defence. More that I just think 500M on this production seems a lot more likely than 75-100M. Which is a benchmark it would need to undershoot to have been better written off.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Me too. It was obviously a last-minute attempt to reframe and remake this movie. But it ends up looking... weird.
I imagine if Burbank could rewind itself to 2020, they would have just stuck with actual dwarves, or whatever the term is we're supposed to use now (the term "little people" has always seemed condescending to me since it arrived 25 or so years ago, while "dwarf" seems more medical/accurate in nature since they have the medical condition of dwarfism).
Interesting. I'll have to look into that more the next few days. As of now, here's a comparison on how those two scenarios would play out at the global box office compared to Snow White.
I imagine there was at least a few weeks in 2023 when they considered that; write it off, send it to Disney+ with a whimper, and pretend it all never happened. But for whatever reason, they doubled down and decided to send it back for reworks and make the dwarves into CGI creatures instead of Portland Hipsters, and now they're sort of stuck with it.
Like I said, I imagine the level of media scrutiny will reach epic levels about 60 days from now owing to Miss Zegler's past public statements. My hunch is that it will cross the line into unfairness, even to Miss Zegler, and it will be interesting to see how Burbank may try to head that off in advance.
That said, this is why you have Media Training for 20 year old starlets. And why you keep them on a short leash.
Very good point on the overseas market. Is Snow White a widely anticipated movie in Europe and Asia? I won't pretend to know that, as my Pop Culture pulsepoint is relegated to Halloween trick-or-treaters and a slow shopping cart pass by the toy aisle at my local Target. The most international relevance I'm exposed to lately is limited to whatever the pleasant and chatty Canadians are talking about in the Torshaven Lounge onboard a Viking cruise ship (local weather, nightly dinner menu, a funny thing a local said out loud on the last port call, etc.).
Wicked is an interesting recent comparison. It did very well in the USA, but did comparatively weak overseas. Is there a global understanding of who Snow White is, and why her story is so impactful for American pop culture when you get to the movie houses of Sydney or Stuttgart or Seoul?
That should be interesting. Without doing another chart this late at night (I'm still pooped after this past weekend!
), my sense is the live action Princess remakes of the past 15 years have mostly done well overseas, right?
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CinematicFusion
Well-Known Member
From screen rant:
Gladiator II has grossed approximately $450 million worldwide, with $180 million from the United States and Canada, and $270 million from other territories.
The film’s production budget was reported to be around $250 million, with an additional estimated $100 million allocated for marketing, bringing the total costs to approximately $350 million.
Film would need to earn roughly $700 million globally to break even. With current earnings at $450 million, Gladiator II has not yet recouped its total expenses and costs.
Disstevefan1
Well-Known Member
In my opinion -
No one really knows how much money company X actually spends to complete movie Y or how much money was actually spent on marking for a given movie. If I had to guess, its probably more likely they went over budget to make the film and spent too much on marketing.
Even if we assume they stayed within budget and even using the 2.5x rule we are told to use by these boards, Gladiator II did indeed lose money like many, many other films.
Its only the blockbusters that make huge money at the box office we can assume made money.
Movie companies are simply spending too much money to make and market their movies.
Even though movie tickets have SKYROCKETED there is still not enough money there.
brideck
Well-Known Member
I think either one works. As with most things, it probably comes down to personal preference as to how one would want to be referred to.
And some of us <gasp> don't even find her to be particularly offensive at all. <double gasp>
Vegas Disney Fan
Well-Known Member
I think they’re past the point where a write off makes sense, it probably made sense a couple years ago before reshoots and advertising but they’re in way too deep now. Even in a worst case scenario it should make more at the box office than a write off would save the company.Me too. It was obviously a last-minute attempt to reframe and remake this movie. But it ends up looking... weird.
I imagine if Burbank could rewind itself to 2020, they would have just stuck with actual dwarves, or whatever the term is we're supposed to use now (the term "little people" has always seemed condescending to me since it arrived 25 or so years ago, while "dwarf" seems more medical/accurate in nature since they have the medical condition of dwarfism).
Interesting. I'll have to look into that more the next few days. As of now, here's a comparison on how those two scenarios would play out at the global box office compared to Snow White.
View attachment 838820
I imagine there was at least a few weeks in 2023 when they considered that; write it off, send it to Disney+ with a whimper, and pretend it all never happened. But for whatever reason, they doubled down and decided to send it back for reworks and make the dwarves into CGI creatures instead of Portland Hipsters, and now they're sort of stuck with it.
Like I said, I imagine the level of media scrutiny will reach epic levels about 60 days from now owing to Miss Zegler's past public statements. My hunch is that it will cross the line into unfairness, even to Miss Zegler, and it will be interesting to see how Burbank may try to head that off in advance.
That said, this is why you have Media Training for 20 year old starlets. And why you keep them on a short leash.
Very good point on the overseas market. Is Snow White a widely anticipated movie in Europe and Asia? I won't pretend to know that, as my Pop Culture pulsepoint is relegated to Halloween trick-or-treaters and a slow shopping cart pass by the toy aisle at my local Target. The most international relevance I'm exposed to lately is limited to whatever the pleasant and chatty Canadians are talking about in the Torshaven Lounge onboard a Viking cruise ship (local weather, nightly dinner menu, a funny thing a local said out loud on the last port call, etc.).
Wicked is an interesting recent comparison. It did very well in the USA, but did comparatively weak overseas. Is there a global understanding of who Snow White is, and why her story is so impactful for American pop culture when you get to the movie houses of Sydney or Stuttgart or Seoul?
That should be interesting. Without doing another chart this late at night (I'm still pooped after this past weekend!
My personal opinion is this will be the Marvels 2.0 but until the reviews start coming in that’s pure conjecture. If this ends up being a decent film and breaks even everyone involved with the rewrites, reshoots, and rework deserve a massive bonus.
Chi84
Premium Member
What are your sources for the rewrites, reshoots and rework?
erasure fan1
Well-Known Member
Chi84
Premium Member
That seems pretty tame. Aren’t reshoots fairly common? What about the rewrites and reworks?
Disney Irish
Premium Member
It is fairly tame and appears to be within the normal realm for a movie of its size.
I can't find any credible reporting on any significant rewrites, reworking of the story, or even significant reshoots for Snow White.
Chi84
Premium Member
Thanks. I’ve been following and I haven’t either. Just the same thing repeated until it’s fact.
Disney Irish
Premium Member
The actual credible reporting has its budget at $213.9M after its UK rebate, $269.4M prior to the rebate, this included all the reshoots. All of which has been discussed before in both this and the Snow White thread before it was shutdown, nothing has changed since then.
Disney Reveals ‘Snow White’ Remake Is Set To Blow Its Budget
Disney has revealed that the cost of making its live action Snow White ballooned to $269.4 million by the end of 2023 putting it on course to blow its budget more than a year before release.
www.forbes.com
Vegas Disney Fan
Well-Known Member
The reshoots are 100% reported, the rewrites and rework is speculation based on what my eyes and ears have seen and heard here and elsewhere on the web over the last 2 years, we’ve heard from the beginning how the dwarfs were going to be reimagined, only for the trailers to look just like the old dwarfs, we’ve heard how this was going to be a modern take on the old story, only for the trailers to look like basically a retelling of the old story with some minor changes, etc…
We’ll find out in a couple months, the smoking gun for me is going to be the magical friends, if they appear as the Princes sidekicks (or some other characters) I’ll take that as proof this was more or less the story from the beginning, and I’ll happily admit I was wrong in my assumption, if they don’t appear I’ll take that as proof Disney saw the massive backlash from the photo, did a complete 180, and redid the entire movie.
Unless Disney releases a “making of” documentary we’ll never know so the smell test is going to be as good as we can get.
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Disney Irish
Premium Member
You know its very possible that the original intention in preproduction was something that was outlined in the announcement as the "reimagining of the story" but that once they got into actual production things changed and they went with a more faithful adaptation. This happens in Hollywood all the time, movies start out in preproduction as one thing, but then once actual production starts it turns into something different.
This whole thing in my opinion has been a bad version of that "telephone" game most of us played as kids.
Chi84
Premium Member
I followed all of that and I didn’t hear what you heard or see what you saw. I thought the photo was just of some stand-ins, not magical friends or whatever.
I have no idea why Disney is doing a live action version of Snow other than it’s doing them for all of its movies.
The original was dull as dishwater (ground-breaking animation aside) and it’s been done to death already. The subject matter is problematic as hell (as we’ve seen from the comments about it) and it lacked a male lead or a love story (prince was in it less than 3 minutes).
But Greta Gerwig is involved so I hope I’m wrong. I do like the actors so I’ll probably see it.
If they don’t make it significantly more interesting than the original I don’t see it doing well at all.
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erasure fan1
Well-Known Member
There's a lot of assumptions going on with the rewrites on the film. I think it's because of how long the film was delayed. Most films schedule for basic reshoots, that's SOP. It all comes down to if you think that the dwarfs were always going to be in the film, or not. So if you think they added them in, you think it was major reshoots and rewrites. If not, then you probably think it's normal.
Personally, as none of us really know, my money is on major changes. Things don't get delayed that long unless they need to really fix something. Or at least very rarely. They blame the strikes, but it all points to them retooling the film in my opinion. And if the dwarfs were always there, how on earth do look so terrible? It sure seems they added them in late in the game. But who knows? This might have been the vision all along.
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Disney Irish
Premium Member
Honestly while I don't believe there were major rewrites and reshoots that changed the whole concept of the film, in the end who cares? As long as the end result is a watchable film I don't care if they had to rewrite every line from the script or throw out the script completely and reshoot every minute of film. Everything else is just commentary for those that haven't liked the project for one reason or another anyways.
CinematicFusion
Well-Known Member
Disney Irish…
no need for mockery in response to a good-faith contribution. Let’s keep the discussion constructive and respectful.
Disney Irish
Premium Member
Constructively and respectfully, if you've followed this thread you'd know that I'm very capable of knowing when a movie reaches the breakeven point. Its something those of us who constantly post in this thread discuss religiously. Its why it should have been pretty obvious my post about Gladiator 2 was meant to be humorous and rhetorical, something others picked up on, and why I responded the way I did to your post which is just copy/pasted from a Google search, something I could very well do on my own.
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