Rich Ross Resigns

Lee

Lee

Adventurer
Ignohippo said:
It's a shame that Clash Of The Titans can get a sequel at another company, yet Prince Of Persia and The Sorcerer's Apprentice were left to languish under Ross (and a studio desperate for franchises).
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That is purely a result of box office performance.
Titans cost about $125m and brought in nearly $500m.
PoP cost nearly $200m and made less than $400m.
Apprentice cost $150m and only made about $215m.
(Bearing in mind those budgets don't include marketing costs.)
 
I

Ignohippo

Well-Known Member
Lee said:
That is purely a result of box office performance.
Titans cost about $125m and brought in nearly $500m.
PoP cost nearly $200m and made less than $400m.
Apprentice cost $150m and only made about $215m.
(Bearing in mind those budgets don't include marketing costs.)
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Given the horrific marketing, those films should have easily eclipsed those numbers.

Still, you'd think a $200m profit would be enough to green light a sequel.

I take it those numbers don't include home video sales either...
 
I

Ignohippo

Well-Known Member
Brian Noble said:
Some of that already happened.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/b...disneys-marketing-manager.html?pagewanted=all
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Yeah, I had heard about that but this report sheds much more light on it.

Why in the world would Ross hire someone with absolutely zero movie experience as the HEAD of marketing for the studios?

Funny that her first project was the above mentioned The Sorcerer's Apprentice. She should have been let go a long, long time ago.

And Ross should have been fired for hiring her in the first place.
 
Murphketeer

Murphketeer

Member
Ignohippo said:
Yeah, I just went over to RottenTomatoes and saw the critic reviews. They are unanimously incredibly positive.

You'd think a big box office success of The Avengers would have saved him.

I'm not a big fan of Ross, but the recent underperformance of the Studios falls squarely on the Marketing Department.
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Probably the reason for the "firing" now. It doesn't upset the cart while the production is underway, and also doesn't let a successful box office prolong the employment.
 
bunnyman

bunnyman

Well-Known Member
Disney's problem is they're still trying to find the next mega franchise, as they have missed out over the years on the likes of the Lord of the Rings series, obviously Harry Potter, the Twilight series, and now the Hunger Games series. Unfortunately, they keep reaching back to much older book series that no one really seemed to have read beyond the first volume (i.e. Narnia), or they were way to old and out of everyone’s memory (i.e. John Carter), or they were based on niche gaming (i.e. Prince of Persia).
 
sshindel

sshindel

The Epcot Manifesto
Ignohippo said:
Ooooh! I wonder if this means The Avengers sucks too! After all, it was just screened a couple of days ago. He may have seen it and realized he'd have 2 flops in a row. If it was great, I can't imagine he wouldn't hope he could save his job.

Hopefully, this will mean Marvel can finally have some consistency with directors now.
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Last news report I saw, The Avengers was currently tracking to have an opening weekend north of $150 million, which I believe will be far from a flop. Initial reactions have been overwhelmingly positive.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/the-avengers-dark-knight-rises-box-office-312398
 
I

Ignohippo

Well-Known Member
bunnyman said:
Disney's problem is they're still trying to find the next mega franchise, as they have missed out over the years on the likes of the Lord of the Rings series, obviously Harry Potter, the Twilight series, and now the Hunger Games series. Unfortunately, they keep reaching back to much older book series that no one really seemed to have read beyond the first volume (i.e. Narnia), or they were way to old and out of everyone’s memory (i.e. John Carter), or they were based on niche gaming (i.e. Prince of Persia).
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You have to take a chance somewhere. By your logic, Lord Of The Rings wouldn't have been made a movie either.

There have been two problems, (A) the movies have been good, but not great; and (B) the marketing has totally stunk.

All of their recent movies have all suffered from one problem or another:
• Prince Of Persia was hamstrung by the casting of a lead actor who was completely unbelievable in the role (even though he did a very good job)
• Tron had all of the potential but was let down by its script
• John Carter was destroyed by marketing that only showed elements that looked like things we'd already seen in other movies
• Sorcerer's apprentice suffered from "Nic Cage" backlash, and the marketing didn't show how much fun the movie really was
• They put the Muppets on everything but forgot to show that the movie was actually good in their commercials. It got great reviews, yet they never took advantage of it in their marketing. They seemed to think just putting The Muppets all over tv for a few weeks would drive everyone to the theaters. They forgot to market the actual movie.
 
captainkidd

captainkidd

Well-Known Member
sshindel said:
Last news report I saw, The Avengers was currently tracking to have an opening weekend north of $150 million, which I believe will be far from a flop. Initial reactions have been overwhelmingly positive.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/the-avengers-dark-knight-rises-box-office-312398
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There are 2 problems with The Avengers:

1.It will be very front-loaded, meaning everyone that wants to see it will see it first and second weekend. It won't have long legs at the box office like The Hunger Games has.

2.The production budget alone is said to be around $250 million. Lord only knows what marketing costs are.

No doubt, it will be a big hit at the box office, but that doesn't mean big revenue for Disney.
 
xdan0920

xdan0920

Think for yourselfer
captainkidd said:
There are 2 problems with The Avengers:

1.It will be very front-loaded, meaning everyone that wants to see it will see it first and second weekend. It won't have long legs at the box office like The Hunger Games has.

2.The production budget alone is said to be around $250 million. Lord only knows what marketing costs are.

No doubt, it will be a big hit at the box office, but that doesn't mean big revenue for Disney.
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Why do you think this?
 
Gregoryp73

Gregoryp73

Active Member
captainkidd said:
There are 2 problems with The Avengers:

1.It will be very front-loaded, meaning everyone that wants to see it will see it first and second weekend. It won't have long legs at the box office like The Hunger Games has.

2.The production budget alone is said to be around $250 million. Lord only knows what marketing costs are.

No doubt, it will be a big hit at the box office, but that doesn't mean big revenue for Disney.
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Hunger Games drop off in the consecutive weeks are on par with most of the better movies of the year, but I don't see the numbers to suggest it has a long way to go past the beginning of summer...it will most likely finish above 370 million domestic. Also the overseas tally hasn't been as good as any of the marvel flicks...Still if it can pop off a 650 mil worldwide gross, that is phenomenal for a first film! I still haven't seen it, will most likely wait for redbox.

I will be very very surprised if Avengers doesn't hit 1 billion World wide...Especially with the overwhelming good reviews coming in.
Even if the box office #'s don't match profit margin% of HG, the merch will well beyond exceed anything that many of the movies this year will do. This is a x-mas list treasure trove.
 
I

ibaw

Member
There are just a few things to remember here while discussing the film industry...

1) From a movie receiving the greenlight to theatrical release there is usually a significant gap. As Rich Ross was only head of the studios for 2.5 years or so, many of the "hits" and "flops" we have seen during his time were not greelight under his direction.

2) In regards to a movies success... the box office figures we see are not the amounts that the studio receives to cover its costs of making, distributing and marketing a film... therefore if the box office # is relatively close to the estimated cost of a film (which usually does not include marketing) it would probably be safe to assume that a studio was at a loss on that particular film, at least in relationship to the revenue received from the theatrical release alone

3) Disney's marketing branch has gone through some shake ups recently and we can not be certain which marketing leadership approved which campaigns... so the true opinion we can express is on the actual campaign and not the executive who was around when we actually saw the campaign being released

Just a few thoughts before we continue to make rash over-generaliztions about any executives effectiveness at any studio
 

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