Battle of the Five Armies is a soulless end to the flawed Hobbit trilogy

Ars' resident Tolkien nerd on Peter Jackson's problematic final chapter.

Read the whole story

 

[Solomon Black]

To those wondering why the Hobbit is three movies the answer is unsurprisingly... money.

Not just greedy cash-grab milk it for all you can money, but as in "wait you spent how much!?" money. Thanks to choices like shooting in 3D and using 48 fps filming or such is the story.

If you don't appreciate how this is risky next to their box office returns consider that studios only take home about 50% of the actual box office gross after splitting with theaters domestically and while overseas grosses are generally bigger they return even less of that.

(An enlightening article on how movies make less then you probably think, though still LOTS of money when successful of course)

 

[Solomon Black]

Hack-n-Slash[/url]":3upx7gvu]

Solomon Black[/url]":3upx7gvu]To those wondering why the Hobbit is three movies the answer is unsurprisingly... money.

Not just greedy cash-grab milk it for all you can money, but as in "wait you spent how much!?" money. Thanks to choices like shooting in 3D and using 48 fps filming or such is the story.

If you don't appreciate how this is risky next to their box office returns consider that studios only take home about 50% of the actual box office gross after splitting with theaters domestically and while overseas grosses are generally bigger they return even less of that.

(An enlightening article on how movies make less then you probably think, though still LOTS of money when successful of course)

Counter-article.

FAIL.

Hollywood Accounting doesn't work like that. It has exactly nothing to do with how successful a movie is and what is consider a failure or not, which has to do with real money. Accounting trickery to bilk disposable worker bees like David Prowse (who? exactly!) out of a promised cut of the profits speaks only to the power of Hollywood unions to even make such a thing hypothetically possible and the mad negotiations that happen when you have powerful forces fighting over lots of money over many decades.

Its a labor dispute, it is ONLY a labor dispute. Because it works by the studio charging the film (set up as its own corporation) massive fees for services while actors technically work for the film not the studio. Thus those who lack any actual star power or would have simply been disposable like David Prowse (who? exactly!) can't demand a gross cut like people who actually matter. Its not remarkable that guys in monster suits or D-listers with weak agents don't get a cut of an industry profits, its remarkable they could have even the remote expectation of such as any other industry they're equivalent to disposable worker bees. They get paid whatever the going rate is as a work-for-hire, like most industry really.

The only thing that would change if Hollywood Accounting was done away with would be that the studios then proceed to provoke a crisis with folks like the SAG and do away with the entire idea of more the work-for-hire save for the biggest stars that can force a cut since they aren't disposable. In other words the current status quo but less legal trickery. Or possibly worse (nobody gets a cut!) for actors, directors, and such so that's why it persists.

And it by the way still wouldn't make movies more profitable since none of this can effect how much a movie actually makes in theaters. It might give some of the industry supported by those gross returns (not the 'hidden' profit btw) that makes it a better deal but not the people that are gambling the hundreds of millions it already takes to make a movie an actual success.

Cutting into that further would perhaps not collapse the industry but could well up ticket prices and see studios grow more conservative and less experimental. Or put another way: more sequels and milking franchise, more 3D, more Michael Bay, less [whatever you like].

I'd still rather they did away with the whole mad practice, but people use it to mean things it doesn't. Movies make tons of money, but lots of them loose tons of money too, its the highest stakes gambling I've ever seen. And going off with a wrong picture of that reality doesn't improve your understanding or arguments. Its a short road to ruin.

Hollywood account means exactly nothing to anyone not in labor negoiations in Hollywood. Its not even a secret or a lie, a dirty legal fiction sure, but people act like you should be suprised and its been going on for years.

Really all it says to me is that you can't be bothered to be actually informed. Just like how the Atlantic couldn't be bothered to get the actual actor they were talking about or even name him in that article. Since I sincerely doubt they were talking about Sebastian Shaw, though he probably didn't get much for that basically-a-cameo but he's never bitched about it that I've heard.

Certainly it wasn't Alec Guinessess got a sizable cut of the gross of Star Wars(!) for phoning in a supporting role he hated. Still the best performance in the movie you ask me, but holy crap that paid off. Also shows off well how when you actually are somebody how the negotiations turn out entirely differently.

 

[Solomon Black]

Hack-n-Slash[/url]":23veb3sj]

Solomon Black[/url]":23veb3sj]

Hack-n-Slash[/url]":23veb3sj]

Solomon Black[/url]":23veb3sj]To those wondering why the Hobbit is three movies the answer is unsurprisingly... money.

Not just greedy cash-grab milk it for all you can money, but as in "wait you spent how much!?" money. Thanks to choices like shooting in 3D and using 48 fps filming or such is the story.

If you don't appreciate how this is risky next to their box office returns consider that studios only take home about 50% of the actual box office gross after splitting with theaters domestically and while overseas grosses are generally bigger they return even less of that.

(An enlightening article on how movies make less then you probably think, though still LOTS of money when successful of course)

Counter-article.

FAIL.

Hollywood Accounting doesn't work like that. It has exactly nothing to do with how successful a movie is and what is consider a failure or not, which has to do with real money.

I accept blame for you not getting my point, since your second link actually touches on the point I was trying to make (I looked at the URL and context, but didn't actually read it).

That point was simply that Hollywood accounting inflates the "budget" to the point where it's impossible to tell which parts are, as you put it, "real" money.

If we both accept as fact that Return of the Jedi and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix did not really lose money, then it's a lot harder to use "big budgets" as support in the "studios take risks" argument.

That's not "Hollywood Accounting" that's more like "Springtime for Hitler" an entirely different scheme not supported by your article therefore an entirely unsupported statement. Its a unverified conspiracy theory and that's it.

Pretending otherwise is lying.

Not that its necessarily impossible but it would beg where exactly the money goes. The classic hookers and blow? If their investors really want to put up with that sort of shenanigans I wonder how said investors stay wealthy at all if they have so little oversight as to not catch somebody just pocketing millions and sitting on them. If they are consciously paying for the hookers and blow then more power to the people charging those rates and getting away with it.

Of course it begs why the investors don't just switch to cheaper studios doesn't it? Or some studio exec goes and starts one that doesn't pull that crap. If a market is inflated then all you'd have to do to break in (you think there aren't a bunch of folks that want to make movies but can't get the money?) is cut into to the bloat and you'd look like goddamned a miracle worker.

If its the case then it should be easy to falsify economically and collapse the whole business when nobody will pay for hookers and blow no more and demand to look at the books or they won't pay no more. What are there no CPAs or MBAs in all of Hollywood because seriously why are you paying money you don't have to?

Maybe the voracious Hollywood press has something to say about the matter because hey anything for a scandal right? Or are they on the take too?

Or maybe just maybe its because making a movie is like launching a small industry with many many many sub-contractors and all those people demand some amount of money. Because hey its their actual job and Cally's got a high cost of living you know. Or maybe just the whole industry is unionized and maybe those unions actually have some power. Remember that screenwriter's strike not ten years ago? Conan O'brien grew a beard iirc and Joss Whedon made Dr. Horrible because the whole entertainment industry almost shut down and he didn't have anything better to do? Clearly Regan just fired the air controllers and proved the unions powerless right?

That's the other side of this. Studios don't make all that much for profit margins and gamble with huge sums but in the mean time there's a whole lot of folks making money in straight up cash payment. Its about the only industry where I might be tempted to believe "trickle down" actually works almost like its supposed to, because again lots of unions and you get power players like A-list actors and directors who are not disposable that go out and demand money. They're also not the people who have to take the hit when John Carter of Battleship or Expendables III bomb to hell. It may be crazy but its a little more complicate

Though Hollywood is spending too much on these budgets the likely culprit is whomever can take a budget from the Hunger Games $125 million to Guardians of the Galaxy's $170 million. The former is both cheaper and all but assured to beat GotG at the box office. The answer I surmise from long observation is the effects houses and CGI which enables previously impossible visual spectacles but never materialized the suppose "cheap" part of the equation that was promised.

Indeed the Hobbit series almost cost more per film then all three LotR. Is that just inflation, or is CGI demanding and getting lots of money to do its always bashed (online) business that is still the key to every mega-return in the business these days.

Though perhaps its money well spent, gotta spend money to make money they say. And even then somebody is making it so if they're taking investors for rides I'll say more power to them hope they don't get sued by someone who was going to get a share of the profits and might have if the movie cost $50 million dollars less.

 

[Solomon Black]

Hack-n-Slash[/url]":11u22kqo]

Solomon Black[/url]":11u22kqo]

Hack-n-Slash[/url]":11u22kqo]If we both accept as fact that Return of the Jedi and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix did not really lose money, then it's a lot harder to use "big budgets" as support in the "studios take risks" argument.

That's not "Hollywood Accounting" that's more like "Springtime for Hitler" an entirely different scheme not supported by your article therefore an entirely unsupported statement. Its a unverified conspiracy theory and that's it.

So... you're taking the position that Return of the Jedi and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix have yet to break even?

You know I'm not. You simply can't admit reality when it means you loose, have no reply, so choose to lie about it instead.

You'd make a good corporate lawyer with that attitude, it's capacity for hypocrisy just like that as is responsible for cooking up this nonsense.