Kermode Uncut: The Flop Formula

does it live in a jungle no oh ho is it really fast no does it live on the Great Plains of Africa No what he's going on hold on guys daddy be careful on the road get back in your car right now remain with your feet I'd like to talk to you about flops a few years ago I came up with a very sort of simplistic formula I was attempting to prove that in the modern movie marketplace it was impossible for really expensive blockbuster movies to lose money if they followed some basic rules the rules are as follows firstly the budget had to be big enough that it was newsworthy people are to write about the budget that's how much money you'd spent right secondly it had to have spectacular visuals or special effects had to be a bunch of stuff up there on the screen that looked really eye-popping thirdly this was a strange one it had to not be a comedy now that doesn't mean that if it is a comedy it'll definitely fail but it means if it is a comedy it may fail I mean you look at some of the really really big money-losing movies of all time Ishtar is a perfect example or more recently town in country nobody even remembers Town & Country huge money-losing film comedy you can lose your shirt on and most importantly your film had to have an a-list on a proper a list star to guarantee success now while back John Carter came out John Carter was a total flop one of the reasons it was a total flop was it didn't have an a-list star and I've always held that whatever the problems were with that movie if it wasn't John Carter of Mars but Tom Cruise of Mars that film could have made its money back but recently if a number of texts and emails from people saying hey your rules are going to be sorely tested by a couple of releases this year one of them after Earth the Will Smith film directed by M night Shyamalan Second World War Z or Z or whatever we going to call it the moment incidentally Brad Pitt when he was over here in the UK called it world wars ed so I think we're going with that well both of those films have now opened to very different responses but crucially neither of them they're going to break my rules I mean start off with after Earth it cost something like 130 million so far as of the end of its second or third week it's taken 172 million worldwide doubt general formula is that for a movie to make its money back including marketing and all the rest of it it has to take two times what it cost so 130 million has to take 260 it's on 172 million it's getting there when you factor in DVD sales it is going to make its money back and Will Smith is a proper a-list star now look at world wars that very very much review some people really like it many people really hate it a lot of people cut in the middle I thought it was a mixed bag started very strongly then kind of lost its way I thought it was a real mixed bag now at the time just before it was coming out people said it's going to be a disaster of John Carter proportions but it stars Brad Pitt was John Carter didn't so film cost reportedly two hundred million dollars so far only bit out and cinemas with very short period of time it's taken one hundred twelve worldwide there is no way it's not going to make its money back in fact on the basis of its opening the studio's are so confident that they have now apparently greenlit a sequel now the way that the suns add up it may not take a huge amount of money it may only just make that twice the budget back but it's not going to lose money see I do still stand by those rules and those rules lead me to the same conclusion which is if you live in a world in which there are certain rules that you can obey that mean that you will make your money back why doesn't Hollywood take more risks if you're going to spend a lot of money to make a great big blockbuster movie then do something intelligent with it because the fact of the matter is if the money's on the screen if the press are writing about the money if it's not a comedy and it's got an alias star you're not going to lose money so hey with that kind of guarantee do something exciting you

Channel: kermodeandmayo

Views: 147,060

Keywords: Kermode Uncut, Blogs, Mark Kermode, BBC Radio 5 live, World War Z, Brad Pitt, John Carter, Ishtar, Will Smith

Id: LSFq7ZbUkG8

Length: 4min 27sec (267 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2013