Three films and out…

Updated on May 8, 2008 By Ken Begg 12 Comments

As an example of why studios, before they inevitably die like the dinosaurs, are going to stick to superhero-type movies* or pre-planned and bought trilogies, read this.

[*By which I mean, films in which the central character or concept is more important than a star, so that the power of ‘stars’ diminishes over the years.]

“Indiana Jones? Funded by Paramount, but to get the movie made, they gave away 87.5% of the movie to Lucas/Spielberg/Ford after breakeven. So if the film makes $500 million worldwide, no one makes anything, except for Paramount’s and the producers’ overhead costs. But if the film makes $1 billion worldwide, Paramount will make about $70 million, while L/S/F takes home over $450 million. And this is before DVD and other ancillaries.”

In other words, there’s almost no way possible that Paramount, for their investment and risk, could make enough from this film to rival what they could make from, say, an Iron Man-type movie in which you wouldn’t have that sort of insane profit participation. All this will buy Paramount, even if the film is huge, is small profits and a hit film on their official tally sheet at the end of the year.

This is why we’ll probably see more trilogies, as Iron Man is planned to be. (Iron Man, Iron Man II and The Avengers.) You lock in the talent in advance, with escalating pay of course, but not the insane sorts of monies the talent above were able to demand.  As well, if you plan a trilogy format in advance, you can help stave off the drop-off in quality that comes from just starting from scratch with each movie.

If the first film bombs, you pay everyone off and move on.  If it hits, however, you (the studio, that is) make rather more money. If the trilogy is so huge as to require more movies after that, you wait five to ten years and then hire a whole new cast to revive the character. Again, the thing is that the character is what draws audiences, not the actors. Look at Bond, Dr. Who, Batman, etc. When Tobey Maguire tried to hold up the studio for more money, they instantly threatened to replace him. And why wouldn’t they? Wisely, Maguire backed off.

The whole article the pull quote above is pulled from can be found here. It’s simply essential reading for anything interested in the nuts and bolts of the film business.

A hat tip to Libertas for putting that up.

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  • Blackadder

    I’d rather see Spielberg and Ford get the money anyway, after all the entertainment they’ve given us (Lucas is harder to make a case for after the horrors that were the Star Wars prequels, but I guess he could use a few bucks too). Paramount must think the deal is worth it, or they wouldn’t have agreed to it. That’s the free market at work.

  • I’m not arguing against the free market, but it’s a larger truth that this is why the studio system is dying under that market system. (And should be allowed to.) And just because I think Paramount made a fairly dumb deal doesn’t mean I’m attacking the free market at large.

    As for Spielberg et al earning that money, I’d be more sanguine with that if they were also risking their money making the film. Remember, it wasn’t just Spielberg and the cast and crew that brought us Jaws, it was the studio behind them. (Warner’s, I think.)

  • Ericb

    If the studios die how are big epic movies like this going to be made?

  • BeckoningChasm

    I wonder if this film will be the hit everyone thinks it will be. Ford has been on the way out for some years now and this really smacks of desperation on his part (“Please love me again everyone!”).

    I saw the trailer and wasn’t impressed, really, especially given the “Roswell” angle (oh please) and the fact that the bad guys this time around seem to the the US Army. Hasn’t Hollywood learned that, while bashing the military makes them feel good, it has yet to set the box office on fire?

    Granted, it’s hard to get much of anything from a trailer. I will cheerfully admit being wrong when I’m shown to be wrong.

  • BC — I concur. Frankly, I didn’t love either of the last two Indies, so I’m not sure I believe this will be the one to do it for me. The villains are supposed to be communists, but given Spielberg and Lucas, it’s hard for me to believe they will be. The best we can hope for is, and this would be my bet, that there will be bad communists and bad Anglos, for that good ol’ moral equivilance.

    I don’t know, it’s just really hard for my to believe that Steven “I’m now a SERIOUS FILMMAKER” Spielberg’s heart is in this sort of thing anymore. I swear, if there’s a moment where Indy tells LeBeef “I learned a long time ago that guns and/or violence never really solve anything,” or something of the like, I’ll puke.

  • Plissken79

    Actually, those “US soldiers” are actually Soviet agents in disguise, a number of other publicity shots makes this clear.

    I feared a “rogue communist” element or that the villians were actually the US government, but it looks like from some early reviews and the official synopsis on the official Indy website makes it clear the Soviets are the villians. This does not guarantee the film will be good, but at least the Soviets as opposed to Nazis are a good change of pace

  • JoshG

    Actually this kind of like when Led Zepplin would demand the lion’s share of the profits from ticket sales, but the stadium owners would along with it because a Led Zepplin concert ment a packed house.
    Similarly a new Indiana Jones movie is pretty much a guarantied hit. Basically they’re forgoing some of their profit for the assurence that they will make a profit.

  • Blackadder

    I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this will at least be watchable. I think it was a mistake to move the Indiana Jones series out of the pulp context of the 1930’s. The real pulps died in the fifties and I’m afraid this movie may also. I do consider Spielberg a top director who has made both great light entertainment and great serious films. However, the last thing I saw that he directed was the awful War of the Worlds starring The Midget Cultist That Stole Katie Holmes, so he certainly can fail. I think we can count on Ford to at least make the character work, but I have grave reservations about the rest of the film.

  • TheMark

    Guys like Spielberg have publicists and the like who monitor public opinion. Perhaps one of Spielberg’s people found Ken’s site and read what he was saying and on further investigation found that enough people feel as Ken does. This movie could be a legitimate old fashion action movie offered up to try to get on our good side again.

  • simbo

    Ken, the studio that paid for “Jaws” was Universal – hence why the Jaws bit is in the Universal Studios tour!

    And I don’t think you can really say military-bashing loses money all the time – “ET”, for instance, isn’t exactly pro-military, but I seem to remember it made a fair chunk of cash. And at the same time, Spielberg doesn’t continuously bash the military either – he put a fair bit of effort into, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Band of Brothers”, and the upcoming series “The Pacific”

  • “And I don’t think you can really say military-bashing loses money all the time…”

    Which is why I have never said such a thing. That stipulated, Hollywood has been losing its shirt lately churning out one anti-Iraq, anti-military movie after another. Meanwhile, movies that respect the people in the military, like Transformers and Iron Man, are clearing up. There is a definitely trend line there.

  • Huntress

    “Cloverfield” also portrayed the military as a decent, competent organization doing the best anyone could be expected to do in a bad situation. I remember being relieved by that, because there was real potential for it to be otherwise there.