I feel like I have lost a friend.
It’s always weird when a well-known actor dies. You’ve seen their face so much, heard their voice, shared laughs and cries; you “know” them so well that their passing hits you as hard as a family member. But you don’t know them. And for sure, the death affects the actor’s real family and real friends much more than it affects their reel family and reel friends.
Whatever the psychosis related to a favorite actor dying may be, it doesn’t change the fact that a person who I respected, whose talent I admired, whose work has moved and inspired me, is gone. And I must now wake up every day knowing I don’t get to see them perform anything new, ever again. And I must reconcile that fact.
I know I’m a few days late on this, I’ve had some pretty terrible computer problems, but I still wanted to share my thoughts on the passing of John Spencer (Click here to read the AP release on his death). For the four and a half seasons that The West Wing was my favorite show on television I had the pleasure of watching John Spencer create a truly terrific character, White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry. His character was the anchor of the show, as well as the anchor of the fictional white house. He sparred with Bartlett, mentored Josh, wooed Jordan, his third season defense attorney, and battled a debilitating addiction to alcohol and pain killers. I enjoyed his character so much that when he had a heart attack in the woods in the middle of the fifth season, I had to turn the TV off because I couldn’t take it. I just could not bring myself to watch a good actor die, even if he was playing a fictional character.
I think we take certain performers for granted. You just assume that they will always be there, plugging away behind the scenes, and popping up in random projects, making their scenes the best and most entertaining of whatever project they are in. Actors like J.T. Walsh, who was arguably the best character actor of his time. Or Richard Crenna, who was so good in the Rambo series and who always put a hop in my step whenever I saw him on screen.
When big stars die I’m shocked and appropriately bummed out, but I think I’m hit harder when a lesser known actor who I really like, passes. It flat out sucks that Brandon Lee, River Phoenix and Chris Farley died before their time. And Hollywood would definitely be a far different (and possibly better) place if one or all of them were still alive. But then again, there will always be more of their type of actor. There will always be more movie stars. A good character actor is far more invaluable. They provide substance, pride, honor and hello, character, to every single movie and television show that gets produced. The John Spencer’s of this world are what make entertainment entertaining. Without them all we’d have is a bunch of movies starring Tom Cruise and Paris Hilton. And that’s not a world I want to live in.
John Spencer will be missed by many. And I am one of them. I’m glad I was able to enjoy him for so long, and hope that I can continue to enjoy him in syndication and on DVD. My condolences to his family, may they know how many were touched by Mr. Spencer, and how thankful we all are for his contributions to the arts.
I’ll leave you with my Top Five Favorite John Spencer Moments From “The West Wing”:
5- The emotional breakdown he has in the episode “War Crimes” when he learns that 30 years ago when he was a fighter pilot he unknowingly killed innocent civilians.
4- When Leo rouses the troops in “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet”, leading to each staff member proclaiming “I serve at the pleasure of the President!”
3- This line, said during a fight with his wife over how much time he spends at the office, in the episode “Five Votes Down”: “This is the most important thing I’ll ever do. I have to do it well.” I love the hell out of that line. And it’s not a bad motto to live your life by.
2- The scene at the end of “Noel” when he comforts Josh by telling him a story, which in summary, basically tells Josh that as long as he has a job, Josh will always have a job. It’s a great scene, in a fantastic episode.
Here’s the story:
- “This guy’s walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, ‘Hey you. Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, ‘Father, I’m down in this hole can you help me out?’ The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by, ‘Hey, Joe, it’s me can you help me out?’ And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, ‘Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.’ The friend says, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.’”
1- When Charlie tells Leo that Mrs. Landingham died in a car accident in the monumental episode “18th and Potomac”. What makes this moment so good is that after Charlie breaks the news, the camera stays on John Spencer’s face for a good 45 seconds, slowly zooming in, allowing us to see the emotion wash over his face. It may not seem big, but for a primetime network drama to devote nearly an entire minute of air-time on a mere close-up of an actor speaks volumes to how much the makers of The West Wing respected John Spencer as an actor. That moment, in its own way, is revolutionary, and John Spencer is the reason for it.
Bangarang… and vaya con dios, my friend.
Just under two weeks ago, after a year that can only be described as dismal (and that would be a nice way of putting it), Sony Pictures Entertainment fired Geoffrey Ammer, their president of worldwide marketing. Insider tongues have waved across town that the firing was just a veiled distraction from just how truly porous the 2005 film slate was for Sony, and not as a result of poor performance by Ammer or his department. By years end Sony will have released 17 films, with only one grossing over $100 Million (Hitch), and with no other films grossing more than $65 Million. For a studio that only last year led the studio box office race, and whom routinely exceeds the billion dollar mark in annual box office revenue, this year is a scorching pock mark on the studio’s resume. So with Sony’s slate choices in doubt, the question has been raised, who’s really to blame? This is an eternal question in Hollywood, and one that I’m going to attempt to tackle in brief. That being: who is responsible for the failure (or success) of a film, the movie itself or the marketing?
In a perfect world a movie’s quality would be the sole arbiter for its box office success. This, unfortunately, is not the case in the real world. For a film to be successful in today’s crowded marketplace it needs a combination of things: a good story, a good release date, star power, buzz, luck, and a good marketing campaign. All but the last one can be explained away by a nervous Monday Morning Studio Exec Quarterback. Unjustly, a movie’s failure has more often that not fallen on the broad shoulders of a studio’s marketing department. A director will cite high test scores as the attainment of his job expectations, and will then blame the marketing department for “screwing up his movie”. However, conversely, many a terrible movie has been saved – and by that I mean made money it had no right to earn- by creating an ingenious marketing campaign. And, equally, there are countless films which marry the two scenarios to create a unified assault on the consumer. So we know that a good movie can only be “ruined” by a bad marketing campaign, but where does the fault lie in a bad movie?
Here’s my personal belief: You can’t sell what isn’t there. A bad movie will always be a bad movie no matter how pretty the wrapping paper is. To that end, if you study the box office over the last five years you will see two distinct patterns emerge:
1. Each year several “bad movies” make huge sums of money at the box office.
2005 – The Longest Yard, Chicken Little, Flightplan
2004 – The Day After Tomorrow, Meet the Fockers, National Treasure, Van Helsing
2003 – Bringing Down the House, S.W.A.T., Daddy Day Care
2002 – XXX, Maid in Manhattan, The Scorpion King, Analyze This
2001 – Rush Hour 2, Dr. Dolittle 2, Cats & Dogs
2. Each year several “good movies” will fail to make huge sums of money at the box office.
2005 – North Country, Goodnight and Good Luck, Zathura
2004 – In Good Company, Vanity Fair, Jersey Girl, Closer, Eternal Sunshine
2003 – Down With Love, The Core, Intolerable Cruelty, Matchstick Men
2002 – 25th Hour, Solaris, Punch Drunk Love, Frida
2001 – From Hell, The Majestic, The Last Castle, Original Sin
By analyzing these trends you can basically discount the idea that the movie itself or the marketing campaign is the problem or solution for any film’s box office performance. Mistakes will be made on both ends, every year. For further insight, let me show you one more chart that showcases a third, related trend.
3. Every year several “bad movies” will tank appropriately at the box office.
2005 – Stealth, The Island, Aeon Flux, Get Rich Or Die Tryin’, XXX: State of the Union, Elektra, Rebound, Domino
2004 – Surviving Christmas, New York Minute, The Whole Ten Yards, Wimbledon, Flight of the Phoenix, The Alamo, The Punisher, Alexander, Sky Captain, Catwoman
2003 – My Boss’s Daughter, Timeline, The Life of David Gale, Basic, Hollywood Homicide
2002 – Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, Life or Something Like It, Rollerball, The Sweetest Thing, Dragonfly, Analyze That, I Spy, K-19: The Widowmaker
2001 – Osmosis Jones, Rock Star, Angel Eyes, The Musketeer, Final Fantasy, Black Knight, Evolution, Driven
Take another look at the three charts… what do you see? That all things being equal, some movies will succeed and some movies will fail, and there isn’t a standard answer for the reasoning behind either outcome. However, answers can emerge by examining a particular slate of films, and breaking down the reasoning behind their success or failure. Was Geoffrey Ammer really to blame for the complete failure of every Sony film released in 2005? Or was Sony itself to blame for greenlighting a slate of films that nobody wanted to see, and that were all terrible movies?
Let’s break the slate down one flick at a time (Not all films accounted for).
Are We There Yet? - Box Office Gross: $80 Million.
A solid financial choice, as Ice Cube consistently delivers in comedy. His films are always midrange with high upsides, and Sony succeeded in marketing this film to the right audience at the right time. Whether or not it’s a good movie is a different story.
Hitch - Box Office Gross: $180 Million
An absolute no-brainer. Every studio in Hollywood would greenlight this movie. At this point, Will Smith could do a buddy flick with Carrot Top and it would open at $30 Million. The marketing campaign was simple and clean, highlighting the nice guy Smith and delivering a trailer full of big laughs. Both sides, production and marketing, did a great job on this movie.
Man of the House - Box Office Gross: $20 Million
Crappy movie, bad marketing campaign. A failure on both fronts, as the studio put their money behind a bad script with a star (Tommy Lee Jones) that cannot open a comedy. Further, this was just one of several studios to get boned by the non-existent box office draw that is Cedric the Entertainer. Why did they think anyone would want to watch this movie?
XXX: State of the Union - Box Office Gross: $25 Million
This was a poor financial decision based on the misleading fact that the first film did $140 million domestic. That film was one of the lucky “Bad Movies That Make Money” and starred an actor (Vin Diesel) at the top of his (fake) hype. Nobody really liked that movie, and even fewer people were clamoring for a sequel. To think that the brand recognition of the franchise title was enough to justify an $87 Million price tag is pure lunacy. And substituting a lesser known star, as well as handcuffing the film with an awful subtitle, is a decision only a delusional studio chief would make. This film was the first sign that Sony was truly in trouble, and no amount of cool trailers or sweet looking posters was gonna fix the problem.
Just for funsies, here are some random facts about Vin Diesel:
If you were to lock Vin Diesel in a room with a guitar, a year later you would have the greatest album ever, and it would sweep the Grammy’s. When asked why he doesn’t do this, Vin replied: “Because Grammy’s are for queers.” Then he ate a knife to show the seriousness of his response.
Vin Diesel is not lactose intolerant, he just refuses to put up with lactose’s shit.
Vin Diesel invented black. In fact, he invented the entire spectrum of visible light. Except pink. Tom Cruise invented pink.
Lords of Dogtown - Box Office Gross: $11 Million
The first mistake with an honest place of blame, as the marketing campaign for this film was completely wrong. Dogtown should have easily made $35 Million, and would have had Sony marketed this film as more than just a grungy surf and skate flick. This was a niche film that had a huge built in audience, one that was never catered to in the marketplace. Further, this was not a summer movie, and releasing it in June amidst Star Wars and Batman was a fatal mistake. If they had released this in October, and pitched the film like a skating version of Fast and the Furious, and built up word of mouth through a limited release before going wide, Sony would have had a sleeper hit.
Bewitched - Box Office Gross: $60 Million
Another summer tent pole flick gone wrong. You can’t blame the marketing when the material isn’t there. This film was in trouble from Page One, was doing reshoots a month before its release, and the buzz was plum awful. Nicole Kidman bombed the year before with the remake of The Stepford Wives, and Elf was a smokescreen for the fading draw of Will Ferrell. This was a bad idea from the start. In other words, Sony immediately regretted this decision.
Stealth - Box Office Gross: $30 Million
This was the worst decision of the year by any studio, and resulted in one of the biggest box office flops of all time. And it was a failure from both ends, despite what Sony may blame on their departing marketing chief. Jessica Biel has never toplined a movie, let alone a major blockbuster. Josh Lucas is an also-ran B-movie actor that fades into the background (and sucked in The Hulk). And as for Jamie Foxx, well Collateral was a success because of Tom Cruise, Ray was a success because of the buzz from his performance, and he has yet to truly open a movie based on his own star power. So right off the bat the element of star power is out the window.
Next, the story. Why would any right minded studio greenlight a $130 Million movie about a talking plane that goes bad. Your main character is a special effect that no one will relate to or care about. This isn’t E.T., it’s a plane! And the script itself is so full of holes that it watches like the writer fell asleep on the keyboard and the director filmed the random sequence of letters that ended up on the page. Honestly, how do you blame the failure of this film on the marketing? What could they have done to boost the desirability? The last fighter jet movie to do any business at all was Top Gun, back in 1985, and that movie was only a hit due to Tom Cruise not being nuts yet, that kick ass Kenny Loggins song and the homoerotic volleyball scene. And also, not to make it worse, but Stealth is a terrible title that screams straight-to-video.
Oliver Twist - Box Office Gross: $2 Million
Tell me again why Sony thought giving $45 Million to an exiled pedophile to make a movie about orphans was a good idea. Further, why would anyone believe that in the era of Harry Potter and Shrek, that a story about impoverished kids was a recipe for mass market success? On the other hand, I can’t fully blame the production side, as the choice to market the film as an uplifting fable was the single most blatant lie to come from any trailer of this year. Also, the poster sucked.
The Legend of Zorro - Box Office Gross: $50 Million
This would have been a good idea, about a half decade ago! You can’t wait seven years to do a sequel to a light summer adventure movie that excelled based on the at-the-time high appeal of your star (Antonio Banderas) and the revelatory introduction of the female lead (Catherine Zeta-Jones), when he is no longer a draw and she hasn’t been fun to watch in years, and then release it mid-October when nobody wants to go to the movies. This movie is everybody’s fault, and here’s why: I wanted to see the movie but didn’t go, and that’s a problem with the marketing not drawing me into the theater before I got distracted by something shiny. Like Vin Diesel.
Zathura - Box Office Gross: $25 Million
This is mostly a marketing mistake, as director Jon Favreau knows how to deliver a family film (Elf), it’s actually a good flick, and is a sequel to a hit film (Jumanji). With a title like “Zathura” you have to work overtime to get us interested in anything beyond trying to pronounce the title, and neither the trailers nor the boring poster did anything to boost interest. But just to play devil’s advocate, the film had no star power (shut up Tim Robbins) was saddled with a bad title, and was expected to compete with Harry Potter. We’ll just call a push on this one.
Rent - Box Office Gross: $27 Million
I can’t decide what was worse, that Sony was five years too late in making this movie, that they chose to make it with no stars, that they refused to let Rosario Dawson do a nude scene despite the fact that she plays a stripper, that they thought this would be the next Chicago when even that film was just a fluke and not a standard, or that they decided to market the film by loading the trailer entirely with songs and no story explanation AT ALL. Unless you were a fan of the Broadway show, there was no appeal here. Sony dropped the ball on this one. They should have played up the story and the characters, and not the music (or the ads they ran with high praise “quotes” from sources as credible as Maxim and MovieFreak.com). So here’s another push, as this film could have succeeded five or six years ago, but could have done better box office with a different ad campaign.
Fun With Dick and Jane - Box Office Gross: TBD
This movie will bomb, mark my words. The ads are not funny, the buzz on this film is bad, and the marketplace will be too saturated with Kong, Narnia and the awards movies for anyone to pay attention to this middling movie. Also, the astronomic $100 Million cost of this film is just another reason to believe that the brass at Sony have lost their minds.
So that was the bulk of the 2005 Sony Pictures Entertainment slate. Not a one of them, including Hitch, is a movie you will remember in five years. Not a one of them was a truly great movie that just got lost in the shuffle. Yes, some of the films could have been improved with better marketing. But several, if not all of them, were films that just on plot alone should never have been made. Sony made bad movies this year, end of story. And to blame the president of marketing for not properly spinning box office gold from their shitty movies is a cowardly way of avoiding the inadequacies of the brain trust that are running the studio. I get that they needed to put a positive spin on the year, and that firing someone makes a good statement in that regard, but ditching the guy that opened Spiderman, Men In Black 2, Charlie’s Angels and Black Hawk Down to enormous box office grosses seems more than a little shortsighted. Instead, ditch the people who thought that an evil talking plane was a good way to spend $130 Million of their stockholders money.
In answer to the question of this piece, no, you can’t put a general rule on the debate. However, in this case, the answer is pretty clear: better movies would have done better at the box office regardless of the marketing campaign. Sony dropped the ball on both ends, but more so from the production end.
Bangarang!
The last month of the year is upon us, which means that we have one final big movie day of the year: Christmas. All the studios are releasing their holiday guns, hoping for one last glory at the box office- or if you’re Sony you hope that you don’t drop another bomb and clog the January 2006 books- so in this parade of year-end hopefuls we have a fresh new batch of movie posters to review. I’m gonna critic two of the biggest flicks of the year, a hotly anticipated Oscar contender, and even a musical, as well as a few other potential quality posters. But enough with the exposition… on with the reviewing!
King Kong
Wow, look how good that special effect looks! Seriously though, are we supposed to think anything else but that? The gorilla looks real, congratulations WETA, but did you remember to include a story, or good characters, or a heart? I hope you did, because absolutely none of that is on display here. All I see is a mini-Naomi Watts and some clever-looking pixels on a page. Somebody tell me again why I should care.
Grade: C
Munich
I just don’t know. So much of this movie is shrouded in mystery, and this poster is far too frustratingly vague. Even after seeing the trailer and this poster I have no idea what this movie is about, or if it’s gonna be any good. Sure, I know what the plot is, but that’s like saying you know how Jaws ends. It’s the journey, not the destination. If I had to put my cards on the table I’d say it’s gonna be a good movie, though not great (he’s been rushing production on his movies lately, and the movies have not benefited from the protracted schedule), and yet it will be nominated for a ton of awards because the story is about the one thing where Spielberg is bulletproof from critics: Jews.
As far as the poster is concerned, it does its job of backing up the strategy of the marketing campaign, though it does little to amp up interest in the movie. I’ll put it this way, if Munich wasn’t a Steven Spielberg film I would think this a boring dud of a poster belonging to a movie I have no interest in seeing. But since it is a Steven Spielberg film I’ll say that it is an intriguing image for quite possibly the most intriguing movie of the year.
Grade: B-
Casanova
I pretty much completely forgot that at one point in history Heath Ledger was considered a sex symbol. Man alive, those were innocent, naïve days. I’m not saying he’s a bad looking dude, because he’s not, but when I think of Casanova I think of a man that could have any woman on the planet just by looking at them. So why didn’t they cast Johnny Depp? Or Orlando Bloom? Or Brat Pitt? Hell, even Colin Farrell? Either all those actors were booked, or the casting director has been under a rock since A Knight’s Tale came out, or this is an extremely low-rent production. It’s probably a combination of all three.
Grade: C+
The Libertine
Uh oh, someone’s going nuts with the font folder. Someone stop him before he gets to Comic Sans MS. Or goes crazy with the Arial Black!
Also, doesn’t this look almost exactly what the Casanova poster should look like? Tell me again why they didn’t just go ahead and pony up the money for Captain Jack Sparrow?
Grade: D
Rumor Has It…
Here’s the best thing I can say about this movie poster: Jennifer Aniston looks great in a white belly shirt and a pair of low-rise jeans. That’s maybe the most appealing she’s looked on a movie poster and it goes a long way in forgetting just how plain vanilla and nechy this poster actually is. The three floating torsos behind her do not help to sell the movie, nor does it’s confusing title and redundant tag line. This is the type of sure fire $35 million grossing, mid-range somewhat disappointment that Aniston is known for. But hey, at least she looks good, so it’s an improvement on the Derailed poster.
Grade: B-
The Producers
It’s almost as if the makers of this remake/retelling/sequel/re-imagination/whatever they’re calling this version of The Producers don’t actually want anyone to go see their movie, because if they did the poster would be a heap more appealing than this contrived one-sheet. I can’t think up a more awkward trio of actors to put on a poster, but if I did, I would try to pose them so it looked like they were all in the same room together when the picture was taken.
This is another example of filmmakers over-estimating the brand desire of their product. If you think I’m wrong, I present Exhibit A: Rent, and Exhibit B: The Phantom of the Opera. Not only does the world not need another Producers movie, but the two leads haven’t been box office draws in more than a decade. This poster is poorly staged, over-colored, obnoxiously cluttered, and succeeds only in making me want to see this movie less. Ye gods, what does it take to get a good holiday movie poster around here?
Grade: D
Memoirs of a Geisha
Now this is more like it. About as perfect a movie poster as you can find. A stunning, beautiful image that tells you everything you need to know about the movie, without giving anything away. A poster like this gives your film immediate class (and Oscar potential). I’ve never read the book, have no real pressing interest in the subject of geishas, and yet I still want to see it. This movie has “gigantic hit‿ written all over it.
Memoirs of a Geisha is quite possibly the best movie poster of the year.
Grade: A+
And I’m thankful, for December 2005 has an overall movie poster quality rating of about a “C+”, at best. Just a poor, poor showing from what is usually a good time for unique posters. Maybe 2006 will bring us a higher quality of cinema art (that’s “movie poster” for those who are still dizzy from staring at The Producers poster and wondering why Uma Thurman looks so gigantic), but until then…
Bangarang!
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