Mon 12 Dec 2005
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!
