Up and Coming Films

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

Seen a lot of comments today and yesterday saying it looks crap. I think it looks pretty good. I'm a big fan of the Charlie Bronson Death Wish movies.

Me too. I like all of them. Owned them all on vhs and re-bought them on dvd.

I also like the Kevin Bacon film Death Sentence and Jodie Foster's The Brave One, both of which could be classed as Death Wish remakes.

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Me too. I like all of them. Owned them all on vhs and re-bought them on dvd.



I also like the Kevin Bacon film Death Sentence and Jodie Foster's The Brave One, both of which could be classed as Death Wish remakes.

Especially Death Sentence, as it was based on the sequel novel to Death Wish. I really like The Brave One as well.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

Especially Death Sentence, as it was based on the sequel novel to Death Wish. I really like The Brave One as well.

I didn't know Death Sentence was actually based on a Death Wish novel.

We've been short on films like this over the last few years. Lets hope it does well and there becomes a market again for classic action and revenge movies.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Incidentally Stephen.

For some reason mentioning action films made me think of this - Transit (2012)

Transit (2012) - IMDb

If you haven't seen it i heartily recommend it for some fast violent fun.

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I didn't know Death Sentence was actually based on a Death Wish novel.



We've been short on films like this over the last few years. Lets hope it does well and there becomes a market again for classic action and revenge movies.

It was indeed. Very loosely though.

IMG_9035.jpg

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Incidentally Stephen.



For some reason mentioning action films made me think of this - Transit (2012)



Transit (2012) - IMDb



If you haven't seen it i heartily recommend it for some fast violent fun.

Cheers. I'll check it out.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

It was indeed. Very loosely though.

Attachment 193438

Love that book cover. I can't work out if it's the villain assaulting someone or what.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

I know the trailer is supposed to sell the film, and that one is really good as it makes Death Wish look like a film I want to see at the cinema, but the one impression I was left with was: is this the record for reflective scalps!? There's a lot of bald people in that movie!

I don't think I've seen the Kevin Bacon don't you mention, but I have seen (and own) The Brave One, which I watched quite recently and found very emotive and thought-provoking.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

I saw the trailer for Logan Lucky before (I think) Baby Driver, and thought it looked like it could be terrific fun. It could also be an extremely influential film in more ways than one.

How Logan Lucky Can Bring Back the Mid-Budget Movie

Upending the major-studio model of theatrical film releases is easier said than done. Even with streaming juggernauts like Netflix and Amazon muscling their way into the industry, there’s still really only one way to debut your movie nationwide in thousands of theaters, along with the kind of expensive marketing push needed to draw in audiences. And that’s with the help of a company like Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Disney, Universal, Paramount, or Sony, who have the apparatus necessary for such a rollout, but demand the kind of creative control and marketing strategy that suits their bottom line.

It’s this system that supposedly drove the Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven, Erin Brockovich) away from making films for four years—in 2013, he announced Side Effects would be his last movie and that he was retiring from filmmaking. But after spending some time dabbling in TV with projects like Behind the Candelabra and The Knick, Soderbergh is back with a new heist comedy, Logan Lucky, and with it he’s trying to find a way around the big businesses that frustrated him so much in the past.

His strategy is fascinatingly laid out in a New York Times piece from Brooks Barnes about the production of Logan Lucky, a charming, shaggy caper about a West Virginia family (played by Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, and Riley Keough) who rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway with the help of an inveterate safe-cracker named Joe Bang (Daniel Craig). Due for release on August 18, the film is getting the kind of wide rollout usually reserved for big studio movies, but the manner of its production and its release could offer an intriguing model for the future.

Logan Lucky cost a relatively modest $29 million—thanks in part to Soderbergh’s allure as an Academy Award-winning filmmaker, which means the all-star cast was willing to work for scale rather than demand their normal salaries. Hollywood is increasingly shying away from making such smaller-budget movies, as multi-year franchises have become the financial norm for multi-national conglomerates looking to move the stock-market needle with each big release. But producing a film for $29 million is a lot easier than distributing it wide; the latter usually requires the participation of a major studio, to the chagrin of many artists like Soderbergh.

The director has previously noted his fury at the marketing of his 2002 sci-fi drama Solaris, a mid-budget film that was pitched to audiences as a steamy romance (a bizarre poster focused on stars George Clooney and Natascha McElhone mid-kiss). The film bombed. When Soderbergh announced his retirement in 2013, he said directors had been robbed of all the creative freedom they once enjoyed, in the name of profit. “It’s become absolutely horrible the way the people with the money decide they can fart in the kitchen, to put it bluntly,” he said.

Had Soderbergh gone to a major studio with Logan Lucky, it would have exercised total control over marketing (spending an additional tens of millions of dollars) in exchange for 15 percent of ticket sales and all other expenses, with any remaining profits going to the film’s owners. Instead, Soderbergh raised $20 million in marketing money by selling the movie’s non-theatrical rights (Amazon bought the streaming rights), then cut a deal with the smaller distributor Bleecker Street Media to market the film for only $1 million in exchange for a much smaller slice of profits.

This means Logan Lucky doesn’t have to aim for the kind of inflated opening weekends that major studios crave, which require an intense promotional blitz and a fairly homogenous, and costly, creative strategy. Soderbergh created the film’s trailer himself and never tested it with audiences (usually, trailers are created by marketing firms and intensely focused-grouped). He has also concentrated billboard advertising in the South and Midwest, where he thinks the movie could have mass appeal (usually, advertising is centered on the country’s biggest cities).

It’s a fascinating effort worthy of a director who has worked in every level of the industry, making pricy star vehicles like Ocean’s Eleven and tiny experimental features like 2005’s Bubble, which was released in theaters and on television simultaneously (years before Netflix adopted a similar strategy). Soderbergh’s approach does away with the need for massive grosses—a modest $15 million opening weekend, which would usually be seen as disappointing for most wide releases, is more than enough (according to the Times’s reporting)to satisfy everyone’s financial commitments in the case of Logan Lucky.

Of course, Soderbergh has the advantage of being a director who can recruit big names to his movies without much fuss. But he’s also the kind of figure who seems less and less welcome in Hollywood these days—a director who demands creative control, and has the experience needed to resist pressure from executives. Studios appear to be growing wary of this approach: Warner Bros. reportedly doesn’t want to work with “auteur” directors who demand final cuts of their films anymore, except for proven profit-makers Christopher Nolan and Clint Eastwood. Meanwhile, Disney keeps running into problems with the creators of its franchise entries, with Gareth Edwards’s Rogue One being subject to major reshoots and Philip Lord and Christopher Miller being fired from the upcoming Han Solo movie for not agreeing with producer Kathleen Kennedy’s vision of the film.

Netflix has, in recent years, presented itself as the most attractive option for great directors requiring full creative control. Martin Scorsese—about as well-regarded a director as Hollywood has—took his gangster film The Irishman to Netflix, since studios apparently balked at its $100 million-plus budget. But Netflix has yet to prove that its streaming model is remotely profitable. Recent figures put the company at $20 billion in long-term debt, and Netflix expects to continue to deficit spend in the short term. Investors don’t care right now—it’s the same spend-money-to-make-money model that made Amazon such a success—but it’s a bubble that could still burst down the road.

Soderbergh’s strategy is more focused on immediate profitabilityfor everyone involved, and if it works, it could be something moviegoers see more of as directors grow frustrated with the strictures of the studio system. As television has expanded its reach and theater-ticket sales have plateaued, the mid-budget movie has dwindled in recent years. Logan Lucky is the kind of film that used to be Hollywood’s bread and butter, and with Soderbergh’s help, it could be again.

How Logan Lucky Can Bring Back the Mid-Budget Movie

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

That's an interesting article which kind of ties in with the chat regarding superhero films on another thread.

It also proves how Hollywood centric the major studios are. Does a film really have to open to huge figures in America to make a profit? No, not really, as the figures for The Mummy prove - $79m US total but $318m from the rest of the world meaning the film made $397m on a budget of $125m. I would guesstimate that again relating to the other thread, Tom Cruise was the draw worldwide because he's about the only superstar actor around in 2017.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

That's an interesting article which kind of ties in with the chat regarding superhero films on another thread.

It also proves how Hollywood centric the major studios are. Does a film really have to open to huge figures in America to make a profit? No, not really, as the figures for The Mummy prove - $79m US total but $318m from the rest of the world meaning the film made $397m on a budget of $125m. I would guesstimate that again relating to the other thread, Tom Cruise was the draw worldwide because he's about the only superstar actor around in 2017.

The Mummy did all that without a single penny from me as well!

Tom Cruise is probably the only global superstar/movie star around these days. If you are in China, Chow Yun Fat would be a movie star, but most cinemagoers in the UK would probably say "who" if you mention his name to them.