Sony pictures for sale?

starcentral

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http://www.filmtake.com/production/sony-pictures-sale/
 
Let them die. I cannot wait for this obsession with IP to pass, at least a little. So few original movies are being made by studios. Everything has to be based on something, often the same comic that's already been done fifteen million times. That's all you hear these past few years: IP. That disease has lately even been spreading into TV, I've been on several pilot pitches recently, and all they want to know is which IP can be associated with something, no matter how remotely. The studios are really dead. The only original content that they get involved in, is from huge names like Spielberg. Maybe they all deserve to die. Let some fresh blood in.
 
Damn, I have two projects that are supposed to be happening for Sony. Hope we finish them before they are bought up.
 
One thing that happens if a company is for sale is to make the books look as good as possible. I've been through it a few times. They start doing things like stop all but the most important travel, stop hiring, stop expenditures of any kind. So projects may get postponed.
 
One thing that happens if a company is for sale is to make the books look as good as possible. I've been through it a few times. They start doing things like stop all but the most important travel, stop hiring, stop expenditures of any kind. So projects may get postponed.

That will be a bummer. Fortunately at least one is for a big feature they have coming out so I think that it will still happen, but the second is less frantic and needed.
 
Let them die. I cannot wait for this obsession with IP to pass, at least a little. So few original movies are being made by studios. Everything has to be based on something, often the same comic that's already been done fifteen million times. That's all you hear these past few years: IP. That disease has lately even been spreading into TV, I've been on several pilot pitches recently, and all they want to know is which IP can be associated with something, no matter how remotely. The studios are really dead. The only original content that they get involved in, is from huge names like Spielberg. Maybe they all deserve to die. Let some fresh blood in.

I was just discussing almost the same thing a few days ago. I'm tired of EVERYTHING being tied-in or in some (even) distant way connected to EVERYTHING else. Can't a movie, subject, whatever just stand alone anymore?

*SPOILER ALERT*.
I just went to see The Mummy last week and I just wasn't getting into, but maybe half-way through when Tom Cruise's character is brought into the "secret facility" to meet Russell Crowe's character, that just did it. I was out after that. As they walk through you see skulls of what you presume are obvious vampires and other remains of monsters and then you finally meet the mysterious 'Henry'(Crowe), who is really Dr. Henry Jekyll(Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde). If I hadn't of spent about $25 on the ticket and popcorn & a drink, I may have just walked out at that point.
 
I was just discussing almost the same thing a few days ago. I'm tired of EVERYTHING being tied-in or in some (even) distant way connected to EVERYTHING else. Can't a movie, subject, whatever just stand alone anymore?

*SPOILER ALERT*.
I just went to see The Mummy last week and I just wasn't getting into, but maybe half-way through when Tom Cruise's character is brought into the "secret facility" to meet Russell Crowe's character, that just did it. I was out after that. As they walk through you see skulls of what you presume are obvious vampires and other remains of monsters and then you finally meet the mysterious 'Henry'(Crowe), who is really Dr. Henry Jekyll(Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde). If I hadn't of spent about $25 on the ticket and popcorn & a drink, I may have just walked out at that point.

You went to a remake of a remake of a remake of a remake of a remake and expected it to be good?
 
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...I just went to see The Mummy last week ...
The Mummy is Universal, which almost has a $1B domestic gross already. The picture grossed about $70M domestically and ~ $280M internationally. It's around a break-even point already.

Unless Tom Cruise has a first-dollar back end, which isn't likely.
 
The Mummy is Universal, which almost has a $1B domestic gross already. The picture grossed about $70M domestically and ~ $280M internationally. It's around a break-even point already.

Unless Tom Cruise has a first-dollar back end, which isn't likely.


I was showing an example to go along with OldCorpse's assessment of how the studios don't have an original thought in their collective heads and how they try to tie everything together.
 
Call me a snob but remakes always suck and sequels usually suck. That the new Blade Runner even exists is an abomination. The studios are bereft of any creativity or original thought, they are just going to reboot, remake and sequel themselves into extinction. Good riddance.
 
Call me a snob but remakes always suck and sequels usually suck. That the new Blade Runner even exists is an abomination.

Batman: The Movie, Batman or Batman Begins? An original and two re-makes. The re-makes put the original to shame(and I used to watch the Adam West Batman TV show as a kid...).
 
It can't be avoided. The majors moved from the foreign markets being secondary to being the primary market for movies. Given the difficulty in predicting a movies' success, especially across 100+ cultures, making sequels is the obvious and safe way to produce a lineup of movies with some hope of being profitable. Take a look at Variety's current top 100 released movies and see how many are profitable. It's pathetic. If you want to keep your executive job at a major, this is what you do.

From a Stanford paper written by Darin Im and Minh Thao Nguyen in 2011:

In recent years, movies have generally become divided into two categories: blockbusters and independent movies. Studios have focused on relying on only a handful of extremely expensive movies every year to make sure they remain profitable. It is estimated that 80% of the industry’s profits over the last decade is generated from just 6% of the films released; 78% of movies have lost money of the same time period.


With a 78% failure rate, there are a lot of fools in the movie business.
 
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I was showing an example to go along with OldCorpse's assessment of how the studios don't have an original thought in their collective heads and how they try to tie everything together.
Of course, that's the case ... but Universal manages to make money with this type of flicks. Sony, much like Jimmy Piersall's fear, strikes out.

Oh, you mean the third and fourth movies, not the first one in 1932 with Boris Karloff and the 1959 one with Peter Cushing. :)

 
Call me a snob but remakes always suck and sequels usually suck. That the new Blade Runner even exists is an abomination. The studios are bereft of any creativity or original thought, they are just going to reboot, remake and sequel themselves into extinction. Good riddance.

The Thing, 1951: Mildly interesting, revolutionary for its time use of naturalistic, overlapping dialog
John Carpenter's The Thing, 1982: Nihilistic masterpiece, saved by a rewrite during a break in shooting*
The Thing, 2011: Utter waste of time, technically a prequel to Carpenter's film, making it even more pointless

Some remakes/reboots are great, some are just money grabs, and some are even done by the same filmmakers in an effort to fix what they missed the first time through (Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934 & 1956), Michael Mann's Heat (first version a TV movie/pilot called LA Takedown).


* Here's the story of John Carpenter's unique circumstance and how it allowed him to transform his own movie into a great personal work. A must-read for fans of the film as well as those interested in the creative process.
http://theoriginalfan.blogspot.com/2013/06/when-thing-became-john-carpenters-thing.html
 
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