Showbiz Sandbox 117: Crunching The Numbers Behind Summer’s New Box Office Records
September 6, 2011
Big budget sequels and super hero movies helped push the bar on summer box office records slightly higher. North American grosses rose to $4.4 billion as overseas markets improved to $8.2 billion in receipts. But how much did all those blockbusters actually cost to produce and market? After all the money is counted, how profitable will the latest installments of “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Transformers” truly be? We sharpen our pencils and do the math to answer all these questions and more.
One future blockbuster that was recently axed by Disney may actually get made after all. The studios is lowering the budget on “The Lone Ranger” by asking star Johnny Depp and filmmaker Gore Verbinski to take a pay cut.
The publishing world also seems to be doing quite well lately thanks to strong sales of digital titles. Even though the e-books may be getting all the love in mainstream media stories, Random House wants everyone to know that print books aren’t dead. In fact, the sale of hardcover and paperback books still outpaces their digital counterparts.
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Showbiz Sandbox 95: The Media Is Charlie Sheen’s Worst Enabler
March 7, 2011
It’s hard to believe that we’re writing headlines about Charlie Sheen for the second week in a row. Alas, the actor went on a whirlwind media campaign let the world know he was ready to go back to work on his hit sitcom. Mainstream media reveled in an endless supply of Sheen’s erratic and manic behavior, portraying him as a deluded, drugged out narcissist.
Eric Deggans, the television and media critic for the St. Petersburg Times, stops by to discuss his NPR commentary piece on how mixed-race couples are portrayed on network television. However, we get sidetracked when news arrives that Sheen has been fired from “Two And A Half Men”.
During Inside Baseball we are joined by Andrew Wallenstein of PaidContent (and soon Variety) who explains why movie studios should start a war over premium video-on-demand.
We also cover all the week’s top entertainment news including Google’s rumored music service, “American Idol’s” ratings dominance, Courtney Love’s Twitter lawsuit and Oprah’s struggling cable network.
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Showbiz Sandbox 86: Why TV Viewing Is Rising As Moviegoing Declines
January 3, 2011
On more than a few occasions during 2010 one could hardly fault moviegoers for feeling as if they’d been duped as they left theaters. Movieline journalist and author Alonso Duralde believes that in at least seven instances films were misrepresented by their marketing campaigns. He discusses, among others, the arthouse movie that was sold as an action thriller, the riotous comedy that isn’t funny at all, and a princess tale disguised as a swashbuckling adventure.
Marketing could hardly be the primary reason 2010’s box office was down slightly from the previous year’s record earnings. With ticket sales off by an estimated 5.36% the only thing propping up film grosses were higher ticket prices, which noticeably rose over the past year.
On the other hand, Nielsen reports that Americans are watching more television than last year, around 34 hours per week. Unfortunately for the major broadcast networks which once ruled the airwaves, viewership has become fractured as it spread out across hundreds of cable channels. The only big TV winner during 2010 was living sporting events, which accounted for eight of the top ten highest rated shows of the year.
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Showbiz Sandbox 85: How To Save The Movie Business
December 27, 2010
In an age of video on demand and mobile computing, the traditional method for releasing films doesn’t seem to be working. As ticket prices rise, moviegoing and ticket sales are declining. Even worse, the fastest declining segment of moviegoers is young adults who can’t find movies that speak to their generation. Independent producer Cotty Chubb has proposed a potential solution to the problem, but it requires the participation of reluctant theater operators.
In a open letter to Relativity Media topper Ryan Kavanaugh published on IndieWire, Chubb suggests that riskier movies be released “day-and-date” at lower prices not only in theaters but on multiple platforms such as DVD and iTunes. He joins us for an in-depth discussion about his plan and how to bring audiences back to the movies.
As 2010 comes to a close we take a look at some of the year’s highest grossing and most pirated films. We also say goodbye to our co-host Karen Woodward whose career as a social media consultant has truly taken off.
Of course, we cover the week’s top entertainment headlines during Big Deal or Big Whoop, including the latest news from the Broadway version of “Spider-Man”, a delay in the next “DaVinci Code” movie and Steven Soderbergh’s rumored retirement. Our Inside Baseball topic focuses on SoundExchange and the music industry’s rising digital fortunes.
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Showbiz Sandbox 57: A Memo From James Cameron
June 7, 2010
It was kind of a slow news week in the entertainment world, especially when it comes to the North American box office. Movie attendance is down 10% over last year’s summer blockbuster season. Hollywood Reporter deputy film editor Carl DiOrio stops by with his theories as to why audiences are staying away from this year’s crop of Hollywood offerings.
The MTV Movie Awards were held last weekend and the telecast was filled with so much profanity half of it was bleeped out. Though few take the awards seriously, we’ll still fill you in on all the winners and Tom Cruise’s outstanding dance performance.
Over in television Bravo has been making a name for itself with a string of successful reality television shows including “The Real Housewives of New York”. The network is not shy about letting the New York Times know that they use social media and the Internet to decide which shows are working, popular storylines and which cast members are break out stars deserving their own show. Speaking of break out stars, the cast of the popular “Big Bang Theory” wants a 285% pay raise and are presenting a unified front when negotiating with the network.
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Showbiz Sandbox 34: Hollywood’s Box Office Billions Set New Record
December 21, 2009
We are joined this week by two of the film industry’s top box office pundits, Paul Dergarabedian of Hollywood.com and Daniel Frankel of TheWrap.com. They help us understand how the North American box office surpassed $10 billion in 2009 while releasing few films during an economic recession. Of course, we also touch on “Avatar’s” opening weekend box office and the worldwide spin it’s distributor claims makes the film a huge hit.
But we promise this week’s episode won’t be entirely about Avatar! We also discuss the untimely death of actress Brittany Murphy and the rumor mongering it set off among online tabloids. The Golden Globe nominations were announced mid week. Were there any surprises? What about snubs? Which noms will carry over to the Oscars, and what can be done to get audiences to actually watch the Oscars?
There’s also a ton of television and music news, such as the rumor that Simon Cowell might leave “American Idol” (oh no!), the list of next year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees (ABBA!) and an old Rage Against The Machine song beating out this year’s winner of “X Factor” on the U.K. singles charts during Christmas week (huh?!). Read more
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