The Fifth Estate, Benedict Cumberbatch & Fangirl Problems

[pennswoods]

[Originally Posted to Tumblr]

I woke up in a good mood this Monday morning, but that quickly soured as I scoured some of my favorite sites for information about Benedict Cumberbatch and came across an explosion of commentary regarding how poorly The Fifth Estate performed, and how this is bad news for Benedict. This meant I had a very bad morning because as a huge Cumberbatch fan, I am overly invested in him having a long, varied, and full movie/television/theatre career so I will never run out of things to reblog on Tumblr.

According to fans in the industry or at least people who profess to be in the film industry (the money part) but may just be trolling, Benedict’s name being associated with underperforming films is what is going to have a negative impact on him being hired to lead films in Hollywood. And this has nothing to do with his talent but everything to do with whether his face will get butts in seats and in dollars in pockets. This is all according to this rather polemically titled rant thread here.

For non-fannish perspectives see also

• This gossip blog: http://www.laineygossip.com/Benedict-Cumberbatchs-The-Fifth-Estate-bombs-at-the-box-office/28392


• The Hollywood Reporter article that started it all: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-gravity-no-1-649646


• And this REALLY unfortunately titled article : http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/10/20/box-office-disaster-benedict-cumberbatch-the-fifth-estate/

Things I did not know but have learned since reading all this:

1. STiD was considered not a good showing so this is a black mark against him.


2. That he is on all the posters for TFE and did all the promo and pretty much the fact that Dreamworks were using his rising star power to see the film is going to work hugely against him.


3. The Hobbit is not considered a financial success and The Desolation of Smaug is not anticipated to do that hot either.

Things I suspected and have been confirmed by reading all this:

1. Hollywood investors are super conservative and only care about making money, but also suck at understanding why things do or don’t make a lot of money and therefore like to blame the talent - especially if new.


2. Having a bit part in a film or two that does well artistically is not going to help demonstrate that Benedict is a good investment to lead a film.


3. The Hollywood model of putting all its money on big blockbuster tentpole films is a broken model and more and more BIG films are failing (see The Lone Ranger, the Man of Steel, John Carter of Mars) and this is going to result in even less variety in films coming out as film investors get super conservative and scared and avoid risks. Even Spielberg is having a difficult time producing and has to invests in his own films for them to happen: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/10119344/Steven-Spielberg-predicts-film-industry-meltdown.html

Reading all this made me think that Assange, in his letter to Benedict, was right about one thing but for the wrong reason. Dreamworks used Benedict. Dreamworks opened TFE too broadly and had too high an estimate for a film about a man that a good chunk of America doesn’t like/thinks is a threat to national security/doesn’t remember or care about. Their marketing relied heavily on Benedict’s face, rising star, and fan base, a good chunk of which is not in the US and still can’t see the damn film because it hasn’t opened yet (it comes out in Germany the end of October, in Denmark in November, in Sweden in December, and I cannot even find a release date for Japan.)

So they hitched their film to his rising star to try and take advantage of his momentum, to make some money. They took a risk, but Benedict was too new and hadn’t reached high enough visibility among the audiences they hoped to reach (not the Cumbercollective) and his promotion was limited (Katie Couric is not David Letterman or the Colbert Report) and it brought in so little money on its opening weekend that now whenever the financial failure of the film is being discussed, it’s linked with Benedict’s name.

Bummer…

Comments

[droxy.livejournal.com]

this is part of the shitty business of show business. but every BBC movie I watch we see many familiar faces so BC will have plenty of work there.


"Hollywood investors are super conservative and only care about making money, but also suck at understanding why things do or don’t make a lot of money and therefore like to blame the talent - especially if new."--- well hollywood on a whole is soooo not politically conservative, and very liberal. However the Hollywood crowd (From musicians, actors, filmmakers, and all the supporting industry) likes keeping their money and use every tax loop hole available. Movie making is time consuming and expensive to do it well, like any producers of product, and it is product, they want a ROI. Spielberg reinvests to get control over his pictures. Budget sometimes matters in making a great movie, sometimes it doesn't.

Fear not, the after theater market makes money for them as well. Some movies that stunk at the box office make quite a bit on the DVD market, and make even more money than the theater run. Theater goers are not us, they are mostly young men. If middle aged women poured money into theaters the market would adjust accordingly to follow the money.

I liked the hobbit, but it's production value (writing) wasn't as good as LOTR. That's what kills a movie. Great actors cannot fix crappy writing and a crappy story.

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

I really do wonder if theatre goers are really comprised of so many young men or if the investors just think they are because this is an old model. There's a tendency in research (and investment is just another kind of research) for bias to cloud interpretation of the results. This is shown over and over. A lot of what I read in many sectors, whether it is from actors, critics, film-makers, film-making professors, people in the investment side is that this is just as true in the movie industry.

[droxy.livejournal.com]

Given ticketing data based on credit card purchases versus cash, and on line "big data" tracking such as google, foursquare, twitter, and FB, the data maybe more accurate today. The NSA may be able to track us, but the NSA does this with the commercially available tracking information. The NSA just correlates more than a typical corporation and stores it forever. The money isn't just made by movies, but product placement and after market goodies such as video and on line games. Because of the after market-market, they go for people who are willing to spend discretionary income- young adults versus older folks who, like me and my bias, don't give a damn about games. But there is big money in games. Huge money in games. You would probably freak out at how accurate the data is on people's buying habits, and all the industry people care about is money and only money, and they want to know where the money goes, and who spends it. That's probably the most studied human behavior in the world, because it involves money.

Now there is a tendency of investors to have their own taste bias, everyone has bias. One reason we see so many (unnecessary) remakes of old films is that the history of those films is proven, but a remake seldom has the impact of the original- but it makes money. Know that investors in a movie, may also be investors/owners of other related, tie-in industries, and they are looking for vertical income integration. The movie entertainment business is nasty and brutal. I know some lady's son is in the business side of it, I hear stories. He refuses to date actresses (or actors for that matter). Movies industry makes my office politics look like supreme noobies. Soo happy I am not in "show business".

Don't worry about BC...he will be in plenty of shows. The really talented and popular tend to go in cycles. This won't ruin his career. Look at the supremely flaky Robert Downey Jr. His behavior would have got him arrested and unemployed from any regular position. As an actor the only way he's back is apparently he's good.