TheHobb
December 12th, 2002, 01:18 PM
I've read a lot of comments here recently and thought I'd provide some of my thoughts for whoever is interested. Since I work in the film industry, these comments might or might not shed some light on some issues regarding how the industry works. I expect some will find my comments as detrimental to their efforts or controversial at best. That's fine, these are simply opinions based on my own observation and I am certainly not an expert or analyst of these sorts of things. I guess I'll just start typing and will eventually get around to the various points I'm trying to make so I apologize in advance if my thoughts meander around a bit.
Hollywood is unpredictable at best and usually insane in one way or another. This is because there is a lot of money at stake and what gets pushed through is more often a matter of politics, smooth-talking, and financial strategy than it is about content.
Take for example a mega-blockbuster-extravaganza that costs $400M to make (plus about $75M to advertise) and after it comes out, it makes $500 million in the theater. That's a gross profit of only about $25 million.
Now take a cheesy horror rip-off that costs 4 million to make (plus 1 million to advertise) and after it comes out it makes a measely 30 million. That's still $25M gross profit but with far less risk involved (only $5M out of pocket instead of $400M should the movie fail).
Even if the movie doesn't make much more than what it cost to produce, it will still continue to make money through video/dvd sales and rentals and will eventually be profitable. All for only a little bit of risk. If the big $400M movie flops and only makes say $75 million, it will be awfully hard for any profit to ever be made.
Television works much the same way. This is why there are so many sitcoms, they're generally cheap to make (at least at the start) and there's a high amount of interest in the viewing public. Even with only moderate interest, these shows are profitable. Shows like Firefly and Farscape though, ride the edge because they are often more expensive and are more unique, and therefore more risky regarding getting the viewership they need.
As a businessman, it's easy to see that content in this sense isn't as important as financial risk. Make a few big blockbusters or high-cost television series in succession that fail by mis-analyzing the public reaction and you're out of business. Make a hundred stinkers/B-grade/popular shows and a couple of them will probably hit some niche that will pay for all of them and then some.
When a project is greenlit, it is simply given a promise of financial backing. This can mean the studio exec deciding to put up the money likes the script, likes the director, likes the director's wife, was talked into it, or whatever. It doesn't mean anything is locked down and approved.
For example, Spider-Man 2 is greenlit but at this point there isn't a script. They've been shooting film in Chicago, here at Imageworks we're doing development, and a lot of things are progressing but until the script is bought off, any of it could change at any moment and many people's work will get thrown out the window. That's the nature of the beast and everyone working on it is (usually) getting paid whether they change their minds a hundred times or not. It's frustrating when they do but it's certainly not unheard of.
You can probably see where I'm heading with this. Galactica being greenlit is for the most part meaningless as far as what will come out as the final product. With it being greenlit though, chances are much higher that SOMETHING will be made and for that I'm happy. It means that someone has been convinced that it is possible to be financially viable for them to produce it.
This is not a guarantee that it won't get dropped again. There are many projects that get dropped even after being greenlit though. A few years back I remember a remake of The Incredible Mr. Limpet starring Jim Carrey was hot and heavy (I'm pretty sure it was greenlit at one time) but it ultimately fell through. Reasons why ,I'm not positive, but I would guess it to be primarily a lack of interest when polling the public and/or Jim Carrey's rise to stardom and becoming too expensive to bring on as being the lead. Galactica could just as easily go the way of the dodo for other reasons.
In Galactica's case, there is obviously interest and a lot of it. The problem is that as much as all the fans would like to believe they're on the same page, the truth is they aren't. Many fans couldn't care less whether the show was continued or "re-imagined," their priority is to see the show back on the air in any form and that it is done well.
Take Spider-man for example, remember noorganicwebshooters.com? Remember all the people harping on the fact that Mary Jane wasn't the one that Goblin dangled over the bridge (and actually killed)? Remember how people saying these changes completely change the Spider-man character and ruins the history among all the other nit-picky details that Raimi was changing?
I dunno, I really liked the movie and judging by the box office records pretty much everyone else did too. There were a lot of changes to the characters that the comic snobs agonize over but to the average fan, it didn't make a bit of difference. The movie was fun, well made, and ultimately a great piece of entertainment.
Galactica is no different. If it is well made it makes no difference whether Starbuck is female, the twelve colonies are on one planet, or even that there's several warships in the rag-tag-fleet. To some of the BG-snobs it will but to most sci-fi fans it truthfully won't because they will view these as simply cosmetic changes. Because of that and because of the financial considerations I mentioned above, it doesn't matter what the fans that have kept the show alive want. It only matters what the studio believes will sell and for that they go to all sci-fi fans, not the handful of of fanatics that are pushing their agenda on them (and yes, even a thousand or two or even ten of fanatical and vocal BG fans are but a handful of the millions upon millions of sci-fi fans out there).
This is where I think Moore is focusing, not just the BG fans but all sci-fi fans. One of the things that sci-fi fans in general argue about is the lack of realism in these types of shows. Even Babylon 5, which many fans praise for its accuracy, is picked on because even that show resorted to many of the things that simply work visually and not scientifically accurate. Example: Why do their fighters have to be in visual sight of their target anyway? Our fighters today can engage targets that aren't visible to the naked eye. It's because it's compositionally more interesting.
He may be trying to come up with a show that for once really does exhibit realistic space combat and realistic space warfare. Will he succeed? I'd say maybe but probably not. Not because of the concept of trying to do so but because watching realistic space combat will likely be very boring and dry. As a fan of sci-fi and of action, I like laser bolts flying across the screen, I like dogfights with starfighters, and I like seeing stars flying past giving the impression of speed. To get these things, to compose the shots in a way that makes them exciting, some of this really needs to be there whether it is realistic or not. If he can pull it off though, it'd be brilliant and would make the show unique and refreshing.
This is not to say that he will go that way when the product hits our televisions or that it will stay that way as the series progresses. He says he wants to do this now but that can change when he gets to the reality of making the show. The same can happen with the female Starbuck and whatever else. The script probably has many rewrites left to go before its final form will be realized.
Recreating the show is another option that Moore is focusing on. Most BG-snobs focus on keeping the status-quo, as really any fanatic of any subject does. If it ain't broke, don't fix it kind of attitude. The thing is, most sci-fi fans that were even alive at the time haven't seen any BG show in twenty-plus years and barely remember it. Many argue that it doesn't matter, that a continuation can still work but really, it is less risky to start over and have complete control than to try to work with something that even those pushing the agenda can't really agree upon. One only needs to look at these forums to see the wide differences in opinions. If everyone agreed, there wouldn't be threads hundreds of posts long in argument.
This is hollywood. It is a business that is really only concerned about making money, and to do that, it is a business that is only interested in making their product entertaining to as many people as possible. They'll listen to their audience to a point but they won't be controlled by them. There will be a point where they say "ok, enough is enough, we're doing it this way and you can like it or not because it looks like the best direction to go and this is what we want to do."
Todd
Hollywood is unpredictable at best and usually insane in one way or another. This is because there is a lot of money at stake and what gets pushed through is more often a matter of politics, smooth-talking, and financial strategy than it is about content.
Take for example a mega-blockbuster-extravaganza that costs $400M to make (plus about $75M to advertise) and after it comes out, it makes $500 million in the theater. That's a gross profit of only about $25 million.
Now take a cheesy horror rip-off that costs 4 million to make (plus 1 million to advertise) and after it comes out it makes a measely 30 million. That's still $25M gross profit but with far less risk involved (only $5M out of pocket instead of $400M should the movie fail).
Even if the movie doesn't make much more than what it cost to produce, it will still continue to make money through video/dvd sales and rentals and will eventually be profitable. All for only a little bit of risk. If the big $400M movie flops and only makes say $75 million, it will be awfully hard for any profit to ever be made.
Television works much the same way. This is why there are so many sitcoms, they're generally cheap to make (at least at the start) and there's a high amount of interest in the viewing public. Even with only moderate interest, these shows are profitable. Shows like Firefly and Farscape though, ride the edge because they are often more expensive and are more unique, and therefore more risky regarding getting the viewership they need.
As a businessman, it's easy to see that content in this sense isn't as important as financial risk. Make a few big blockbusters or high-cost television series in succession that fail by mis-analyzing the public reaction and you're out of business. Make a hundred stinkers/B-grade/popular shows and a couple of them will probably hit some niche that will pay for all of them and then some.
When a project is greenlit, it is simply given a promise of financial backing. This can mean the studio exec deciding to put up the money likes the script, likes the director, likes the director's wife, was talked into it, or whatever. It doesn't mean anything is locked down and approved.
For example, Spider-Man 2 is greenlit but at this point there isn't a script. They've been shooting film in Chicago, here at Imageworks we're doing development, and a lot of things are progressing but until the script is bought off, any of it could change at any moment and many people's work will get thrown out the window. That's the nature of the beast and everyone working on it is (usually) getting paid whether they change their minds a hundred times or not. It's frustrating when they do but it's certainly not unheard of.
You can probably see where I'm heading with this. Galactica being greenlit is for the most part meaningless as far as what will come out as the final product. With it being greenlit though, chances are much higher that SOMETHING will be made and for that I'm happy. It means that someone has been convinced that it is possible to be financially viable for them to produce it.
This is not a guarantee that it won't get dropped again. There are many projects that get dropped even after being greenlit though. A few years back I remember a remake of The Incredible Mr. Limpet starring Jim Carrey was hot and heavy (I'm pretty sure it was greenlit at one time) but it ultimately fell through. Reasons why ,I'm not positive, but I would guess it to be primarily a lack of interest when polling the public and/or Jim Carrey's rise to stardom and becoming too expensive to bring on as being the lead. Galactica could just as easily go the way of the dodo for other reasons.
In Galactica's case, there is obviously interest and a lot of it. The problem is that as much as all the fans would like to believe they're on the same page, the truth is they aren't. Many fans couldn't care less whether the show was continued or "re-imagined," their priority is to see the show back on the air in any form and that it is done well.
Take Spider-man for example, remember noorganicwebshooters.com? Remember all the people harping on the fact that Mary Jane wasn't the one that Goblin dangled over the bridge (and actually killed)? Remember how people saying these changes completely change the Spider-man character and ruins the history among all the other nit-picky details that Raimi was changing?
I dunno, I really liked the movie and judging by the box office records pretty much everyone else did too. There were a lot of changes to the characters that the comic snobs agonize over but to the average fan, it didn't make a bit of difference. The movie was fun, well made, and ultimately a great piece of entertainment.
Galactica is no different. If it is well made it makes no difference whether Starbuck is female, the twelve colonies are on one planet, or even that there's several warships in the rag-tag-fleet. To some of the BG-snobs it will but to most sci-fi fans it truthfully won't because they will view these as simply cosmetic changes. Because of that and because of the financial considerations I mentioned above, it doesn't matter what the fans that have kept the show alive want. It only matters what the studio believes will sell and for that they go to all sci-fi fans, not the handful of of fanatics that are pushing their agenda on them (and yes, even a thousand or two or even ten of fanatical and vocal BG fans are but a handful of the millions upon millions of sci-fi fans out there).
This is where I think Moore is focusing, not just the BG fans but all sci-fi fans. One of the things that sci-fi fans in general argue about is the lack of realism in these types of shows. Even Babylon 5, which many fans praise for its accuracy, is picked on because even that show resorted to many of the things that simply work visually and not scientifically accurate. Example: Why do their fighters have to be in visual sight of their target anyway? Our fighters today can engage targets that aren't visible to the naked eye. It's because it's compositionally more interesting.
He may be trying to come up with a show that for once really does exhibit realistic space combat and realistic space warfare. Will he succeed? I'd say maybe but probably not. Not because of the concept of trying to do so but because watching realistic space combat will likely be very boring and dry. As a fan of sci-fi and of action, I like laser bolts flying across the screen, I like dogfights with starfighters, and I like seeing stars flying past giving the impression of speed. To get these things, to compose the shots in a way that makes them exciting, some of this really needs to be there whether it is realistic or not. If he can pull it off though, it'd be brilliant and would make the show unique and refreshing.
This is not to say that he will go that way when the product hits our televisions or that it will stay that way as the series progresses. He says he wants to do this now but that can change when he gets to the reality of making the show. The same can happen with the female Starbuck and whatever else. The script probably has many rewrites left to go before its final form will be realized.
Recreating the show is another option that Moore is focusing on. Most BG-snobs focus on keeping the status-quo, as really any fanatic of any subject does. If it ain't broke, don't fix it kind of attitude. The thing is, most sci-fi fans that were even alive at the time haven't seen any BG show in twenty-plus years and barely remember it. Many argue that it doesn't matter, that a continuation can still work but really, it is less risky to start over and have complete control than to try to work with something that even those pushing the agenda can't really agree upon. One only needs to look at these forums to see the wide differences in opinions. If everyone agreed, there wouldn't be threads hundreds of posts long in argument.
This is hollywood. It is a business that is really only concerned about making money, and to do that, it is a business that is only interested in making their product entertaining to as many people as possible. They'll listen to their audience to a point but they won't be controlled by them. There will be a point where they say "ok, enough is enough, we're doing it this way and you can like it or not because it looks like the best direction to go and this is what we want to do."
Todd