The Singerman Ripple Effect?

<-- Singer seems to have gotten some practice hanging on to Singerman. Hey may need it.

Well it's been quite the bloodbath the past few days over at the W.B. Studios Superhero Department. Last Friday, Joss Whedon announced that he'd been relieved of his duties on the long-in-development Wonder Woman project. The following day David Goyer announced on his MySpace page that he and W.B. have gone their separate ways on doing The Flash film. Then on Monday they announced that they've brought in Shawn Levy to helm the project.

While there's noting truly earth-shattering about a film changing directors, it's the timing and the apparent reasoning behind the changes that caught our attention. Some of the reasons for the "irreconcilable differences" sound AWFULLY familiar to some of the criticisms people had of Singerman. Coincidence? Perhaps not. Check out what Whedon had to say on his website about his dismissal:

"I had a take on the film that, well, nobody liked.

We just saw different movies, and at the price range this kind of movie hangs in, that's never gonna work. Non-sympatico. It happens all the time. I don't think any of us expected it to this time, but it did. Everybody knows how long I was taking, what a struggle that script was, and though I felt good about what I was coming up with, it was never gonna be a simple slam-dunk."

Now what is Whedon's writing style? And what do Buffy, Angel, and Serenity all have in common? That's right they have a dark, edgy tone to the characters. Also keep in mind this was just days after it was announced that WB had purchased a Wonder Woman spec script to allegedly avoid any copyright issues with Whedon's. Latino Review got a hold of that spec script and reviewed it as:

"The spec that Silver picked up ROCKS! A fun filled adventure packed girl power action movie in the 1940s! 1943 to be exact...Overall, a very great read. The writers did their homework. As a comic book character origin movie - it is just as good as Batman Begins.I can see why Silver supposedly took it off the spec market. If I was a betting man, I figure this is the origin story that Warners might stick with. My note to the studio is to not touch the script, leave it intact, get yourself a good director and shoot this script. It is all there on the page."

LR also points out that WB buys this excellent spec script and says something along the lines of committing to Whedon’s contemporary version, then the very next day Whedon is off the project. Why would you take a spec off the market when you own the rights already?

Now let's compare that to what went down on The Flash project. On his MySpace Goyer is quoted as saying:

Well, I've been waiting a few months to relate this news -- but I am sad to say that my version of The Flash is dead at WB. The God's honest truth is that WB and myself simply couldn't agree on what would make for a cool Flash film. I'm quite proud of the screenplay I turned it. I threw my heart into it and I genuinely think it would've been the basis of a ground-breaking film. But as of now, the studio is heading off in a completely different direction.

Sound familiar? The following day it comes out that Shawn Levy will be replacing him, and The Hollywood Reporter tells us that:

"Despite Levy's previous films, including Cheaper by the Dozen and The Pink Panther, they have "no intention of making Flash a comedy," but they do intend to "aim for a lighter movie than previous Warners Bros comic adaptations, such as Batman Begins and Superman Returns." Goyer was in part responsible for the former's script, his Flash was said to be "dark themed" as well."

Hmmm, sensing a theme between these two? A lighter, more action-oriented film? Didn't like the previous director's dark, overly serious take on a historically "lighter" character? Who does that sound like? Yup that's right folks, Singerman.

While Batman is a hero historically depicted to be of a darker and more cerebral nature lending himself to a writer like Goyer, characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Flash are not. Wonder Woman and the Flash were slated to be WB's next big new superhero franchises launched after Singerman, but now seem to be years away from seeing the light of day. Is WB trying to avoid repeating the mistakes that it made with Singerman especially now that most of the damage from the lackluster box office and home video sales has been assessed by the studio's bean counters?

It seems to me that there's a MAJOR rethinking of the studio's comic book projects not named Batman at this point, thanks in great part to some of the major shortcomings of Singerman. Whedon and Goyer were both paid millions of dollars for their efforts, so the fact that Singer signed on to write the script for the sequel doesn't exactly assure him of helming the project. We can only hope that someone out there writes an outstanding spec script for an actual Superman film, and WB kicks Singer to the curb.

Box Office Update: Took You Long Enough

While we've had some fun the past couple weeks looking at some of the film's ancillary revenue forms, we thought we'd peek in at the numbers that really matter once again. In it's 17th weekend at the domestic box office (i.e. a couple hundred dollar theaters), Singerman took in $173,300 and FINALLY broke the $200 million mark for a grand total of $200,006,305 year to date. Granted we fully admit that before the IMAX totals came out, we didn't think it would break that mark, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a supporter of this film that saw that one coming either.

But before Singer and Co. go throw another Halloween party, is their really any significance in hitting the $200 million mark now? Does this latest $173K really make a difference other than being able to say they hit a milestone of a nice round number? In actuality, no, not really, especially not after this length of time. We know there was speculation by some sources that the film hitting $200 million domestic was some "magic number" for a sequel, but that was largely passed off as being inaccurate by certain people in the industry. When you take into account the cost of the film to produce ($209 million) and market ($100 million), it's still glaringly obvious that the film fell well short of expectations (Alan Horn even admitted this). Whether it made $198 million or $202 million the film still has yet to make back it even come close to breaking even. MovieWeb has an interesting look at the situation:

"Superman Returns finally crossed the $200 million plateau! Congratulations. Oh yeah,the bad news. It took 117 days for it to cross that mark, 8th slowest all-time,and, oh yeah, the flick still has $70 million to go before it reaches a profit.Good luck hitting that mark, you idiots."

While we're not exactly sure who the "idiots" are, it does bring up a good point. The film still has a long way to go before it even thinks about breaking even, and even though its now hit $200 million it took almost twice along as films like Batman Begins (who it still sits over $5 million behind) and cost almost $100 million more to make and market. And since some of you have been asking, Singerman also took almost six times as long as contemporary X-men: The Last Stand (who it sits over $34 million behind domestically) and cost just slightly more to make and market.

Looking at those factors, I'd say the status of the future of the "franchise" hasn't changed over the last weekend, and still won't be determined until long after Singerman has been collecting dust on DVD shelves.

WB: 'Hey We had Cheaper Flops Too!'

Today's Defamer takes a humorous look at an article from today's New York Times about Warner Bros.' awful summer box office, where WB execs, Alan Horn and Jeff Robinov, use some REALLY odd logic when trying to explain why WB is sitting in sixth place for total box office this year, when just months ago they appeared to be primed for a second straight summer of big box office grosses. In the Times story, Robinov and Horn lament that people have harped on their higher-profile disasters, while ignoring all the money they've proudly lost on lower-budgeted projects??

"Studio executives say it will make a profit. But in bringing in only $389 million at the worldwide box office, “Superman Returns” failed to live up to prerelease expectations. If Superman had done twice what it did, the whole summer would havelooked different," said Mr. Robinov. "It's as much about perception as reality.Even with the failure of a movie like 'Poseidon,' we've had much smaller movieswe've lost as much on."

Mr. Horn agreed. "I've seen movies that cost $15 million lose as much as $20 million,he said. "But when event movies don't perform well, it is very high profile."

And IF the Queen had balls she'd be King, Jeff. And what are these guys really saying? That it's easy to lose a bundle on supposed "can't miss" superhero franchise like Singerman, but only a select few individuals like themselves can lose big time on a much lower budgeted film?? With people like this making the call on the Singerman franchise, no wonder we got the film that we did. If you own any Time Warner stock, now might be a good time to sell those babies.

Singerman et al Negatively Affecting WB's Stock Value

AOL Money & Finance's "Blogging Stocks" has an interesting look at the current situation over at Warner Bros. and just how exactly the sorry performance of their 2006 film slate, tent-poled by Singerman, is affecting the company's bottom line.

Doug McIntyre, a partner at Wall Street firm "24/Wall St" explains how investors were hoping that Warner's film slate would do better this year. A recent downgrade of the TWX stock by JPMorgan was based, in part, on the projections that the financials of the company's film unit would get worse.

"Things are not looking up at the Time Warner film unit. It has had no hits this year, and even "Jackass" ($51.4 million so far), could ultimately pass "Superman Returns" ($198.5 million), which is Time Warner's biggest box office release in 2006. "Superman" cost so much to make that it almost did not matter how much money it brought in. It was going to lose money under even the best of circumstances."

Although we're very skeptical ourselves that an idiotic picture like Jackass 2 will pass even Singerman's domestic box office (unless of course he's talking about profitability?), McIntyre's sentiment is one that's been echoed around Wall Street about WB and their summer film slate. Tack onto this the implosions of Poseidon, Lady In The Water, and Ant Bully and the picture gets even more grim. All "fanboyism" aside, it's the opinion of "the Street" and in turn Time Warner shareholders and its board of directors that's going to determine where their film division goes from here. Singerman was expected to lead the way for the WB summer slate, and when it fell flat, there wasn't much else for the studio to fall back on to show it's stockholders. With Singerman struggling to get to $200 million domestic and $400 million worldwide, it wont see a profit until long after it hits the home video market. (Assuming WB gets about 55% of the worldwide B.O., and it cost about $300 million to produce and market.) McIntyre goes on to add:

"The film-making business is notoriously fickle. But the costs of running a studio are not. Disney decided to cut 450 people at its production unit earlier this year and cut the number of movies it would put out. At least if it had a dry spell its costs should be less.

For Time Warner and its stock to stage a full recovery, it will not suffice that its cable and network businesses do well. The film unit will have to pull its own weight. Right now, it isn't."

Pretty interesting stuff, especially considering Disney had what was largely considered the most successful summer of all studios with POTC2 and Cars. Personally I'd expect to see budgets for WB films scaled back considerably in the coming years. The real question then becomes, can superhero franchises survive under those restrictions? And if so, can they be done well?

WB and Singerman's Bad Summer

An article in today's LA Times, shows just exactly how bad of a summer that Warner Bros. Studios is having. Pretty much everything they've put out this summer has flopped or been a "disappointment." (Hey, there's always Beerfest) In it they talk to Studio head Alan Horn who seems to be doing a bit of damage control, at least when it comes to Singerman :

"Horn declined to divulge figures, but a person familiar with the studio's internal projections said Warner's cut of the "Superman Returns" profit was expected to be $50 million to $60 million. The film cost $209 million to produce and more than $100 million to market worldwide."

Well there's yet another confirmation of Singerman's astronomical $100 million marketing budget that we've been saying for weeks. As for the "expected profit," this cost $309 million to make. Assuming it somehow makes $400 million worldwide, the Studio only sees 1/2 of that, the other 1/2 goes to the exhibitors. They've still got another $109 to cover before they're out of the red. Can they really be projecting another $220+ million in ancilliaries with the film's disappointing box office? Remember half of the profit for Singerman goes to co-financer Legendary Pictures, so for WB to see $60 million in profit, the film's got to make $120 million in profit.

Horn expects "Superman Returns" to eventually gross about $400 million worldwide, more than last year's hit "Batman Begins."

OK, so Horn says he's expecting the film to gross $400 million worldwide. My question is, where the hell is that figure coming from? It's basically a done deal the film won't cross $200 million domestically. A fair estimate has the film ending up with around $196 million. Therefor, you'd need to get over $204 million from the international box office. Currently Singerman is sitting at $155 million international. The only major territories it's set to open in are Germany, Japan, and Italy.
Using Batman Begins as some kind of gauge, we can see that it made $166 million internationally in its run. Will Singerman beat that like Horn says? Probably. Will it beat it by almost $40 million to get to $400 million worldwide? Very doubtful. In Germany, Italy, and Japan, Begins made $24.8 million. Add that to Singerman's current worldwide total, and that puts you only at $179.8 million, or $24.2 million short of the mark they'd need internationally to make it to $400 million worldwide. I can see another possible $10 MAYBE $15 million over that for Singerman based on how it's trending internationally but that's at a maximum. Our best guess? Singerman ends up around $191 million internationally, and about $388 million worldwide.

"Nonetheless, "Superman" fell at least $100 million short of his expectations.
"I thought it was a very successful movie, but I think it should have done $500 million worldwide," Horn said. "

Now let's look at the comments here. In one sentence Horn admits the film fell AT LEAST $100 MILLION SHORT of his expectations. In the very next one he says its "very successful." Umm okay Alan so what you're saying is in the best case scenario, the project is bringing in 20% less revenue than expected, but it's still somehow considered a success?? Do your shareholders feel the same way? I don't. This is reminiscient of the Iraqi Information Minister saying that the US Army was getting crushed by Iraqi forces, as Baghdad was crumbling behind him. Companies tend not to set unrealistic revenue expectations for themselves. They tend to do a bit of research on these things, and set attainable goals for themselves. Otherwise they look bad in front of their stockholders. If they miss their mark by $100 million (roughly 20% of their expected take), no one is going to consider that a success.

"We should have had perhaps a little more action to satisfy the young male crowd."

Ah! Now we're on to something here! Horn seems to recognize one of the many flaws of Singerman, though it's in a real non-committal way. But will he really do something about it? Like say, get a hold of a director who can do an action movie?? One who's initials arent "BS" perhaps? God I hope the WB lackeys that are forced to read blogs like this, pass some of this stuff along.

"Still, he's betting Warner has firmly reestablished the "Superman" franchise and is planning another installment for summer 2009."

Ugh, just when you thought we were making some kind of progress with this guy. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what they call "damage control." Horn sort of, kind of recognizes a weakness in the film, but then follows it up with the "everything is a-okay, nothing to see here" line. The truth of the matter is with Singerman still stinking up a few theaters in the US, and set to open this weekend in places abroad, Horn still has to present the movie in the best light possible, since it's still being "sold" to various publics. If he has any hope of this film hitting $400 million WW, he can't come out and say anything other than "the franchise is strong" and "sequels are coming." No one wants to support a dying franchise. We heard the same thing from Universal Studios execs when The Hulk was in theaters back in 2003. We'll find out how Horn and Co. truely feel about the financial viability of this "franchise" when it's not in theaters any longer, and they've had time to assess the actual return on investment. In the meantime, file this one under F for "Fluff."

With Great Budget, comes Great Expectations

Hot enough for ya?

Yesterday's L.A. Times has an interesting article that talks about how movies open at the box office and how they fare versus expectations in the industry. In the article, they explain why Singerman is viewed as a large disappointment in the Hollywood community.

"As much as studios say they don't like the expectations game, they play it like political strategists spinning poll numbers behind the scenes. That's because moviegoers often use box-office performance as a filter in deciding which movies to watch. Wall Street also pays close attention to perceived success on an opening weekend.

The Devil Wears Prada" opened to $27.5 million in June, the same weekend the more heavily hyped "Superman Returns" drummed up $52.5 million. The couture comedy was pronounced a surprise hit, but the latest superhero installment was labeled "unspectacular" and "disappointing" in articles.

"Prada," which cost a relatively modest $35 million to produce, was deemed a hit partly because it would yield a juicy return on investment for 20th Century Fox. But it quickly became clear that "Superman Returns," which cost $209 million, wouldn't bring the profit that Warner Bros. was hoping for in reviving the Man of Steel as a franchise.

This article just goes to prove our previous statements that while making $190 million at the US box office is nothing to really sneeze at, except when you spent $209-$260 million to make the film. We expected more from Singerman in quality as well as box office, Warner Bros. sure as heck expected a bigger box office, and obviously the movie industry did as well.

One of the "10 Big Mistakes of the Summer"

Dave Poland of MovieCityNews.com has put up his weekly article reviewing the summer box office. This week's article takes a look at the "The 10 Big Mistakes of Summer." And of course our favorite piece of celluloid toilet paper shows up prominenlty in his article, as being one of the "Big Money Losers" of the summer. Poland writes:

"It's still not clear how much money Superman Returns will lose and how much of that will be eaten by WB's financial partner, Legendary Pictures. Assuming a $400 million gross (which this film could come up short of or, perhaps, pass with a strong push in its last few foreign markets), the return to the studio would be about $220 million. Figuring a generous $150 million in profits from Home Entertainment and other ancillaries, they're still almost $100 million short of black ink. It won't be a record, as that ignominy belongs to films like Pluto Nash, which paid interest for more than a year after completion and then grossed less than $10 million worldwide."

Poland basically just confirms what we've known all along about the financial shape of Singerman. In case you're looking to doubt Mr. Poland's insight on the subject, we'll direct you to this piece of foresight.

Play BALL, not PLANE!

Every week, ESPN asks its readers to vote on questions relating to the latest sports news and controversies, often soliciting over 20,000 votes per poll.

During the week of July 21, 2006, sports fans voiced their opinion on what they felt was the biggest disappointment. These were the results.

Looks like even sports fans thought landing a big ass plane on the pitcher's mound while a game was in progress was a bit cheesy.

We sympathize with our MLB brothers; what was Singer thinking?