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Fox Likely Burned By "Watchmen" Super-Flop
businessinsider ^ | Apr. 21 | Hilary Lewis

Posted on 04/27/2009 8:44:49 AM PDT by icwhatudo

One upside to Watchmen flopping: Warner Bros. will likely be able to pay Fox a smaller portion of the film's revenues to resolve their rights dispute.

Last January, Warner Bros. settled its legal dispute with Fox over who owned the rights to Watchmen by agreeing to pay Fox up to 8.5% of the film's proceeds. But now that the $150 million movie's only grossed $180 million worldwide, Warner will probably only owe Fox about 5% of the film's proceeds.

Furthermore, it's likely any sequels or spinoffs, which Fox also would have gotten a cut of the profits from, are dead, which could limit the size of Warner's payout.

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: flop; watchmen
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Wow that movie sucked. Ranks up there with Thin Red Line and Joe vs the Volcano.
1 posted on 04/27/2009 8:44:49 AM PDT by icwhatudo
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To: icwhatudo

What do you expect from an “R” rated super hero movie.


2 posted on 04/27/2009 8:46:43 AM PDT by Sybeck1 (No teleprompters were harmed in the creation of this post.)
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To: icwhatudo
One upside to Watchmen flopping: Warner Bros. will likely be able to pay Fox a smaller portion of the film's revenues to resolve their rights dispute.

Don't tell me, the Producers of the film were Bialystock and Bloom.

3 posted on 04/27/2009 8:47:34 AM PDT by dfwgator (1996 2006 2008 - Good Things Come in Threes)
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To: icwhatudo

another good side: hopefully no more watchmen movies.


4 posted on 04/27/2009 8:50:04 AM PDT by isom35
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To: icwhatudo
From wikipedia:

Thanks to its opening weekend, Watchmen currently sits fourth in all time openings for the month of March, as well as the fifth highest grossing weekend for the spring season

I saw it. I liked it. It made a profit. It had multiple mechandise spin-offs. And clearly all money from up-coming DVD sales will be gravy on top of the tens of millions of dollars in profit already rendered.

The nature of the project largely precluded sequels or spin-offs, so that's a non-issue.

I think this article is very wrong-headed.

5 posted on 04/27/2009 8:50:29 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (American Revolution II -- overdue)
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To: icwhatudo
the $150 million movie's only grossed $180 million worldwide

I don't know the movie industry but that looks like a 30 million profit to me. I take it something has to be a super blockbuster in order to be considered not a flop.

And yea The Thin Red Line was a bummer of a WWII movie :(

6 posted on 04/27/2009 8:51:59 AM PDT by Domandred (Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

This is nothing more than anti-FOX liberal liberal glee


7 posted on 04/27/2009 8:52:45 AM PDT by Mr. K (physically unable to proofreed (<---oops))
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To: icwhatudo
"Wow that movie sucked."

And it made such great philosophical points.

1. Something good can come from something bad.

2. An act of great evil is justified if it prevents an even greater act of evil.

3. Murder is justified in suppressing the truth if revealing the truth upsets the public.

8 posted on 04/27/2009 8:52:50 AM PDT by Enterprise (The Porkulus brought us economic swine flu.)
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To: icwhatudo
Wow that movie sucked. Ranks up there with Thin Red Line and Joe vs the Volcano.

Was it bad? Bad in the sense of "just not enjoyable"? I could see that because the Watchmen comic was pretty dark. Bad in the sense of "didn't exactly match the comic" fanboy rage? Bad in the sense of "to confusing to follow if you didn't look at the book"?

I had thought about seeing it, but I never seemed to have time to catch it and it looks like it has now left the first run theaters around here. I rarely see a movie in a first run theater anymore unless a bunch of friends are going to a movie and dinner. I don't feel like dropping almost $10 to get a film with a couple fewer scratches on it than at the $3 afterrun places or seeing it without the rude crowd on DVD.

9 posted on 04/27/2009 8:53:32 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (No free man bows to a foreign king.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

yikes did you see the same movie i did?
this was BORING. all talk no real villain until the very end hardly any fight scenes
i am sorry but a super hero movie needs a heck of a lot more action than this snooze fest
combine that with waayyyy too much male butt scenes and i can see why this movie flopped


10 posted on 04/27/2009 8:53:39 AM PDT by DM1
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To: Domandred
And yea The Thin Red Line was a bummer of a WWII movie :(

I finally watched it last year, expecting not to like it, but I must admit, it wasn't that bad.

11 posted on 04/27/2009 8:55:25 AM PDT by dfwgator (1996 2006 2008 - Good Things Come in Threes)
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To: icwhatudo
What the hell kind of newspaper is this? It's called Business Insider, but it celebrates the fact that a company made less money than anticipated and those losses will trickle down to other companies?

Maybe it should be called "Marxism Insider."

12 posted on 04/27/2009 8:58:04 AM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

Watchmen was never really intended to have spin offs or sequels. Its’ made 180 Million world wide, and will make more through DVD etc. Its not going to lose money, may not make as much as the studios wanted, but its not going to lose money.

Basically it was far more a nitch product than a mainstream product and the business spent too much on production. Yes, I’m glad they didn’t go super cheap on making it, but green lighting this movie with a 180 million price tag was the wrong call. Now make for 100 Million or less, and you sit much prettier.


13 posted on 04/27/2009 8:58:19 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: Domandred
> the $150 million movie's only grossed $180 million worldwide

I don't know the movie industry but that looks like a 30 million profit to me.

The $180 includes the theater owner's cut. The $150 is probably just the cost to make the film and doesn't include advertising, making and distributing reels of film, and cuts of the gross for everyone with half a brain in Hollywood (1% of the gross is probably better than 100% of the net after Hollywood accounting). I've heard that the rule of thumb is a movie needs to gross three times its raw cost to be profitable.

14 posted on 04/27/2009 8:59:19 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (No free man bows to a foreign king.)
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To: icwhatudo

Hey! I kinda liked Joe vs. the Volcano!

I can feel the Brainmist settling on me now...


15 posted on 04/27/2009 8:59:46 AM PDT by Little Ray (Do we have a Plan B?)
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To: dead
It's called Business Insider

That is right, it is called Business Insider, not Business Cheerleader.

16 posted on 04/27/2009 9:01:25 AM PDT by Lucius Cornelius Sulla ("men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters." -- Edmund Burke)
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To: icwhatudo

That the movie sucked was no surprise....the original comics were completely stupid. Although, I still have a first printing of them.


17 posted on 04/27/2009 9:02:25 AM PDT by Psycho_Bunny (ALSO SPRACH ZEROTHUSTRA)
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I had so much looked forward to watching Watchmen since seeing the trailer at the Imax London (last year), where I watched Batman. The montage, brilliantly put togeher with A Smashing Pumpkins number (not in the movie), was out of the world.

However, that was THE highlight.

Except for a strong opening sequence, Watchmen was probably the worst movie I have seen since....Hell, my memory just doesn't go that far back.

AWFUL!

18 posted on 04/27/2009 9:05:45 AM PDT by Jakarta ex-pat
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To: KarlInOhio
I've heard that the rule of thumb is a movie needs to gross three times its raw cost to be profitable.

Napolean Dynamite cost $400,000 to produce and its domestic gross was $44.5 million.

19 posted on 04/27/2009 9:09:54 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler ("Mr. President, I support you but not your mission. I'm showing my patriotism through dissent.")
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla
That is right, it is called Business Insider, not Business Cheerleader.

It's cheering bad business news. Ridiculous tone for any news item (not editorial) but even more ridiculous in a business publication.

Maybe the editors should request that their reporters just report the news and leave their pissy little vendettas on their My Space page.

20 posted on 04/27/2009 9:10:46 AM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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