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UPDATE: Jeez, but it's bewildering why Paramount took out 7 pages of full-page ads in The New York Times today for Revolutionary Road. Talk about overkill. Or why Paramount commissioned a full frills "making of" The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button coffee table book published by Rizzoli and selling for $45 which the studio bigwigs are sending out as Xmas gifts to Hollywood. "It's so unbelievably pretentious and self-promoting and self-aggrandizing that I just can't not comment on it," one recipient phoned me. But the studio isn't alone. Oscar campaign spending, which went into reverse when Harvey Weinstein left Miramax, is now back in overdrive.
Even as cutbacks are being announced at the majors and minors, Disney inserted a book on Wall-E -- that's right, a book -- into the Los Angeles Times as a promotion I'm told is worth $675,000 -- all to reach a few thousand Academy voters since the pic was already out on video. "So a $675,000 insert is falling out of newspapers sent to 1 in 10 homes in foreclosure. No way that's going to help the business of Wall-E with consumers. That is just about flattering the ego of John Lassiter, especially when Wall-E is already going to win Best Animated Feature," an insider complained to me. On the day Viacom announced its bloodletting, Paramount had a color gatefold ad in Variety for The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. Cost: $250,000, or about 5 assistants' salaries.
I'm hearing that Focus Features, which also announced layoffs, has spent a small fortune pushing Milk. And Universal which is in the midst of a combination of cutbacks and layoffs, had full pages costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times for Imagine's Frost/Nixon when it was only open in 3 theaters (one of them Toronto). "Ron Howard's deal at Universal calls for pages and pages of trade advertising. I get it," one source griped to me. "But if it didn't, then it would be up to the movies themselves to cary their own weight." And don't get me started on the suitability of the Black Tie premiere for Benjamin Button. "It’s like something out of My Man Godfrey or one of those depression era comedies," one Hollywood marketing maven marveled to me. "It could not be more wrong."
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Quote of the day:
“So a $675,000 insert is falling out of newspapers sent to 1 in 10 homes in foreclosure.”
Love it.
5 assistants’ salaries? More like 6, unless I need to get a better boss, I think 42K/year is more on the norm.
5 assistants salaries? I’d like to know what assistants out there are making $50,000/year. This past year an assistant at a top agency or management company (like myself) was lucky to break $30K (which I did not).
No $250,000 is about 10 and 1/2 assistants’ salaries.
After hearing this news, I hope that all laid-off entertainment office workers, outside of the WGA, in Los Angeles and across the nation unionize. If that happens, the SAG will be the least of the AMPTP’s problems.
Wait, wait, wait. lagrk, you think $42,000 is the norm? What are you, a personal assistant? That doesn’t count. If I pulled in $42k I would be estatic. I have to agree with JMB and you would have to be extremely lucky to pull in $30k with the top 5 (One of which is where I work) have taken away our overtime.
There go the studios blowing the money they will save on actors residuals, because it seems too many SAG actors accept that it’s more important for the Los Angeles printers to have work than them.
How ridiculous. It’s no surprise how these movies can’t make any money back with these out of control marketing costs. But I guess if you spend enough money, you can convince people your product is good.
Watching Revolutionary Road felt like reading a competently written High School short story by a 17 year old junior who had discovered suburban angst for the first time. This is a bad film. I mean laughably bad. There is a hardcore case of the Emperor being stark naked on this one. Not only are the performances surprisingly false and one note but they are embarrassing. It was like watching a group of NYU undergrads trying to write and perform a scene from MAD MEN in a second level acting seminar. The dialogue was expository to the point of feeling like a lead weight around two incredibly talented people who were trying to perform their way out of a comic book depiction of a John Cheever novel. If this is an Oscar movie then I’ll recast my vote for Best Picture to The Towering Inferno which lost to Chinatown in 1974. Wow, it is astonishing how puerile this movie is. People, please watch MAD MEN. Break the rules and give the Oscar to that show since this seems to be a pretty lame, mediocre year. What happened to the good old days when movies like Midnight Cowboy and The Godfather were getting nominated. Ugh. It’s depressing.
“Marketing maven marveled”? You had fun writing that, admit it.
How perverse.
sounds like Lesher is in full panic mode (again). Good strategy if this was 1998 and people actually read the print version of the NYT. I’ve already read all of tomorrow’s reviews online.
As both a WGA writer and a university TV/Film writing professor, I’m loving the copies of the shooting scripts of The Wrestler, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Secret Life of Bees sent to me by the marketing campaigns. I had already read the novel The Reader, but hope to see the film and read the screenplay. The fact that the studios actually respect the craft of writing enough to send these out speaks volumes. And, not too coincidentally, will benefit my students tremendously. I don’t have to tell my students, those I call The Text Generation, that if they want to write and produce good films, they need to read them.
“I’ll recast my vote for Best Picture to The Towering Inferno which lost to Chinatown in 1974.”
The Godfather: Part II won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1974, beating both The Towering Inferno and Chinatown.
Has any major tv network showed any of the last year oscar nominated movies ? there are dozens of them
it’s all about dvd and download sales at this point
but in the end … you’ll find these dvds for 10 bucks or less at walmart … like Blood Diamond ..staring Leo DiCarpio …
why don’t reporters ask big name stars why there huge movies are selling for such low prices at walmart
Ironically, a lot of these award season studio promo items tend to end up on Ebay since they’re sought-after by the general public (limited edition prints, CDs, DVDs, books, EPKs, screeners, posters, assorted memorabilia, etc.), so maybe they’re actually generating additional revenue streams after all? Ka-ching!
I am so glad this was published. I would just like to state for the record that SAG actors’ (the rank and file, not the stars) salaries make up 1% of studio film budgets. one percent. Don’t be fooled. They cry wolf, say they are poor to turn everyone against the workers (SAG, WGA, Assistants, Car assebly line workers, etc.) in these hard economic times and spend millions on ads.
Everyone is supposed to tighten their belts- or is that just the middle class? When baseball pitchers get signed for $165million, stars get $20 million a picture and then say vote no for the “better of everyone” something has to change.
When did this country become so anti-labor? Or so gullible that they believe international conglomerate (ie AMPTP) over their own?
Geoff, are you going for the Oscar for Most Similes in a Single Paragraph?
Average Joe looks to Hollywood for the glamour missing in everyday life.
One could argue Brad Pitt in a tux is less depressing than Brad Pitt in rags (attempting to sympathize). So I’ll happily get you started on the black tie Benjamin Button premiere
People want to be distracted right now, not reminded.
In the current state of affairs, it’s twisted the studios are doing this, but then again buying your way seems to work.
The assistants I know at Disney have been telling me that Lassiter has no idea what anything actually costs, it’s all about his vaunted “creativity.” DVD rereleases are construed on a whim or a dream Lassiter had the night before, bottom lines be damned. And they are.
There is a religious term called the “strong delusion” God will send and it is apt.
The only reason why assistant salaries are at about $50,000 in LA is because of taxes and the cost of living is so sky-high you would need a government bailout just to cut 10% of your debt.
Is this supposed to be surprising? God love the assistants, they’re the ones who actually make this town run (I’m an assistant) but there are always more of us out there. Whereas an Oscar or even a nomination is a major financial coup for any studio. Most/all of the companies would fire their entire staff if it ensured a big night in February.
I read the paper cover to cover this morning, and missed this Revolutionary Road-block.
That’s because:
When you read the NYT on your Kindle you literally do not get exposed to a SINGLE ad — it’s an ad-free platform (unless you use the web browser). Kindle needs to advertise this fact a bit more.
Weird how Brad Grey Paramount (BGP) goes so insane on Oscar ads when isn’t all the Oscar advertising for There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men is what drove down those Paramount Vantage margins?
The Oscars have lost almost 70% of their viewers in the last ten years.
Someone name an awards show/presentation that’s GROWING in audience or esteem.
Wall-E is the only movie in the running this year to make a PROFIT and Disney hasn’t started laying people off yet so who cares? This is just another example of the lame prejudice against animated features in this country. Wall-E has live action actors in it. It’s only competition this year come from a talking panda and another movie from the same company. How is that an award worth earning? Instead of talking about Lassiter’s ego your “insider” and his obtuse little opinions should go learn how to tell a story and maybe pay a little respect to the artists who make great films that people actually want to see.
It seems silly to point out the excesses of marketing as somehow inappropriate during tough economic times, when the movies’ costs — above and below line — are so bloated, anyway — and to such little overall effect in the end. When you realize how many millions these films cost just to plan, let alone shoot, and then you compare them aesthetically to classics from Hollywood’s various “golden” ages (30s right through the 70s) that were frugally churned out with almost hamburger-like precision, that’s what’s really inappropriate.
Doesn’t the saying ‘Spend to earn’ applies here? If the studios stop spending, how are they going to market their products and raise awareness to the consumers?
I felt sorry for the job loss and being an employee myself, I certainly fear the worst all of us. But if the firm stopped spending, it will hurt the value-chain of the entire industry.
The newspaper are dependant on the adverts for income.
The printing firm are dependant on the printing business to survive…etc
Sure, it seems a little disturbing at first glance, of the amt being spent on the marketing but then what else do these studios have to fall back on to market their product? Nothing is for free today
And guess what, winning an Oscars is sure to add a few more dollars to the movie’s B.O or DVD sales.
Isn’t this just business, though? I don’t tend to think that Disney, or anybody else, is carelessly spending these lavish sums while flipping the bird to the people they lay off (though I see how it might feel that way to people getting laid off). Rather, studios are spending these sums because getting a Best Picture nomination would be worth X number of dollars to them. I don’t find this at all different from any other form of advertising: you spend money to hopefully make more money in the long run. Why is this more distasteful in the midst of a recession than any other ad — a GM truck ad for instance — playing on TV or the radio, or being published in newspapers and magazines? It may be on a somewhat grander, more visible scale, but doesn’t that just mean it’s EFFECTIVE? To me, this is about the almighty buck, it’s not a personal or moral affront. If you want to take a longer view on it: if WALL-E gets a best pic nomination and Disney makes a jillion dollars in increased DVD sales, wouldn’t that help them keep their staff, hire back the laid off ones, etc?
I had to read through 26 posts before I read the one by Armand (just above mine). I was about to write the same as Armand.
If the assistants and everyone else in la la land want there jobs then there must be sales. If you want sales then there must be promotion.
History will sort out what promotions are effective. You can’t criticize promotion just from the dollar amount or uniqueness of the idea. Time will tell if these promos get the return.
Wake up SAG actors.
You are the only ones that might weather this storm of “poor boy” lies from the Media Conglomerates if you have the sense to stand up against them and their paltry roll-backs-galore offer.
The other unions are screwed. They agreed, essentially, to have their unions dismantled. They agreed to non-union productions? That means they can’t organize them. That means that all the fresh union members each year (read: fresh dues) is cancelled. They agreed to end residuals. No residuals in New Media means the member only has half the money to qualify for insurance, half the money upon which to base your percentage-based dues. Now you’ve got a severely reduced income for the union and its operations. (BTW, no residuals also means no more P&H contributions to the IATSE fund. That means no more P&H for crew members.)
The list goes on.
Seriously, is there one person out there that believes these unions will be able to survive with this massive decrease in dues?
I predict that half the people working in the business will have to quit the business inside of 2 years. Going forward, if you can even get a union gig (because the Media Corporations will now make all non-union productions because YOU LET THEM) you gave up all your basic minimums, so you’ll be making State Minimum wage.
I also predict that DGA, WGA, IATSE, and AFTRA will collapse inside of 4 years. There simply will not be the dues paid to the unions to support them.
SAG, make a stand while you can. You will not get another chance.
People are going to bed hungry and these pigs are throwing that kind of money to garner an Oscar nomination for some actor even though nobody cares about the Oscars anymore based on the show’s pathetic ratings.
How much more does a “black tie” premiere cost than a nonblack tie premiere? You mean they’re not spending stupid amounts anyway?
I doubt there is any real difference.
We’re discussing this as if monies saved cutting back on marketing would be redirected to rank and file salaries. It doesn’t usually work that way.
And as much as I agree it is all frivolous, in the end it is a business that supports a wide ranging industry. The film making community is made up of a lot of frivolous nonsense but all that frivolous nonsense creates jobs and an economy. Getting mad at the frivolity of the studios is as useful as getting mad at professional sports or the clothing industry. If the studios stop spending money on marketing other people will be laid off and then THEY will go to bed hungry.
Ain’t life complicated, messy and simply grand?
I’m an Academy Member and I resent ALL the award marketing. I have never been persuaded to vote for a picture based on ads, parties or freebies. Sometimes when the award campaign for a picture is completely insane, I choose NOT to vote for it, because it disgusts me to think that studios may think this is a way to win awards. I even throw away “The Envelope” section of the L.A. Times. It would be interesting to do a survey of Academy members to find out if my take on this is the rule or the exception.
Fox should air Slumdog Millionaire against the Oscars ..
only if they promote it right with family friendly tv ads and not lame infomercial type – use it to push even more fox searchlight pictures – promote other danny boyle films … push every dvd set fox has
millions would watch … fox could beat the oscars in ratings
@Tuckenie: I’m not sure I understand your points. But…
January 30, 2008: Kung Fu Panda is up for the most number of noms = 17, International Animated Film Society’s 36th Annual Annie Awards
Kung Fu Pand Worldwide Lifetime Grosses: $631,869,621 (boxofficemojo).
The animated family film was released on a Sunday, an industry first, to capitalize on the stack of Sunday retail newspaper inserts. The gamble paid off handsomely: Based solely on first-day sales, the film debuted at No. 2 on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart, selling in a single day nearly 90% of what “Get Smart” sold all week.
“Kung Fu Panda” also was a hit in rental stores, generating 72% as much rental activity last Sunday as “Get Smart,” which bowed at No. 1 on Home Media Magazine’s video rental chart, saw since its release the previous Tuesday.handsomely: Based solely on first-day sales, the film debuted at No. 2 on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart, selling in a single day nearly 90% of what “Get Smart” sold all week.
“Kung Fu Panda” also was a hit in rental stores, generating 72% as much rental activity last Sunday as “Get Smart,” which bowed at No. 1 on Home Media Magazine’s video rental chart, saw since its release the previous Tuesday.