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LucasFilm Tells Darth Vader that Return of the Jedi Hasn’t Made a Profit

slashfilm.com

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Re: LucasFilm Tells Darth Vader that Return of the Jedi Hasn’t Made a Profit

#41

Post by scotu »

mmaunder wrote: post #21

Less than 5% of movies actually show a net income (or net profit as the article calls it). It's called Hollywood Accounting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting Summary: -Studios create a subsidiary corporation for each movie and they almost never show a profit. -The studios charge the subsidiary service fees for services performed like distribution, which lowers net income to zero or less. -They do thi…

The effects of this accounting practice looks a lot like the claimed effect of piracy...

Re: LucasFilm Tells Darth Vader that Return of the Jedi Hasn’t Made a Profit

#42

Post by estel »

chc wrote: post #32
socratic wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate citing Reddit, but this un-sourced imgur link makes it seem like he's not such a bad guy, no? http://i.imgur.com/lTvOg.jpg

Donating 5% of your net worth to charity is praiseworthy, but it's not really anything special, particularly for people in that range of disposable income. He could probably release another boxed set of the original trilogy and make the entire amount back. Every active Mormon donates twice that much to their church.

Convenient you mention that, given another box set of the original trilogy is coming out... today!

Re: LucasFilm Tells Darth Vader that Return of the Jedi Hasn’t Made a Profit

#43

Post by thebooktocome »

chc wrote: post #32
socratic wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate citing Reddit, but this un-sourced imgur link makes it seem like he's not such a bad guy, no? http://i.imgur.com/lTvOg.jpg

Donating 5% of your net worth to charity is praiseworthy, but it's not really anything special, particularly for people in that range of disposable income. He could probably release another boxed set of the original trilogy and make the entire amount back. Every active Mormon donates twice that much to their church.

The Mormon church is hardly a laudable "non-profit" charity.

Re: LucasFilm Tells Darth Vader that Return of the Jedi Hasn’t Made a Profit

#44

Post by danssig »

Bud wrote: post #16

Geez, Lucas. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? I mean, really. I can see being a greedy fuck for a couple decades, while you're still unsure if you are, in fact, going to become and remain wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. But once you have the fuck-you money put away for you, your entire family and everyone you've ever met who was halfway interesting, can't you t…

Lucas ever had decency? The only reason his movies were ever popular is because he wasn't allowed to do anything he wanted.

Re: LucasFilm Tells Darth Vader that Return of the Jedi Hasn’t Made a Profit

#45

Post by sokoloff »

ootachi wrote: post #18
rdl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skype was Private Equity, not normal VC/founder/team terms. very rarely do founders fuck their employees over, relative to how employees are treated in most places. Founders vs. VCs or Founders vs. PE is more common, but founders at a late-stage company should be a lot more educated and resourced. It's mainly at the idea to startup to series A stage where people are fairly universally honorable, at least among the to…

The comments on the "how much did you earn as an early employee from an exit?" thread seem to indicate otherwise. Very few people ever saw their stock options amount to anything.

There are two factors in that thread. First, most companies never achieve a meaningfully successful exit (so those reports will be "my options amounted to nothing" and people will freely share that). Second, in the cases where they did, the employees who did well are somewhat less likely to be reading HN and (I surmise) vastly less likely to talk about it.

I had typed up my experiences over three exits in that thread, posted it and deleted it a few minutes later as it didn't add enough to the discussion relative to what it revealed about me.

Re: LucasFilm Tells Darth Vader that Return of the Jedi Hasn’t Made a Profit

#46

Post by ErikCorry »

socratic wrote: post #31
Bud wrote: post #16

Geez, Lucas. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? I mean, really. I can see being a greedy fuck for a couple decades, while you're still unsure if you are, in fact, going to become and remain wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. But once you have the fuck-you money put away for you, your entire family and everyone you've ever met who was halfway interesting, can't you t…

I hate citing Reddit, but this un-sourced imgur link makes it seem like he's not such a bad guy, no? http://i.imgur.com/lTvOg.jpg

So now we know the reason why he started all those companies. It's all part of "Hollywood Accounting".

Also, of course, he started the companies in order to make some great films.

Re: LucasFilm Tells Darth Vader that Return of the Jedi Hasn’t Made a Profit

#47

Post by ErikCorry »

philwelch wrote: post #40
kprobst wrote: post #22

I seem to remember Alec Guinness hit the jackpot on the SW franchise by demanding a % of the profit (gross?), so I assume this guy had a different contract. I suppose Guinness had a lot more pull and negotiating leverage than a dude whose primary contribution to the films was to be tall.

Alec Guinness was a Serious Actor with plenty of impressive film appearances under his belt. Of course he had more pull.

Maybe the fact that people would have noticed if they had replaced him in the sequels also strengthened his bargaining position.

Re: LucasFilm Tells Darth Vader that Return of the Jedi Hasn’t Made a Profit

#48

Post by Tichy »

Even shares on "gross profit" can fail: it can be beneficial for the publisher to give away the product for free. I've had this happen to a J2ME app, which the publisher gave away for free in exchange for advertising (they were building presence and reputation by this).

Another trick seems to be bundling - "buy this collection of things and you get thing x for free". So profits for selling thing x would be zero.

I am sure there are many more tricks like this...

Re: LucasFilm Tells Darth Vader that Return of the Jedi Hasn’t Made a Profit

#49

Post by [deleted] »

patio11 wrote: post #4

Why isn't there an enterprising law firm going through the credits of all the Star Wars (and similar-vintage films with ongoing commercial potential), contacting every person on the list, and telling all the retired ones "There is a pot o' money with your name on it if you sign these papers which let us sue them for residuals on your behalf."? I have to imagine that the legal strategy required there is a for loop wit…

[deleted]

Re: LucasFilm Tells Darth Vader that Return of the Jedi Hasn’t Made a Profit

#50

Post by ZachPruckowski »

ahlatimer wrote: post #38
ZachPruckowski wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at how hard it is to get traction on investigations into the current foreclosure/securitization boondoggle - it's taken 3 years for judges to actually start looking, the federal regulators are completely uninterested, and maybe 4 state AGs out of 50 have even started looking. And these are obvious and clearcut violations of pretty straightforward laws. Their reputations and legal teams have been a buffer against…

Except that it isn't the government suing these companies, it's the people named in the credits.

Right (I blame 1AM posting for my error), but counting on $DISTRICT_JUDGE to bring down the hammer is equally over-optimistic. If one can barely get a judge to wade in on "a clearly fraudulent document was submitted to your court" when it undermines a foreclosure, I'm pessimistic about the idea that $GUESS is going to be show-stopping.
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