Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

gq.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 139 posts

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#61

Post by firasd »

slg wrote: post #55
firasd wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2017 is when I first noticed this... Ghost in the Shell, Valerian, Blade Runner 2049

Care to look up the top grossing movie of that year? There is plenty of successful sci-fi including Star Wars, Jurassic Park, The Matrix, Transformers, The Hunger Games, and Avatar. Every genre can produce flops, but many of the most profitable movie franchises have been sci-fi movies.

Okay, excluding superhero movies and franchises

You've cherry picked huge hits across decades... I'm saying generally if the budget is >$100million and it's a Sci-fi (not superhero/franchise), it'll probably not be a hit

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#62

Post by paganel »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #15
avl999 wrote: post #5

I am shocked he has to put his own money into this movie. It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Studios are generally willing to raise money for movies by big name directors even if they haven't had a hit recently (see how Terrence Malick keeps getting to make big expensive movies, most with a-list stars despite not having had a commercial or widespread critical hit since the late-90s).

> It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Not necessarily, it's gotten much harder to produce projects that aren't commercially marketable IP like Marvel. I listened to a Matt Damon interview recently and he basically wondered aloud if he could get a studio to make Good Will Hunting today, which made me sad to hear. Many of his early movies were low to mid-budget one-off dramas, which aren'…

The middle-ground movies like "Good Will Hunting" are, unfortunately, pretty much dead in the water right now, they have been since before the pandemic (I'd say since the early 2010s). Some directors and producers in France (because the same thing has been happening there, at another level) tried to do something about it by staging some protests around 2012-2013 if I'm not mistaken, this interview [1] (in French) from 2013 with Pascale Ferran, one of the main persons behind the movement, will add more details. Of course that nothing came out of the whole protest movement.

There is some (I think) temporary help from streaming and especially from Netflix when it comes to this type of movies ("The Irishman" is just one example), but, again and imo, I think this is just temporary and that in the long term Netflix and its kin will also give up on this type of movies. And, of course, you could say (like Scorsese himself sort of did) that watching movies on a TV screen is not really "watching movies", and I'm with Scorsese on that.

[1] https://www.afcinema.com/Pascale-Ferran-Je-m-inquiete-pour-l...

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#63

Post by bryanrasmussen »

nocommandline wrote: post #26
bigmattystyles wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always say that about Godfather 3, I always wonder if it’s just a thing to say because he put his own daughter in a lead role. Like the critics, I liked it. Not nearly as much as II or I but still. It is a nineties movie though, it’s even different media wise, less grainy. Casting his own daughter when I think, Winona Ryder, dropped out was very nepotistic; and she’s a better director than actress. For me Garc…

I don't think it's because he put his daughter in it. Godfather I & II is based on the Book written by Mario Puzzo. Godfather III is not based on the book. Think of it from the POV of - wow, I & II were quite successful so let's milk it and see if we can make money with another sequel.

>Godfather I & II is based on the Book written by Mario Puzzo.

ever read the book? It's a dog.

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#64

Post by ayngg »

AmVess wrote: post #6
avl999 wrote: post #5

I am shocked he has to put his own money into this movie. It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Studios are generally willing to raise money for movies by big name directors even if they haven't had a hit recently (see how Terrence Malick keeps getting to make big expensive movies, most with a-list stars despite not having had a commercial or widespread critical hit since the late-90s).

Spielberg has said a few times that it is hard for him to raise money for projects. Other big names have said the same thing. Studios want superhero movies or reboots and nothing else.

Streaming has hollowed out the non-blockbuster market, so studios need to quite literally go big or go home. Going big means the movie needs to have spectacle that brings people to the theater, which generally means huge cgi budgets that tv series could never replicate on a per frame basis. Superhero movies (and remakes) are exploiting preexisting social capital of franchises to be as successful as they are, otherwise it is really difficult to justify dropping hundreds of millions of dollars on producing and marketing a blockbuster spectacle nobody has ever heard of when marvel and other studios are dropping movies with familiar and popular IP constantly.

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#65

Post by slg »

firasd wrote: post #61
slg wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to look up the top grossing movie of that year? There is plenty of successful sci-fi including Star Wars, Jurassic Park, The Matrix, Transformers, The Hunger Games, and Avatar. Every genre can produce flops, but many of the most profitable movie franchises have been sci-fi movies.

Okay, excluding superhero movies and franchises You've cherry picked huge hits across decades... I'm saying generally if the budget is >$100million and it's a Sci-fi (not superhero/franchise), it'll probably not be a hit

And you cherry-picked movies that disappointed. Of course it is harder to find successful movies once you make the condition of ignoring franchises. Franchises come from successful movies. Valerian's lack of success wasn't caused by it not being a franchise movie. It wasn't a franchise because it wasn't successful enough. There would have been a sequel if it made $500m.

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#67

Post by firasd »

slg wrote: post #65
firasd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, excluding superhero movies and franchises You've cherry picked huge hits across decades... I'm saying generally if the budget is >$100million and it's a Sci-fi (not superhero/franchise), it'll probably not be a hit

And you cherry-picked movies that disappointed. Of course it is harder to find successful movies once you make the condition of ignoring franchises. Franchises come from successful movies. Valerian's lack of success wasn't caused by it not being a franchise movie. It wasn't a franchise because it wasn't successful enough. There would have been a sequel if it made $500m.

Right, so the consistent thing to measure is if the first movie was a hit. So yes, Jurassic Park (1993) is a counter-example to my point. But the sequels are not covered by the rule of thumb

I could be wrong (and potentially this 'big budgets are risky' is the case with big movies movies in general, not only big sci-fi movies.) Just an impression I've been developing

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#69

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

ipaddr wrote: post #10
nickpeterson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My go to is Christmas Vacation, as a dad helping make Christmas ‘happen’, that movie rings truer every year.

Die Hard has risen im popularity lately.

Die Hard, just before Christmas. Ho, ho, ho.

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#70

Post by slg »

firasd wrote: post #67
slg wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you cherry-picked movies that disappointed. Of course it is harder to find successful movies once you make the condition of ignoring franchises. Franchises come from successful movies. Valerian's lack of success wasn't caused by it not being a franchise movie. It wasn't a franchise because it wasn't successful enough. There would have been a sequel if it made $500m.

Right, so the consistent thing to measure is if the first movie was a hit. So yes, Jurassic Park (1993) is a counter-example to my point. But the sequels are not covered by the rule of thumb I could be wrong (and potentially this 'big budgets are risky' is the case with big movies movies in general, not only big sci-fi movies.) Just an impression I've been developing

Very few original movies will end up being major successes. You look at the top grossing movies of every year and they are mostly franchises, adaptations, and remakes. This has been true for decades and applies to all genres.

Yes, big movies are in general a risk. Sci-fi movies often have high budgets due to nature of the genre so they come with risk, but I don't think the genre fails at an abnormally large rate compared to other genres.

Post reply on HN