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The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

nytimes.com

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Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#81

Post by bigmattystyles »

dylan604 wrote: post #70
hinkley wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SciFi did a miniseries, just before or just after they changed their name. It wasn't bad. I think it was about 10 hours. The problem is that a lot of the payoff is at the end of book 3, and then book four tips the whole thing upside down with some deep religious and philosophical elements that I'm not sure everyone is ready for. I'm always a little surprised how few people have read Dune relative to Lord of the Rings…

>with some deep religious and philosophical elements that I'm not sure everyone is ready for. This is how I felt about Battlestar. I barely remember watching the original series as a kid, but I just remember a couple of character names, Cylons (which I thought were cool), the space ships, and the human in the dark room ontop of the pyramid shape the Cylons talked to. That was it. Then I watched the reboot, and was sh…

Religious overtones or are ancient religious texts the original sci-fi where its adherents a few generations removed never got the memo? Only kinda joking. I too picked up on battlestar, resurrection, the twelve tribes (or colonies?) lords ok Kobol and so on. I think someone told me at some point the original was Mormons in space.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#82

Post by nradov »

jedberg wrote: post #76
nradov wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not possible to make more money as a tax write-off. That's not how corporate income taxes work. The expense of making a movie can always be written off regardless of whether it is released or. If the studio decided not to release it then that was done for other reasons.

https://deadline.com/2023/11/coyote-vs-acme-shelved-warner-b... tl;dr: If they never release it they can write off the "lost profits" which they can't do if they release or sell it.

Bullshit. You can't write off "lost profits". The US corporate income tax code contains no such provision. Don't believe anything you read in the entertainment press, it's mostly fake news or at least not fact checked. Go ask your own income tax accountant if you don't believe me.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#83

Post by jedberg »

nradov wrote: post #82
jedberg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://deadline.com/2023/11/coyote-vs-acme-shelved-warner-b... tl;dr: If they never release it they can write off the "lost profits" which they can't do if they release or sell it.

Bullshit. You can't write off "lost profits". The US corporate income tax code contains no such provision. Don't believe anything you read in the entertainment press, it's mostly fake news or at least not fact checked. Go ask your own income tax accountant if you don't believe me.

Ok, well then why didn't they release the movie? Why did they say it would be more profitable to not release it? You're either smarter than the entirety of Warner Brother's finance department, or wrong.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#84

Post by nickelpro »

jedberg wrote: post #77
nickelpro wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the reason to do this is that the film is ultimately going to cost more money than it is worth, or the gross represents a rounding error on the studio's balance sheet. You wouldn't capitalize the expenses of a film that was expected to recoup any meaningful amount of money on release. Either the thing is already costing you more money than it is worth or is a brand risk, thus you look for a way to get out as…

They need the money now, they can't wait to depreciate it over time.

If the film was going to recoup at least the $10-$20M they'll save in taxes that FY they would release it.

The point is the property is worth negative or trivial value already. Either it's going to cost more to finish than it's worth, or it's worth next to nothing.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#85

Post by WalterBright »

hinkley wrote: post #55
nihiven wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see how insane a 10-14 hour Dune movie would be. No intermission I'm sure.

SciFi did a miniseries, just before or just after they changed their name. It wasn't bad. I think it was about 10 hours. The problem is that a lot of the payoff is at the end of book 3, and then book four tips the whole thing upside down with some deep religious and philosophical elements that I'm not sure everyone is ready for. I'm always a little surprised how few people have read Dune relative to Lord of the Rings…

I don't understand all the love for Dune. I read it, it was ok, and that was it. 3 underwhelming film adaptations is more than enough.

Special effects don't make a movie anymore. What matters is plot (and music). For example, "Colossus the Forbin Project" is very good. Some other very good scifi movies:

. Invaders from Mars

. Flash Gordon (1980)

. Terminator

. Star Wars IV

. Alien

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#86

Post by mavhc »

usrusr wrote: post #51
frfl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly unrelated, but there is a 19 hour fan-edit of the Hobbit + Lord of the Rings -- i.e someone glued all 3 Hobbit movies and all 3 LotR movies into a 19 hour video.

I believe that a 90 minutes cut of matrix 2+3 could be actually enjoyable.

"people copied our cool effects for Matrix 1, what if we make the action scenes so long and expensive no one would even bother to copy them because they all went home before they were over?"

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#87

Post by nradov »

jedberg wrote: post #83
nradov wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. You can't write off "lost profits". The US corporate income tax code contains no such provision. Don't believe anything you read in the entertainment press, it's mostly fake news or at least not fact checked. Go ask your own income tax accountant if you don't believe me.

Ok, well then why didn't they release the movie? Why did they say it would be more profitable to not release it? You're either smarter than the entirety of Warner Brother's finance department, or wrong.

This is not a matter of who is smarter. The US tax code is very clear on that point and is not open for debate.

If the studio decided not to release the movie it was most likely because the expected marketing and distribution costs exceeded the expected revenue. Or maybe they didn't want a crap movie to damage the long term brand of a valuable character that they plan to leverage in other products.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#88

Post by WalterBright »

dylan604 wrote: post #70
hinkley wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SciFi did a miniseries, just before or just after they changed their name. It wasn't bad. I think it was about 10 hours. The problem is that a lot of the payoff is at the end of book 3, and then book four tips the whole thing upside down with some deep religious and philosophical elements that I'm not sure everyone is ready for. I'm always a little surprised how few people have read Dune relative to Lord of the Rings…

>with some deep religious and philosophical elements that I'm not sure everyone is ready for. This is how I felt about Battlestar. I barely remember watching the original series as a kid, but I just remember a couple of character names, Cylons (which I thought were cool), the space ships, and the human in the dark room ontop of the pyramid shape the Cylons talked to. That was it. Then I watched the reboot, and was sh…

You can never reboot Max "perhaps you should execute their trainer" von Sydow as Ming the Merciless. Melody Anderson. Queen soundtrack. A true masterpiece.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#89

Post by TylerE »

jedberg wrote: post #83
nradov wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. You can't write off "lost profits". The US corporate income tax code contains no such provision. Don't believe anything you read in the entertainment press, it's mostly fake news or at least not fact checked. Go ask your own income tax accountant if you don't believe me.

Ok, well then why didn't they release the movie? Why did they say it would be more profitable to not release it? You're either smarter than the entirety of Warner Brother's finance department, or wrong.

Because it was gonna bomb, and make less money than it would cost to market. It really is that simple. Warner/Discovery is mega-cash strapped right now. They may literally value $100m now more than $200m a year from now, as they have a massive debt to service.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#90

Post by mavhc »

rightbyte wrote: post #23
livinginfear wrote: post #15

Since we're discussing the economics of film/TV studios, and their weird decisions. I'd like to understand why the studios are still making Star Trek shows. Each one seems to be more poorly received than the last. That's costing studios far more than $55M. Picard alone cost ~$9M per episode according to Wikipedia.

It is strange they can fail so bad, since Star Trek is essentially a setup to make any story at all each episode. I mean, McFarlains comedy-as-an-excuse Not-Star Trek Star Trek is so much more Star Trek than the new series ... at a way lower budget. Imagine if they gave him the job instead.

Which new series?
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