Could it be audiences are getting choosy about CGI animal pictures?
... [T]here is no sure-fire innoculation against animal-pic rabies ...
... [P]roject costs can determine whether a fur-filled pic will turn a profit. For instance, Disney's 2009 family adventure "G-Force" rang up $119 million domestically but was considered a flop after costing $150 million to produce.
"You have to pay attention to all of the usual considerations of casting and timing and cost structures on these pictures," a studio exec cautioned. "Furry animal movies can certainly gross. You just have to figure out how to make them profitably."
"Kitty Galore" cost Warners and co-production partner Village Roadshow at least $85 million to produce and is certain to bleed some red ink. But Warners domestic distribution president Dan Fellman said there's no cause for concern about the studio's next live action-with-CGI animals movie -- "Yogi Bear," set to go pic-a-nicking in multiplexes on Dec. 17.
"The 'Yogi Bear' trailer is one of the best-testing trailers in our company's history," Fellman said ...
Frankly, I've been amazed at the success of the hybrid movies that have rolled into the marketplace. There have been misfires, but Fox's Alvin and the Chipmunks series has done gangbuster business, the first Garfield hybrid did strongly enough to trigger a second, and there have been a number of others.
Of course, the successes have triggered lots of wannabes, but there have been as many misfires as hits. (Remember Rocky and Bullwinkle? Starring Robert De Niro as Fearless Leader? Few others do, either.)
But a lot of Hollywood execs ignore the misfires and focus on the hits. The one thing you can always bank on: Wherever Big Box Office goes, a lemming-like herd of imitators will surely follow.
Posts
6 comments:
Furry animal movies can certainly gross. You just have to figure out how to make them profitably
These execs think if you make a shitty product for less money it will end up making money. The numbers speak for themselves...
Ironically my word verification was SHITRAG. nice.
I'm amazed that Yogi Bear is one of the best testing trailers they've ever released.
I am not an animator. I have no artistic talent but am an avid animation fan. Animation is like some other worldly weapon. Or the Triforce.
If animation can create whatever the mind can conceive, then in the right hands animations creates a beautiful, flourishing world. In the wrong hands, ten thousand years of darkness.
Yogi Bear is nice to look at from a purely visual stand point. CGI Hybrids are finally starting to look not-horrendous. However, any peasant can see a minion of The Dark Lord from a hundred miles away.
Yogi Bear and Alvin and the Chipmunks are minions of evil. Products of limitless power in the wrong hands. Dark days are upon us.
Round up an army of Pixies, we're starting a rebellion.
Because Dan Fellman is lying--or at least wishing hopefully. They'll play the response nubmers any way they so choose, whether they're truly good or truly bad. Marketing.
It looks as bland and characterless as any of the recent CG/Hybrid features.
The problem with the Yogi Bear trailer isnt the animation. It's everything else.
The acting, writing, cinematography, lighting, casting, pacing, humor....it's all bad.
The bear itself looks decent at least.
(Remember Rocky and Bullwinkle? Starring Robert De Niro as Fearless Leader? Few others do, either.)
Some do, and friend, its fate wasn't JUST because it Had CGI Critters In It--
It was a project produced by the Classic Media rights holders, and its script read like a virtual infomercial for selling Boomers on nostalgia identification, with characters gushing "I used to LOVE your show when I was a kid!" every other scene...But also trying to follow Brady Bunch and Scooby-Doo's retro-sneering lead, and heap truckloads of pop-kitsch shame and abuse on the characters at the same time.
If that sounds a bit schizophrenic, it WAS: If you're going to mercenarily kiss up to a marketing demographic, try not spitting on them at the same time--It might not come off as sincere.
(Of course, that has nothing to do with Ross Bagdasarian's and Warner/CN/HB's attempt to assert their franchise holdings a little less polarizingly, but a little detail helps keep us from lumping TOO many examples in one basket.)
I don't believe that trailer tested well. I just don't believe it. I'm no fan of Hanna-Barbera, so I have no nostalgic stakes in the movie; I just hate the trailer because it's not funny and it's so damn UGLY.
Post a Comment