007 could get Bollywood-style makeover

[Kristatos]

But what you all should consider is that for all the hoopla Quark (AKA QOS) only sold approximately 2m more tickets than DAD. Which in the current market infrastructure available to the Bond series this is an amazing backslide. I know it is hard to make sense of this and it's even harder to illustrate this but I'm working on it

It sold more tickets than DAD I knew it sold fewer than CR, but I'm surprised to see it still doing roughly Goldeneye numbers. I know it had some strong opening weekends, but I wouldn't have though that was enough to propel it into the Brozzasphere, box office-wise.

[bjmdds]

WhaT Craig doesn't like his own movie????!?!?!?!? I can't believe that he was so proud of it. He even said it would be embarrassing to follow up the first with a bad second, when he said that He had seen it already so I don't think he is that upset with it.

I think he was more upset with the harsh reviews QoS recieved, compared to CR.

Harsh, numerous and spot on. Craig thought he knew what he was doing as Bond. Not so obviously.

[Mazer Rackham]

But what you all should consider is that for all the hoopla Quark (AKA QOS) only sold approximately 2m more tickets than DAD. Which in the current market infrastructure available to the Bond series this is an amazing backslide. I know it is hard to make sense of this and it's even harder to illustrate this but I'm working on it

It sold more tickets than DAD I knew it sold fewer than CR, but I'm surprised to see it still doing roughly Goldeneye numbers. I know it had some strong opening weekends, but I wouldn't have though that was enough to propel it into the Brozzasphere, box office-wise.

It does seems like it might be impressive but it isn't really when you really go into the details. It may not be as much as 2 million tickets, I think it is safe to say it probably out sold DAD by a million, 1.4 maybe. 2m my be too generous. Maybe when the next round of in house numbers are released/leaked it may well be tied.

Anyway as I was trying to say about the infrastructure for distributing the movies is vastly different than it was in 2002, around 16 new markets for the 2006 and 2008 movies, and the theater count is deceptive because of the growth of multiplexes.

China gave $21m to quark, take that away and it drops well below DAD in adjusted gross and ticket numbers. That is an astounding backslide, not only did they lose approximately 10 to 11m viewers/tickets bought/sold, they are barely keeping up with themselves 6 years ago. And if DAD were released today and is did the same as it did in 2002 and then add the new markets like china it would spank Quark and possibly take on CR.

DAD UK approx 10m tickets by USD average, CR 13m by USD average, Quark 11m by USD average
DAD UK approx $59m , CR $105m , QUARK $80m

Worldwide Total in 2002 dollars DAD $456, CR $522m, QUARK $470m

Domestic Total in 2002 dollars DAD $161, CR $147m, QUARK $136m

*I need to look over this again I've had a few drinks and should go over it with a fresh perspective.

[The Sweeney]

Both QoS and DAD suck. Neither should have earned more than a penny.

[The Sweeney]

Harsh, numerous and spot on. Craig thought he knew what he was doing as Bond. Not so obviously.

I personally think there are bigger culprits to blame. EON, Forster, P&W. Craig just so happens to be in the movie. Stick your beloved Jackman in QoS, and the film would have still been poor.

[JackWade CIA]

Both QoS and DAD suck. Neither should have earned more than a penny.

Couldn't they say the same for Casino R. Why did it make any money at all? Was it because it was so good or was it because it was there? Are Transformers 1 & 2 are cinema classics? I think not. So maybe there is a case to be made for CR as well.

A movie like The Dark Knight we can say it did so well because it was so good. Could CR be a fluke? It most certainly was a fluke as the story goes. But could it be the strength of the franchise pulled CR though despite the actor or the story?

Questions like These will likely remain unanswered because there are only two camps here and one or the other will only bother to say either; Craig was brilliant and that most definitely was the reason, or on the other side of the coin that the healthy franchise as left by Pierce Brosnan was strong as an Ox so it powered through and persevered.

[The Sweeney]

Both QoS and DAD suck. Neither should have earned more than a penny.

Couldn't they say the same for Casino R. Why did it make any money at all? Was it because it was so good or was it because it was there? Are Transformers 1 & 2 are cinema classics? I think not. So maybe there is a case to be made for CR as well.

A movie like The Dark Knight we can say it did so well because it was so good. Could CR be a fluke? It most certainly was a fluke as the story goes. But could it be the strength of the franchise pulled CR though despite the actor or the story?

Questions like These will likely remain unanswered because there are only two camps here and one or the other will only bother to say either; Craig was brilliant and that most definitely was the reason, or on the other side of the coin that the healthy franchise as left by Pierce Brosnan was strong as an Ox so it powered through and persevered.

Well, CR is the greatest Bond film in the history of the franchise, IMO, so the BO figures and glowing reviews reflect this. I don't think Transformers 1 & 2 received the amount of global praise heaped on CR. This isn't a coincidence. Worldwide critics and audiences really took to CR - the opening weekends of QoS also reflect this - especially in the US.

[JackWade CIA]

I was using Transformers in terms of making money while being rotten. I wouldn't have to look very far to find critically acclaimed money making lemons. But I'd rather not look.

QoS was clearly rubbish and it made money. I can only conclude that it was the strength of the franchise pulling it through. I am not so sure we can claim the opening weekend as being absolute proof of love. The franchise mechanisms were in place and there was no competition to speak of. Personally I do think CR generated a good deal of good will and that there was an audience ready for more but I am not sold the opening weekend are the proof. I could point out several franchises where the good will of audience pulled out great openings, names like Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Then there are the exceptions; of Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End and X-Men Origins: Wolverine whose previous installments sucked.

[The Sweeney]

I was using Transformers in terms of making money while being rotten. I wouldn't have to look very far to find critically acclaimed money making lemons. But I'd rather not look.

QoS was clearly rubbish and it made money. I can only conclude that it was the strength of the franchise pulling it through. I am not so sure we can claim the opening weekend as being absolute proof of love. The franchise mechanisms were in place and there was no competition to speak of. Personally I do think CR generated a good deal of good will and that there was an audience ready for more but I am not sold the opening weekend are the proof. I could point out several franchises where the good will of audience pulled out great openings, names like Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Then there are the exceptions; of Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End and X-Men Origins: Wolverine whose previous installments sucked.

QoS made more in the US and the UK on its opening weekend than any previous Brosnan Bond film's opening weekend.
The figures dropped dramatically afterwards, due to bad word of mouth.

CR on the other hand started slowly, but maintained a steady growth throughout. DVD figures also did very well. This paints the picture of a film that took people by suprise, including the critics, and people went back to see it again.

Making an educated guess, it's not hard to see why QoS had record breaking BO success in its opening weekends, then dropped off significantly 2 weeks later. Cinema goers were expecting another CR, and they didn't get it. Word soon got around....

[Mazer Rackham]

See buttercup this is where you start to get into trouble. You are using a the BO take as a placebo for greatness.

A few facts first Quark/Qos was in the biggest and widest theater count of any Bond film to date 3,451 not counting the individual screens at each theater. As well as zero competition it had a flood of free tickets as well, no purchase necessary to retrieve them.

Quark sold approx 9,405,100 tickets opening weekend
Die Another Day sold approx 8,101,900 tickets opening weekend

Bad word of mouth certainly hurt Quark, but by itself is not enough in the first week to completely cripple Quarks take around the world for the rest of its run.
Best preforming Bond of recent history is still DAD, it has the best first week of either of Craig's Bourne imitation and still holds records for various one day and 3 day and 5 day holiday takes.

Sure there were people who don't like Bond and think Craig is a great English variant of XxX and were looking forward to more sullen acting lessons, but the immediate drop was sudden and worse than some predicted even given the givens. There is another variable at play here. Some of it may be the studio front loaded this thing in attempt to grab good headline with the weekend numbers. Nice fodder to splatter the front pages and useful for kicking off another round of tv ads.

Another fact beside the free tickets is the studios do buy tickets for their own movies to help nudge them on, not directly through themselves but through various subcontracted agencies hired for as such for advertising.

[Goldeneye]

Domestic Total in 2002 dollars DAD $161, CR $147m, QUARK $136m

Mazer is there a source for these numbers we could use? You know a public source.

[Kristatos]

Domestic Total in 2002 dollars DAD $161, CR $147m, QUARK $136m

Mazer is there a source for these numbers we could use? You know a public source.

Have you checked http://www.boxofficemojo.com?

[JackWade CIA]

QoS made more in the US and the UK on its opening weekend than any previous Brosnan Bond film's opening weekend.
The figures dropped dramatically afterwards, due to bad word of mouth.

CR on the other hand started slowly, but maintained a steady growth throughout. DVD figures also did very well. This paints the picture of a film that took people by suprise, including the critics, and people went back to see it again.

Making an educated guess, it's not hard to see why QoS had record breaking BO success in its opening weekends, then dropped off significantly 2 weeks later. Cinema goers were expecting another CR, and they didn't get it. Word soon got around....

What I am trying to get at it this all including DAD can be attributed to the mechanism of the Franchise. While CR started slow it maintained momentum I believe because people liked it although once again it didn't have much in the way of competition.

See buttercup this is where you start to get into trouble.

Buttercup?? Do you have a nickname for everybody here?

[Mazer Rackham]

See buttercup this is where you start to get into trouble.

Buttercup?? Do you have a nickname for everybody here?

Only the ones I talk with princess.

Domestic Total in 2002 dollars DAD $161, CR $147m, QUARK $136m

Mazer is there a source for these numbers we could use? You know a public source.

Have you checked http://www.boxofficemojo.com?

Kristatos is 100% correct. BO Mojo is a open source everyone in the industry relies on. Tonight I'll send you the data, including how the numbers are arrived at, as I've done for other things you didn't see fit to use. Just a note some of it is my own work and some of it isn't.

One other tantalizing factoid is the neither CR nor Quark have sold as many tickets in Japan as DAD. At one point I was trying to compile a market by market comparison to demonstrate the market circa 2002 and the expansion of the worldwide market through 2006 and even 2008.

[Mazer Rackham]

Update on the MGM situation.

Lionsgate is proceeding with the second round of bidding although they have their heart set on buying Miramax. Lionsgate wasn't a serious considered a contender for MGM anyway.

Fox is out of the running. Said they were outbid and will not come back to the table

Warner Bros is in the running but there is still talk of some sort of bankruptcy proceedings to make any deal work for whoever wins. WB would be smart to snap up MGM for The Hobbit and Bond alone. But they and others value MGM at maybe $2 billion, with $4 billion in debts, and $1 billion due to be paid back next year.

Time Warner's CEO has publicly talked down the value of MGMs assets. Some of it is posturing to give WB a better bargaining position and some of it is problematic because MGM continues to lose value as time goes on and nobody is sure what it is worth for them to buy it. As always it is MGM's investors being screwed over in any deal that is made and we have to see what they might agree to. BTW Sony is not one of the investors being screwed, they made their money back long ago, it is the other investors in the consortium Sony put together who are getting the raw deal.

[Omega]

Good. Glad fox is out of it. Since they didn't see their way to making a real bid.

[Mazer Rackham]

Good. Glad fox is out of it. Since they didn't see their way to making a real bid.

Fox made the same type of bid as everyone else. Nonbinding. At this point it is the way it is done. The creditors do not want to be obligated to accept any of the bids, nor the studios to honor them if things change.

After dragging their feet and crying about everything Fox made a 1.5 billion offer with some debt restructuring. Most value the studio at 1.5 to 1.7 billion, the creditors want more than 2 billion so far none of the bids have come close.

Second round of bidding is going to take weeks and months, remember the last round started in November and ended Jan 15th and we are just now getting the fall out from that and on to the second round where offers can be made of individual parts of the MGM like Bond. Only 6 companies have come back for the second round. Of those WB (AKA Time Warner) is the big dog in the room, Lionsgate is there but is more interested in Miramax. Last May (2009) WB considered stepping in and saving MGM, when they looked a the books they couldn't commit to it. In the months that followed the number was floated that Bond was worth 1.5 billion by itself which as laughed at by the industry. WB saw the writing on the wall last year.

It is beyond me how anyone can see Bond 23 as on track, its going no where before this is settled and unless a miracle happened it will not be close to being settled this year. Even if an agreement is reached it will still take many more months to work out all the details and financing.

MGM's creditors have been pressing for a sale as MGM teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. Its creditors, over 150 of them, are driving the process, with the hope of recovering a large chunk of the studio’s debts. If these expectations are not met, MGM could go in a court-supervised bankruptcy. If that happens god only knows where it goes from there because reportedly the intellectual rights MGM currently enjoys to make Bond sequels will revert to another party.

[JackWade CIA]

See buttercup this is where you start to get into trouble.

Buttercup?? Do you have a nickname for everybody here?

Only the ones I talk with princess.

Alrighty then little Debbie

At one point I was trying to compile a market by market comparison to demonstrate the market circa 2002 and the expansion of the worldwide market through 2006 and even 2008.

Dear me you must really hate him to go through this much trouble. Trying to deflate his CR balloon by making a bunch of tiny pin holes in it. You don't play nice with others do you?

[Mazer Rackham]

Dear me you must really hate him to go through this much trouble. Trying to deflate his CR balloon by making a bunch of tiny pin holes in it. You don't play nice with others do you?

Look mate, first I don't accept your bloody premise. Why does it always have to be personal with you lot? I have plenty of reasons not to like Craig as Bond or more accurately a Bourne knockoff, than animus toward him personally. That tactic has it roots in the BS Studio defense of Craig after they became too publicly committed to him, how many stories were we inundated with about how poor Craig had his feelings hurt , skipping entirely the bullying and arm twisting going on to force the canard of the ugly gritty Bond. Completely missing/glossing over Craig's response to fans of f**k'em.

The PR spin was without a doubt was driven by studio greed of course rather than any fact found in any Ian Fleming book or for that matter Fleming's very thoughts on the type of man appropriate for Bond. Even the very tone of the movies had met with Fleming's approval, sure eon lost their way from time to time but before Craig they had always managed to come back to center of the character. Primarily the yahoos cheering Craig the loudest are not Bond fans or even Fleming fans really. Graham, Willy-Sweeny, and some of the others praised it by saying it was better then OHMSS, which to the majority of Bond fans was the worst of the anthology just shows how out of the spirit of Bond they reside. Our mate Sweeny here saw the Bourne movies and had an epiphany that "this is what Bond should be like", completely missing the soul of Bond. It is the essence and soul of the character that has remained timeless not the producers coming up tricks to keep thing edgy or updated. When they carved out the soul tossing it away with the rest of 007 then raised up a golem to replace it is the moment Bond died and the franchise began its final spiral towards the end.

[JackWade CIA]

I do not think you get where I am coming from at all. I see where a fan such as yourself would not be happy with the reboot. I also see where it worked, and maybe it wasn't true to Bond or Bond in the truest sense, I am not going to bother arguing the intentions of the author, movies or Books with you.

The change in the reboot which is what their intention was from the start worked because they carefully crafted the story, the follow up blew it all to hell finishing off the reboot for me. I think before long they will have to return to the old School Bond making you happy and will mostly never visit the raw unfinished minimalistic animalistic Bond again. Which may be for the best.