Disney made an estimated $296.4 million loss at the box office on just two of its Marvel superhero movies in 2023 according to analysis of recently-released financial statements.

They reveal that the cost of making The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania came to a staggering $762.4 million (£609.3 million) before Disney banked $124.9 million (£99.4 million) in government incentives bringing its net spending on the movies down to $637.5 million. They both bombed at the box office.

According to industry analyst Box Office Mojo, the movies grossed a combined $682.2 million with theaters typically retaining 50% of the takings and the remainder going to the studio. This reflects the findings of film industry consultant Stephen Follows who interviewed 1,235 film professionals in 2014 and concluded that, according to studios, theaters keep 49% of the takings on average. It would give Disney just $341.1 million from The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. No expense was spared on them.

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Disney does not publicly discuss how much it spends on specific productions and did not respond to a request for comment. Budgets are usually a closely-guarded secret. This is because studios combine the costs of individual pictures in their overall expenses and their filings don't itemize how much was spent on each one. Films made in the UK are exceptions and both The Marvels and Quantumania fall into this category.

Studios shoot in the UK to benefit from its Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit (AVEC) which gives them a cash reimbursement of up to 25.5% of the money they spend in the country.

To qualify for the reimbursement, at least 10% of the production costs need to relate to activities in the UK. In order to demonstrate this to the UK government, studios tend to set up a separate production company in the country for each movie they make there.

The companies have to file financial statements which shine a spotlight on their budgets. They reveal everything from the headcount and salaries to the level of reimbursement and the total costs. Studios directly receive the revenue from theater tickets, streaming and Blu-ray sales and carry the costs of marketing as the function of the UK companies is purely making the movies.

Francis Ford Coppola directed The Godfather when he was just 30 years old. As if that wasn’t astounding enough, he rattled off The Conversation, The Godfather: Part II, and Apocalypse Now before hitting 40. For most directors, this run of stone-cold classics at such a young age would be the vindication of the talent they always believed they possessed. Fascinatingly, though, Coppola wound up feeling like he’d hit the pinnacle of mainstream Hollywood success too early and eventually needed to reverse his career.

In 2007, Coppola released Youth Without Youth – his first picture since 1997’s The Rainmaker. A fantasy drama with a small $1million budget, it was a far cry from a $40m John Grisham adaptation starring a host of Hollywood A-listers. However, it wasn’t like Coppola had been reduced to working on low-budget indies against his will – he simply wanted to re-do his early career.

The legendary director told DGA Quarterly Magazine: “I feel as though I’ve made a deliberate choice to reapproach filmmaking with the same attitudes and ignorance that I had as a young person. Obviously, I’m not a kid, but we all have a kid in us, and I approached this movie with the willingness to do whatever came into my mind.”

Coppola had been inspired by his daughter Sofia’s film Lost in Translation, which she made outside the confines of a major Hollywood studio. He explained: “I just realised that maybe I should go off on my own and make a movie. I could finance myself and not tell anyone about it and not show anyone the script, not announce it, not anything. And ultimately, that’s what I did.”

He admitted, “That gave me a new life, really. In a sense, I was reinvigorated, which is exactly what Youth Without Youth is about.”

His initial films were accomplished, often brilliant, but “The Brutalist” represents a dramatic step forward.

Critics hailed the movie as a masterpiece when it debuted at the Venice Film Festival; some compared its dark rumination on capitalism to that of “There Will Be Blood.” A24 bought the film and is planning a major Oscar push. Even if it doesn’t become an awards season darling, “The Brutalist” is indisputably one of the most audacious American independent films of this or any decade, boasting a run time of three and a half hours while telling a story that starts with American power at its postwar zenith and ends in the Reagan era. It was also shot in VistaVision, a large-format process popular in the 1950s, so it could be projected in 70mm like the screen epics of yesteryear. Oh, and it was all made for roughly $10 million — less than a tenth of what a major studio film costs.

...

“We cut every corner we could to make sure that every single cent was on screen,” Corbet says. “It was a Herculean effort, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, because it was just years and years of essentially working for free.”

...

Despite the challenges, Corbet didn’t dream of making “The Brutalist” on a big budget. “I never thought, ‘I wish I had $30 million more,’” he says. “There’s a lot of strings that come with that kind of money. It invites lots of opinions. You have all these executives who don’t trust the director and bury them in notes. What you get is something antiseptic that lacks a signature. It’s the difference between a bowl from Crate & Barrel and a wabisabi ceramic.”

Like the style of architecture referenced in its title, “The Brutalist” may be polarizing, but it is unmistakably the movie Corbet set out to make.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18202626

Neve Campbell is back as Sidney Prescott in the upcoming Scream VII, and it’s been officially announced today that the seventh installment will hit theaters on February 27, 2026.

Original Scream scribe Kevin Williamson will direct Scream 7. The film, which is currently untitled, was written by Guy Busick from a story by James Vanderbilt & Guy Busick.

Courteney Cox is expected to return as Gale Weathers, but hasn’t yet signed on.

The franchise has been mired in controversy in the past several months, with new series leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega both exiting the project. Barrera was fired, while it was subsequently announced that Ortega wouldn’t be returning. At this time, we still don’t know if Jasmin Savoy Brown or Mason Gooding will be returning for Scream 7.

According to Neve Campbell, the upcoming seventh installment will be a return to the franchise’s roots in the sense that Sidney Prescott will be the central character of the movie.

From their official Twitter account.

Gladiator II is on the cover of Total Film’s upcoming issue 356, which hits print and digital newsstands on October 10. It’s with a heavy heart that we announce that this will be the final issue of the print magazine.

We like to think that this final print edition is a showcase of everything that Total Film magazine strived for, with a thrilling blockbuster on the cover, A-list interviews, fair and impartial reviews, smaller interesting movies nestled alongside the more mainstream fare, and above all else a passion for cinema radiating out of every page.

In the cover feature, we’re talking to Ridley Scott, Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington and more about returning to the Colosseum for Gladiator II. From epic set pieces, to Scott’s unique approach to shooting, to Maximus’ legacy, it’s the perfect primer to this autumn’s most anticipated sequel.

Print subscribers will receive their issue with an exclusive cover shortly (and our subscriptions team will be in touch shortly to discuss next steps).

So for now, it only leaves us to say a huge thank you to all the staff, writers, designers and photographers who made Total Film print magazine what it was over the past 27 years. And we’d also like to express our endless gratitude to everyone who has read, subscribed to or otherwise supported the magazine.

While the magazine itself is going away, our archive content and expert movie and TV writing will continue to live on at http://gamesradar.com/totalfilm.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18164703

Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis is ending his retirement from acting to star in his son’s directorial debut.

The 67-year-old British actor quit acting after starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom Thread, and has largely stayed out of public life since.

But he is now set to star in a film titled Anemone, directed by his son Ronan Day-Lewis, US independent production company Focus Features confirmed on Tuesday.

The film will feature actors including Sean Bean, Samantha Morton, Samuel Bottomley and Safia Oakley-Green, and is currently shooting in Manchester.

Father and son wrote the screenplay, which “explores the intricate relationships between fathers, sons and brothers, and the dynamics of familial bonds”, Focus Features said.

Filmmaking isn’t just about making a great film—it’s about getting that film seen.

With traditional distribution models crumbling, independent filmmakers are finding new ways to connect directly with audiences. This episode explores how the indie film landscape is shifting, with filmmakers taking control of their own distribution, marketing, and audience-building strategies.

Whether you’re a first-time filmmaker or a seasoned pro, this episode will inspire you to think outside the box and embrace a more grassroots approach to getting your work into the world.

...

In this roundtable discussion, No Film School’s GG Hawkins speaks with Jon Reiss, Annamaria Sofillas, Scott Monahan, and Glen Reynolds to discuss:

• Why hybrid distribution is essential for indie filmmakers today
• How film festivals and events can help grow your audience
• Why setting clear release goals is crucial for your film’s success
• How building your audience starts long before your film's release
• Real-world examples of filmmakers using grassroots promotion and festival tours
• Why filmmakers are taking control of their own marketing and outreach strategies
• How indie filmmakers are embracing a punk rock mentality to bypass traditional distribution models

The Mandalorian star Giancarlo Esposito has revealed that he thinks The Mandalorian & Grogu movie could just be the beginning of a new Star Wars trilogy.

"As in the MCU… Disney will figure out how to join all of these characters into one really great movie or TV show. That’s my sense of where it will go," Esposito said during an appearance at Dragon Con (via Culture Slate). "Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau have a new vision, continuing on with a Mandalorian movie… My sense is that it’s all going to converge at one point or another and we’re going to have another set of… [a] trilogy, or more, of films."

Esposito plays Moff Gideon in the Disney Plus series, but he hasn't been confirmed to return in the upcoming movie yet, since he died in season 3 (though, a surprise return can never be ruled out). Pedro Pascal is returning as titular bounty hunter Din Djarin on the big screen, though, with Sigourney Weaver joining him in an undisclosed role, while showrunner Favreau is in the director's chair.

From the official Netflix twitter account:

Here's a first look at Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt in The Electric State. Directed by the Russo Brothers. Coming 2025.

After a robot uprising in the '90s, an orphaned teen searching for her brother travels the American West with a robot, a smuggler, and his sidekick.

And some more information from Dark Horizons;

Millie Bobbie Brown, Chris Pratt, Ke Huy Quan, Giancarlo Espostito, Anthony Mackie, Stanley Tucci, Jason Alexander, Brian Cox, and Jenny Slate star in the coming-of-age sci-fi western tale set in a retro-futuristic alternate 1990s.

Brown plays an orphaned teenager who traverses the American West with her robot friend and Keats (Pratt), an eccentric drifter and veteran of the robot-human war in search of her younger brother.

The project is based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Simon Stalenhag. Shot in October 2022 and wrapping in February 2023, further reshoots took place in March and April of this year.

While Vanity Fair published the photos, not mentioned in the piece accompanying it is all the talk of the film’s budget with the movie reportedly costing around $320 million to produce.

The budget blowout on this film is rumored to be one of the reasons why Netflix reassessed its film division and brought Dan Lin to replace Scott Stuber as head of film with a mandate of being more frugal.

The pictures were released in this one block.

Signature Entertainment has acquired the U.K. and Irish rights to “Skyline: Warpath” the action sci-fi sequel starring Scott Adkins (“John Wick: Chapter 4”) and Iko Uwais (“The Raid” franchise) from Palisades Park Pictures.

Written and directed by Liam O’Donnell (“Beyond Skyline”), the film also stars Yayan Ruhian (“The Raid: Redemption”) and Charlotte Vega (“Wrong Turn”) and was produced by Matthew E. Chausse (“Harvest”) and Evangelo Kioussis (“American Star”), while Peter Choi (“More, More, More”), Arvin Sutedja (“Qodrat”), Danny R. Carmona and Victor Presinal served as executive producers.

Set within the “Skyline” universe and two years after the events of “Beyond Skyline,” “Skyline: Warpath” follows Sua as he leads The Resistance against the invading aliens. When he discovers the powerful alien Radial Gauntlet, he must deal with both the corrupt Eric and the army of alien invaders.

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XYZ Films has acquired U.S. rights to the film.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man | How the dwindling of home media has affected a cult comic book franchise

by Ryan Lambie | October 1, 2024

Hellboy's back in cinemas with The Crooked Man, but its budget is drastically reduced from its 2000s heyday. A shrinking home video market may be the reason.

There was a crooked man who walked a crooked mile... presumably so he could share top billing in Hellboy: The Crooked Man, which snuck into UK cinemas on the 27th September.

For fans of the source comics, seeing the antihero back on the big screen after the disappointment of 2019's Hellboy reboot -- a film even its director Neil Marshall, publicly disowned -- will be at least some cause for celebration. But what's noteworthy about Hellboy: The Crooked Man (directed by Crank co-director Brian Taylor) is just how small-scale it looks compared to the visually sumptuous movies director Guillermo del Toro served up in the 2000s.

Where 2004's Hellboy served up a bold-looking take on the comic books, The Crooked Man is a contained story largely set in run-down chapels and shacks in Appalachia. Where 2008's Hellboy II: The Golden Army featured dozens of intricately-designed characters and action set-pieces, this year's movie offers up a smaller cast and a title villain who could have come from one of Blumhouse's low-budget horrors.

Although it's far from a bad film -- it's certainly less muddled than its 2019 predecessor -- its relatively low budget of $20m is often plain to see, from its muddy lighting to uneven digital effects. All of which might beg the question: what happened in the preceding 20 years? How did the movies go from budgets of $60-80m in the 2000s to less than a third of that in 2024? The likely answer doesn't necessarily come down to the popularity of Hellboy himself, but rather a changing filmmaking ecosystem.

It's worth pointing out that neither Hellboy nor its immediate sequel were huge hits. The 2004 original made roughly $100m worldwide on its $60m-ish budget; its sequel did better with worldwide take of about $168m, but then that film's budget also swelled to around $85m.

Back in the 2000s, however, profits in cinema only formed a part of a movie's lifecycle, and 2004's Hellboy was a big success on DVD. A two-disc special edition, released that July, reportedly sold about 500,000 copies; a three-disc director's cut was also released in the autumn of that year, and likely sold well in the run-up to Christmas.

It was that popularity on its home release that convinced Revolution Studios to go ahead with Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which followed a similar pattern: it more-or-less made a profit theatrically, but it was on disc that it made the most money. In fact, The Golden Army, despite its expanded budget, would have gotten a sequel itself were it not for outside forces acting against it. Guillermo del Toro expressed his interest in making Hellboy 3, a film that would have completed the trilogy with title star Ron Perlman, but he spent several years working on an adaptation of The Hobbit that, ultimately, would never happen.

By 2014, del Toro revealed that he'd tried to pitch Hellboy 3 to studios, but they'd all turned it down. The reason, he said in a Reddit AMA, was due to the collapse of the home video market in the years since The Golden Army came out.

"We have gone through basically every studio and asked for financing, and they are not interested," the filmmaker wrote that July. "I think that the first movie made its budget back, and a little bit of profit, but then it was very very big on video and DVD. The story repeated itself with the second already, it made its money back at the box office, but a small margin of profit in the release of the theatrical print, but was very very big on DVD and video. Sadly now from a business point of view all the studios know is that you don't have that safety net of the DVD and video, so they view the project as dangerous."

Del Toro estimated elsewhere that his concept for a third Hellboy would require a budget of $120m -- a sum studios were increasingly reluctant to stomach. When a new Hellboy finally emerged in 2019, directed by Neil Marshall and with David Harbour replacing Ron Perlman as its demonic antihero, it was made with a budget of $50m. Given how much inflation had risen since 2004, that sum was even tighter than it might initially sound.

Although intended as a reboot, the 2019 Hellboy wasn't quite the fresh start its studio might have hoped, with a troubled production and an ultimate box office take of about $55m. That the movie made about $12m on its home release in the US likely helped push its profits nearer to the black than the red, but it's still far below the franchise's high point in the 2000s.

All of which explain why, when Millennium Media decided to reboot Hellboy again with The Crooked Man, the budget was slashed again, this time to a reported $20m. Now featuring Jack Kesy as the gun-wielding, crimson lead, its R-rated action and backwoods horror tone will no doubt be familiar to readers of the source comics, but the downside is that it's far less cinematic in its presentation than what emerged from del Toro's baroque imagination some 20 years ago.

In the 2020s, movies still have other ways of making profits beyond their initial cinema releases, from premium video-on-demand to fancy 4K Blu-rays. The market for physical media has shrunk dramatically since 2005, however; an industry at its peak worth some $16bn in the US alone is now worth more like $2bn. It was once the case that you could see movies in most major retailers, and buy a DVD or Blu-ray on impulse. By now, many outlets -- including Best Buy in the US -- have stopped selling them entirely.

The market for physical media's still there, but its huge reduction has seen studios grow increasingly wary of where they invest their money -- and how much they spend. Just ask Hellboy.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/17091282

Original Title (KO): 전,란 (Jeonran, War and Revolt)

In the Joseon Dynasty, two friends who grew up together — one the master and one the servant — reunite post-war as enemies on opposing sides.

https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1075676

Terry Gilliam has had such a hard time trying to fund his last few projects that he’s hinted about retirement. However, back in April, fansite Gilliam Dreams reported that the director was set to direct a new, maybe final, film, titled “The Carnival at the End of Days.”

This past May, Gilliam claimed he had found funding for ‘Carnival.’ We already know that Johnny Depp will play Satan and that the rest of the cast would be composed of Jeff Bridges, Adam Driver and Jason Momoa. A January 2025 shoot was being eyed. (via Premiere)

No surprise, five months later, Gilliam is now telling Czech media that he doesn’t have the sufficient funds to make ‘Carnival,’ and that he would have to creatively compromise his vision to make it happen (via Novinky).

I don't have all of the money for it right now. I would have to compromise some of my ideas. Which I don't want to. I’m angry with myself for not being able to do it. Which is not always a bad thing. When I get angry, some interesting ideas come out [..] Maybe I’ll start shooting it soon, albeit with a smaller budget.

...

Here’s Gilliam describing the plot of ‘Carnival’:

This is a simple tale of God wiping out humanity for fucking up his beautiful garden Earth. There’s only one character who’s trying to save humanity and that’s Satan, because without humanity he’s lost his job and he’s an eternal character and so to live without a job is terrible. So he finds some young people and he tries to convince God that these young people are the new Adam and Eve. God still gets to wipe out humanity. It’s a comedy.

The last time Gilliam directed a feature was 2018’s “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” a film he was trying to make for more than two decades. It came and went without much excitement, although I thought it was his, de facto, best film since the late ‘90s. The lack of commercial success on ‘Don Quixote’ is essentially the reason why Gilliam can’t find funding for his next projects. His films of the last 25 years have been both critical and commercial misfires.

Meet the man behind the music that changed our lives.

Watch the trailer for Music By John Williams, an all-new documentary, streaming November 1 on @DisneyPlus.

Budget: $120 million [source]

Opening weekend gross: $4 million

Factoring in marketing costs and the theaters taking their cut of the profits, Megalopolis would need to make at least $300 million to break even. I think it's safe to say that's not happening.

It would have been THE worst opening for a $100 million movie ever, had it not been for Pluto Nash's horriffic opening 22 years ago.

Even The New York Times is reporting near-empty screenings of Megalopolis!

Hollywood has long been a home for big-budget action movies, bringing big stars with bigger explosions. However, Hollywood has embraced a different kind of action movie over the decades, bringing Eastern martial arts to Western audiences. Martial Arts movies have been a staple of cinema since the 1970s. The influence of Eastern cinema can be seen throughout Hollywood, from its stars to its stunt work.

Many of these movies have achieved worldwide success, winning multiple awards and becoming all-time classics. Hollywood martial arts movies remain popular around the world for their stunning choreography, charismatic characters, and heart-pumping action. These movies are pure cinema, firmly grabbing audiences and never letting go until the credits roll.

1. The Matrix
2. Enter The Dragon
3. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2
4. Everything Everywhere All At Once
5. Rush Hour
6. The Karate Kid
7. Warrior
8. Kickboxer
9. Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings
10. The Forbidden Kingdom

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18090539

The horror classic Nosferatu gets a brand new makeover from acclaimed director Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) this holiday season, and Focus Features invites you to sink your teeth into the official trailer this morning. Succumb to the darkness down below.

Trailer