"The movie cost a reported $150 million" this is from an article about the Princess and The Frog.
The thing that gets me is that Disney used an ultra small staff here in the Burbank studio, so small in fact that many of us, 100 or more, give or take, weren't even offered positions on the film and rather most of the work was shipped overseas or across the country to small independent studios for the explanation of, "to keep the costs down".
The costs were not kept down at $150 million and that is a shame because they are setting it up to be a box office failure and thus putting the nail into the coffin of 2D films.
The article by Julia Boorstin also said that the reason 2D films weren't making money was this, "hand-drawn animation tends to appeal primarily to kids while Pixar movies draw all ages." I would like to smack her because this is simply not true. Story is what appeals to all ages, and it has nothing to do with the medium.
It makes me sad that Disney isn't even expecting a decent box office, and yet they spent all that money, when they could have done it for a lot less and kept the most of the crew in house, here in Burbank like we did on the films in the 90s.
As well, in my experience whatever they are telling the media is usually A LOT less than the real cost of the film, so again, I wonder, why the fuck didn't they just hire a full crew out here and save $50 -70 million and gain more at the box office?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/34382818/site/14081545?__source=yahoo|headline|quote|tex...
Apparently it only cost $105 million to make and this reporter got it wrong. That is still crazy high considering they outsourced so much of it. My friends got upset at me for bringing the cost up and told me to take inflation into consideration and thus not comparing this film to Hercules or Tarzan, which were both done in the '90s. Okay the rebuttal is that in the '90s, there was a FULL staff at both Burbank and Orlando and nothing was farmed out and the pay was more than double, triple and quadruple in many cases, so the fact that back then the studio had full staff, paid huge salaries plus overtime and still made films for less than this one that was outsourced and the salaries were much much lower for the people in house, is a point that I feel needs to be made.
ReplyDeleteThis film is going to have a really hard time covering this bill with the domestic box office and the executives only seem to look at those numbers. DVDs should cover it,but that won't be for months. I thought it was going to be done for around $40 mil and in that case, yes they would be able to call it a success by the close of next week. I don't understand where the money went?
I hope it does well, but since I found out how much it really cost, I have felt deflated about the whole thing.
I wonder how much of that is "P & A" money? As a parent, I know that Disney has a tendency to oversaturate (not just kid's shows) with the ads. We get the message the first twenty times the ad appears in the day.
ReplyDeleteThey didn't advertise much at all, sadly and this was production costs. The advertising is usually around 50 mil, but I doubt it since you had to be looking for ads for this film.
ReplyDeleteReally love this blog! I really dont understand WHYYY disney can not pull out another lion king or aladdin or mermaid?? I really really loved this film, no doubt about it, but I also feel they need to move away from "cliche" storytelling and/or repeated usage of the fairytale, happily ever after endings as well...those were the comments I heard from all around me but overall everyone loved it. You are very right about story being the strongest element...look at simpsons, not the BEST animation however people become oblivious to it being hand-drawn and get drawn in by the stories and characters and their personalities. This film I think will trigger a comeback all reviews are positive and strong, however I wish the studio really blows something surprising out of the water.
ReplyDeleteStephanie, did you want to work on this film? With your experience you would of been a great asset to it.
ReplyDeleteI did apply to work on it, but they had a very very small crew, so I didn't get to.
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