Quote:
Originally Posted by Gonzirra
Like probably 80%+ of everything else you've confidently speculated on so far, this is wrong and based on nothing substantial at all. The only difference for me was spending the $5.99 to rent yesterday instead of a rainy Sunday in April or whenever it would have hit On Demand.
Are you deliberately misunderstanding and misrepresenting every single thing I say? Nearly anyone would understand that I meant IN THE THEATER (or in this case pre-day/date streaming). I couldn't give two s**** what your post theatrical run viewing habits are, and wouldn't even bother speculating on them. The point I was making was that you are watching it before you intended to, regardless, and really all because of the publicity storm. It's not because you were somehow excited to see the movie the day it came out before all of this, right?
Quote:
Since you want to speculate on my movie habits though can we do a little review on your fine work ITT? A week ago you declared a theater release dead and obviously that didn't pan out.
Silly me, listening to a Hollywood executive say that there was absolutely no way they were going to release it in theaters. In fact, he even said that they weren't going to release it on anything. I should know better that very little anyone says in Hollywood is the truth.
Quote:
You confuse North and South Korea (lol). Some terrible analogies I and others have mentioned. Then you weakly float your publicity stunt and insurance ideas as "what are the chances that...," at first, and then slowly wind up talking yourself to the point of certainty. Or pretended to, I'm sure you did that a week ago and have just been looking to support the narrative.
1. I did not confuse North and South Korea, and was very aware when I posted what I did that it was likely South Korea that was part of those protests. I said that this whole thing flashbacked me to a time where some ridiculous protests led to a ridiculous result. That it had anything to do with a "Korea" is really almost irrelevant, as all the word Korea did was enable the flashback to happen (a trigger, if you will).
2. I don't support narratives (I was following a lot of the press closely for this, and making speculations based first on what people said, and then based on the backtrackings). I speculated that some amount of the publicity after the hack was a stunt (somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% of the post-hack publicity). I didn't say the whole thing was a stunt. Considering what ended up happening, I would almost be willing to call the movie's cancellation a huge publicity stunt. They should have just said it was delayed indefinitely, as that would make much more sense than what actually happened.
3. I think it's quite logical to assume that Sony did not want to take a huge loss on the movie, and that insurance did not make it worth their while to shelf it. Remember, if they put the movie out in half the theaters that were planned, this movie is a floppola. They were likely not even *thinking* about a VOD release with it still being available in some theaters. If it's in no theaters, then they can start thinking about doing a VOD release. With all of the ridiculous publicity that came out of canceling it, it was in their best interest to release it somehow. That's especially true since the buzz would allow them to take a certain loss into what will likely be a large, if not huge profit.
Quote:
It makes absolutely no sense for a studio to jeopardize a Christmas week release to dick around in the dead months following just for the sake of a little extra buzz, which they already had. Rogen may be a hack but was the star of a $250m+ comedy just this year. Why risk a smaller if not limited release trying to get cute? Why confuse your potential audience on the release date?
I don't even know what you're trying to say here, as this is the exact type of movie that flounders around Christmas (this movie was originally being released in an extremely crowded marketplace), but might do excellent business in those dead months you speak of (most box office analysts would likely think the movie being released in this marketplace would be for end of year write-off purposes, until all of the stuff that happened changed that). The studio made a movie that carried inherent risks. Those inherent risks led to North Korea being angry. Someone (FBI says North Korea was behind it) hacked the studio, stealing a tremendous amount of highly sensitive information and several unreleased movies. In the days/weeks following the hack, a bunch of very unflattering information came out about heads of the studio. The hackers claimed they would release more information if the movie wasn't shelved. Sony capitulates, and claims they are killing the release completely (the language in the studio head's statement was NOT ambiguous until the next day). The industry has a mini-meltdown on the censorship (many people see and understand both sides of the issue, and fall on one side or the other). George Clooney attempts to put together a petition to ask other major power players (including various studio heads) to tell Sony to release the movie. Without exception every single one tells him they will not do that. In protest, an indie theater says they will play Team America instead, and Paramount blocks them. For you to think that the industry did not take this threat seriously is just completely lol. No one wanted to be next.
Then, the following day, the studio starts backtracking, and says they are looking for outlets for VOD. I personally think it's lol that you think Amazon and iTunes can't get this figured out quickly, as I have mixed TV shows that were on the air 2 hours after I finished the mix. The financial terms were likely not good enough for either of those outlets, and neither really wants the added attention of a hacking group, ESPECIALLY at the Christmas season (this would factor in much more for Amazon). Then, a day or so later, the movie is now being allowed back in theaters, and a VOD from a few places is put in place (a disaster from a security point of view apparently). For that VOD release, not only did it come out, it came out before its original release date (unless I'm mistaken, I thought this was always a Christmas Day release). I completely understand that the point of this date was so that VOD can have exclusivity, but it's just lolHollywood that "we're not releasing this ever" becomes "we're releasing it early" over the space of a few days. In other words, a ton of free publicity was gotten and really the only thing that changed from about 9 or 10 days ago was the major exhibitors not being willing to show it and the addition of a VOD release (which turned the movie from a sure loss, to a relatively sure nice profit).
Your statement about Rogen's $250m+ grossing movie is as bad as you claim my analogies are. 22 Jump Street cannot be compared to The Interview in any monetary sense, so I don't even know why you would say that.
Quote:
The simplest explanation is there was more controversy than expected with the movie, unforeseen safety concerns, and waaay more overreaction all resulting in Sony getting stuck. They were rushing around for a week fumbling all over themselves trying to salvage something out of it. There are reports like they tried for iTunes and Amazon who couldn't do it on the fast timetable. Others rejected them. The DRM for the Google/YouTube release is a mess and looks hastily thrown together.
For months, everyone has expected this movie to be a massive controversy. I seem to remember reading a story about a year ago (could have been a different time, as I really couldn't have cared less about this movie) that Rogen and Franco would be arrested or something if they ever set foot in North Korea (lol). The hack happened at just the right time, because of fear at the Christmas season (lol). I agree this was all a massive overreaction, and Sony handled everything horribly. Their lawyers are evidently awful, and don't know how to word an open ended statement. The language was quite clear that this movie was not going to be released anywhere at any time. Of course, they didn't mean it, but no one knew that at the time. When the movie was canceled, my facebook feed was filled with woe is me stuff about it. When it was put back on, nothing but crickets. Nothing Sony did here is courageous, and it makes it look like a giant publicity stunt, regardless of whether any of it was.
Quote:
You can't understand how VOD became the 24th? How about if Google and MS demanded it a day early? Maybe to enjoy exclusivity for a day, or (far more likely) it was just due to the logistics of doing anything on Christmas Day when most offices are closed or lightly staffed.
As I said above, it was most certainly for exclusivity, but you missed my point that it came out before was intended to be released, despite it being claimed that it would never be released anywhere.
In my part of the business (when I wasn't working for myself), to get people to work on a holiday meant that the studios had to pay an exorbitant just open the building fee, in addition to huge mark ups on OT and room rates. That was generally enough to dissuade studios from needing something done on a holiday, but it did happen. In the case of something like this for the VOD providers, such a huge potential amount of unexpected money would be coming in from something like this that they likely wouldn't hesitate to do whatever logistical stuff they needed to to get it done.
Quote:
These seem like painfully easy explanations that actually make sense. It doesn't require making up figures or telling people what movies they would or wouldn't have watched.
Making up figures...I don't even know what that means. And again, it's not about whether you would have watched it, it's about when you would have watched it.
At any rate, that's my 2 cents that I didn't even want to write. This thread is completely boring now that we're talking about a released movie that very few people *should* have cared about. This was interesting as an industry precedent. It's now completely uninteresting since it ended up coming out in a better situation than it had when the movie was supposedly canceled and before it was intended to come out. We don't even get the benefit of talking about the delayed release of The Interview. We're just talking about a movie that got released. Boring.
