Spin control and the movies

"Oz the Great and Powerful" is living up to its name at the box office. In a winter of under-performing releases, that makes "Oz" easily the biggest hit of 2013 so far. "Boy, did we need it," said Paul Dergarabedian, ...

In Reality, the Buena Vista Oz movie is performing about as well as "Ted", the R-rated Seth McFarlane comedy about a vulgar toy teddy bear that comes to life. Although Ted was a bona fide hit (coming in at #9 in the domestic boxoffice for the year), it was made for a small fraction of the production budget of Oz, and would have been profitable at a quarter the ticket sales.

On the other hand, if Oz domestic boxoffice will probably clear it's acknowledged production budget by 5%-8%, and will probably not get anywhere near it's rumored promotional budget. Of course, most people remember reading about BV's disastrous "John Carter" film from last year that had the BV executives shaking in their boots. Endless articles about poor promotion, and a mediocre script and dull computer graphics.

But if you want to build a franchise out of a movie, everyone has to be chanting "huge hit".

I still wonder if the companies went from making 550-650 films in a year with about 20 with massive production budgets, and made 1000 films all for a reasonable budget if they would make more money. I suppose nobody wants to give up creating blockbusters.

One factor of the blockbuster is control and power with your businesses you do businesses with. Tiny movies probably put them in desperate negotiating positions. I saw a bit of Oz online and found it boring. I think one idea is I am tired of the same actors over and over when they really are not superstars such as Mila Kunis. I am tired of seeing her now.

There is also talk now theaters are charging for previews which were once free and small movies aren't able to get in. I do agree with you, but the system is changing. I think it is the effect of the drug dealing mentality leaking into legitimate business.