

Sony Pictures CEO: nothing good ever came from the Internet - hernan7
http://current.com/items/90049647_sony-pictures-ceo-im-a-guy-who-doesnt-see-anything-good-having-come-from-the-internet-period.htm

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froo
I wonder how much of Sony Pictures revenue is made up of DVD etc sales off
internet merchants such as Amazon.com?

I also wonder how much additional merchandise they're also selling as a result
of this global marketplace?

Similarly, netflix has boosted rentals of their movies by how much?

And lets not forget the direct download rentals aswell, off stores like
iTunes.

It's not as if the Internet is making much of a dent on their bottom lines (in
terms of ticket sales), I mean, this year, so far has been Hollywoods biggest
year in terms of ticket sales/profit in the cinemas.

[http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/02/business/fi-
boxoffic...](http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/02/business/fi-boxoffice2)

Quote from the article:

 _"An increase in ticket prices also helped boost January's box office. The
average ticket price was $7.29 last month, up from $7.18 a year ago. But
attendance surged in spite of the higher cost. Audiences bought 141 million
movie tickets in January, up 16% from the 121 million sold during the same
month last year."_

Yep, that internet stuff, really killing the movie business.

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plinkplonk
" He complained the Internet has “created this notion that anyone can have
whatever they want at any given time. It’s as if the stores on Madison Avenue
were open 24 hours a day." "

And this idiot gets paid millions of dollars a year!

~~~
bad_user
Worse than that, these people are pushing DRM and probably lobbied for DMCA.

~~~
tptacek
Plenty of very smart people push DRM too.

~~~
jhickner
Any examples? I've never heard an intelligent pro-DRM argument and I'd be
genuinely interested.

~~~
tptacek
I didn't see your response until this had fallen off my "comments" list, and
since I'm sure very few people will read this comment now, I'm going to forego
the detailed response.

You can catch me via email (check my profile) and I'll take a SWAG at an
answer; if you find the answer remotely compelling, I'll turn it into a blog
post and thank you for the prod.

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zimbabwe
The Internet is people. It's a much less formal place for interaction than
something like a bureaucratic corporate system. But both are just people, and
good things come from people.

Nina Paley released Sita Sings The Blues under Creative Commons because nobody
was able to watch her film because studios like Sony Pictures passed her up.
Roger Ebert called it one of his favorite films. It's a hilarious and moving
movie that I wouldn't have seen if it hadn't been placed online.

Nina Paley isn't the Internet. She's an animator. But the Internet is where
she released her movie. I'll also say that it's better than anything Sony
Pictures has released in a long, long while. (sitasingstheblues.com for the
interested.)

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johnnybgoode
Hear that? That's the sound of a business model being made obsolete.

~~~
froo
Actually not at all, This year has so far been the biggest year on record for
Hollywood in terms of ticket sales.

The thing that's sucking for them, is that budgets for movies are going way up
so that they can compete with other studios (its a budget arms race) and the
markets unfortunately can't cope with that.

It's hurting their bottom line, but it's their own damn fault.

~~~
johnnybgoode
I don't think that's what this is about, unless the internet is responsible
for movie budgets going way up and nothing else.

~~~
froo
Umm, its exactly what its about.

He's complaining that "the big evil internet" is killing their business,
because more people are consuming more media.

Yet however, the actual data shows that ticket sales in cinema are actually
going up, but not at the same rate of consumption of those films. The people
that had no intention of paying top shelf price for those films are not.

Yet the budgets for films have gone way up so that these studio's can compete
with each other. Yet, the growth of ticket sales hasn't grown at the same rate
(while rentals have stayed fairly static, just the distribution channels have
changed somewhat) - so their profit margins have become less.

So he's complaining that the people who had no intention of paying to see
those films, are not paying to see those films and because they've chosen to
raise the budgets of those films significantly, its killing their business.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films>

Films like Titanic and Waterworld were notoriously expensive for their time.
Now that's considered nearly an average budget for a blockbuster - inflation
sure as hell hasn't gone up by that much, and costs of actual production have
gone down with going to digital media, digital editing etc....

What they really need to focus on, is less extravagant budgets. Take a leaf
out of the book of TV.

Lost, which is a notoriously expensive TV show to produce, cost $44 million
dollars for the first season which consisted of 25 episodes at 44 minutes
running time each... or roughly 0.04 million dollars per minute of
entertainment for the end viewer.

Similarly, lets look at Spiderman 3.. Sony Pictures most expensive film, $258
million dollars cost with a running time of 139 minutes, or 1.86 million
dollars per minute of entertainment for the end viewer.

See the big divide there? It's really a function of cost of production.

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johnnybgoode
You said their business model wasn't at all being made obsolete. Now you're
saying they need to take a page from TV and focus on less extravagant budgets
to survive? I guess if you just mean they'll still make movies, then sure.

The dollar per minute figures are slightly misleading, because if you took
just the first couple of episodes of Lost, the number would be much higher.
The pilot cost $10 to $14 million to produce. That's about 0.14 million
dollars per minute. Of course the average cost goes down as more episodes of
the same show are made. That's why they filmed some movies (like LOTR and the
Pirates sequels, I think) back-to-back.

~~~
froo
Umm, no, the business model is fundamentally sound, it's just they need to
reduce unnecessary costs which they've increased themselves.

In the case of the LOTR and Pirates sequels being filmed back to back, that
was a situation consisting of continuity more than anything because the story
is an ongoing saga.

If you look at that list of most expensive films ever made, the Pirates
sequels come in at number 1 and 4... I don't think budget considerations were
part of the equation.

(Also take note, Lord of the Rings isn't on there anywhere, because Pete
Jackson reduced costs by setting up Weta Digital to do lots of their special
effects inhouse. The cost of the entire trilogy was $285 million, less than
the cost of the third Pirates movie)

Last I heard, Disney were considering making a 4th "Pirates" film, and given
the subject matter (probably the fountain of youth as was suggested at the end
of At Worlds End) - it might be another extravagant budget as well.

Also, in your argument of pilots vs ongoing costs, have you ever wondered how
much of that is due to cost of sets?

With TV, generally they're re-using sets over and over, so of course the cost
goes down, because the cost per episode is reduced.

With Film, the medium calls for lots of "throwaway" shots, which means lots
and lots of sets.

Consider your average Michael Bay film, they might have explosions that cost
several hundred thousand dollars each, yet are only 1 or 2 seconds of onscreen
action and they might film them several times if there are any major faults.

But at the end of the day, it's all time wasting entertainment. I'd watch 6
episodes of Frasier (which were relatively cheap to produce) over a generic
Michael Bay film any day - so why should the latter cost orders of magnitude
more to produce? It's the same amount of entertainment for the viewer.

~~~
johnnybgoode
I'm pretty sure budget considerations were part of the equation. Why take a
gamble by committing to two or more big-budget movies at once? If the Pirates
sequels had been filmed separately, they would've cost even more to make.

As for the sets in TV shows, yes, exactly. And though perhaps not to the same
extent as it's done in TV, they do reuse sets in films.

Edit: In answer to your question about Frasier vs. Michael Bay films, it's
because not everyone has taste as good as yours. ;)

~~~
froo
Well, Pirates of the Caribbean has been a Disneyland staple attraction since
the 1950's, so they've got nearly 50 years of data to go on, on whether they
should continue it or not - it's exactly why they made the first film.

When you consider how much the first film made, given it's actual cost (and
the acclaim Depp got for his character) - the 2nd and 3rd weren't really that
much of a gamble, but one that ultimately paid off.

The film industry isn't entirely an exact science, WALL-E for example had an
entirely different ending which Pixar redid after it's first screening, after
Andrew Stanton realised he had made an error in the way the story flows.

You also have major blunders - Waterworld anyone? It cost nearly double the
budget that was set aside for it and it's gross revenue was barely more than
that. The budget doesn't take into account the marketing costs, so money was
lost on that film.

~~~
johnnybgoode
That's my point. A big-budget film is a big risk. Film studios wouldn't take
on the added risk of two or more big-budget movies at once without a good
reason. The benefit is that it saves money in production, so they do it when
the financial success of the sequel(s) is close to a sure thing.

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Tichy
Probably he is only aiming for eternal fame. That quote might go around for
centuries, like the "we estimate the global demand for computers to about 3
units" one.

~~~
TweedHeads
"Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM"

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heresy
The next generation of media companies must be laughing to themselves at how
easy its going to be to eat Sony Pictures alive.

------
rms
"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American
public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." -Jack Valenti

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zaidf
He must feel really insecure about his job. I don't envy him.

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hendler
Is the comment coming from Sony that different than if it came from the RIAA?

But however stupid the comments, if attention getting is part of his job...
not bad.

