

'Expendables 3' Flops: Is Piracy to Blame? - booruguru
http://variety.com/2014/film/news/expendables-3-flops-is-piracy-to-blame-1201284859/

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easytiger
Err, what a joke.

> The Expendables 3″ was widely seen as a litmus test for the impact that
> piracy can have on a film’s prospects.

How? By what metric? A movie that no one wants to see, that is predictably bad
tanked. Trying to blame piracy so that you can justify increasingly anti
social measures against your customers is ridiculous. Indeed most people would
prob want to be paid to go and see this rather than waste 2 hours on it.

I know a filmmaker and they are fully aware that the marketplace for bad
content is very small. Due to internet word of mouth failures are
exponentially worse because people these days go to see specific movies and
rarely go to see whatever movie happens to be on. They teach courses on this
stuff.

This is a studio trying to save face.

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jdong
Are you actually trying to imply that having a DVD quality leak come out far
before the actual movie even hit theaters isn't going to have any effect on
the box office results?

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easytiger
> Are you actually trying to imply that having a DVD quality leak come out far
> before the actual movie even hit theaters isn't going to have any effect on
> the box office results?

I'm saying that it is demonstrably negligible. For instance before the Casino
Royale bond movie made it to cinemas leaks appeared and preemptively the
studios made a fuss about this hurting box office figures. Somehow it managed
to be the biggest bond release ever.

In fact I would state that the only thing really hurt by leaks are mid level
movies that are not good enough to provoke people to go to the cinema.

Further to that I would assert, as others have, that people who often pirate
often visit the cinema and would under no circumstances part with money for
these mopvies so it economically changes nothing.

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JoeAltmaier
That's actually evidence that it could have hurt sales. The biggest bond
release ever demonstrably has the most interest ever. The most likely that
someone will shell out the cash to see it (as hundreds of millions did). If
pirate DVDs got sold, they're more likely than ever to have
replaced/supplanted a ticket sale.

Its not fair to say "well they made a lot of money anyway". Its also then true
that they lost more money than other movies too.

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easytiger
Your Aristotelian arm chair logic is not how the world works. There is no
metric by which it is possible to conceive of something that didn't happen.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its called revenue estimation, and every business everywhere does it every
day.

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DigitalSea
If anyone here has seen this movie or any of the other movies in this series
then you would know piracy is merely a scapegoat here. It flopped because,
well, it's a bad movie with an expendable storyline.

To be honest, I think the studio deliberately leaked the movie because they
knew it was going to flop (studios aren't stupid, they loosely know the
numbers before a movie debuts) so they could blame piracy instead of the bad
storyline and lack of plot.

The inner conspiracy theorist in me thinks the studios leaked the movie so
they could push for tougher anti-piracy legislation and lobby harder. Before
this, the studios had no real argument, but you can't deny the numbers are
atrocious and on paper, it's easy to blame piracy for this instead of the real
culprit. It feels very deliberate.

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gabemart
"Expendables 3" scores 35/100 on Metacritic [1]. The original scored 45/100
[2] and "Expendables 2" scored 51/100 [3].

Perhaps it's performing poorly because it's a very poor movie. Or perhaps the
leak let people find out in advance it's a very poor movie.

[1] [http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-
expendables-3](http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-expendables-3)

[2] [http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-
expendables](http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-expendables)

[3] [http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-
expendables-2](http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-expendables-2)

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serge2k
Couldn't be that it's the third in a mindless action series released once a
year. Nah.

I say that having liked expendables 2.

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alternize
nope: it's just a bad movie.

while I enjoyed the 2nd expendables for its rather funny moments, the 3rd one
takes itself very serious. with the lack of comedic moments, it's really just
a dull action movie with a dumb story and annoying "characters".

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cwmma
The only way I see wide spread pre-release piracy causing a dent is if the
people who watch it early dislike it leading to bad word of mouth.

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Revell
You mean the piracy of the studio itself leaking the movie on the web in the
hopes of creating a little more hype? No.

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orbitingpluto
Isn't Expandables 3 nothing more than a movie attempting to suck the last
marrow out of someone's stardom to make a quick buck?

The instinct to watch a movie like this is like being in a waiting room at the
doctor's office and picking up a two year old copy of People magazine. I might
read it, I might even enjoy it, but there's no way I'm paying for that.

If people are pirating this movie, it means that people want to see these
actors regardless of how bad the movie is. The entertainment industry could
probably make more money skipping out on the huge production costs and doing
Shakespeare with rehashed sets/costumes starring Stallone as Brutus.

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uptown
Anybody know whether studios are insured against leaked films? If they realize
they're not going to make their budget back in ticket-sales, maybe they're
seeking to cover their costs using other methods.

~~~
th3iedkid
I have read of securitization [1] as one way but am not very sure about
insurances.

Much of it was before the 2008 era but still think a lot is happening behind
the scenes for it to flourish in the secularization markets overall.

[1]: [http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/04/us-markets-
credit-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/04/us-markets-credit-
idUSTRE7A35X220111104) [2]:[https://www.moodys.com/research/MOODYS-RATES-
MARVELS-FILM-SE...](https://www.moodys.com/research/MOODYS-RATES-MARVELS-FILM-
SECURITIZATION-FACILITY-Aaa--PR_101521)

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3stripe
Maybe there are better ways to reduce piracy... How about a global, cross-
platform release date for films? Pay to stream a movie to your device, or
watch at a cinema.

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nullsocket
I saw it in theaters, and piracy is not to blame, sorry. I liked the first
two, but this one was just not as good. They tried too hard to bridge the gap
with a "new generation" of Expendables, and less about our old-school action
heroes blowing shit up (which is the entire point of these). And Terry Crews
only had a bit part which sucked because he's the funniest of the bunch.

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w1ntermute
Since Expendables 3 supposedly sucks, I bet a high percentage of the losses
were due to people pirating/watching the film and telling their friends how
shitty it was, resulting in them going to see something else.

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walterbell
When a studio allows movie reviewers to see a film before release, are they
allowed to influence/censor the reviewer from telling others that the movie is
bad?

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dagw
Often early screenings come with an embargo date. Basically by going to the
screening you agree not to publish anything before that date. I've even heard
of studios forcing reviewers to sign an actual NDA.

That being said I've never heard of a studio suing a reviewer for breaking the
embargo. The worst that often happens is that the reviewer gets some angry
calls from a studio PR person and then the reviewer and/or the reviewer's
employer isn't sent any more early screening or industry party invitations for
a while.

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Mikeb85
It's out?

I enjoyed the first two...

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aforty
No, it probably flipped because it's a ridiculous and bad movie. End of story.

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zerny
Come on, this is a total crap.

