[SpaceBallz]

[Hairy Biker]

Wait...theres a 2nd Top Gun?

[pizzarat]

Excellent posts, Richardless. Yeah... I'm really hoping Sony's marketing, or lack-thereof, isn't going to hurt this movie's potential. Like you said, almost every hardcore fan knows what's going on, but I really wonder about the general public. I think it was a big mistake to not pay for a Super Bowl ad, like Top Gun: Maverick (that also looks like a promising sequel).

[Kingpin]

which could mean theres an fx shot with venkman somewhere.

Wow. Perhaps a de aging sequence? Interesting

That's a biiiiit of a stretch conclusion.

Have clay sculpts ever been used in digital de-aging? It seems a lot of unnecessary work, especially as it's of old Venkman, not young Venkman.

It seems more likely it's a fan of the franchise putting his sculptor skills to use to pass his time during the current Coronavirus circumstances. Probably for the F/X artist to make a custom figure of old Venkman.

[groschopf]

which could mean theres an fx shot with venkman somewhere.

Wow. Perhaps a de aging sequence? Interesting

That's a biiiiit of a stretch conclusion.

Have clay sculpts ever been used in digital de-aging? It seems a lot of unnecessary work, especially as it's of old Venkman, not young Venkman.

It seems more likely it's a fan of the franchise putting his sculptor skills to use to pass his time during the current Coronavirus circumstances. Probably for the F/X artist to make a custom figure of old Venkman.

He's a special effects make-up artist that worked on Afterlife.

What I want to know is did he sculpt this by hand, or is this the output of 3D scanning?

[RichardLess]

which could mean theres an fx shot with venkman somewhere.

Wow. Perhaps a de aging sequence? Interesting

That's a biiiiit of a stretch conclusion.

Have clay sculpts ever been used in digital de-aging? It seems a lot of unnecessary work, especially as it's of old Venkman, not young Venkman.

It seems more likely it's a fan of the franchise putting his sculptor skills to use to pass his time during the current Coronavirus circumstances. Probably for the F/X artist to make a custom figure of old Venkman.

Conclusion? What conclusion? I was just guessing. I have no idea. I thought the “perhaps” and a “?” would be the indicator that I have no idea and was just guessing.

I can’t see Bill Murray having all that goo poured on his face for a mould. Who knows.

A de aging sequence can be done just by using deep fakes now. From what I’ve seen, they produce better results too(and are waaaaay cheaper). As much as I enjoyed The Irishman, some of those de aging effects looked..not good. Especially after I realized De Niro is suppose to be 35 or something when he runs into Joe Pesci’s character for the first time. Good movie though. Just takes some getting use to.

[tylergfoster]

Top Gun having a Super Bowl spot is exactly what I’m talking about. That’s what Ghostbusters needed. I find it odd anyone would defend the choice of NOT having a super bowl spot.

We all want Ghostbusters to be successful? Right? Well if you do, defending Sony for not using the years biggest marketing opportunity isn’t the way to go. It’s that simple.

Look, I know you work at least adjacent to film marketing, but I gotta tell you, I trust the companies behind these movies to know best what actually gets them a return on their marketing investment. The only gambler was Paramount, which is desperate for hits. I don't think Paramount needed to advertise Top Gun, honestly, but this turned out to be an acceptable choice for Sonic given its success (and they still might've been concerned about making sure the public knew Sonic had been redesigned). AQP2 makes more sense as something following a buzzy predecessor, and jury is out on SpongeBob.

Sony's policy has lasted through some of its most successful and buzzy movies recently, namely Far From Home, Spider-Verse, and the two Jumanji movies. The only thing you can say for sure is that it gets a trailer in front of a ton of eyes, but it is not an absolutely necessary component of box office success, nor a surefire way to ensure it. From the last five years: Alita: Battle Angel, Wonder Park, Red Sparrow, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Transformers: The Last Knight, Ghost in the Shell, Gods of Egypt, Independence Day: Resurgence, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Tomorrowland, Terminator: Genisys...

Put it another way: do you actually think surefire hits like No Time to Die, F9, Black Widow, or Mulan would make significantly (or any) less money if they didn't advertise during the Superbowl? Pretty sure those movies were earmarked to be the year's biggest global hits well before February. And we can similarly go back through and say the Superbowl is probably not key to the success of various Avengers movies.

How do I uphold your point?? You just named numerous studios that paid for Super Bowl spots. Are you talking about Sony? When I said “they” I mean the industry as a whole. “They” wouldn’t spend the money if it didn’t work.

I laid out in detail what kinds of movies were warranting that spend for studios and pointed out that Ghostbusters: Afterlife wasn't in either of those two categories.

Also, Sony will probably spend about the same on marketing as in 2016. Sony has high hopes for GB2020. They filmed a special trailer announcement. Got a trailer out before Christmas. At this point in the GB2016 cycle there wasn’t a frame of footage shown to the public until March. March!

Yeah, and it's obvious that the March drop was due to behind-the-scenes battles over the trailer, not part of the plan. The posters dropped in December and it seems clear that the trailer would've been out then too (like Afterlife) if Feig and Reitman hadn't been fighting over how to cut it.

[Timo]

ATC's trailer was cutted by an extern canadian company. They do almost every trailer, that's why they all look the same.
Afterlife's trailer waa cutted by Jason, I guess. It looks smarter composed.

[RichardLess]

Top Gun having a Super Bowl spot is exactly what I’m talking about. That’s what Ghostbusters needed. I find it odd anyone would defend the choice of NOT having a super bowl spot.

We all want Ghostbusters to be successful? Right? Well if you do, defending Sony for not using the years biggest marketing opportunity isn’t the way to go. It’s that simple.

Look, I know you work at least adjacent to film marketing, but I gotta tell you, I trust the companies behind these movies to know best what actually gets them a return on their marketing investment. The only gambler was Paramount, which is desperate for hits. I don't think Paramount needed to advertise Top Gun, honestly, but this turned out to be an acceptable choice for Sonic given its success (and they still might've been concerned about making sure the public knew Sonic had been redesigned). AQP2 makes more sense as something following a buzzy predecessor, and jury is out on SpongeBob.

Sony's policy has lasted through some of its most successful and buzzy movies recently, namely Far From Home, Spider-Verse, and the two Jumanji movies. The only thing you can say for sure is that it gets a trailer in front of a ton of eyes, but it is not an absolutely necessary component of box office success, nor a surefire way to ensure it. From the last five years: Alita: Battle Angel, Wonder Park, Red Sparrow, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Transformers: The Last Knight, Ghost in the Shell, Gods of Egypt, Independence Day: Resurgence, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Tomorrowland, Terminator: Genisys...

Put it another way: do you actually think surefire hits like No Time to Die, F9, Black Widow, or Mulan would make significantly (or any) less money if they didn't advertise during the Superbowl? Pretty sure those movies were earmarked to be the year's biggest global hits well before February. And we can similarly go back through and say the Superbowl is probably not key to the success of various Avengers movies.

How do I uphold your point?? You just named numerous studios that paid for Super Bowl spots. Are you talking about Sony? When I said “they” I mean the industry as a whole. “They” wouldn’t spend the money if it didn’t work.

I laid out in detail what kinds of movies were warranting that spend for studios and pointed out that Ghostbusters: Afterlife wasn't in either of those two categories.

Also, Sony will probably spend about the same on marketing as in 2016. Sony has high hopes for GB2020. They filmed a special trailer announcement. Got a trailer out before Christmas. At this point in the GB2016 cycle there wasn’t a frame of footage shown to the public until March. March!

Yeah, and it's obvious that the March drop was due to behind-the-scenes battles over the trailer, not part of the plan. The posters dropped in December and it seems clear that the trailer would've been out then too (like Afterlife) if Feig and Reitman hadn't been fighting over how to cut it.

Lol. You trust these companies. Ooh man. I don’t even know what to say to that. If you had any idea how...I just can’t even. I’m rubbing my temples right now. If you you could be a fly on the wall at some of the meetings I’ve been to. Have you seen some of the marketing campaigns these companies you trust run? Lol. If only you had an inkling of the ideas I’ve heard. Any good campaign is a friggin miracle. Especially at Sony. Especiallly at Sony. I have a Tom Rothman story I so wish I could share but it would probably give me away. Then again, maybe I’ll be laid off this week so stay tuned.

You laid out in detail? You did nothing of the sort. You mentioned something about Paramount being desperate, something about guaranteed hits. The fast and furious franchise is guaranteed to do only one thing. Gross less than the last one. Which has been the case for the franchise for 3 straight movies. Look up the domestic numbers. Mulan is NOT a guaranteed hit. Worldwide? Probably. Maybe( But we are talking Super Bowl which means domestic). Look at the numbers for the original animated film. Didn’t set the world on fire did it? It’s not Lion King. Or Aladdin. Sonic was huge unknown. Black Widow? It’s Marvel so it’s a safe bet, but it’s a prequel based on a character that died in the biggest movie ever. Smart move. Look at the Domestic numbers for James Bond. Hardly the biggest grossing movie of the year. Sky fall barely hit 300 million and is the biggest Bond movie by far. Spectre? Big disappointment domestically. Made 100 million less than Skyfall domestic. Keep in mind Bond has been a November release for decades and again, suddenly those guarantee’s you mentioned are anything but. Lots of questions and question marks. Not unlike a certain movie opening July 10th(hopefully).

Just want to make clear: At no point have I suggested, or meant to suggest, a Super Bowl spot equals success. Doesn’t work that way. Also, and I can’t stress this enough, every company is desperate for hits, every company not named Disney. Sony is desperate. Paramount. Universal. Paramount has a track record of running Super Bowl spots year after year(look it up). It’s not because they are any more or less desperate. It’s because they believe it’s the best way to get the word out. And they are right. Was Alita a massive hit? No. Did it do more business than it might have otherwise had a Super Bowl spot not aired? That’s the question. Do you wanna lose 80 million or 50 million? that’s the game. It’s not about hits. You are thinking about it all wrong. It’s about getting the word out. It’s about getting the word out. That’s all it is.

So I guess now Paul Feig and Ivan Reitman spent 4 months arguing about a trailer? Do you have a source for that cause otherwise I gotta question what I’m reading. I can’t imagine that being true. Did they haggle? Maybe. But it didn’t take from before Christmas to freaking March. More likely they wanted to cram as many CGI FX as possible and had to wait. And yeah, that’s straight up one of the worst trailer ever made. Maybe you don’t want to admit it because you are a fan of the movie, but Jesus, it’s a shit show. It’s Adam Sandler level bad. The movie is not near as bad as that trailer and PLENTY of crap movies have GREAT trailers. Heck the international trailer wasn’t nearly as bad if memory serves. That company you trust thought it was a good idea to release *that* trailer, in March, just an FYI. Barely any time to course correct or change the narrative. Look what Sonic was able to do. Got a trailer out early, heard the poor reaction, decided to change course, delayed the release date and got the narrative under control. Not bad.

[Bison256]

which could mean theres an fx shot with venkman somewhere.

Wow. Perhaps a de aging sequence? Interesting

That's a biiiiit of a stretch conclusion.

Have clay sculpts ever been used in digital de-aging? It seems a lot of unnecessary work, especially as it's of old Venkman, not young Venkman.

It seems more likely it's a fan of the franchise putting his sculptor skills to use to pass his time during the current Coronavirus circumstances. Probably for the F/X artist to make a custom figure of old Venkman.

They scaned a old plaster mold to make the cgi young Arnold in Terminator Salvation. Maybe they needed to put Murray's face on his stunt double for some shots?

[timeware]

An interesting theory, what if the special effects point or elude to one of the original Buster's actually being the villain? It would be an unexpected twist.

All this time since the second movie one of them could be possessed or even vengeful without them knowing about it.

[Alphagaia]

A special fx guy who worked on the movie shared the Bill Murray sculpture, which could mean theres an fx shot with venkman somewhere.

https://ghostbustersnews.com/2020/03/21 ... sculpture/

Wow. Perhaps a de aging sequence? Interesting

Someone is going to wear it.
It was the only way to get Bill in the movie.

[Kingpin]

Conclusion? What conclusion? I was just guessing.

Guess then, seeing as we're getting pedantic.

I can’t see Bill Murray having all that goo poured on his face for a mould. Who knows.

I can't think of any circumstance these days where it'd be necessary to have "goo poured on his face". All of the realistically-styled toy figures have been obviously been physical sculpts, and his appearance in Ghostbusters: The Video Game was digitally achieved, along with the rest of the cast (excluding Ernie).

They scaned a old plaster mold to make the cgi young Arnold in Terminator Salvation. Maybe they needed to put Murray's face on his stunt double for some shots?

Cheers, Bison. I appreciate that factoid.
I'd guess though that that was the exception rather than the rule, because it would save them a lot of work... Though they still would need to apply a lot of extra work to rig it for animation.

[pizzarat]

An interesting theory, what if the special effects point or elude to one of the original Buster's actually being the villain? It would be an unexpected twist.

All this time since the second movie one of them could be possessed or even vengeful without them knowing about it.

Have you been watching Critters IV?

[RichardLess]

Conclusion? What conclusion? I was just guessing.

Guess then, seeing as we're getting pedantic.

I can’t see Bill Murray having all that goo poured on his face for a mould. Who knows.

I can't think of any circumstance these days where it'd be necessary to have "goo poured on his face". All of the realistically-styled toy figures have been obviously been physical sculpts, and his appearance in Ghostbusters: The Video Game was digitally achieved, along with the rest of the cast (excluding Ernie).

They scaned a old plaster mold to make the cgi young Arnold in Terminator Salvation. Maybe they needed to put Murray's face on his stunt double for some shots?

Cheers, Bison. I appreciate that factoid.
I'd guess though that that was the exception rather than the rule, because it would save them a lot of work... Though they still would need to apply a lot of extra work to rig it for animation.

Oh there are a bunch of scenarios where they might want to pour plaster mould on an actor. It’s still used all the time for costumes, make-up appliances, stunt riggs, body doubling(if anyone has seen Batman V Superman, Michael Shannon didn’t actually film a frame of footage, they used a plaster mould to create a fake Zod made of rubber. Pretty cool stuff. ). I very much doubt any of that applies to Ghostbusters but who the heck knows.

[Bison256]

Conclusion? What conclusion? I was just guessing.

Guess then, seeing as we're getting pedantic.

I can’t see Bill Murray having all that goo poured on his face for a mould. Who knows.

I can't think of any circumstance these days where it'd be necessary to have "goo poured on his face". All of the realistically-styled toy figures have been obviously been physical sculpts, and his appearance in Ghostbusters: The Video Game was digitally achieved, along with the rest of the cast (excluding Ernie).

They scaned a old plaster mold to make the cgi young Arnold in Terminator Salvation. Maybe they needed to put Murray's face on his stunt double for some shots?

Cheers, Bison. I appreciate that factoid.
I'd guess though that that was the exception rather than the rule, because it would save them a lot of work... Though they still would need to apply a lot of extra work to rig it for animation.

Here's an old article about it https://www.popularmechanics.com/techno ... 6/4318434/

[Sav C]

Listen, I understand nothing about blockbuster advertising. However, I've been reading up recently on micro-targeting advertising campaigns, where data collected from social media is used to advertise online to extremely small segments of the public, and have been wondering if Sony could be utilizing it for GBIII. Apparently it's cheaper and more effective than traditional television advertising. Why waste money showing me ads for Afterlife when they probably already know I'm going? Instead they custom tailor ads to suit every small segment of the general movie going public. Just a half-baked thought.

[tylergfoster]

Lol. You trust these companies. Ooh man. I don’t even know what to say to that. If you had any idea how...I just can’t even. I’m rubbing my temples right now. If you you could be a fly on the wall at some of the meetings I’ve been to. Have you seen some of the marketing campaigns these companies you trust run?

You have a frustrating tendency to change what I said into something I wasn't claiming. I didn't say I trust them to make quality marketing, I said I trust them to understand what generates a return on their investment. They understand money.

Note that The Hollywood Reporter wrote about exactly what I'm talking about:

"While the Super Bowl remains the most-watched live television event of the year in the U.S., ponying up that much money has become a major deterrent for Hollywood, particularly when dropping a teaser or a trailer at other times during Super Bowl weekend can achieve just as much exposure on social media."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... ar-1273888

Later in your reply you talk about saving $30m dollars, which is an absurd, totally plucked-from-the-sky figure. Not only that, it reveals the root of the reason your POV makes no sense: how would a studio even measure the difference (as in, identify how much more the movie made specifically because of a Superbowl spot)? A $30m return is worth spending almost $6m on (the 2020 price tag, per THR), but you would have to be extremely confident that a movie is going to earn that much money specifically off of that trailer to make that calculus. Not only does it have to be more than the cost, it would have to be a safe bet.

Nobody can guarantee Ghostbusters: Afterlife will make X amount of additional money advertising it in February.

You laid out in detail? You did nothing of the sort. You mentioned something about Paramount being desperate, something about guaranteed hits. The fast and furious franchise is guaranteed to do only one thing. Gross less than the last one. Which has been the case for the franchise for 3 straight movies. Look up the domestic numbers. Mulan is NOT a guaranteed hit. Worldwide? Probably. Maybe( But we are talking Super Bowl which means domestic). Look at the numbers for the original animated film. Didn’t set the world on fire did it? It’s not Lion King. Or Aladdin. Sonic was huge unknown. Black Widow? It’s Marvel so it’s a safe bet, but it’s a prequel based on a character that died in the biggest movie ever. Smart move. Look at the Domestic numbers for James Bond. Hardly the biggest grossing movie of the year. Sky fall barely hit 300 million and is the biggest Bond movie by far. Spectre? Big disappointment domestically. Made 100 million less than Skyfall domestic. Keep in mind Bond has been a November release for decades and again, suddenly those guarantee’s you mentioned are anything but. Lots of questions and question marks. Not unlike a certain movie opening July 10th(hopefully).

Now you really seem out of the loop. I think even people who aren't marketing experts have a basic awareness that overseas box office is more important than domestic these days, especially China (Chinese box office comes up on these boards all the time).

Setting aside the spinoff last year, the last Fast and Furious movie grossed $1.2b worldwide. Universal moved it a year at the drop of a hat because the coronavirus was threatening overseas markets. You jump around to find weird angles for skepticism but I doubt you can find a single box office analyst that truly believed there was any risk of F9, Mulan, Black Widow, and No Time to Die from being among the year's biggest global grossers (well, in a non-coronavirus scenario).

It’s about getting the word out. That’s all it is.

This is an argument that might make sense for Ghostbusters but is disproven by the movies that actually did run Superbowl ads. Even if for some reason you maintain skepticism about the performance of the four movies I mentioned, you can't possibly argue the audience isn't significantly aware those movies are coming out.

Maybe you don’t want to admit it because you are a fan of the movie, but Jesus, it’s a shit show.

Seriously, man, I have a pretty good sense of what you are going to try and twist my words into and even prepare for it and it makes no difference.

Me, three posts ago: "the debut trailer for the 2016 movie was not ideal"

[Alphagaia]

Maybe we should kill this lengthy topic before it gets more ugly.

You are trying to be civil, Droidguy, but Richardless headstrong way of talking like "lol", "complete and utter hogwash" and "not sure this isn't getting thru" means he has no Interest to return this favor, and it shows as the tone is souring on both sides.

You guys disagree and we don't know the exact reasoning for the choices that have been made. Let's leave it like that.

[Kingpin]

Indeed.

Sony didn't buy a Super Bowl spot, the fact is immutable whether we like it or not, understand it or not. The decision is now academic, and may bear out in the long run as whatever benefit it may have gotten will almost certainly be lost because of the Coronavirus. People have a lot more down-to-Earth things to worry about right now than the next Ghostbusters movie.

Today they've announced that all McDonald's restaurants in the United Kingdom will be closing by 7pm this evening, and this is after the Prime Minister Boris Johnson had urged takeaways remain available to help keep the public fed on... I think... Tuesday?

Shinzo Abe has also for the first time voiced the possibility the Tokyo Olympics may need to be deferred to next year.

I think at this point it's no longer a matter of "if" Ghostbusters: Afterlife will be delayed, but a matter of "when".

[deadderek]

For ****'s sake. *sigh*

2020 just sucks so far.

[RichardLess]

Lol. You trust these companies. Ooh man. I don’t even know what to say to that. If you had any idea how...I just can’t even. I’m rubbing my temples right now. If you you could be a fly on the wall at some of the meetings I’ve been to. Have you seen some of the marketing campaigns these companies you trust run?

You have a frustrating tendency to change what I said into something I wasn't claiming. I didn't say I trust them to make quality marketing, I said I trust them to understand what generates a return on their investment. They understand money.

Note that The Hollywood Reporter wrote about exactly what I'm talking about:

"While the Super Bowl remains the most-watched live television event of the year in the U.S., ponying up that much money has become a major deterrent for Hollywood, particularly when dropping a teaser or a trailer at other times during Super Bowl weekend can achieve just as much exposure on social media."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... ar-1273888

Later in your reply you talk about saving $30m dollars, which is an absurd, totally plucked-from-the-sky figure. Not only that, it reveals the root of the reason your POV makes no sense: how would a studio even measure the difference (as in, identify how much more the movie made specifically because of a Superbowl spot)? A $30m return is worth spending almost $6m on (the 2020 price tag, per THR), but you would have to be extremely confident that a movie is going to earn that much money specifically off of that trailer to make that calculus. Not only does it have to be more than the cost, it would have to be a safe bet.

Nobody can guarantee Ghostbusters: Afterlife will make X amount of additional money advertising it in February.

You laid out in detail? You did nothing of the sort. You mentioned something about Paramount being desperate, something about guaranteed hits. The fast and furious franchise is guaranteed to do only one thing. Gross less than the last one. Which has been the case for the franchise for 3 straight movies. Look up the domestic numbers. Mulan is NOT a guaranteed hit. Worldwide? Probably. Maybe( But we are talking Super Bowl which means domestic). Look at the numbers for the original animated film. Didn’t set the world on fire did it? It’s not Lion King. Or Aladdin. Sonic was huge unknown. Black Widow? It’s Marvel so it’s a safe bet, but it’s a prequel based on a character that died in the biggest movie ever. Smart move. Look at the Domestic numbers for James Bond. Hardly the biggest grossing movie of the year. Sky fall barely hit 300 million and is the biggest Bond movie by far. Spectre? Big disappointment domestically. Made 100 million less than Skyfall domestic. Keep in mind Bond has been a November release for decades and again, suddenly those guarantee’s you mentioned are anything but. Lots of questions and question marks. Not unlike a certain movie opening July 10th(hopefully).

Now you really seem out of the loop. I think even people who aren't marketing experts have a basic awareness that overseas box office is more important than domestic these days, especially China (Chinese box office comes up on these boards all the time).

Setting aside the spinoff last year, the last Fast and Furious movie grossed $1.2b worldwide. Universal moved it a year at the drop of a hat because the coronavirus was threatening overseas markets. You jump around to find weird angles for skepticism but I doubt you can find a single box office analyst that truly believed there was any risk of F9, Mulan, Black Widow, and No Time to Die from being among the year's biggest global grossers (well, in a non-coronavirus scenario).

It’s about getting the word out. That’s all it is.

This is an argument that might make sense for Ghostbusters but is disproven by the movies that actually did run Superbowl ads. Even if for some reason you maintain skepticism about the performance of the four movies I mentioned, you can't possibly argue the audience isn't significantly aware those movies are coming out.

Maybe you don’t want to admit it because you are a fan of the movie, but Jesus, it’s a shit show.

Seriously, man, I have a pretty good sense of what you are going to try and twist my words into and even prepare for it and it makes no difference.

Me, three posts ago: "the debut trailer for the 2016 movie was not ideal"

They understand money? 15 year olds understand money. Sony is run by Tom Rothman. Tom Rothman has one of the worst reputations in the entire industry, which is saying something. His time at 20th century Fox is legendary for it’s incompetence. The man had a “no robots” policy for the X-Men franchise. A series that features robots heavily. That’s why you don’t get a glimpse of a sentinel in X3 beyond the head and why the first X-Men movie to be made after his departure was Days of Future Past. He also refused to greenlight Deadpool, and is 100% the reason X-Men Origins Wolverine is the mess it is. But I digress...

Please stop talking about global box office as if that’s that we are talking about. Please just stop. Do the Super Bowl commercials show worldwide? That’s what we are debating. Domestic. American. North American. I make that clear over and over. You don’t pay for a Super Bowl Spot for the global market. That’s what this is about. You talking about global box office is an indication that you really aren’t grasping at the point here. Of course global box office is important. But we aren’t talking about that. Don’t move those goal posts. Global box office is a totally different ball game. That Chinese box office Hollywood loves to chase only returns 25% of the reported gross.

Just to be clear. Yes. That 30 million figure was plucked from the sky. I was not giving a specific example. I’m saying you are looking at it in the wrong way, because you are. If you had the choice of losing 30 million, or 50 million, which would you choose? A Super Bowl trailer could help with that. You are looking at it as well, “X” movie failed and lost money so clearly the Super Bowl commercial wasn’t worth it. Yes “X” movie lost money, but it COULD HAVE lost more. That’s the *gamble*. That’s the game.

Twist your words?? Not my intent. You just got through saying that it’s not as bad as fans make it out to be. That’s what I was responding to. How did I twist your words? Did I quote you? No. Please Don’t do that. Come on. You said the trailer was not “ideal” and then saying it’s not as bad as fan or YouTube made it out be. Then I said Maybe you don’t want to admit how bad it was because you are a fan of the movie, Tell me where I twisted your words? I think it’s pretty clear the bias involved on your part when describing that trailer as “not ideal”. That’s putting it kindly. I don’t like the film, but as I said, the film is MUCH better than that trailer makes it out to be. That trailer is infamous for how bad it is and it’s reception. “Not ideal” is something a politician would say. It was a garbage trailer.

Also. Still waiting on a source on that 4 month fight Feig and Reitman had over the trailer? Were you speculating? Did you make it up? What’s the story?

Again, if Super Bowl spots didn’t work no one would do them.

This all started as me saying “Sony made a big mistake not advertising at the Super Bowl”(paraphrasing) and lamenting the marketing thus far, especially after the poor job done on the last ghostbusters film. The Super Bowl spot was a prime time opportunity for Sony to show 100m people that this is the ghostbusters film they were waiting for.

If you’ve read my opinion on the matter and my arguments to back it up and still walk away from here thinking Sony made the right call, cool. I don’t think there’s anymore I could say to convince you otherwise. I think I’ve made a pretty decent case for why it was the wrong move. If you don’t agree, fair enough.

Ultimately this comes down to: Do you trust Sony to market this movie properly. And no. I don’t.
If Sony doesn’t have Spider-Man or The Rock/Kevin Hart or QT they are...poor at this.

Keep in mind. I think it was you I had the debate with over Kevin Feige and his involvement with the Spider-Man Homecoming series. You thought he wasn’t very involved and debated that point. I said he was extremely involved. In the months afterward it came out how involved he was. Which was extremely. So Ha! Richardless: 1 Droidguy: 0 (I only bring this up to show that despite what you may think, I know what I’m talking about. Oh. And to rub it in. And gloat. Ha!)—I kid. I kid. You’re a good sport. It’s always fun.

[timeware]

With what's going on I wouldn't blame Athletes for not attending the Olympics. Shaun White was good to make that call early.

Seriously Kingpin they're still allowing inside dining at mc Donald's? I figured they'd just limit drive through and take out.

Once things get back to normal I want a god dang frakking big Mac.

[Davideverona]

For ****'s sake. *sigh*

2020 just sucks so far.

I think 2020 has been written by Stephen King.

[Bison256]

For ****'s sake. *sigh*

2020 just sucks so far.

I think 2020 has been written by Stephen King.

So how long until will get to the bad ending?

[Davideverona]

I think 2020 has been written by Stephen King.

So how long until will get to the bad ending?

Well, luckily for us, as of late the King shifted towards thrillers with happy endings.

[tylergfoster]

Sony is run by Tom Rothman. Tom Rothman has one of the worst reputations in the entire industry, which is saying something. His time at 20th century Fox is legendary for it’s incompetence.

I'm aware of Tom Rothman and his reputation.

Please stop talking about global box office as if that’s that we are talking about. Please just stop. Do the Super Bowl commercials show worldwide? That’s what we are debating. Domestic. American. North American. I make that clear over and over. You don’t pay for a Super Bowl Spot for the global market. That’s what this is about. You talking about global box office is an indication that you really aren’t grasping at the point here. Of course global box office is important. But we aren’t talking about that. Don’t move those goal posts. Global box office is a totally different ball game. That Chinese box office Hollywood loves to chase only returns 25% of the reported gross.

Global box office is the only applicable parameter for movies like Black Widow, Mulan, F9, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which are all owned by their studios globally. Ghostbusters is, I suppose, the one that is least historically positioned to be a global grosser, but there's no way you can make the case that Sony isn't invested in how it does worldwide and not buying a Superbowl spot is probably a savings they will use in marketing the movie worldwide. (Since it's sustained the IP for 35 years, while there's no question they're aiming for more than 2016's box office, I think their #1 priority edging that is probably merchandise sales, which would be global.)

If you had the choice of losing 30 million, or 50 million, which would you choose? A Super Bowl trailer could help with that. You are looking at it as well, “X” movie failed and lost money so clearly the Super Bowl commercial wasn’t worth it. Yes “X” movie lost money, but it COULD HAVE lost more. That’s the *gamble*. That’s the game.

Of course I'd rather lose $30m than $50m, but that's not the question on the table.

Surely every studio has some kind of metric -- exit polling, marketing surveys, etc. -- that tells them, as much as they're capable of knowing, how much publicity a Superbowl spot adds. Airing one is obviously a calculus between the cost of the spot -- it could gain you anywhere from 99 million to 0 additional viewers, but you would for sure sink almost $6m into one. You can't make that decision without factoring in an unrevokable loss of almost $6m. And I don't think there's any study, metric, analysis that would tell you now, in the age of the internet, that a Superbowl spot is a safe route to ensuring more than $6m extra at the box office, which has to be something you're confident in before you could make a "lose $30m or lose $50m" argument. That's an argument inherently based off of a Superbowl spot being a relatively safe (not guaranteed, but reliable) $20m increase. Even you call it gambling. Obviously, you have to factor in the money you're putting on the table.

Twist your words?? Not my intent. Come on. You said the trailer was not “ideal” and then saying it’s not as bad as fan or YouTube made it out be.

Fine, let me be clearer: it's not a good trailer.

This is not mutually exclusive from the trailer also having been additionally brigaded by trolls on YouTube downvoting it and leaving nasty comments, which I think we can all agree is objectively true. It can be a disaster and still have been a magnet for an unwarranted level of hatred. Plenty of trailers are bad every year; they don't all end up on YouTube's most disliked videos of all time lists.

Again, if Super Bowl spots didn’t work no one would do them.

In a pre-YouTube age, I wouldn't argue that Superbowl ads weren't good as gold. But Sony's sat out a few years now, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox didn't bite this time, and even Disney and Paramount (per the THR article) are also partially shifting to pre- and post-game spots that cost less. All I'm saying is, don't be surprised if studios start forgoing the game completely in a few years.

If you’ve read my opinion on the matter and my arguments to back it up and still walk away from here thinking Sony made the right call, cool. I don’t think there’s anymore I could say to convince you otherwise. I think I’ve made a pretty decent case for why it was the wrong move. If you don’t agree, fair enough.

Ultimately this comes down to: Do you trust Sony to market this movie properly. And no. I don’t.
If Sony doesn’t have Spider-Man or The Rock/Kevin Hart or QT they are...poor at this.

I don't agree they should've bought a Superbowl spot and I don't necessarily trust them to market the movie properly yet.

I also think it's funny that you say, "except for their two most successful franchises and one of the buzziest movies of 2019..." Sure, easy sells, presumably, but nonetheless. The results are the results.

Keep in mind. I think it was you I had the debate with over Kevin Feige and his involvement with the Spider-Man Homecoming series. You thought he wasn’t very involved and debated that point. I said he was extremely involved. In the months afterward it came out how involved he was. Which was extremely. So Ha!

Nothing I've read since has changed my evaluation of how much Feige contributes to those movies, so, you'd have to link something. (The rest of the Superbowl argument, I've said all I need to say, and we can move on.)

[SpaceBallz]

Are we still talking about the super bowl?!

[groschopf]

Are we still talking about the super bowl?!

I'd love to answer that question, but I'm afraid it would be a spoiler.

[Alphagaia]

Are we still talking about the super bowl?!

No. Not 'we'. They are.

Can we give those two a room somewhere? They are scaring the straights.