RichardLess wrote: ↑August 12th, 2020, 4:52 amIf Tom Rothman sells a Sony incubated production then I might say it’s possible. But Ghostbusters? It’s legacy IP. I think if there’s still mass closures come January Sony sits on the film until it can be released. While money rules in Hollywood, ego isn’t far behind. And every damn studio head wants to be that film which brings everyone back to the theatre. I mentioned this in a previous post but GBA is in a really good position to be that film. It’s known, it’s a comedy, nostalgia. All that good stuff.
I did stress in my posts that I would assume it would be a
Cloverfield Paradox situation, in which some streamer gets the movie itself but none of the IP or the merch money, and the studio can still release discs (and in this case, digital ownership). Sony actually already had this relationship with Netflix on "House of Cards," with the exception of not knowing if they jointly control the IP -- Sony got to put it out on DVD and Blu-ray, and it's for sale on sites like VUDU. I was also thinking $150m/$200m total, not on top of production costs, with the caveat that this other service is the one that ends up paying for the marketing. Merch + physical and digital home video sales + $50m with minimal marketing spend (basically, whatever they already spent) might be a pretty good deal for Sony, especially if the movie is popular and they get to make a sequel that gets a traditional release. To be clear, though, I agree with you that we're not even in the neighborhood of a chance unless it's January 2021 and theaters are still not fully or consistently open.
On the other hand, I disagree that
Ghostbusters: Afterlife wants to be the first big movie after theaters reopen. I still feel you don't view the film's box office performance as a question mark. The first trailer went over great with us but I'm not convinced the movie is a surefire winner with the public yet. The brand has some dings on it, and some
TFA-style nostalgia stuff (
Terminator: Dark Fate) bombed, and on top of all that, now the marketing plans have been thrown out of whack by the pandemic. If you have a movie like
Tenet, sure, you take that risk -- that's a hip, buzzy movie that people are looking to be surprised by, plus you get to placate one of the studio's most important filmmakers by indulging his love of the theatrical experience, and play to the movie's IMAX photography (or, if you're
New Mutants, you give in and burn off the contractual theatrical obligations that are preventing you from shuffling it to a streamer). In the case of
Afterlife, it would be a double bummer to have it go first and tank -- it would be bad for the franchise and it would be bad for Sony.
RichardLess wrote: ↑August 12th, 2020, 4:52 amOn a side note, I find it interesting you feel Top Gun 2 is a slam dunk. I was excited to see how it would do. The first movie is popular enough(though not near as big as Ghostbusters) yet Tom Cruise has had problems with non MI films.
Unlike
Ghostbusters: Afterlife, I saw a ton of people who don't like
Top Gun at all or who are skeptical of long-gap nostalgia sequels getting excited just because the film has all this cool, authentically-captured aerial footage. I actually kinda hate the original
Top Gun, but that flying material looks really thrilling.