Aha!--THERE'S Roger's article about "Why didn't Ant Bully do better?"  We knew that other shoe would drop!  :)

(Seriously, though:
Superman - Long, depressing and overserious,
Poseidon - Goofy,
Lake House - Chik-flik,
16 Blocks - -Why- does Bruce Willis try to keep 80's action-thriller on life support?
Lady in the Water - ...You're right, let's move on.

And Ant Bully?  Face it, Rog - "Ant" was defeated by crickets....Audience third-party-CGI crickets.   Complain all you like, but we DID try to warn you.
And don't come crying to us when "Happy Feet" doesn't outgross Pirates 2.  :)

Oh, and:
----
"{My understanding is that Mr. Hill is already at work on a couple of stories about Sony's upcoming animated feature, "Open Season"} "
---
Well, THAT, at least, is site content:
Seeing as how "Season" was going to be Sony's flagship for their new animation division headed by Roger "Aladdin" Allers and several key storyboard and animation directors from Toy Story....Both of whom had jumped ship during the Troubles, back when both sides reasonably thought there soon wouldn't be a Disney OR a Pixar to come back to.

Naturally, former doom-pessimism has changed a bit in 2006, now that the studios have been re-Lassetered, Pixar has a full slate, and "Old-school" is back in school again--
Which should make an interesting Real-JHM article about whether Disney/Pixar's valuable prodigal animators will ever be hired back with open arms--or whether there's irreconcilable differences--and whether "Open Season" and "Surf's Up" [yes, more penguins, only ugly ones, this time] will be Sony's first -and- last forays into the CGI Bust/Boom...
But as for the movie itself?--Look at the trailer again, and you tell US if we're interested.  -_-

Geez Derek! Give the guy a break.

This is a good look at another company that didn't get the act together to promote the products. Keep up the line, Rog!

Say what you will, Ant Bully is a good family movie. Did you even bother to see it or is that too low for you to stoop?

Ignorance may be bliss, but why flaunt it?

Again, a film only has to gross TWICE its budget to return a profit, not three times. Ask at any box office website & this is what they'll tell you.

Other than that though, I agree that WB is not having a good year. If they didn't have the HP franchise, I don't know what they'd be doing right now. Now I haven't (and won't) see Superman Returns, but the marketing was horrible. It was built entirely on Nostalgia....nostalgia that doesn't exist. They have to learn that people aren't going to see a Superman movie just because it's a Superman movie. And you know what? They are pulling the same bad marketing with next year's Ninja Turtles.

CapnSkip said:
This is a good look at another company that didn't get the act together to promote the products. Keep up the line, Rog!
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That's the part I'm trying to figure out:  How could -marketing- have been the problem for "Superman" and "Lady in the Water", when both movies had teasers and trailers for almost an entire YEAR?
Superman alone set a new record with, what, two teasers and five full trailers, and every conceivable product tie-in, and even back in December, I was already screaming-fed-up with that Italian-opera "Water" teaser, given that our theater showed it at every single movie...And that was before Shamalyan's book came out.
Ant Bully had teasers out for almost as long, and the requisite "Polar Express" amount of bookstore-marketing, while Poseidon thought it could sell itself with a word and a summer date, and the other two opened in obscurity.

Superman and Lady were the two most hyped movies of the summer--the other two being You-Know-Who--and yet one flopped, one opened big and dropped fast, and the other two were the #1 & 2 hit movies of the year, despite analysts trying to persuade us that one of them wasn't...
If the proof ISN'T "in the popcorn", what are we meant to assume it is?

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"How could -marketing- have been the problem for "Superman" and "Lady in the Water", when both movies had teasers and trailers for almost an entire YEAR? "
It's not about quantity but rather about quality. With Pirates, Disney actually showed content in their trailers and not just a picture of Captain Jack. WB on the otherhand merely showed clips of Superman just standing still for most of the trailers. And also, there is a major difference between "Captain Jack is Back" and "Superman is back." For one thing, most people just don't care a lot about Superman. To most people, it's just another superhero movie. Captain Jack on the other hand is entirely different. Besides the fact that the franchise is new and fresh in people's minds, can you really say DMC is just another pirate movie? After all, how many other pirate movies are there?

Same problem with Ant Bully. Yes there were a lot of trailers, but no good ones. In fact 90% of the trailer had nothing to do with Ant Bully and in fact just tried to parody other things (rappers, harry potter, etc). The result was forced humor that simply wasn't funny. And the other 10% of the trailer was a clip of the boy stepping on the ants.

As for LitW, I'd say that's Shyamalan's fault. WB built it as an "M. Night Shyamalan" film. A few years ago that would have been enough, but with The Village still sour in people's mouths, that just simply wasn't enough.

askmike wrote:
And also, there is a major difference between "Captain Jack is Back" and "Superman is back." For one thing, most people just don't care a lot about Superman.
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"Returns" had one thing going for it, and that's what Warner sold in the ads:
As far as fans were concerned, and Warner -wanted- them to be concerned, this was going to be the movie that officially wiped Superman 3 and 4 out of history and start over, coming on the heels of "Batman Begins" starting its Warner/DC franchises from the beginning--As more than one movie fan put it when the first trailers came out, all they had to do was play that John Williams "Krypton" theme, and you were there.
As to whether fans actually GOT the Return of Richard Donner (and not that Bryan Singer didn't throw his back out trying), that's another matter.

OTOH, as noted, Ant Bully gave us all the warning we needed:
The teasers showed us character designs that looked like "Antz", and we assumed it was made by either the same people, or those who liked it--Either way, 'nuff said.

Working 'in movies,' I've often gauged audience reaction (I've stood in the back of theaters sometimes, to listen), and  I was somewhat amazed last year when both 'Superman Returns' and 'Lady in the Water's' previews emerged attached to 'Harry Potter.'

With Superman, there was almost no reaction when the giant 'S' logo appeared.  but when the trailers turned to lLady in the Water, the audience became curious, because they had no idea what the film was about.  But when the name M Night Shyamalan appeared, there was this 'excited whisper' that could be heard throughout the theater.

Other then that, personally, there was nothing from WB that really made me want to see any of their lineups (the only film I was dying to see was PIXAR's 'Cars')-I'm sure I was in a large number of camps of those who felt a 'Poseidon Adventure' remake was unnecesarry.

Though I also think that WB has a problem with really stupid taglines, such as 'Posiedon's MayDay' tagline, and Ant Bully's 'The Battle for the Lawn, is On.'  but then, we weren't spared rhyming tags from other studios ('Captain Jack is Back,' for one).

I remember last year, thinking WB was finally getting their act back together, and then 2006 comes along and just-well, Roger said enough about that.

The closer Superman Returns got to release, the more curious I heard people getting, but once the film came out there seemed to be a general consensus that the movie was good, but far too long without enough action.  To be honest, I've been a huge Superman fan for nearly 40 years and have been waiting for years to see a new film but I fell asleep in the theater during the big, "action-packed" climax.  It's such a shame that WB didn't go with Kevin Smith's script all those years ago as it was the best of the bunch, starting completely over but still with Superman already an established hero in the first act.  I can't say that I'm a fan of the films Smith has directed, but he writes a great comic book and he needs to have more shots at writing comic films.

Again, it depends if you're talking about American or Ameican/Foreign and how that company structures its foreign distribution.  If it's American, then, yes, about twice, depending on which weeks the film makes its money.  If it's American/Foreign it's probably closer to three times.

The problem with Superman was this, as far as I'm concerned: other superhero chains--such as Batman and Xmen--have slowly developed a film style that at times seems influenced noir and gritty realism.  On the other hand, Superman still has Jimmy Olsen and flat supervillians (such as the current incarnation of Lex Luthor) and his equally flat girlfriend.  The threat in the most recent Batman was the type of activity that spoke to a contemporary audience--that is, a post-9/11 audience.  The threat in Superman was just lame.  What was Lex Luthor doing?  Oh yeah, he was making his own landmass using magic crystals and a bomb.  Isn't this the type of science-gone-mad plot that better related to a 1950s sense of unknown military science?  

The problem with this superhero chain is that it is unsuccessful in applying the superman myth to a contemporary environment.  Like much science fiction, good superhero stories are almost always an interesting commentary on the contemporary cultural and political climate.  Aside from the question of paternity, the new superman simply flat out fails.

I believe the other reason why Ant Bully failed was because people have already seen ant movies...twice. With Pixar still the leader in CGI films, people still remember A Bug's Life, even if it's not the studio's BEST film. And those who see DreamWorks' movies might also remember Antz. The over-reliance on an all-star cast might've hurt it, too. Sorry, but if you keep plagarizing other films, people are going to catch on eventually.

As for WB's other films, I saw Poseidon and The Lake House. I enjoyed The Lake House, only as a somber love tale, but you couldn't pay me to see Poseidon again. The next time I feel like seeing a million people die at sea, I'll just watch Titanic.

I see a lot of comments about how bad the marketing was.  I really don't think that was the problem.  

The problem is that WB just made bad movies that had very bad word of mouth.  No one had anything good to say about Lady In The Lake, The Lake House or Poisiden that actually went and saw it.  Would you pay $10 + to see a movie that people are saying is bad?

And Superman would have done better if it had repeat business, but no one wanted to see it again because it wasn't that good of a story.  They blew it by not starting the story fresh and the whole Superman's kid thing was stupid and really detracted from the rest of the movie.

Ant Bully failed because there is a glut of computer animated movies on the market and many of them are bad.  The story sounded very uninteresting to me personally and I'm sure it did to many others, therefore it was not succsessful in pulling in audiences.

So in my opinion, it wasn't marketing that failed, but WB just put out bad movies that people did not want to spend their hard earned cash on.

It’s impossible to understand why any film bombs. You can blame marketing, release date, quality, buzz…you’ll go nuts (and bore fans of this site). There’s no single reason why Warner Brothers is having a bad summer, but I have some theories.

The most important aspect that’s missing from this article is the MAJOR FACT that most of these films were partially financed by outside sources. WB won’t be losing the truckloads of coin the unwashed seemed to think they will.

16 BLOCKS was a negative pickup by WB. And if you think this film was budgeted at 80 mil, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. I’ve heard the DVD alone pulled in 60+ million. It will be profitable for everyone involved.

POSEIDON just couldn’t find a place in the world series of May blockbusters. Every year something must fail. It just has to be that way. This year, it was POSEIDON. The DVD should do spectacular business.

LAKE HOUSE, if you go to any movie site or know anyone in the industry, cost 45 million bucks to produce. Colton, where are you getting that 70 mil number??? HOUSE played pretty well during the summer, but couldn’t rack up bigger numbers even with impressive weekly percentages at the box office. Again, here’s a DVD that will sell very well. This film will see an easy profit.

SUPERMAN RETURNS is going to be the flick that drove the internet crazy. First of all, the budget was 204 mil – that’s been settled long ago. You can’t factor in the development costs for the other incarnations. WB had long ago written those costs off.

SUPERMAN disappointed many expecting a SPIDER-MAN style of adventure. What they got was a loving, beautifully realized, perfectly pitched superhero film. PIRATES 2 is candy; sweet and immediately appealing to the senses. But I feel SUPERMAN is going to age like fine wine. It will find a huge fanbase on DVD (a majority of audiences that took the time to see it loved it), and I could see over 250 mil in total ancillary revenue. Dear lord, how anyone could say this film will lose money doesn’t understand HOW movies make money.

Remember how the press is constantly reminding the public that they “hate critics?” Well, chalk up the failure of LADY IN THE WATER to the critics. They got the word out that the film was junk, and the audiences on that opening Friday agreed. It’s a terrible film that rightfully sunk to the bottom of the pool. Viva film critics!

ANT BULLY is the best CG film of the year with the worst release date. Families didn’t give it a chance because they had spent their bucks already for the month. It’s criminal how soundly this film was ignored. It was a true gem. I hope the DVD sales are kind to it.  

Thank you soo much for doing something that Jim has yet to do Roger and that is criticise something except Disney for once.I don't think anyone had a problem with you writing the Ant Bully articles what the problem was in my opinion was seeing Jim bash Pirates & Cars while keeping tight lipped when other movies like The Ant Bully and Over the Hedge under performed.I just found it very bias reporting not soo much on your part but more on Jim Hill's and its a shame that you feel the need to follow up on another studios failiure while Jim keeps quiet.

Also Warner blaming its marketing dept is rubish the real reason for all these flops is because the CGI market place is just too big,CGI has lost its apeal.

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"its a shame that you feel the need to follow up on another studios failiure while Jim keeps quiet. "
See the tag on top? It says "News, reviews, history and commentary about the entertainment industry (But mostly about the Mouse)." That means that although they aren't restricted to Disney articles, that is what most of them will be.

"There's no sense now in beating a damp narf."

To borrow some words from one of my favorite characters this summer: "I like you. You're funny."

The problem I have with all these box-office focused articles is that they only present a PIECE of the overall puzzle.

Roger, you were with me when Ron Miller said "Tron" made a ton more money with its DVD release than it did with its theatrical run.  Very few films are made that are true bombs -- despite all the bookkeeping gimmickry Hollywood studios can muster.  When you're making timeless animated classics that can be re-released every decade or so in some new consumer-friendly format ... those films and the characters continue to generate a healthy revenue stream. And, now, watch Disney Consumer Products pull bunnies from the Sorcerer's Hat.

There's money made through film product placement of say Coca Cola, Sony, Ford, JellyBelly and so many others. There's licensing of images and characters from the films; and, when it comes to videogames, the sales and profits there put Hollywood studios to shame.

There's also the DVD releases, airline, cable and broadcast rights. Of course, a successful theatrical release usually leads to higher DVD sales and more interested and higher prices for the cable and TV broadcast rights.

I simply don't think it's right to view a film as a success based on its profitability and box office results. I tend to place more value on whether the film ENTERTAINS me, but that's silly now, isn't it?

Actually, Pirates II was a piddling success in my book because it was at least 30 minutes too long and not quite as entertaining as its was on its first voyage to the multiplexes. I thought "Cars" and "Ant Bully" were both more satisfying entertainment experiences.

Now, as to the "Ant Bully" stories ... I commend and applaud Roger's efforts. Sorry folks, all Roger was doing was taking advantage of some opportunities he had to meet, interview and share that information with the readers here. I'm sure that he would have loved to interview, in depth, a half-dozen or more of the talents at Pixar who worked on "Cars," but reporters -- even those recognized as being in the mainstream media -- aren't always given those opportunities.

That's what they get for leaving out ......'and the American Way' from Superman....a beat down at the box office by the DMC.

mnmears said:
"And, now, watch Disney Consumer Products pull bunnies from the Sorcerer's Hat. "
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(And in all the jokes about "Disney Bunnies", we've somehow managed to miss Disney's new "Disney Cuties" line, Disney's attempt to grab the manga and "manga-inspired" Hello Kitty clothes-icon fad, with cute faux-Sanrio versions of Donald, Daisy and Mickey--
The 90's Disney Decade I was about "If someone else builds it, we will too"...Welcome to the 00's Disney Decade II, "If someone else -markets- it..."  Nothing to do with Warner, just saying, before we get any more lame jokes on last week's article.)

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"Now, as to the "Ant Bully" stories ...
all Roger was doing was taking advantage of some opportunities he had to meet, interview and share that information with the readers here."
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Yes...That explains why the wannabes usually get a gracious ONE obligatory article, to pay a little back to the interview press junkets, use up all that press-release material that dumped on our desks in the mail, and maybe show we're not all favoritism around here.  We moan and groan, but hey, it pays the bills and keeps the other studios from giving us dirty looks.  ONE article.
Roger gave us three.  Oops, no, sorry, four--the "music" one was pulled later after posting--and then claimed it was our fault for complaining about not "letting him" more than one.  We remind ALL writers on this site that though this is a blog, it is not a private one, and that, hey, you win some and you lose some, as long as you don't push it.

It looks like Warner Bros. is going to have to resort to what Disney Studios was doing in the late 90s/early 00s -- relying on their expansive cinematic library of classics and DVD box sets and special editions to stop them from drowning.

Kind of interesting about the fact most of these pictures had "water" in them.  I never noticed that.  And I actually thought James Cameron (and a certain extent Kevin Costner) taught the industry a lesson about shooting watery pictures -- It even sounds like POTC is having watery over-budget troubles of their own.

>>Would you pay $10 + to see a movie that people are saying is bad?<<

See also "Plane, Snakes On A"

"And in all the jokes about "Disney Bunnies", we've somehow managed to miss Disney's new "Disney Cuties" line"
Disney Cuties have been out for years, it's nothing new.

"relying on their expansive cinematic library of classics and DVD box sets and special editions to stop them from drowning."
WB isn't drowning...yet. As long as they have the Harry Potter franchise, they'll stay afloat. I mean the movies cost $150m to make and get about $900m worldwide. And this isn't the end of the world. Remember back in 2004 Disney released The Alamo, Home on the Range, Hidalgo, Around the World in 80 Days & King Arthur. All were bona-fide bombs that lost Disney a lot of money. The Village did poorly too. They got some mileage in August with Princess Diaries 2, but they didn't get any big hits until November (with Incredibles & National Treasure). Point is, WB is having a bad year, but this isn't the end of the world for them.

I'm a big Superman fan, but the movie just didn't resonate for me.

1. Dialog -- there wasn't a single line in the film that stuck with me after I went out the door.

2. Plot. Wasn't Lex causing a disaster to clean up on real estate the plot of the first Superman movie? Plus watching Superman trying to pick up Lois again and break up her engagement after abondoning her for 5 years didn't impress me. Superman's supposed to be made of better stuff than this.

3. Dated. Lex having a ditsy girlfriend (who secretly likes Superman). Jimmy being a putz. Clark still being milktoast. The genre and the character have moved on in the last 20 years.

4. Smallville: Despite the Kyptonite freak-of-the-week plots in the first season and the tendancy to try to pull every connection in the Superman mythos into Clark's tean years, the series has raised the bar for Superman stories. Clark is an interesting character some real emotional range (to be fair, this was done inthe comics years earlier). Superman Returns Clark/Superman barely shows any emotional range at all. Michael Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor is a much more interesting villan than any of the filmed versions. Frankly I'd rather watch 3 or 4 episodes of Smallville on DVD than Superman Returns.

If WB wants to make money on a Superman film they need to do one of two things: Either wait for Smallville to wrap and then take this version of the mythos into film (with Clark putting on the costume for the first time), or start over forgetting the previous films (the way they did with Batman Begins) and create a Superman for the 21st century (reading over the last 20 years of the comic might help too).

I saw Poesidon at a test screening, I remember how bad it was.  Wrote a lot of stuff on their comment card at the end of the night.  Didn't go much into character development, thus I didn't care for anyone really.  Some issues they touched upon, they didn't go further with it.  Ending was odd.  Bottom line is, they should have rewritten the script.

Superman Returns: anticlimatic

Marketing gets some blame for Superman, absolutely.  I don't watch TV, so I don't see many trailers, but the ones I saw for Superman were terrible.  One clearly made it out to be an emotional chick flick.  That's not Superman's crowd, so while they might be wise going out of their way to try to appeal to the other crowd... don't alienate your main audience in the process.  This was the trailer I saw most.
I saw one or two others, can't remember the audience they were pretty clearly following by now, but I remember the trailers being transparent, and most importantly, dull.  No action.  Any interest I had in Superman was gone.  I think Bryan Singer is a bit of a dull director, I think Superman as a character is terribly dull, and throw in dull advertisements?  No sale for me.

As for the others... I wouldn't blame marketing, I'd blame the movies.  Ant Bully was hardly noticed, no one really cared.  Poseiden and Lady in the Water were reportedly terrible.  The Lake House was reportedly dull.  16 Blocks was reportedly competent but a bit boring.

These were not blockbusters, and that's not the fault of advertising.  It's the fault of poor scripts and moviemakers that underestimate the intelligence of their audience, as well as executives overestimating how much certain genres are likely to make today.

The New-'New Frugality' Of Hollywood


NY TIMES: Caught on Film: A Growing Unease in Hollywood
By LAURA M. HOLSON
Published: August 19, 2006

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 18 — For many here, Stacey Snider was the Hollywood executive who had it all. As chairwoman of Universal Pictures, she hobnobbed with celebrities at the Academy Awards. She was feted at charity events as well as in the fashion pages of Vogue. But after General Electric acquired Universal Pictures in 2004, the bright lights lost their brilliance.

Films like the Peter Jackson “King Kong” were considered disappointments, despite bringing in $547 million at the worldwide box office. And like many of her industry peers facing similar oversight, she regarded the scrutiny of the studio’s quarterly returns as, at times, oppressive. So much so that Ms. Snider quit her job in February to become chief executive of DreamWorks, now a division of Paramount Pictures, to work with the director Steven Spielberg on far fewer projects.

“It’s not like I view this as a private, artistic enterprise,” Ms. Snider, 45, said in a recent telephone interview. Still, she said: “I certainly felt the pressure. I felt the uncertainty. It galvanized the angst. We went from making movies to making product and content. I didn’t want to make franchises. I wanted to make movies.”

Hers is a common refrain in Hollywood these days. Despite a domestic box-office surge after years of declining attendance, 2006 is shaping up to be a time of Hollywood discontent. Studio executives have waged war on actor salaries, as high-profile projects with stars like Jim Carrey have been put off. Movie production deals, like the one Tom Cruise has at Paramount, are being renegotiated. Studios are also making fewer big-budget movies.

But while Hollywood has undergone periodic shifts like this before, many people here agree that there is something different this time, a permanence to Hollywood’s new austerity plan. Executives are facing too many unknowns, among them, changing moviegoer habits, rising costs and the threat of piracy.

“In this Wall Street and corporate world, the discussion has become: What is the proven, unique selling property of this product?” said Warren Beatty, the actor, who is upbeat about the industry’s prospects.

But he, too, agreed the industry was in transition. “The problem is you can’t sell entertainment the way you sell cars or air-conditioners,’’ he said. “Entertainment is dependent, to some extent, on surprise.”

The concern so far seems largely psychological, although many here predict dark days ahead. Movie-making is no longer a growth business, and has lost its luster among investors. Even the most well-run large movie studios often return only 5 percent to 7 percent annually. And other forms of entertainment — the Internet, sports and video games — are fiercely competing for consumers’ attention.

“When you hear what people are afraid of, it’s that movies are not special anymore,” said Terry Press, who runs worldwide marketing at DreamWorks Animation. “It’s the single issue no one wants to think about or say out loud.”

The tipping point, many here agree, was Walt Disney’s announcement last month that it would eliminate 650 jobs in its movie division, fire its production chief and sharply reduce the number of films it makes to a dozen or so a year from as many as 20.

What’s more, the company said it would focus mostly on Disney-branded films like the popular “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, which it can exploit across all divisions.

“Where Disney may have sent ripples, it begged the question, Who knows what others will do?” said Leonard Goldberg, the movie producer and former business partner of Aaron Spelling who was known for television shows like “Charlie’s Angels” and “Fantasy Island.”

Slow-growing movie studios are wilting under Wall Street’s demands to deliver a box-office hit like the “X-Men” series or “Pirates” every time out. Executives say the decline in DVD sales, which began in early 2005, is taking a toll on budgets. And to complicate matters, studios have not figured out a money-making digital strategy to deflect piracy while, at the same time, appeasing fickle consumers who want movies online.

“Stress is a function of fear,” said Alan F. Horn, who has been in the movie business three decades and is president of Warner Brothers. While he says he is optimistic about the future, he conceded that running a studio “has never been tougher.”

Warner has had one of its worst summers in years, with disappointments like “Lady in the Water” by M. Night Shyamalan, the big-budget remake of “The Poseidon Adventure” and the animated “Ant Bully.” But even profitable Warner movies are cause for anxiety because Hollywood is quick to label anything a loser that does not meet prerelease expectations.

For example, “Superman Returns” by Warner cost $209 million to make and Mr. Horn predicted it would garner $400 million at the worldwide box office (a respectable sum), which he said ensured a profit after DVD and television sales. But many in Hollywood expected it to bring in at least $500 million given Superman’s popularity and the publicity around the movie’s release. Mr. Horn said, “People are asking, ‘Are you disappointed?’ I don’t know how to relate to that. I don’t know what to say.”

There are few economic indicators that reflect Hollywood’s apparent unease. Art dealers who cater to studio executives, actors and producers said buying had not slowed. Nor have sales of homes that cost $5 million to $10 million, several real estate agents said. And despite layoffs at all the major studios, the number of film and television production jobs has increased.

In the first six months of 2006, 130,000 people were employed in entertainment in Los Angeles, compared with 127,200 in 2005, according to the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation. That growth is being fueled largely by an explosion in independent film production. Jack Kyser, the group’s chief economist, said 23 of the 30 films being made here in mid-August were from independent production companies.

But those statistics reflect only part of the story.

Robert Shaye, the founder of New Line Cinema, a division of Time Warner that will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year, said a fundamental driver of Hollywood’s unease was the high cost of making and marketing films. (The average in 2005 was $96 million.) Investment funds have poured money into movies, reducing the sting of studio cost-cutting. But investment funds are not immune to losses, either. A newcomer, Legendary Pictures, invested in “Lady in The Water” and “The Ant Bully,” Studios are also under attack from digital pirates who distribute illegal copies online. As a result of the piracy, studio executives can no longer depend on waves of re-releases for steady income. “Once it’s out there, it’s out there,” Mr. Shaye said.

With digital pirates and the pressure from Wall Street to produce predictable profits, the dialogue about what movies are made and marketed was bound to change.

If there is fear among some in Hollywood that brand managers are taking over, it is because two studios recently filled top creative jobs with executives whose expertise is movie marketing. At Disney, Nina Jacobson, the well-respected president of production, was fired and succeeded by Oren Aviv, the marketing chief. Ms. Snider, who joined DreamWorks, was succeeded in March by two executives, including Universal’s top movie marketer, Marc Shmuger.

Tom Staggs, Disney’s chief financial officer, argues that the concerns are unfounded. “The suits aren’t running the studio,” he said. “I think Hollywood has to constantly challenge itself to remain relevant.” Still, he added: “If we let it become a cookie-cutter, brand-flapping exercise, it is not going to work. We have to focus on the creative side.”

Some promising young executives are seeking to pursue creativity outside the studio. Last year, Mary Parent, 39, and Scott Stuber, 37, set in motion an option in their contract that allowed them to quit their jobs as presidents of production at Universal Pictures to become producers. Both said they did not leave the studio because they were unhappy; their producing deal is at Universal. Instead, they wanted the opportunity to flex their creative might before they got too old or started families.

“It reaches a point where it is hard to enjoy it,” said Ms. Parent, reflecting on being a studio executive. “Just the sheer volume of meetings between phone calls. You are trying to cut through the tide. It was grueling. You were at a test screening every night until midnight; you have scripts to read. You don’t want to be that person just scratching the surface.”

Of course, being a producer, particularly a new one, is no less demanding. In the last year, Ms. Parent has made five weeklong trips to New Zealand where she is a producer for the film “Halo.” Mr. Stuber has spent much of the summer in Arizona on the set of “The Kingdom,” where temperatures have spiked to as much as 110 degrees. “It’s not like it’s less busy,” Mr. Stuber said. “But you get to spend three hours in an editing room if you want to. You can’t lose sight of the fact that the job is to entertain.”

Whatever the challenges ahead, Mr. Goldberg, the producer, said Hollywood would adapt as it did when silent movies became talkies, and three decades ago, when the VCR was perceived as a threat.

He had no sympathy for those who do nothing but complain. “Let them get a real job,” he said. “They get paid a lot. They go to great parties. They fly around in jets, not only for business reasons, but for personal things, too. I think there are worse jobs to have.”

&lt;i&gt;First, Jim Hill offers up some corroboration of his ways-that-Wall-Street's-initial-financial-projections-have-had-a-negative-impact-on-Hollywood theory. Then Jim goes on to talk about Mickey's plans to increase &quot;Cars&quot; DVD sale levels

"POSEIDON just couldn’t find a place in the world series of May blockbusters. Every year something must fail. It just has to be that way. This year, it was POSEIDON. The DVD should do spectacular business."

Spectacular? What're you basing this on? If no one liked it in theatres, why would it turn around and do spectacular business on DVD. Doesn't add up.

"SUPERMAN disappointed many expecting a SPIDER-MAN style of adventure. What they got was a loving, beautifully realized, perfectly pitched superhero film. PIRATES 2 is candy; sweet and immediately appealing to the senses. But I feel SUPERMAN is going to age like fine wine. It will find a huge fanbase on DVD (a majority of audiences that took the time to see it loved it), and I could see over 250 mil in total ancillary revenue."

Well, I guess this boils down to differences in opinion. While I don't think Superman Returns was terrible, I certainly wouldn't label it as loving, beautifully realized, or perfectly pitched. To me, the characterization just plain sucked. Characters like these are expected to act a certain way, and they didn't. Imagine if in Toy Story 3, Woody started chain-smoking and slapping Bo Peep around. Out of character, right? That's how Superman felt. As others have mentioned, the story was kinda hokey, anticlimactic, and capped off with a bad plot twist. In the end, I think Brian Singer just screwed up too many times. If anyone should be blamed, it oughta be him.

After all, if a movie's a hit, the credit doesn't go to the marketing department, does it? When you walk out of the theatre after seeing Pirates 2, do you think "Boy, that was great, but man, those trailers I saw six months ago were outstanding"? When Roger Ebert gives a movie two thumbs up, do you think he means one for the film and one for the ads?

Blaming marketing for a disappointing product is as asinine as all the other excuses they come up with for flops. You could market the bejeezus out of a plie of crap - make an awesome website, direct award-winning trailers, sign up the best tie-ins - but it's still a pile of crap.

First up, Jim Hill offers some corroboration of his Wall-Street's-initial-financial-projections-has-been-having-a-negative-impact-on-Hollywood's-attitude-toward-this-year's-crop-of-top-grossing-films theory. Then Jim goes on to talk about Mickey's plans

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