Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman sucked

[Set Harth]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

Babe 2 really is the shittiest movie I have ever seen though.

According to certain posters on this site, Star Trek(2009) is actually the worst film ever made.

 

[davejames]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

Absolutely classless. An Executive should never come out and actually say We put out crap product, and even worse to admit you knew it was crap to begin with (Cowboys and Aliens didn't appeal to me, but, I certainly wouldn't down it as art the way this clown did). And then to run down who made the movie in that way?

Eh, I can't say it bothers me all that much. Everyone involved is still raking in tons of money, and they make a very healthy living running around in costumes (or paying people to run around in costumes), and play pretend. As the saying goes, they're not exactly curing cancer here.

If an exec wants to run down some of his movies, so be it. Directors like Bay, Favreau, and even Spielberg NEED to hear that some of their movies stink sometimes-- and as loudly as possible. Like with any other product, people are spending a lot of their hard-earned money on it, and they deserve to have something made with as much quality as possible.

Besides, if these directors really had such fragile egos, they never would have gotten to where they are anyway.

The only thing that bothers me, is that this exec acknowledges that they routinely put out awful movies, and they aren't trying hard enough... but in the end he'll go right back to doing it anyway. In the end it basically reads like an "FU" to the moviegoing public. Not to mention that it's really only the shitty movies that DON'T make money that he calls out; the shitty movies that do make money he apparently doesn't have a problem with. lol.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

It sounds like he was drunk.

He's an exec at a movie studio, so all he cares about is making money. From his Ferengi point of view, more profit is good and less profit is bad. His mistake is equating profit with quality.

Wolfman was actually pretty good, except for the stupidity of recycling names from The Wolf Man. I haven't seen Cowboys and Aliens yet, but it looks pretty good and I'll watch it when I get a chance. The others mentioned I don't really care about.

Did any of these movies actually lose money, or did they just fail to make obscene amounts of money?

 

[TremblingBluStar]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

I can't even name one movie produced by that studio in the last 15 years that I would want to go back and watch twice.

Serenity, Scott Pilgrim, Paul, Kick Ass, Inglorious Bastards, Hott Fuzz, Children of Men, Slither, Shaun of the Dead...

Okay. Looking at this list I see only a handful out of hundreds of films that I enjoyed. But I'm not a huge fan of any non-genre films.

 

[Vulagr]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

Cowboys and Aliens only made 36.4 million dollars opening weekend.

Now, I want to see this movie. I like to see a movie for myself before I determine if it sucks or not.

It does indeed seem like he's equating "didn't make copious (by copious I'm assuming at least 3 times the initial cost of making the movie) amounts of moolah" in the opening weekend with success and not on the quality of the story itself. For some reason, these guys only look to the short term in terms of financial success and not long term, such as DVD sales over the years. It will continue to make them money over the years to come.

For me it's the quality of the story that determines if it's a good movie, not how much money It makes in the short term.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

For me it's the quality of the story that determines if it's a good movie, not how much money It makes in the short term.

Unfortunately, this isn't the overall attitude in Hollywood, nor for any U.S. business in general. It's all about quarterly earnings and immediate profits.

 

[Gaith]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

Incidentally, Sprite has made a documentary short about the development of Cowboys and Aliens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTRt1p5l22A

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

So apparently people think it better that Hollywood is stupid and clueless? I guess it might be "classless" to call out some of the personnel directly but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to say a film has failed to work in the end. I don't know that he sets out from the onset to make shitty movies to make a buck but that it happens sometimes and they have to roll with it.

 

[sidious618]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

So apparently people think it better that Hollywood is stupid and clueless? I guess it might be "classless" to call out some of the personnel directly but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to say a film has failed to work in the end. I don't know that he sets out from the onset to make shitty movies to make a buck but that it happens sometimes and they have to roll with it.

There's a difference between saying, "This film didn't come out the way we all hoped" and "Ha, yeah, these films sucked and I don't know what the makers were thinking."

 

[Captain Craig]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

I liked Wolfman, I own it on Blu-Ray.
Cowboys & Aliens was not a crap movie, I'll buy that one.
Too bad most didn't like them but just cause they didn't haul in money doesn't equate to these films sucking. Sometimes it can be a corollary but not in this case.

Ron is just being a douche and if I were a producer/director/actor I'd think twice before working for Universal. He's not being man enough to admit that sometimes they roll the dice. Sometimes audiences eat up mediocre drivel and pass on better stuff. Sometimes the better material wins out, audiences can be fickle.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

Maybe, there's a thread on this on the TV and Media section and some of the quotes there come across a bit more thoughtful to me. Mind you the guy is not exactly tactful.

 

[Set Harth]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

And sometimes good films are kneecapped right out of the starting gate by simply not being put in enough theaters. I don't see the point of only showing a film in one downtown art-house theater out of an entire metropolitan area, including suburbs, unless the point is to guarantee failure. It's even weirder when the same film is promoted by a TV commercial released to the general public, even though the people who end up seeing it are mostly comprised of a preexisting niche who were already following the project prior to release.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

(In reply to Mr Adventure)

http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=151141

I posted that thread and quoted Meyer at length in it. I thought his candour was to be admired, even though I can see how the people who made the movies may not appreciate it.

 

[Derishton]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

I just noticed that thread. Apparently United 93 is a good movie that "every American should see" despite not making money. So it's either money or hand-wringing sentimentalism?

 

[Set Harth]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

I saw the A&E made-for-TV version myself, and that was pretty decent.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

Meh, the next sucky movie they make could be a huge-ass hit. They're not going to change their wicked ways.

 

[Psion]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

But ... but ... but ... I liked Cowboys and Aliens.

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

I also like Cowboys & Aliens. It wasn't brilliant, but it wasn't terrible like The Wolfman. One of the few times in recent years, that had to stop the DVD, as I was losing interest it.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

So apparently people think it better that Hollywood is stupid and clueless? I guess it might be "classless" to call out some of the personnel directly but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to say a film has failed to work in the end.

You've clearly missed the entire point of what's being said here, as well as misunderstanding what Meyer's posture was to begin with.

Nothing that Meyer said represents an alternative or proposed solution to "stupid and clueless" or even a valid critique of Hollywood. It's just a business guy trashing people for the sake of attention.

As I said, fanboys may be impressed by this but there's nothing respectable or smart about it.

 

[Gaith]

Re: Universal exec apologizes, admits Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolfman su

Agreed. The classy thing to do would be to say that a few projects have been released without the screenplays being really excellent, and that in the future, he'll do his best to ensure that script be watertight before the start of filming. And naming specific failures is fine, but don't beat up on any individual, be it an actor, writer, whatever - filmmaking is a cooperative venture, with shared responsibilities.