Posted on 05/21/2006 5:18:45 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
According to IMDB Sony "only" paid $6 million for the film rights (hard to classify $6 million as only).
The accounting weenies I've talked to is just compare the production budget to domestic gross, because domestic gross is such a small percentage of total gross the fact that they don't actually get all of it (movie theaters gotta make some money) is overpowered by all the other sources of revenue. So if domestic gross is at least production budget then the other 67 to 75% of the revenue will garauntee profitability.
Movie reprints include stills (at least one on the cover, sometimes more inside) from the movie and Hollywood makes darn sure they get paid. Now reprints don't generate as much revenue as novelizations, but they still make some money. Soundtrack might be chump change, but add enough piles of chump change and you got money ("a million here, a million there, pretty soon you're talking about real money"). The big sources of additional revenue for DVC will be foreign (already twice domestic), and DVD, with a couple of nice paychecks from HBO and some network (I'm guessing ABC) in there.
Doesn't matter if wasn't very good, the question is will it make money. Alf was one of the stupidest shows in the history of TV and still managed to run for 4 seasons. Movies that suck in pretty much every possible way of grading a movie have turned vast quantities of cash.
LOL, riiiight. The real question is why to you feel threatened because I want the truth to be known? Why does my criticism of these lies (which the author does not claim are fiction) offend you? What are you threatened of?
I'd guess more people will come out of this debate with faith than those that lose theirs.
Frank's BEST REVIEW AWARD... Enjoy (and please protect your pentacles!). Best Review for a Major Farce!
HEAVEN CAN WAIT
“The Da Vinci Code.”
by ANTHONY LANE
Issue of 2006-05-29
Posted 2006-05-22
The story of “The Da Vinci Code” goes like this. A dead Frenchman is found laid out on the floor of the Louvre. His final act was to carve a number of bloody markings into his own flesh, indicating, to the expert eye, that he was preparing to roll in fresh herbs and sear himself in olive oil for three minutes on each side. This, however, is not the conclusion reached by Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a professor of symbology at Harvard, who happens to be in Paris. Questioned by Bezu Fache (Jean Reno), the investigating policeman at the scene, Langdon starts rabbiting about pentacles and pagans and God knows what. But what does God know, exactly? And can He keep His mouth shut?
Help arrives in the shape of Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), a police cryptographer. She turns out to be the granddaughter of the deceased, and a dab hand at reversing down Paris streets in a car the size of a pissoir. This is useful, since she and Langdon are soon on the run, convinced that Fache is about to nail the professor on a murder charge—the blaming of Americans, on any pretext, being a much loved Gallic sport. Our hero, needing somebody to trust, does the same dumb thing that every fleeing innocent has done since Robert Donat in “The Thirty-nine Steps.” He and Sophie visit a cheery old duffer in the countryside and spill every possible bean. In this case, the duffer is Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), who lectures them on the Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, in 325 A.D. We get a flashback to the council in question, and I must say that, though I have recited the Nicene Creed throughout my adult life, I never realized that it was originally formulated in the middle of a Beastie Boys concert.
Fache is not the only hunter on Langdon’s scent. There is also Silas (Paul Bettany), a cowled albino monk whose hobbies include self-flagellation, multiple homicide, and irregular Latin verbs. He works for Opus Dei, the Catholic organization so intensely secretive that its American headquarters are tucked away in a seventeen-story building on Lexington Avenue. Silas answers to Bishop Aringarosa (Alfred Molina), who in turn answers to his cell phone, his Creator, and not much else. Between them, they track Langdon and Sophie to England, where a new villain, hitherto suspected by nobody except the audience, is prevented from shooting his quarry because, unusual for London, there is a gaggle of nuns in the way—God’s Work if ever I saw it, although I wouldn’t say so to a member of Opus Dei.
The task of the Bishop and his hit man is to thwart the unveiling of what Teabing modestly calls “the greatest secret in modern history,” so powerful that, “if revealed, it would devastate the very foundations of Christianity.” Later, realizing that this sounds a little meek and mild, he stretches it to “the greatest coverup in human history.” As a rule, you should beware of any movie in which characters utter lines of dialogue whose proper place is on the advertising poster. (Just imagine Sigourney Weaver, halfway through “Alien,” turning to John Hurt and explaining, “In space, no one can hear you scream.”) There is a nasty sense in “The Da Vinci Code” that, not unlike Langdon, we are being bullied into taking its pronouncements at face value. Such nagging has a double effect. First, any chance to enjoy the proceedings as hokum—as a whip-cracking quest along the lines of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”—is rapidly stifled and stilled. Second, one’s natural reaction to arm-twisters of any description is to wriggle free, turn around, and kick them in the pentacles. So here goes.
There has been much debate over Dan Brown’s novel ever since it was published, in 2003, but no question has been more contentious than this: if a person of sound mind begins reading the book at ten o’clock in the morning, at what time will he or she come to the realization that it is unmitigated junk? The answer, in my case, was 10:00.03, shortly after I read the opening sentence: “Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.” With that one word, “renowned,” Brown proves that he hails from the school of elbow-joggers—nervy, worrisome authors who can’t stop shoving us along with jabs of information and opinion that we don’t yet require. (Buried far below this tic is an author’s fear that his command of basic, unadorned English will not do the job; in the case of Brown, he’s right.) You could dismiss that first stumble as a blip, but consider this, discovered on a random skim through the book: “Prominent New York editor Jonas Faukman tugged nervously at his goatee.” What is more, he does so over “a half-eaten power lunch,” one of the saddest phrases I have ever heard.
Should we mind that forty million readers—or, to use the technical term, “lemmings”—have followed one another over the cliff of this long and laughable text? I am aware of the argument that, if a tale has enough grip, one can for a while forget, if not forgive, the crumbling coarseness of the style; otherwise, why would I still read “The Day of the Jackal” once a year? With “The Da Vinci Code,” there can be no such excuse. Even as you clear away the rubble of the prose, what shows through is the folly of the central conceit, and, worse still, the pride that the author seems to take in his theological presumption. How timid—how undefended in their powers of reason—must people be in order to yield to such preening? Are they reading “The Da Vinci Code” because everybody on the subway is doing the same, and, if so, why, when they reach their stop, do they not realize their mistake and leave it on the seat, to be gathered up by the next sucker? Despite repeated attempts, I have never managed to crawl past page 100. As I sat down to watch “The Da Vinci Code,” therefore, I was in the lonely, if enviable, position of not actually knowing what happens.
Stumbling out from the final credits, tugging nervously at my goatee, I was none the wiser. The film is directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman, the master wordsmith who brought us “Batman & Robin.” I assumed that such an achievement would result in Goldsman’s being legally banned from any of the verbal professions, but, no, here he is yet again. As far as I am qualified to judge, the film remains unswervingly loyal to the book, displaying an obedience that Silas could not hope to match. I welcome this fidelity, because it allows us to propose a syllogism. The movie is baloney; the movie is an accurate representation of the book; therefore, the book is also baloney, although it takes even longer to consume. Movie history is awash, of course, with fine pictures that have been made from daft or unreadable books; indeed, you are statistically more likely to squeeze a decent movie out of a potboiler than you are out of a novel of high repute. The trouble with Howard’s film is that it is far too dense and talkative to function efficiently as a thriller, while also being too credulous and childish to bear more than a second’s scrutiny as an exploration of religious history or spiritual strife. There is plenty going on here, from gunfights to masked orgiastic rituals and mini-scenes of knights besieging Jerusalem, yet the outcome feels at once ponderous and vacant, like a damp and deconsecrated Victorian church.
This is grim news for Tom Hanks, who has served Howard gamely in the past. How does the genial mermaid-lover of “Splash,” or the jockish team player of “Apollo 13,” feel about being stranded in this humorless grind? Apart from Paul Bettany, who finds a leached and pale-eyed terror in his avenging angel, the other players seem bereft. Molina, so violently vulnerable in “Spider-Man 2,” is given no room to breathe, and, as for Audrey Tautou, it is surely no coincidence that Howard sought out and hired almost the only young French actress who emits not a hint of sexual radiation. “The Da Vinci Code” may ask us to believe that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, that she bore him a child, and that the Catholic Church has spent two thousand years not merely concealing this but enforcing its distaste for the feminine (and thus for all bodily delight), but did the movie have to be quite so pallid and prudish about breaking the news? Whose side is it on, anyway?
Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people, except at Columbia Pictures, where the power lunches won’t even be half-started. The Catholic Church has nothing to fear from this film. It is not just tripe. It is self-evident, spirit-lowering tripe that could not conceivably cause a single member of the flock to turn aside from the faith. Meanwhile, art historians can sleep easy once more, while fans of the book, which has finally been exposed for the pompous fraud that it is, will be shaken from their trance. In fact, the sole beneficiaries of the entire fiasco will be members of Opus Dei, some of whom practice mortification of the flesh. From now on, such penance will be simple—no lashings, no spiked cuff around the thigh. Just the price of a movie ticket, and two and a half hours of pain.
Pardon...I left the link off!
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/?060529crci_cinema
bttt
Madame,
I'd dearly love to buy you the drink you so need--the renowned colleague wrote while stroking his goatee--but you must continue your penance! Some things in life are dear but your child will reward you some day.
Cheers,
Francis X.
Really? Where was it reported that they estimated Da Vinci Code to do better than the 12th highest opening weekend in box office history.
Deeply appreciated!
Interesting debating style you have there. Intellectual power on display.
MM
Too bad you haven't read the whole thread. Actually it sounds as if you didn't even bother reading my post to you.
In the grand scheme of things what Dan Brown or any other author says about Christ is meaningless!
Really? Liars don't matter? Dan Rathers lies didn't matter? Clintons? The truth DOES matter. FR exits to shine a light on lies of every kind.
The answer, in my case, was 10:00.03, shortly after I read the opening sentence: “Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.” With that one word, “renowned,” Brown proves that he hails from the school of elbow-joggers—nervy, worrisome authors who can’t stop shoving us along with jabs of information and opinion that we don’t yet require. (Buried far below this tic is an author’s fear that his command of basic, unadorned English will not do the job; in the case of Brown, he’s right.) You could dismiss that first stumble as a blip, but consider this, discovered on a random skim through the book: “Prominent New York editor Jonas Faukman tugged nervously at his goatee.” What is more, he does so over “a half-eaten power lunch,” one of the saddest phrases I have ever heard.
LOL! Great review.
Every published estimate of DVC's opening weekend was between $50 and $80 mil, and few were above $70, it made $77 beating almost every estimate. How could that possibly be the result of something going wrong.
Thought you'd enjoy it!
;-o)
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