Posted on 04/27/2011 8:11:46 PM PDT by raccoonradio
The critics are "revitalizing me with their outrageousness," John Aglialoro, who spent $10 million of his own money on the film, tells THR.
The man who says he spent $10 million of his own money to bring Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 to the big screen vowed Wednesday to go through with his plans to make the next two installments, even though critics hate the movie and business at movie theaters has fallen off a cliff.
In fact, said John Aglialoro, the co-producer and financier, it's the monolithic view from critics that say the movie stinks that is motivating him to make Parts 2 and 3, he told The Hollywood Reporter.
And he defended his film Wednesday by accusing professional film reviewers of political bias. How else, he asks, to explain their distaste for a film that is liked by the audience? At Rottentomatoes.com, 7,400 people gave it an average 85% score.
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, though, gave the movie zero stars, and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it one. A dozen others were equally dismissive.
"It was a nihilistic craze," Aglialoro said. "Not in the history of Hollywood has 16 reviewers said the same low things about a movie.
"They're lemmings," he said. "What's their fear of Ayn Rand? They hate this woman. They hate individualism.
"I'm going to get a picture of Ebert and Travers and the rest of them so I can wake up in the morning and they'll be right there. They're revitalizing me with their outrageousness."
Aglialoro said he had to scale down his ambition for the film to be in 1,000 theaters this weekend, so it will likely be closer to 400. During its opening weekend, the movie took in $5,640 per screen but then only $1,890 in its second. Through Wednesday, the film had grossed $3.3 million since opening April 15.
Aglialoro acknowledged that spending almost no money on marketing and relying almost entirely on the Internet and talk radio -- a strategy he boasted of a week ago -- was ineffective in the long run.
"You really need to spend millions to get the message on TV screens," he said. "If I want Part 2 to open on 1,500 screens, I need to decide if I want to spend $10 million on TV commercials."
He also is considering partnering with a major studio for the next two installments, as he may do for international distribution on Part 1.
He said he's sticking to his plan to release Part 2 on April 15, 2012, and Part 3 on April 15, 2013, though gathering the same talent and crew might be a problem.
"The critics killed it so badly that agents may tell their clients they shouldn't be associated with this thing," he said. "I've got to give it to the critics. They won this battle, but they will not win the war. The message has been told in Part 1, and it will be told in Parts 2 and 3."
I didn't tell her exactly what it was, just about a woman that builds a railroad.
She enjoyed the movie quite a bit, and thought it was very worth while.
Interestingly, she noticed that the actors discussed the reasons for the plot twists more lucidly and realistically than the typical "government secret agency gone bad" or "megalomaniac conglomerate CEO takes over the world" movie, and she loved the "who is John Galt" and disappearances mystery.
My wife has seen a lot of movies, and when she likes one, it is a better than average film.
I think big Hollywood is trying desperately to cover up a success.
I also believe it is a success in more ways than just a movie, as Mrs Patriot began asking questions about laws of economics and how they work. She didn't know that was what she was asking because she related the asking to the characters in the movie, but the movie got across information that I never could without it.
She also couldn't figure out the title, but can't wait for parts 2 and 3.
Lazlo, I saw that article, and it was accurate at the time it was written.
Distribution execs were surprised that ‘Atlas’ had a strong opening weekend in a few theaters. But that article was written before the wider release ticket sales had come in for the following weekend. The totals were dismal.
‘Atlas’ cost 20 million. So far it’s taken in 3 million and change. It has no chance of breaking even at the box office.
Everyone thinks that movies that don’t make money at the box office automatically break even on DVD. That isn’t true — it’s just more spin from producers of unsuccessful films. DVD sales are flat and have been for a while now. It will be years and years — if ever — before anyone sees their money back on ‘Atlas.’
I liked it. But, some of the acting was pretty lame.
” Then there’s another wrinkle. The April 22nd weekend is Easter weekend. Not the type of movie you can really go see with extended family. So the per screen rates tumbled.”
Exactly! The expansion to 425 theaters was only an increase of 125 more screens than the opening. Not even half the number of screens when it did open. I think it is too soon to make a call on this.
Specially considering how the left wants to see this movie die and go away. Give it a bit more time.
Not all sleepers wake up by the second weekend.
I don’t see how it is doing poorly. I saw it in Nashville with NINE of my friends and relatives, non of whom ever go to the movies anymore. The theater was packed.
A dozen or so in the theater last friday. Applause all the way around.
A dozen or so in the theater last friday. Applause all the way around.
A dozen or so in the theater last friday. Applause all the way around.
The movie will come out fine financially, it will have a “long tail” and be sold for fifty years.
It cost $10 million. It will make its money back when it goes to DVD/Bluray. I liked though I hadn’t read the book.
Very much so. Of course, the book weighs in at over 1100 pages so there was some editing but all the major themes are there (its been a few years now since I read it so there may be things missing that I don't remember).
One of the really great things about the book IMHO, is that, in spite of being over 54 years since it was published (and some 66 years since Rand started writing it), is just how relevant if not prescient Atlas Shrugged is to today's world, and how well the screenwriters were able to adapt the novel to the modern dystopia of the Great Depression of 2016 while keeping both the plot and characters identical. About the only thing not anticipated by Rand were criminal aliens and Jihadies.
it willdo well in DVD, no matter how the critics try to stop its viewing..
$5-10 for direct digital download. cut out the distribution chain, they’re only trying to limit it’s distribution
Producers lowball budgets to calm down their investors.
The industry standard tracking org for movie budgets is Box Office Mojo. Box Office Mojo says “Atlas” cost 20 million dollars.
They factor in every cost in getting a movie to the box office — buying the rights, development, prints, advertising — that’s all part of the budget, irrespective of what producers want to ‘count’ as part of the budget.
Please show your math — how is a film seventeen million in the red its third week in release going to break even on DVD?
I'm sure that figures into a number of reviews, but not all. Kurt Loder, pretty well known for his libertarian views and who does reviews for both Breitbart's Big Hollywood and Reason Magazine (a big libertarian oasis) can hardly be called a liberal, particularly after his savaging of Michael Moore. He was not impressed by Atlas.
P.J. O'Rourke, while more of a social commentator than a movie critic, can hardly be called a liberal and he likewise had some pretty reserved things to say about it.
I personally have not seen the movie, and while I think it's safe to say that a lot of liberal reviewers may have panned the movie for its message, I don't think it's fair to say that all the negative reviews are "liberal BS."
You can't spin box office receipts. The revenues dropped 47% after adding an additional 125 screen, give or take. When a movie adds more screens and revenue drops, it's tanked. There is just no spinning that.
No, that's not a winner. Investors are silly people that expect to actually make money on their investment, and make it in a reasonable amount of time to boot.
The reason the article you posted has such a different spin is that it was written the week before the movie bombed. The initial week was hopeful, the second week they were looking at writing checks to theaters.
You’re a week behind the news. The plan to expand to 1,000 screens has been scrapped as per John Aglialoro himself.
Thanks for adding to the pile on. I got 38 identical posts on that.
I did not know that the receipts had totally collapsed because of the article I posted later in the thread said the contrary. At that time I was being told the same thing by the Hollywood types, but behind the scenes they were shocked.
Some LA Freepers explained to me a while back that if a movie breaks even, it is a winner because there is no loss, everyone gets a paycheck. That is the reasoning they used to tall me the Plame movie was successful, because no one lost money even though it had terrible receipts.
Made sense to me at the time. Maybe they were wrong.
Not in Hollywood. The examples are numerous. Pushing an agenda is the bottom line. Just look at the string of anti American Iraq movies. Total bombs, but they kept cranking them out.
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